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<font size=3>US Escalates War Plans In Latin America<br>
US Military: After Iraq, Latin America<br><br>
By Rick Rozoff<br><br>
<a href="http://www.globalresearch.ca">Global Research</a>, July 23,
2009<br>
<a href="http://groups.yahoo.com/group/stopnato/message/40838">Stop
NATO</a> <br><br>
On June 29 US President Barack Obama hosted his Colombian counterpart
Alvaro Uribe at the White House and weeks later it was announced that the
Pentagon plans to deploy troops to five air and naval bases in Colombia,
the largest recipient of American military assistance in Latin America
and the third largest in the world, having received over $5 billion from
the Pentagon since the launching of Plan Colombia nine years
ago.<br><br>
Six months before the Obama-Uribe meeting outgoing US President George W.
Bush bestowed the US's highest civilian honor, the Medal of Freedom, on
Uribe as well as on former British Prime Minister Tony Blair and former
Australian Prime Minister John Howard.<br><br>
A press account of the time expressed both shock and indignation at the
White House's honoring of Uribe in writing that "Despite
extra-judicial killings, paramilitaries and murdered unionists,
Colombia's President Uribe has won the US's highest honor for human
rights." [1]<br><br>
The same source substantiated its concern by adding:<br><br>
"Colombia is the most dangerous country on earth for trade
unionists. In 2006, half of all union member killings around the world
took place there. Since Uribe came into power in 2002, nearly 500 have
been murdered. In reply to concern about the assassinations, Uribe
dismissed the victims as 'a bunch of criminals dressed up as
unionists.'<br><br>
"More than 1,000 cases of illegal killings by the military are being
investigated. There are dozens of cases of soldiers taking innocent men,
murdering them and dressing them up as enemy combatants. Hundreds of<br>
members of the security forces are thought to have taken part in such
activities." [2]<br><br>
<b>Colombia: Forty Year War<br><br>
</b>For over forty years Colombia, the last of Washington's remaining
"death squad democracy" clients in the Western Hemisphere, has
waged a relentless counterinsurgency war against the Revolutionary Armed
Forces of Colombia (FARC} and an equally ruthless campaign with its
US-trained and -equipped military and allied paramilitary formations
against trade union, peasant, indigenous and other organizations. An
estimated 40,000 have been killed and 2 million displaced as a result of
the fighting. <br><br>
In 1985 the FARC laid down its arms and entered into a peace process with
the government of Belisario Betancur.<br><br>
It helped found the Patriotic Union to participate in electoral and other
peaceful activities but within several years as many as 5,000 Patriotic
Union elected officials, candidates, trade unionists, community
organizers and other activists were murdered by Colombian security forces
and government-linked right-wing death squads, especially the notorious
United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC) and its late leader Carlos
Castano. Eight congressmen, 70 councilmen, dozens of deputies and mayors
and hundreds of trade unionists and peasant leaders were slain and in
1989-1990 two of its presidential candidates were murdered within seven
months.<br><br>
Faced with complete extermination, the FARC rearmed and sought refuge in
the southeast of the country.<br><br>
In 1998 then Colombian President President Andres Pastrana permitted FARC
a 16,000 square mile safe haven in the Caqueta Department. <br>
<br>
The US then set its sights on an intensive counterinsurgency campaign to
destroy the FARC infrastructure in the region and to uproot and destroy
the organization altogether.<br><br>
In January of 2000 STRATFOR, not a source known for opposing war,
warned:<br><br>
"The U.S. State Department recently announced a two-year, $1.3
billion emergency U.S. aid package for counter-narcotics operations in
Colombia. The plan also is geared toward helping President Andres
Pastrana negotiate peace with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia
(FARC). But the plan will have the opposite effect. It will end the peace
negotiations between the rebels and the government and re-ignite the war.
Ultimately, the plan does little more than pave the way for greater U.S.
involvement. [3]<br><br>
It went on to say that "The bulk of the money pledged for
counter-narcotics efforts will go directly to the military to fight the
rebels....This will tip the balance of power away from the government in
Bogota and toward the military, which has always opposed the peace
negotiations. Ultimately, the door will open wider for greater U.S.
involvement." [4] <br><br>
<b>Plan Colombia: Clinton's Parthian Shot<br><br>
</b>Colombia was already the largest recipient of US military aid in the
Western Hemisphere by 2000, but the Clinton administration increased the
Pentagon's role in the nation with what became Plan Colombia.<br><br>
After entering office in January of 1993 bombing Iraq and later killing
hundreds if not thousands of Somalis the same year, Clinton and his
foreign policy team never abandoned the use of military
aggression.<br><br>
In 1995 it provided military planners and advisers for Croatia's brutal
and ethnocidal Operation Storm and led NATO's bombing of Bosnian Serb
targets, including retreating troops and refugee columns following them,
leaving what is now the Bosnian Serb Republic strewn with depleted
uranium and an epidemic of cancer cases.<br><br>
Three years later it launched cruise missile attacks on Afghanistan and
Sudan and on December 16, 1998 began Operation Desert Fox, a deadly
four-day assault on Iraq with 250 airstrikes and over 400 Tomahawk cruise
missiles - the evening before scheduled impeachment proceedings against
Clinton in the US Congress.<br><br>
The following year the administration's use of military aggression
reached its apex with the 78-day US-led NATO assault against Yugoslavia,
the first military attack against a European nation since Hitler's and
Mussolini's from 1939 onward.<br><br>
The administration's Parthian shot was Plan Colombia in 2000.<br><br>
Colombia's President Pastrana conceived of a project the preceding year,
1999, that the White House redesigned for its own purposes.<br><br>
As former US ambassador to El Salvador Robert White, sacked by the Reagan
administration in 1981 in preparation for unleashing its death squad and
Contra wars in Central America, wrote after the US Congress passed Plan
Colombia in June of 2000:<br><br>
"If you read the original Plan Colombia, not the one that was
written in Washington but the original Plan Colombia, there's no mention
of military drives against the FARC rebels. Quite the contrary.
(President Pastrana) says the FARC is part of the history of Colombia and
a historical phenomenon, he says, and they must be treated as
Colombians." [5]<br><br>
An alternative American presswire reported that, "In early 1999, the
Pastrana administration began peace talks with the Revolutionary Armed
Forces of Colombia (FARC), the largest rebel group. <br><br>
"The president also made his first trip to Washington in search of
aid against the drug trade. But when he got there, 'they changed the
script on him,' according to Marco Romero of the Peace Colombia
Initiative, a coalition created in September by 60 local non-governmental
organizations (NGOs) seeking an alternative to the Plan Colombia.
<br><br>
"Pastrana's talks with U.S. congressional leaders and the head of
the White House office on National Drug Control Policy, Barry McCaffrey,
gave rise to the Plan Colombia, said Romero." [6]<br><br>
McCaffrey is a retired Army General who earned his stripes in the
Dominican Republic in 1965, Vietnam from 1966-69 and in Operation Desert
Storm in 1991. He was also head of the Pentagon's Southern Command
(SOUTHCOM) from 1994-96 and Deputy US Representative to NATO.<br><br>
"In support of their request for aid to Colombia, U.S. Secretary of
State Madeleine Albright and drug czar McCaffrey told the U.S. Congress
that the funds were to be used for 'restoring order in southeastern
Colombia.'" [7] <br><br>
With the passing of Plan Colombia the US increased military aid to the
nation by over twenty times in just two years, 1998-2000, from $50
million in 1998 to over $1 billion in 2000, placing Colombia only behind
Israel and Egypt in that category. In the ten years since 1998 US
military aid was increased a hundredfold.<br><br>
Earlier in the year a mainstream American news source said that "The
Clinton administration's proposed $1.6 billion in emergency aid to
Colombia is at least as much a counterinsurgency package as it is an
anti-drug measure" and mentioned that "a member of Congress
objected to White House efforts to sidestep the normal appropriations
process." [8]<br><br>
Weeks before the House vote one of the worse recent massacres of
Colombian civilians occurred in El Salado, perpetrated by paramilitaries
with army complicity. <br><br>
Plan Colombia was drenched in blood even before it was formalized. In
January of 2000 US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright visited Colombia
to promote the initiative and in honor of her arrival the Colombian
military killed 50 of its citizens in an attack outside of the capital of
Bogota.<br><br>
The US Congress and Senate added over a billion dollars, sixty attacks
helicopters and more special forces counterinsurgency advisers to the war
in June. Approximately 70% of the 2000 Plan Colombia funds were allotted
for the financing, training and supplying of army anti-narcotics
battalions operating in southeastern Colombia, the former FARC safe
haven.<br><br>
Nominal progressives, the late Paul Wellstone in the Senate and Illinois
Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky in the House, attached a human rights
proviso that no serious person expected to be honored and only two months
after the Congress's authorization of Plan Colombia Clinton used his
presidential waiver to override the human rights conditions on the
grounds of "national security."<br><br>
<b>Nine Years Later: Drug War Charade Gives Way To Naked
Counterinsurgency<br><br>
</b>The escalation of counterinsurgency operations was packaged under the
label of a war against drugs, of course. Nine years later Colombia
remains the largest supplier of cocaine and heroin to the United
States.<br><br>
How seriously one should have taken this charade was indicated in April
of 2000 when the former commander of the U.S. Army's anti-drug operation
in Colombia, Col. James C. Hiett, pleaded guilty to not having turned
over evidence on his wife, Laurie, for smuggling cocaine and heroin into
the United States. His spouse pleaded guilty in January of planning to
smuggle $700,000 worth of heroin into the US through the mail.
<br><br>
Colonel Hiett doubtlessly performed his duties in propagating the tale
that the FARC was responsible for the lion's share of coca and opium
cultivation and trafficking in the nation and that the US military was
the best response to its alleged activities.<br><br>
If one still had any doubts regarding the sincerity of American claims to
be combating narco-trafficking and terrorism, within weeks of the passage
of Plan Colombia Secretary of State Albright escorted the head of the
so-called Kosovo Liberation Army, Hashim Thaci, whose colleagues and
allied drug cartels control most of the marijuana, hashish and narcotics
traffic in Europe, to her old haunts in the United Nations Headquarters
and her then current ones in the State Department, preparing him to
become a future head of state. (Since last year he is in fact the
president of what former Serbian president Vojislav Kostunica has aptly
called the world's first NATO state. It is also the world's newest
narco-state.)<br><br>
After the events of September 11, 2001 in the United States the White
House elevated the FARC towards the top of its targets list in the
so-called Global War on Terror, though what role the group could have had
in the attacks in New York City and Washington, D.C. is beyond any sane
person's ability to discern or fathom.<br><br>
By 2002 the Bush administration had discarded most of the drug war
rationale and "Congress approved a law to allow American military
aid to Colombia to be used in a 'unified campaign' against drugs and
terrorism" and by 2008 "six years and $5-billion later, the
Colombian military is Latin America's most skilled fighting force."
[9]<br><br>
American "Special Operations training provided many of the skills
that showed 'the way to open the door to these remote jungle locations
that were in the past inaccessible to the Colombian government.'<br><br>
"Military units including Special Forces and an elite Commando
Brigade were created. Eight regional intelligence units were set up with
reconnaissance airplanes, and state-of-the-art air-to-ground
communications. An Intelligence School was created, as well as a Counter
Intelligence Center." [10]<br><br>
Days before leaving office George W. Bush awarded Colombian President
Alvaro Uribe, who rumors have linked to the former Medellin drug cartel
and whose brother Santiago is accused of narco-trafficking and death
squad connections, the Medal of Freedom.<br><br>
Perhaps anticipating the honor and paying back the person most
responsible for Plan Colombia and the increased military operations both
within Colombia's borders and outside the country, Alvaro Uribe announced
that he was conferring the "Colombia is Passion" award on Bill
Clinton "at a gala event...in New York City" for "for
believing in our country and encouraging others to do the
same."<br><br>
"Prominent Democrats on the guest list include former Clinton
strategists Dick Morris and Vernon Jordan, former Clinton Cabinet members
Lawrence Summers and Madeleine Albright, and several Democratic
congressmen," most of whom presumably had the political survival
skills not to attend. [11]<br><br>
Earlier the same year "On the eve of a visit by U.S. President
George W. Bush" and with no further pretense of a drug war
"U.S. and Colombian soldiers arrived in the southern town of
Cartagena del Chaira, a FARC stronghold, by helicopter...."
[12]<br><br>
As the narcotics issue has been downplayed, so the human rights component
of Plan Colombia has been relegated to the realm of short-lived public
relations manipulation.<br><br>
In February of 2007 Colombian Foreign Minister Maria Consuelo Araujo's
brother, Senator Alvaro Araujo, was arrested for connections to the
paramilitary United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC).<br><br>
Uribe was untroubled by the above and said, "When they ask, why do I
keep the foreign minister, I answer: She is not involved in the criminal
activities that are under investigation." [13]<br><br>
Plan Colombia has entered its tenth calendar year. In the intervening
years covert and overt government and paramilitary massacres, many too
grisly to relate, have continued unabated and drug cultivation and
exports have been, if marginally dented, not substantially affected by
what is still referred to when convenient as a drug eradication
program.<br><br>
Drug war claims notwithstanding, Plan Colombia's activities both within
and outside the nation were actuated by other designs.<br><br>
<b>Colombia: Pentagon's Base In Andean Region<br><br>
</b>From its very advent it was intended to be more than an
intensification of the decades-old counterinsurgency war in Colombia and
to be the opening salvo of a US campaign to escalate the militarization
of the Andes region. White House and Pentagon plans to employ Colombia as
a regional military force and operating base to police South America have
gained new urgency for Washington with political transformations in
Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador, Argentina and Paraguay heralding the end of
US political, economic and military domination of the continent.<br><br>
In its first full year of existence, 2001, a Peruvian Air Force jet shot
down a civilian plane spotted by a US aircraft flown by CIA contractors
with American missionary Veronica Bowers and her infant daughter on
board, killing both as well as the pilot.<br><br>
By 2006 the US had doubled the amount of military trainers and advisers
stationed in Colombia and in the same year the nation's planes started
violating the air space of neighboring Ecuador. The planes, and it would
not have been unusual for US personnel to have been aboard them, were
ostensibly conducting fumigation missions.<br><br>
The Ecuadoran government denounced the actions as "unfriendly and
hostile" and "Defense Minister Marcelo Delgado said...that army
airplanes will fly over its border to prevent Colombian airplanes from
entering Ecuadorian airspace...." [14]<br><br>
In December of 2006 not only Colombian planes crossed the border into the
country. Later in the month "Some 40 Colombians...fled across the
border into Ecuador after they were attacked by Colombian soldiers,"
the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Ecuador
reported. [15] <br><br>
Twelve months before fifteen Colombians were killed and 1,500 displaced
in the Narilo province in the country's southeast, bordering Ecuador.
"Authorities remained silent as to whether this was a military
operation against guerrilla fighters or a dispute between paramilitary
groups." [16]<br><br>
In early 2007 Marine Gen. Peter Pace, then chairman of the Joint<br>
Chiefs of Staff, traveled to Colombia and spent two days meeting with the
country's military and political leadership. Shortly afterwards Colombian
Defense Minister Juan Manuel Santos, about whom more will be said later,
returned the favor and visited the Pentagon where he met with US Defense
Secretary Robert Gates. A Defense Department report of the visit quoted
Pentagon officials as saying that "U.S. military support for
Colombia, previously focused on combating drugs, has expanded to helping
the Colombian military confront the country’s rebel insurgency" and
that "U.S. Special Forces troops in Colombia provide Colombian
forces military training...."[17]<br><br>
Five months later Colombia built a third military base on its 2,219
kilometer border with Venezuela, initially stationing 1,000 troops in
it.<br><br>
Colombia has become a military outpost for Washington in confronting and
threatening both Ecuador on its southwestern and Venezuela on its
northeastern frontiers.<br><br>
It is also part of a strategy that is more than regional and even
continental in nature and scope.<br><br>
<b>South America: NATO's Sixth Continent<br><br>
</b>Since the implementation of Plan Colombia in 2000 the US has enlisted
several NATO allies for the counterinsurgency war in the nation and for
broader purposes in the region. British SAS (Special Air Service)
personnel have been assigned to the Colombian military for training
purposes and Spain also sent military personnel.<br><br>
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization has members in Europe and North
America and partnerships in Asia (Afghanistan, Japan, Kazakhstan,
Kyrgyzstan, Mongolia, Pakistan, Singapore, South Korea, Tajikistan,
Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan) and Africa (Algeria, Egypt, Mauritania,
Morocco and Tunisia) and with Australia.<br><br>
The only inhabited continent it hasn't penetrated yet is South
America,<br><br>
In January of 2007 Colombian defense chief Santos traveled to Washington,
London and Brussels, in the last-named city "for talks with the
European Union," and then to Munich, Germany "for a meeting of
NATO defense ministers." [18] Santos of course made the tour to
garner more military aid from the US and its NATO allies. The European
Union was reported to have provided $154 million annually as of that
year.<br><br>
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez warned in September of 2005 that
"We discovered through intelligence work a military exercise that
NATO has of an invasion against Venezuela, and we are preparing ourselves
for that<br>
invasion." <br><br>
He detailed the plan as consisting of a "military exercise...known
as Plan Balboa [that] includes rehearsing simultaneous assaults by air,
sea and land at a military base in Spain, involving troops from the US
and NATO countries." [19] US troops deployed to the Dutch possession
of Curacao off Venezuela's northwest coast were also part of the planned
operation.<br><br>
In spring of the following year it was reported that "Military
maneuvers in the Caribbean are being carried out by the US, members of
the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), and countries from the
hemisphere - excluding Cuba and Venezuela, which are the potential
objectives of this demonstration of force" and that immediately
afterwards "Future exercises will involve roughly 4,000 soldiers
from the US, Holland, Belgium, Canada and France, who are scheduled to
participate in a maneuver being dubbed the Joint Caribbean Lion, to take
place between May 23 and June 15 in Curacao and Guadeloupe."
[20]<br><br>
<b>Colombian Counterinsurgency War: Model For South Asia And Central
America<br><br>
</b>For the past several years the US has also recruited and deployed
Colombian military and security forces for the war in Afghanistan,
supposedly to replicate the Plan Colombia drug war component in South
Asia.<br><br>
In April of 2007 Washington transferred its ambassador to Colombia,
William Wood, to Afghanistan to oversee the application of the Colombian
model of counterinsurgency under the guise of combating drug cultivation.
Two years later Afghanistan is estimated to account for over 90% of the
illegal opium production in the world.<br><br>
A Bangladeshi analyst observed that "Based on 2003 figures, drug
trafficking constitutes the third biggest global commodity in cash terms
after oil and the arms trade. <br><br>
"Afghanistan and Colombia are the largest drug producing economies
in the world, which feed a flourishing criminal economy. These countries
are<br>
heavily militarized and the drug trade is protected.<br><br>
"Amply documented, the CIA has played a central role in the
development of both the Latin American and Asian drug triangles.<br><br>
"NATO, as an entity, has become an accessory to major narcotics
proliferation and criminal activity. Opium is not truly being reduced: in
fact all the figures show that it is on the rise. This is happening under
the eyes of NATO as confirmed by several media reports."
[21]<br><br>
The intermediate way stations between Afghanistan and Colombia are
Kosovo, not without reason dubbed the Colombia of the Balkans, and
increasingly Iraq.<br><br>
The pattern is impossible to ignore.<br><br>
Ironically given the above contention, BBC News reported two years ago
that "The US hopes that some of the lessons learned in Colombia can
be applied to Afghanistan...." [22]<br><br>
Last January the current chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff,
Admiral Michael Mullin, visited Colombia and was quoted as saying
"Our military-to-military relationship is exceptionally strong. We
need to stay with them. They have achieved things that are
remarkable." [23]<br><br>
This March Mullin traveled to Colombia, Brazil, Chile, Peru and Mexico.
Upon returning his comments were summarized as affirming that "The
U.S. military is ready to help Mexico in its deadly war against drug
cartels with some of the same counter-insurgency tactics used against
militant networks in Iraq and Afghanistan" [24] and that "the
Plan Colombia aid package could be an 'overarching' model for Pakistan
and Afghanistan...." [25]<br><br>
A feature on US Central Command chief David Petraeus' plans for the wars
in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan reported that "Military officials
are also looking at U.S. relations with Colombia as a possible model for
Afghanistan and Pakistan, saying something like Washington's Plan
Colombia strategy could help the two countries against militants."
[26]<br><br>
The report from which the last quote is excerpted, "US sees lessons
for Afghan war in Colombia," also includes this:<br><br>
"Afghan police have already trained with their Colombian
counterparts and Bogota is studying sending troops to Afghanistan to help
out in eradication and de-mining." [27]<br><br>
What is being exported to Afghanistan was made sickeningly evident last
autumn when it was announced that Colombia had dismissed three generals
and 22 soldiers of different ranks for the slaughter, at random
apparently, of young slum dwellers in Bogota.<br><br>
"The youths were lured from a Bogota slum with the promise of work;
later their bodies were found in mass graves near the Venezuelan
border.<br><br>
"Human rights groups say that soldiers sometimes kill homeless
people so that they can inflate their claims of success on the
battlefield and receive promotion. [28]<br><br>
Among the three generals asked to resign was General Mario Montoya Uribe,
"the author of the policy to use body counts to measure success
against guerrillas" [29] who "allegedly encouraged promoting
officers whose units kill the most leftist rebels." [30]<br><br>
A later report provided gruesome details:<br><br>
"More than 1,000 cases of illegal killings by the military are being
investigated. There are dozens of cases of soldiers taking innocent men,
murdering them and dressing them up as enemy combatants. Hundreds of<br>
members of the security forces are thought to have taken part in such
activities." [31]<br><br>
Recall in reference to the above that the report immediately preceding it
states that the murdered were buried in mass graves near the Venezuelan
border.<br><br>
With this year's onslaught by the Sri Lankan military against LTTE
strongholds appearing to have ended the nation's 33-year war, the
Colombian government and its American military suppliers are waging the
only decades-long counterinsurgency war in the world, one now in its
fifth decade.<br><br>
It has been and remains a war against the poor, the landless, the
disenfranchised, anyone would opposes the privileges and abuses of the
large landholders, the business elite, the US-trained military
establishment and the upper echelons of the narco-mafias.<br><br>
Nine years ago Plan Colombia was designed to be the terminal phase of
that war.<br><br>
The Colombia model is now the prototype Washington has openly identified
for application in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Mexico among other
locations.<br><br>
<b>Plan Colombia: Reining In Resurgent South America<br><br>
</b>Plan Colombia, additionally, is now being increasingly revealed as a
military strategy for suppressing a rising tide of discontent with the
aftereffects of post-Cold War neoliberalism throughout South America,
Central America and the Caribbean.<br><br>
The US and the West as a whole have used the Colombian regime and its
formidable military machine to intimidate its neighbors Ecuador and
Venezuela and the Andean region as a whole. Bordering on Panama, Colombia
is also a potential launching pad for attacks on Central American nations
like Honduras, Nicaragua and El Salvador.<br><br>
A brief chronology of the past year and a half will demonstrate the
heightened role that is intended for Colombia by its sponsors in
Washington.<br><br>
In January of 2008 Venezuelan President Chavez said that the US and its
Colombian client "don't want peace in Colombia because it's the
perfect excuse to have thousands of soldiers there, the CIA, military
bases, spy planes and who knows what other...operations against
Venezuela."<br><br>
He added, "I accuse the government of Colombia of devising a
conspiracy, acting as a pawn of the U.S. empire, of devising a military
provocation against Venezuela." [32]<br><br>
On March 1st of 2008 Colombia launched a raid inside Ecuador and killed
24 suspected FARC members, including the group's second in command Raul
Reyes.<br><br>
An article titled "Colombian official says US intelligence helped
raid on<br>
rebels" reported that "the Ecuadoran air force found that
Colombia used ten 500-pound bombs, similar to those used by US forces in
Iraq, which 'cannot be transported by Colombian airplanes.'<br><br>
"Ecuadoran authorities also noted that a few hours before the
Colombian bombing raid, an HC-130 military aircraft had taken off from
the US air base at Manta, in southeastern Ecuador." [33]<br><br>
Fearing that the armed incursion inside Ecuador was part of a broader
plan of aggression, Venezuela deployed some 9,000 troops to its border
with Colombia. On the day of the attack Venezuelan President Chavez
warned his Colombian counterpart, "Don't think about doing that over
here because it would very serious, it would be cause for war."
[34]<br><br>
Ecuadoran President Rafael Correa broke off diplomatic relations with
Colombia after the attack and when it was later discovered that the
bombing had killed an Ecuadoran national, warned of further
consequences.<br><br>
On March 6 Venezuela decreed a state of general alert and sent ten
battalions, tanks and planes to the Colombian border.<br><br>
US President Bush told reporters that "America would continue to
stand with Colombia." [35]<br><br>
Three weeks later Ecuador announced that it would "install
electronic surveillance equipment and boost its military presence along
its border with Colombia" and President Correa warned that his
country would ""never again" allow a foreign attack on its
soil. [36]<br><br>
<b>US Military: After Iraq, Latin America<br><br>
</b>Also in April of 2008 the US Air Forces Southern director of
operations, Col. Jim Russell, advocated that troops being withdrawn from
Iraq be redeployed to the Pentagon's Southern Command which takes in
South and Central America and the Caribbean. He stated at the time:
"We think, as we move ahead, we will see more of a shift of
attention towards the region.<br><br>
“We’re seeing problems right at the mouth of Central America. That’s the
gateway to our southern border.” [37]<br><br>
On July 12, 2008 the US Navy reestablished its 4th Fleet, encompassing
South and Central America and the Caribbean as does the Pentagon's
Southern Command, after it was disestablished in 1950 following World War
II.<br><br>
Earlier this year the chief of the Southern Command, Admiral James
Stavridis, became NATO Supreme Allied Commander and head of the
Pentagon's European Command. Three of the last five NATO top military
commanders - Stavridis, his predecessor Bantz John Craddock and Wesley
Clark - moved to that post from being head of Southern Command. <br><br>
In May of 2008, clearly anticipating what has occurred this week,
Venezuela warned Colombia not to allow a new US military base in La
Guajira near the border with northwestern Venezuela. The latter's
president said, "We will not allow the Colombian government to give
La Guajira to the empire. Colombia is launching a threat of war at
us." [38]<br><br>
Less than a week later a US warplane penetrated Venezuelan airspace on a
flight from the Netherlands Antilles. The Venezuelan government accused
the US of spying on a military base on Orchila Island and "said the
U.S. was testing Venezuela's ability to detect intruders and that the
Venezuelan air force was prepared to intercept the plane had it not
turned back toward the Caribbean island of Curacao." [39]<br><br>
Defense Minister Gustavo Rangel said that "This is just the latest
step in a series of provocations in which they want to involve our
country." [40]<br><br>
In September a bloody separatist ambush killed eight people in the
Bolivian province of Pando. The government expelled US ambassador Philip
Goldberg, an old hand at supporting violent secessionist uprisings in
Bosnia and Kosovo earlier. The head of the nation's armed forces, General
Luis Trigo, warned that "The Bolivian Armed Forces warned on Friday
that they will not tolerate any more actions of radical groups or foreign
interference in the country's internal affairs." [41]<br><br>
Toward the end of 2008 Bolivia expelled US Drug Enforcement
Administration officers and later announced plans to purchase Russian
helicopters for anti-narcotics operations.<br><br>
Today Bolivian President Evo Morales stated, "I have first-hand
information that the empire, through the U.S. Southern Command, made the
coup d'etat in Honduras." [42]<br><br>
In October of 2008 Ecuador charged the CIA with infiltrating its military
and knowing of the Colombian attack on its territory the preceding March.
Defence Minister Javier Ponce told newspapers: "The CIA had full
knowledge of what was happening in Angostura." [43]<br><br>
At the same time Colombian Defense Minister Santos broadened his nation's
bellicosity by aiming it toward Russia. Completely the creature of
Washington and its military that he is, Santos said:<br><br>
"Russia, with its 16,000 nuclear bombs, has a great desire to be a
key player in the world. But its presence in the region will promote a
return to the Cold War." [44]<br><br>
Santos was alluding in particular to recent Russian-Venezuelan naval
exercises in the Caribbean and to the fact that Russia has provided
Caracas with advanced arms, warplanes and submarines, reflecting a
general trend among Latin American nations - including Bolivia, Ecuador,
Argentina and Nicaragua - toward increased military ties with Russia as a
counterbalance to traditional American domination of their armed forces
and to be able to defend themselves against US and proxy attacks. What
Santos and his American sponsors fear is the effective demise of the
almost 200-year-old Monroe Doctrine.<br><br>
This March Venezuelan President Chavez labeled Colombian Defense Minister
Santos "a threat to regional stability" and a "a threat to
the stability and sovereignty of the countries in the region" who
"again shows his contempt for international law" in reference
to Santos' defense of the attack inside Ecuador last year. [45]<br><br>
Santos reiterated his intention to continue striking alleged rebel sites
in neighboring countries, evoking this response from Chavez a few days
later: "In case of a provocation on the part of Colombia's armed
forces or infringements on Venezuela's sovereignty, I will give an order
to strike with Sukhoi aircraft and tanks. I will not let anyone
disrespect Venezuela and its sovereignty." [46]<br><br>
During the past few months the Pentagon has been training the armed
forces of Guyana, Venezuela's eastern neighbor, both at home and in the
United States. The use of French and Dutch island possessions in the
Caribbean for military purposes has already been examined. With the
election of Ricardo Martinelli as president of Panama this May putting
that country back into the US column, the noose is tightening around
Venezuela.<br><br>
Ecuador refused to renew an agreement with the US for the use of its
Manta military base and so Washington lost its basing rights there this
month. With the corresponding announcement last week by Colombian
President Uribe that he was turning five more military bases over to the
Pentagon - three airfields and two navy bases - President Chavez was
correct in seeing the move as "a threat against us," and
warning that "They are surrounding Venezuela with military
bases." [47]<br><br>
Since the overthrow of Honduran President Manuel Zelaya on June 28, led
by military commanders trained at the School of the Americas, alarms have
been sounded in Latin America and throughout the world that the coup, far
from being an aberration or anachronism, may mark a precedent for more in
the near future.<br><br>
And just as in the final months of the Bush presidency and the first
seven months of the current one military operations in Afghanistan, for
five years given secondary importance in relation to Iraq, have escalated
into the world's major war front, so plans for direct US military
aggression in Latin America, dormant since the invasion of Panama in
1989, may be slated for revival. <br><br>
<b>Notes<br><br>
</b>1) Russia Today, January 18, 2009<br>
2) Ibid<br>
3) STRATFOR, January 14, 2000<br>
4) Ibid<br>
5) Ottawa Citizen, September 6, 2000<br>
6) Inter Press Service, December 21, 2000<br>
7) Ibid<br>
8) United Press International, April 11, 2000<br>
9) Tampa Bay Times, July 12, 2008<br>
10) Ibid<br>
11) Associated Press, May 24, 2007<br>
12) Associated Press, March 10, 2007<br>
13) Xinhua News Agency, February 18, 2007<br>
14) Xinhua News Agency, December 16, 2006<br>
15) Xinhua News Agency, December 27, 2006<br>
16) Xinhua News Agency, January 20, 2006<br>
17) U.S. Department of Defense, February 1, 2007<br>
18) Reuters, January 29, 2007<br>
19) Australian Associated Press, September 4, 2005<br>
20) Prensa Latina, April 10, 2006<br>
21) The Daily Star, November 24, 2007<br>
22) BBC News, July 8, 2007<br>
23) Agence France-Presse, January 17, 2008<br>
24) Reuters, March 6, 2009<br>
25) Reuters, March 5, 2009<br>
26) Reuters, October 16, 2008<br>
27) Ibid<br>
28) Radio Netherlands, October 30, 2008<br>
29) Russia Today, January 18, 2009<br>
30) Trend News Agency, November 4, 2008<br>
31) Russia Today, January 18, 2009<br>
32) Reuters, January 25, 2008<br>
33) Focus News Agency, March 24, 2008<br>
34) Associated Press, March 1, 2008<br>
35) Reuters, March 4, 2008<br>
36) Associated Press, April 22, 2008<br>
37) Stars and Stripes, April 27, 2008<br>
38) Associated Press, May 15, 2008<br>
39) Bloomberg News, May 21, 2008<br>
40) Reuters, May 19, 2008<br>
41) Xinhua News Agency, September 13, 2008<br>
42) Agence France-Presse, July 22, 2009<br>
43) Reuters, October 30, 2008<br>
44) Russian Information Agency Novosti, October 4, 2008<br>
45) Trend News Agency, March 4, 2009<br>
46) Russian Information Agency Novosti, March 9, 2009<br>
47) Associated Press, July 21, 2009<br><br>
<br><br>
For media inquiries:
<a href="mailto:crgeditor@yahoo.com">crgeditor@yahoo.com</a><br><br>
© Copyright Rick Rozoff,
<a href="http://groups.yahoo.com/group/stopnato/message/40838">Stop
NATO</a>, 2009 <br><br>
The url address of this article is:
<a href="http://www.globalresearch.ca/PrintArticle.php?articleId=14503">
www.globalresearch.ca/PrintArticle.php?articleId=14503</a> <br>
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