Reply #30: That's what they said about Vietnam. "Just a few military advisers."

[Peace Patriot]

"U.S. policies is geared towards the long-term and any future potential problems that might arise...".

What I see is the US creating the problems that will justify intervention on Exxon Mobil's behalf. Not planning for some vague problems "that might arise"--as if the US didn't instigate them. This is what our $6 BILLION to the Colombian military is being used for--to prime the conditions for war, and to employ the Colombian military and government as a front for US war, as in South Vietnam.

For instance, the Colombian military and its closely tied rightwing paramilitary death squads have been "cleansing" the areas adjacent to Venezuela of peasant farmers and the indigenous, sending tens of the thousands of refugees over the border into Venezuela. This creates huge problems for Venezuela. Some human rights groups put the estimated number of displaced people in Colombia at 2 to 3 million. It is the second largest crisis of displaced people in the world, next to Sudan. This also creates a chaotic border, where incidents are easily manufactured.

The same thing is occurring on Ecuador's border with Colombia to the south--a huge influx of poor refugees into Ecuador, mostly fleeing the Colombian military and associated death squads. The borders are deliberately created chaos regions, for the manufacture of incidents with the two leftist governments that flank Colombia (and that have lots and lots of oil), Venezuela and Ecuador.

In March 2008, the US/Colombia bombed one of these Ecuador border areas (using ten 500 lb US "smart bombs") killing the FARC guerilla commander Raul Reyes and everyone who was in his camp (25 sleeping people) in order to HALT the release of more FARC hostages in Reyes' effort to get a peace negotiation started between the FARC and the Colombian government. This is very significant. This was NOT a "hot pursuit" situation. It was a gratuitous slaughter. By all accounts, Reyes was about to release Ingrid Betancourt and sue for peace in Colombia's 40+ year civil war. And he had set up a temporary camp just inside Ecuador's border to do this, because the Colombian military had shot rockets at FARC hostages that Chavez had gotten released a few months before, in Dec '07. Chavez was negotiating with the FARC at the request of Colombia's president, but the military did not agree with this policy and tried to sabotage it by shooting at the hostages. Thus the hostage release effort was moved to Ecuador.

The US instigated this incident with Ecuador. Colombia would not have done it without US permission, and could not have done it without US high tech surveillance equipment, the US "smart bombs" and a US plane to drop them on Ecuador. And it was likely orchestrated out of the "war room" in the US embassy in Bogota in coordination with the US military spy base in northern Ecuador (which the president of Ecuador has since evicted from his country).

This was on Bush's watch and was most likely a Rumsfeld-designed plan. Though Rumsfeld had resigned a year before, he was quite interested in the hostage release events that started with the Chavez negotiated release of two hostages on the same weekend that Rumsfeld published an op-ed in the WaPo entitled "The Smart Way to Defeat Tyrants Like Chavez"--12/1/07--in which he stated that Chavez's help on hostage releases "is not welcome in Colombia," though it had been days before. One phone call to Colombia's president, apparently, and he rescinded his request to Chavez, a few days before the first hostages were released. But the first two hostages were already on route to their freedom. The Colombian military open fired on them, driving them back into the jungle--an incident that was never reported in our press. President Sarkozy of France and many other leaders, human rights groups and the hostages' families begged Chavez to continue, despite Uribe's and the Colombian military's treachery. Chavez got six hostages released, but the Colombia/Venezuela border became so "hot" with the Colombian military that Chavez had to stop, and the effort to get hostages released, as a preliminary to a peace settlement, had to shift to the Ecuador border.

The US/Colombia bombing/raid on Ecuador's soil almost started a war between the US/Colombia and Ecuador/Venezuela, then and there--which may have been the US/Colombia's intent. Only the concerted effort of all of South America's leaders, with Chavez in the lead, prevented this US-instigated war. (Lula da Silva, president of Brazil, called Chavez "the great peacemaker" for his role in the aftermath of this attack.)

The US/Colombia had risked bombing and killing Ingrid Betancourt and other hostages, in order to kill Reyes and stop all talk of peace. Swiss, Spanish and French envoys were in Ecuador that day, on their way to Reyes' camp, to receive Betancourt, when the bombing occurred. Someone in Colombia warned them off. They were in contact with authorities in Colombia, who knew what they were in Ecuador for.

This picture of treachery does not end here. What happened next is classic Rumsfeld. The Colombian government claimed to have seized Raul Reyes' laptop (later, laptopS) from the bombed out camp and began making wild accusations against the presidents of Venezuela and Ecuador, Chavez and Correa, for instance, that they were helping the FARC obtain a "dirty bomb," and began leaking bits and pieces of "evidence" from these alleged FARC laptopS over the next few months.

This incident is an illustration of the ways that the US/Colombia can use the chaotic border situation to start a war, and also their MO of using mass murder to escalate situations, and to create mayhem. They have mass murdered tens of thousands of peasant farmers, ag worker union leaders, human rights workers, teachers, political leftists, peace activists, journalists and others, to prop up the fascist government, decimate the political opposition and to "cleanse" areas where they want to prepare for their regional war.

On the Guajira peninsula--an extremely provocative location for a Colombian military base (took at a map!)--the Colombian military's death squads murdered 30 Wayuu tribe members, 'disappeared' at least 60, and at least 250 fled across the border to Venezuela, in 2004. The murders and displacements are on-going.

The Guajira peninsula is a highly strategic location for launching an attack on Venezuela's main oil region, and its oil port facilities, adjacent to Colombia and the Caribbean. It arcs out into the Caribbean and controls the entrance to Venezuela's harbors. The US will have use of this and other Colombian military bases, and--according to the secretly negotiated US/Colombia agreement--there will be NO LIMIT on the number of US troops and 'contractors' who can be deployed to Colombia, NO LIMIT on their "diplomatic immunity," and NO LIMIT on US military use of civilian airports and other facilities in Colombia.

This is not vague planning for some future need. This is South Vietnam.