Cuban missile crisis II?

[struggle4progress]

Hugh O'Shaughnessy
Published 12 September 2008

... In July the US government decided to resurrect its navy’s Fourth Fleet for the first time since 1950 and get it sailing round the Western Hemisphere. The idea, according to the US Navy is to “promote coalition building and deter aggression” and “to promote peace, stability, and prosperity”. That is a very tall order. For one thing it is difficult to see any Latin American state threatening the US with the sort of military aggression which could be repelled with warships. For a second thing the Bush government has few allies now in Latin America with whom to build coalitions ...

And the idea of such US naval vessels promoting “peace, stability and prosperity” in the light of its record of supporting military dictatorships from Chile and Argentina to the Dominican Republic makes one think back to Gandhi. His response to a question about what he thought of Western civilisation was, “It would be a good thing.”

The revival of the Fourth Fleet has coincided with the overflight of Venezuelan islands by US warplanes based in the Netherlands Antilles just off the Venezuelan coast. As usual in such an event, Washington put this down to “navigational errors” by US pilots – a worrying state of affairs, even if the excuse were true. The Brazilians for their part are worrying about US warships nosing around the vast, newly discovered offshore oilfields which hold an important key to Brazil’s prosperity and probably entry into OPEC. The Ecuadoreans have given the US notice to quit their base at Manta before the end of this year.

In the next few weeks the situation in the Caribbean cockpit is going to get much more tense. Within weeks of the Georgian actions in South Ossetia, mounted with US and Israeli help on the first day of the Olympic Games, Russians bombers have just landed in Venezuela and its ports are preparing to welcome next month a big Russian naval force including the heavy cruiser Peter the Great and an anti-submarine warship. There are 1,000 men aboard. There may well be Russo-Venezuelan war games ...

http://www.newstatesman.com/south-america/2008/09/colombia-military-russia


The Next Cuban Missile Crisis?
By Nikolas Kozloff
The North American Congress on Latin America (NACLA)
September 10, 2008

In a move that undoubtedly set off alarm bells in Washington, Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez announced that Venezuelan and Russian ships could soon hold joint naval exercises in the Caribbean ...

In an interview with Cuban television, Bolivian President Evo Morales remarked that the U.S. naval force constituted "the Fourth Fleet of intervention." Cuba's former leader Fidel Castro asked why the Pentagon sought to revive the Fourth Fleet at the current time. Writing in the Cuban newspaper Granma, Castro suggested that the move constituted a return to U.S. gunboat diplomacy. Castro, whose island nation confronted a U.S. naval blockade during the Cuban missile crisis of 1962, declared, "The aircraft carriers and nuclear bombs that threaten our countries are used to sow terror and death, but not to combat terrorism and illegal activities" ...

Worryingly, the nuclear-powered guided missile cruiser Peter the Great, a vessel with massive firepower whose missiles can deliver nuclear or conventional warheads, will participate in the Caribbean maneuvers. The ship is armed with the Granit long-range anti-ship missile system, which is known in military circles as the Shipwreck missile. It also has a sophisticated air defense missile system capable of striking both air and surface targets ...

Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Andrei Nesterenko said the Admiral Chabanenko, Russia's most modern anti-submarine destroyer, would also join the exercises, along with an unspecified number of anti-submarine naval aircraft. Venezuela's naval intelligence chief, Admiral Salbatore Cammarata Bastidas, said that 1,000 Russian military personnel would take part in mid-November exercises with Venezuelan frigates, patrol boats, submarines, and aircraft ...

http://www.worldpress.org/Americas/3244.cfm

[Peace Patriot]

1. Yeah, that's the big news--"The Russians are coming! The Russians are coming!"

But it's interesting what you can pick up in the little bits of news you stumble over, trolling around among different news sources. For instance, I read an interview of Rafael Correa, leftist president of Ecuador, in which he said that the Bushites have a three-country strategy for fomenting civil war and splitting off the oil rich provinces of Bolivia, Ecuador and Venezuela, into fascist mini-states in control of the oil.

This Bushwhack strategy had already begun in Bolivia at the time. (4-6 months ago? can't recall exactly). I also came across other evidence for it, in Venezuela--specifically regarding the oil-rich state of Zulia, Venezuela, on Venezuela's Caribbean coast, adjacent to Colombia (hyper-militarized Bush Cartel client state). In thinking this whole situation through, you begin to realize that the Bush-backed white separatists' plot in Bolivia has serious feasibility issues. Brazil and Argentina, for instance--Bolivia's chief gas customers--have said that they will not trade with secessionist states in Bolivia. If the secessionists are to have any significant trade at all--and gas is the chief resource of these provinces--they must have legitimate status under Evo Morales' national government--perhaps with semi-autonomy (as allowed by the constitution that the Morales government has proposed). They cannot be machine-gunning peasant farmers and blowing up gas pipelines, as they've been doing this week. No one will trade with them. It's a suicidal, Bushwhacky sort of movement. Further, Paraguay--the most feasible potential staging area for U.S.-Bush troops to act in support of these separatists--just elected a leftist president, who wants the U.S. military out of his country.

So-o-o-o, WHY are our Bushwhacks causing all this trouble in Bolivia--funding, supporting, 'training,' meeting with, these white separatists, and enticing them to believe that they can succeed in their goal of stealing Bolivia's major resource and setting independent governments?

I'm suspecting that it's a diversion--a way of weakening a Venezuelan ally, distracting everybody--and maybe a test run of the secession strategy. The real goal is Zulia--something of a "sitting duck" on the Caribbean, basically undefended (vis a vis the U.S. military), and with the hostile Colombian military and its death squads right on its border. The Bushwhacks really cannot hold onto a fascist mini-state in the heart of South America (in Bolivia, which is surrounded by leftist democracies, including Brazil and Argentina). But Zulia is an entirely different matter. The Bushwhacks may think they can easily pick it off--using a local fascist "independence" group--keep it, once they've grabbed it, and, with that big oil weapon (Zulia's oil), proceed to create a leftist-free zone in the Caribbean/Central America, and "circle the wagons" against the coming powerhouse of the South American "Common Market." (With control of Zulia's oil, they can cut off shipments of low-cost oil to Cuba, for instance, and prevent Venezuelan trade with leftist Nicaragua, and the left-leaning countries like Honduras, El Salvador, Panama, and Guatemala.)

And this is very likely why Chavez has invited Russia to naval maneuvers in the Caribbean--as a warn-off regarding Zulia. It is not a threat to us. It is a defense.

If you don't know this--if you don't troll around in odd articles here and there, and pick up on things like this--"The Russians are coming!" hits your brain head on, as a threatening action. But understanding the context--especially from Venezuela's and South America's point of view--braces you against Corpo "shock and awe" media tactics. South America is basically defenseless, militarily--at least against the U.S. And they have only one enemy--the U.S., especially the U.S.-Bush junta.

Another odd bit I've picked up--Brazil proposed a common defense, in the context of the formation of their "Common Market" (UNSASUR). Not Venezuela. Brazil.

Another: Brazil's president, Lula da Silva, recently said, of Chavez, "You can criticize Chavez on a lot of things, but not on democracy." Kind of surprising, huh?, to our heavily propagandized brains. To most South American leaders, and peoples, Chavez is a good guy. Not a "dictator" at all. A democrat with a small d. A good, honest, lawful, beneficial leader. That's why Venezuelans keep electing him--in an election system that puts our own to shame for its transparency.

One last tidbit: When Paraguay elected its first leftist president this year--overturning 61 years of rightwing rule--Evo Morales sent him this message: "Welcome to the Axis of Evil."

I recommend www.BoRev.net, for info on the leftist democracy movement in South America. It is both hilarious and informative, and leads you to lots of sources, full of interesting news tidbits (that sometimes unfold like flowers). You gotta laugh sometimes. And I'd also recommend re-watching that hilarious old flick about the Russians invading Mendocino.

[struggle4progress]

2. You are of course right that this is a defensive move by Chavez. But the constant US hostility

towards Chavez, like the effort to split off the petro provinces in Bolivia, or the very expensive Iraq war, probably signals that the Day of Judgment for US energy policy is closer at hand than most American want to believe

The Iraq war is pointless on almost any theory, except the theory that the war was intended as a little demonstrative lesson to the world about US military power and US willingness to use that power to ensure access to resources. I suspect that W's Iraq adventure has terrified military and economic analysts around the world. Around the time I joined DU, the Chinese and French decided to do some joint exercises, an indication that US foreign policy was triggering major realignments -- and probably a new global arms race. The Russian-Venezuelan collaboration should, I think, also be read that way