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their nefarious scheme to "divide and conquer" in Latin America.
Here's how I think it came down:
Background: A peaceful, democratic, leftist (majorityist) revolution has swept South America, with leftist governments elected in Brazil, Chile, Argentina, Uruguay, Venezuela, Bolivia and Ecuador (also in Nicaragua), and big leftist movements in Peru, Paraguay and Mexico (likely to win future elections). The common themes of these governments are social justice, anti-neoliberalism (US domination/global corporate predator-friendly trade policy), and also, and importantly, Latin American self-determination and regional cooperation. Moves toward the latter began with Venezuela creating a fund with which to bail its neighbors out of ruinous World Bank/IMF debt (and thus US corporate domination). Argentina was the first beneficiary, and quickly began to recover, thus creating a healthy trading partner for Brazil, Venezuela and others.
They begin discussions of a South American "Common Market" and common currency (to get off the US dollar). All of this has been made possible not so much by Bush Junta inattention* (preoccupied with the plundering of the Middle East--here is where I somewhat disagree with IndianaGreen, above)*, but primarily by long hard work on transparent elections--by the OAS, the Carter Center, EU election monitoring groups and local civic groups--and boffo grass roots organization. Also key: After decades of brutal repression, and some violent rebellion against it, young leaders like Lt. Col. Hugo Chavez turned against violent change and threw their lot with constitutional government and democracy--a deep sea change within the hearts of rebellious Latin Americans, not easy to track or analyze, but still evident. And it is all the scarier to looters and exploiters headed by the Bush Junta, that this is a genuine democracy movement. A South American "Common Market"--global corporate predators having to negotiate on equal terms with peasants and leftists--ye gods!
Alarm bells go off in the psycho Bush White House, or rather in the Board Rooms of his Corporate Masters.
First, the Bush Junta lards several billion more dollars on Colombia in military aid, one of the chief beneficiaries of which is rightwing paramilitary drug traffickers and death squads. They cook up a plot to assassinate Hugo Chavez (just recently exposed).
The Bush Cartel purchases a 300,000 acre compound in Paraguay (sometimes described as a "weak government"), from which to launch a private paramilitary war against the Andean democracies (Bolivia, Ecuador, Venezuela).
But Bush's Corporate Masters say that is not enough (or that won't work). They're looking at disaster in Iraq (and a resurgent left in the US as well). They want "deliverables" in exchange for continuing to prop up the Bush/Cheney Junta and keeping its principles out of jail. They want their Latin American "backyard" restored, for more looting and plundering.
So the bright bulbs in the Bush White House (or at global corporate predator headquarters) conceive of a Bush "mission" to Latin America, exuding concern about Latin America's poor, bashing Hugo Chavez and Venezuela as the wrong way to go about social justice; telling Latin Americans to let U.S. corporations take care of them; and busting a few kneecaps (Uruguay, Brazil) over the South American "Common Market."
Just prior to Bush's visit, a huge scandal breaks out in Colombia, involving the rightwing paramilitaries and their dirty, criminal activities, among which was a plot to assassinate Chavez. The rightwing president of Colombia is obliged to distance himself from these paramilitaries, and it is reported that he refused to participate in Bushite plots against Chavez. Another rightwing paramilitary scandal breaks out in Guatemala.
Bush's itin: 2 rightwing governments, Columbia and Guatemala, riddled with rightwing scandals; Mexico, where rightwing/corporatist President Calderon's election was brought into serious question, and a big scandal is brewing about rightwing paramilitary thugs and murderers in cahoots with the governor of Oaxaca; Uruguay, rumored to be having a tiff within Mercosur, the So. American trade group that is the likely precursor of a So. American Common Market; and Brazil (big economy, big voice in Mercosur; former steelworker president, Lula da Silva, visited Chavez in December, in a big, splashy state visit, just prior to the Venezuelan election, which Chavez won with 63% of the vote). Upshot: Bush's intention was to offer Uruguay US "trade deals" to widen the small crack within Mercosur, and to divide Brazil/Uruguay from the Andean democracies--Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador.
Also, it is notable the countries Bush did NOT visit: All the Andean democracies, of course; but also Paraguay (big leftist movement in progress), Peru (corrupt leftist as president, new US "trade deals" already made, big leftist movement in progress), and Chile (new socialist President Batchelet was tortured by Pinochet, so Mr. Guantanamo Bay was probably not very welcome; also Batchelet has suffered some political embarrassment, recently, over Chile's failure to support Venezuela's bid for a UN Security Council seat).
Now the fun begins: SOMEBODY (we don't know who, possibly from Brazil or Uruguay) delivers a backchannel message to Bush that there will be no Chavez bashing on his Latin American "tour" --as a CONDITION of his visit. This is the unanimous view of Latin American leaders, left and right, from Brazil to Mexico. Subsequently, Bush gets publicly lectured on Latin American sovereignty in at least two countries that he visits (Brazil, Mexico) and probably privately in the others.
Next, Hugo Chavez and his many supporters organize a Chavez shadow tour--to haunt Bush as he tries to peddle his corporate BS around the south. Chavez even avers that Bush is afraid to say his name. Chavez's events are hugely popular; Bush has to skulk from country to country, in black-windowed limos, amidst raucous anti-Bush protests.
Bush ends his whirlwind tour and returns to ever more dismal approval polls in the US. A few days later, Uruguay announces its rejection of US "trade deals." It is sticking with Mercosur. The president of the "weak" government of Paraguay (no doubt politically threatened by the big leftwing movement in that country, led by the beloved bishop of the poor, who recently resigned his priestly office to run for president) announced that it is joining the Bank of the South (started by Venezuela--the fund that is pushing the World Bank out). The US Democratic Congress had already begun to balk at more military aid for Colombia, in view of the paramilitary scandals. And with the words, "the sovereignty of Latin American countries" ringing in his ears, Bush hunkers down to scandal after scandal at home. EVEN IF the darker part of his visit--schmoozing with the fascist rich and their paramilitaries--resulted in some dark plans, it is evident that the entirety of Latin America will prohibit them. US domination of Latin America is OVER. Bush failed! And this is why I think Bush is toast--and also Cheney.
So poor Nicolas Burns--his plans to torture leftists and throw them out of "drug war" airplanes gone all awry (or, alternatively, his plans to shill for global corporate predators in new "trade deals" blasted away by the success of democracy in Latin America)--yells at Nestor Kirchner for allowing Chavez to hold a rally against Bush's visit. When Kirchner and other leaders were told by the US/Bush that they must "isolate" Chavez and Venezuela, Kirchner (and apparently the others as well) refused, and Kirchner described Chavez as "my brother."
Thus it may be that Burns' "unleashing" of "candid" criticism of Argentina was genuine. It was a temper tantrum. How dare Argentina choose "my brother" over Bushite riches and dark threats? Burns failed Bush. Bush failed his Corporate Masters. It's all over for this crew. I don't even think Paraguay is safe for them, in a "blue" continent. And Colombia certainly is not a safe place. Where will the Bushites go? They are hated everywhere on earth. I think they are even hated in Israel (if the truth were known). Poland? Dubai?
They have a whole lot of stolen money--and I mean a whole lot. What are they going to do with it, if they can't "invade" South America? Maybe this is what the new NASA manned mission to Mars is all about. They can go "invade" the microbes of our ancestors.
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*(They were not all that "inattentive" in South America: They supported the violent military coup attempt against Chavez in 2002, and funded all sorts of efforts to destabilize Venezuela, including the crippling oil professionals' strike, and the wasteful and absurd recall election, and also poured our hard-earned taxpayer dollars into the campaigns of rightwing candidates and other activities we know not of. They identified one source of inspiration to this great leftist movement early on--Hugo Chavez--and tried in every way to do him in. But the movement was too deep and too strong. Chavez is just one man. What the Venezuelans mention most in their amazing defeat of the military coup--in the documentary called "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised"--is their CONSTITUTION, which everyone, even the poorest of the poor, had READ.) (I wish we could say the same here.)
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