Obama's Pact For Colombia Bases Termed "Dangerous"

[Judi Lynn]

February 4, 2010 at 09:18:29
Obama's Pact For Colombia Bases Termed "Dangerous"
By Sherwood Ross

The Obama administration's pact to use seven Colombian military bases accelerates "a dangerous trend in U.S. hemispheric policy," an article in The Nation magazine warns.

The White House claims the deal merely formalizes existing military cooperation but the Pentagon's 2009 budget request said it needed funds to improve one of the bases in order to conduct "full spectrum operations throughout South America" and to "expand expeditionary warfare capability."

"With a hodgepodge of treaties and projects, such as the International Law Enforcement Academy and the Merida Initiative, Obama is continuing the policies of his predecessors, spending millions to integrate the region's military, policy, intelligence and even, through Patriot Act-like legislation, judicial systems," writes historian Greg Grandin, a New York University professor.

Although much of Latin America is in the vanguard of the "anti-corporate and anti-militarist global democracy movement," Grandin writes, the Obama administration is "disappointing potential regional allies by continuing to promote a volatile mix of militarism and free-trade orthodoxy in a corridor running from Mexico to Colombia." Grandin's article in The Nation's February 8th issue is titled, "Muscling Latin America."

The fountainhead of this effort is Plan Colombia, a multibillion-dollar U.S. aid package that over the past decade "has failed to stem the flow of illegal narcotics into the United States," Grandin says, noting that more Andean coca was synthesized into cocaine in 2008 than in 1998.

Underlying the anti-drug fight, however, is a counterinsurgency struggle for control of "ungoverned spaces" via a "clear, hold and build" sequence urged by the U.S. military to weaken Colombia's Revolutionary Armed Forces(FARC). The Bush White House condoned the right-wing paramilitaries who, along with their narcotraficante allies "now control about 10 million acres, roughly half of the country's most fertile land," Grandin reports. They also spread terror in the countryside and are responsible for many killings and for driving peasants from their land.

Grandin reports that the paras "have taken control of hundreds of municipal governments, establishing what Colombian social scientist Leon Valencia calls "true local dictatorships,' consolidating their property seizures and deepening their ties to narcos, landed elites and politicians."

What's more, "The country's sprawling intelligence apparatus is infiltrated by this death squad/narco combine, as is its judiciary and Congress, where more than forty deputies from the governing party are under investigation for ties to (the right-wing) AUC (United Self Defense Forces).

More:
http://www.opednews.com/articles/Obama-s-Pact-For-Colombia-by-Sherwood-Ross-100203-535.html

[Wilms]

1. Here's The Nation story

Muscling Latin America
By Greg Grandin

This article appeared in the February 8, 2010 edition of The Nation.
January 21, 2010

In recent years, Washington has experienced a fast erosion of its influence in South America, driven by the rise of Brazil, the region's left turn, the growing influence of China and Venezuela's use of oil revenue to promote a multipolar diplomacy. Broad social movements have challenged efforts by US- and Canadian-based companies to expand extractive industries like mining, biofuels, petroleum and logging. Last year in Peru, massive indigenous protests forced the repeal of laws aimed at opening large swaths of the Amazon to foreign timber, mining and oil corporations, and throughout the region similar activism continues to place Latin America in the vanguard of the anti-corporate and anti-militarist global democracy movement.

Such challenges to US authority have led the Council on Foreign Relations to pronounce the Monroe Doctrine "obsolete." But that doctrine, which for nearly two centuries has been used to justify intervention from Patagonia to the Rio Grande, has not expired so much as slimmed down, with Barack Obama's administration disappointing potential regional allies by continuing to promote a volatile mix of militarism and free-trade orthodoxy in a corridor running from Mexico to Colombia.

The anchor of this condensed Monroe Doctrine is Plan Colombia. Heading into the eleventh year of what was planned to phase out after five, Washington's multibillion-dollar military aid package has failed to stem the flow of illegal narcotics into the United States. More Andean coca was synthesized into cocaine in 2008 than in 1998, and the drug's retail price is significantly lower today, adjusted for inflation, than it was a decade ago.

But Plan Colombia is not really about drugs; it is the Latin American edition of GCOIN, or Global Counterinsurgency, the current term used by strategists to downplay the religious and ideological associations of George W. Bush's bungled "global war on terror" and focus on a more modest program of extending state rule over "lawless" or "ungoverned spaces," in GCOIN parlance.

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20100208/grandin

[Peace Patriot]

3. Great map! Thanks! Notice where "ground zero" is--the near perfectly placed center of ...

...all these U.S. military bases: The Gulf of Venezuela, where Venezuela's main oil reserves, facilities and shipping are located. Follow the Aruba/Curaco lines to those two islands just off Venezuela's oil coast (the two close together black dots) and notice that 'little' loop into Venezuela's northmost region. It's actually the rectangular-shaped gulf and harbor area from which Venezuela ships its oil to the U.S., to Cuba and the smaller Caribbean/Central American countries that have deals with Venezuela for cheap or barter oil (via the Venezuela/Cuba organized ALBA trade group), and to other Venezuelan oil partners, such as China. Venezuela's oil industry is pretty much the dead center of all those U.S. military dots--almost like a bull's eye.

And there is a black dot missing from the map--on the tip of the Guajira peninsula (northwest corner of the Gulf of Venezuela). The Colombia military just announced that they are building a new military base in this provocative location--overlooking the Gulf Venezuela and only 20 miles from the Venezuelan border. In their announcement, they were oddly careful to say that the base will be built "with Colombian tax money." From this we can be fairly certain that it will be paid for by U.S. taxpayers and will be occupied by the U.S. military. It is a likely spot from which to spy on Venezuelan shipping and other oil industry activity and on Venezuela's military defenses, a possible infiltration point into Venezuela for spying or aggression (Venezuela owns a thin strip of the peninsula up the eastern (Gulf) side of the peninsula 20 miles from where this base is being built) and, most ominous of all, it is a potential spot from which to direct a naval blockade of the Gulf of Venezuela, which could paralyze and destroy Venezuela's economy.

Other map dot notes:

The U.S. 4th Fleet: Mothballed since WW II, reconstituted by the Bush Junta in summer 2008. There needs to be a black dot on the map in the Caribbean Sea for the 4th Fleet. It has at least one aircraft carrier--the nuclear powered Carl Vinson. It is a major war asset. Brazil's president, Lula da Silva, said that the 4th Fleet is "a threat to Brazil's oil." (Everybody south of the border knows that it is a threat to Venezuela's.)

Ecuador and Bolivia are given question marks on the map, but both have firmly rejected any U.S. military presence in their countries. Those dots should be removed. If the Pentagon gets the go ahead for its war plan against Venezuela, Ecuador also becomes vulnerable. Ecuador is a strong ally of Venezuela. It is adjacent to Colombia to the south, also has big oil reserves, also is a member of OPEC and also has a popular leftist government that has been the victim of an intense CIA psyops/disinformation campaign, like Venezuela. You will notice that it is rather isolated over there on the Pacific coast, sandwiched in between two rightwing countries (Colombia, Peru) with a total of nine U.S. military bases between them. Ecuador has already been the victim of a U.S./Colombian military incursion, in March 2008, when the U.S./Colombia dropped a load of U.S. "smart bombs" on a temporary FARC guerrilla hostage release camp, just inside Ecuador's border, blowing the FARC's hostage and peace negotiator, Raul Reyes, and 24 other sleeping people, to smithereens. This almost started a war between the U.S./Colombia and Ecuador/Venezuela, then and there.

Bolivia has probably been excluded from the war plan because of its location, but it was used, in Sept 2008, to test out a strategy of fomenting local fascist secessionist plots that could be the facade for U.S. aggression against Venezuela and Ecuador. Fascist politicians in the oil rich northern provinces of Venezuela and Ecuador (adjacent to Colombia) openly talk of secession. In a war scenario, they would "declare their independence" and invite the U.S. military (fronted or not fronted by the Colombian military) into their countries, providing the U.S. with a thin veneer of "legitimacy" to invade and occupy the oil regions. The U.S.-supported white separatist insurrection in Bolivia in 2008 failed. (They were trying to split off the eastern gas/oil rich provinces into a fascist mini-state in control of Bolivia's main resources). One of the reasons it failed may have been what happened in Paraguay just before the white separatist riots and murders began.

Paraguay's election of a leftist president, in summer 2008, after 61 years of rightwing rule, may have been a factor in the failure of the secessionist plot right next door in Bolivia just afterward. It's possible that the Bushwhacks intended to use the U.S. military airstrip in Paraguay to ferry troops, special ops teams and other support to the white separatists in eastern Bolivia. The new Paraguran president had made it clear that he opposes U.S. troops on Paraguay's soil, and he recently refused a U.S./Paraguay military agreement. He would not likely permit the U.S. to use Paraguay for any U.S. military operations. He also recently acted to purge some elements of the Paraguayan military who were plotting against his civilian government (--the sort who would likely cooperate with the Pentagon). I don't know who technically owns that military airstrip in Paraguay, but I don't think it qualifies any more as a black dot on this map of U.S. military bases.

The Dutch islands off Venezuela's coast: The U.S. military is using Aruba/Curacao as the base from which to send spy planes illegally over Venezuelan territory. There have been several reported instances of this, recently and over the last year--which Venezuela has protested.

[Peace Patriot]

5. Ah, the map at The Nation site is more accurate and has the US 4th Fleet on it.

And it excludes the Ecuador, Bolivia and Paraguay dots or question marks--where the U.S. military has been firmly rebuffed.

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20100208/grandin

[Bacchus39]

6. within 2 years I recall you saying PP, the US would invade Ven

and/or support a Colombian invasion. ordered by President Obama right?

[Peace Patriot]

7. Who knows what the U.S. war machine will do? Certainly not me. All I can do is

research, read, analyze, study history, follow current events, read the entrails and try to guess what horror they're going to pull next. I am not predicting two years to "V-Day." I'm just guessing, thinking about the military and political preparations. I also don't know for sure whether this military buildup in Colombia and the region is just war profiteering--as the U.S. "war on drugs" mostly has been used for. But strategically it looks like a war plan.

I see a lot of parallels to the preliminary actions of the U.S. government and military as it built up to previous wars, in the assemblage of war assets around Venezuela's oil region, in the use of euphemistic phrases like "just a few hundred military advisors" to describe military arrangements that are being escalated and could be escalated to war levels, in the use of a U.S.-funded and controlled front government and front military to "legitimize" a large and escalating U.S. military presence, in that government and military's vast corruption and brutality, in rehearsal incidents (such as Ecuador March 2008 and Bolivia September 2008), in the very intense psyops/disinformation campaign against the target governments, in the use of a local civil war for U.S. geopolitical purposes, and, of course, in the latest use of the U.S. military--to secure control of more oil reserves (in Iraq).

The parallels are many to Vietnam, fewer to Iraq (the psyops/disinformation buildup, and the oil). The Bolivia scenario--a local fascist group declaring its "independence" in northern Venezuela and inviting the U.S. military and maybe Colombia's into their country--would solve a lot of problems for the war planners (legitimacy, paucity of U.S. "cannon fodder").

And the benefits to U.S. corporate rulers of smashing Venezuela's democracy are very many, indeed--commandeering of the largest oil reserves in the world for their re-started "globalization" schemes; filling the Pentagon's big gas tank; smashing ALBA, the Venezuela-Cuba organized trade group--a threat to their Caribbean/Central America "free trade for the rich" zone; "dividing and conquering" UNASUR--the South American trade group--and smashing all ideas of a cooperative, Latin American defense of their economic sovereignty; isolating the smaller countries, like Bolivia, Ecuador, Paraguay and Nicaragua, to bend them to the U.S. will once again; breaking up alliances such as the Brazil/Venezuela alliance which has pursued a "raise all boats" philosophy with the smaller countries, and re-opening Latin America to naked resource theft, World Bank/IMF loan sharks, the looting and smashing up of public services, and the fostering of a large slave labor force with no rights.

We should not underestimate the extent to which Venezuela has influenced other countries and the region in general, toward social justice and EU-style integration, our corporate rulers' fear of an independent Latin America, and their determination to prevent it. And there is also their fear of having examples of successful mixed socialist/capitalist economies in this hemisphere. If Venezuelans can have free universal health care, why can't we? I am haunted by the Honduran coup general's remark that, by their coup, they were "preventing Venezuelan communism from reaching the United States." One wonders who put that bug in his ear. Did he conceive it himself or among his cronies, or was this the cocktail party talk at the U.S. embassy?

There is OVERWHELMING motive to topple Chavez, overthrow Venezuelan democracy and stop all this obstruction of U.S. corporate profiteering in Latin America. I don't think it will succeed, but when did that ever stop the Pentagon from selling unwinnable wars? Well, maybe Iran. That stumped them, I think mainly because of China and Russia. They don't have that problem in South America. (China and Russia don't have that big a stake in Venezuela--yet.)

I'm just reading the entrails, Bacchus39. Attending to the signs and omens. Timing? I don't know. It depends on how developed these bases already are, in Colombia--and other factors like that--that are hard for us ordinary citizens to know. There is also political timing. I guestimated 2 years because I think they will want to wait until they have a Bushwhack back in the White House. But it's not as if there no precedent for the CIA/Pentagon trying to trap presidents into conflicts and even into Armageddon (the Bay of Pigs, the Cuban Missile Crisis). Obama--if he is sincere in his stated policy of "peace, respect and cooperation" in Latin America--has not so far proven that he has the power to implement it. Perceptions among most Latin American leaders are disappointment, even anger, that he promised a new era and yet quite another thing is happening--the same old same old U.S. bullying, disrespect and devious scheming (such as negotiating the U.S./Colombian military agreement and not even giving them notice of its announcement, or claiming to support Zelaya in Honduras then abandoning him). If the Pentagon/CIA instigated a war on Venezuela, I don't know that he could stop it--and I don't know that he would want to. I really don't know. He is something of an enigma. He could have long range goals of peace, but is walking in minefields trying to get there. I truly don't know what our president could do to stop a war that was foisted upon him, or that he would do it. Chavez said that Obama "is the prisoner of the Pentagon." I think there is truth in that.

Anyway, I think it's more likely that war planners will wait, will develop things further both militarily and politically, and would want a Bushwhack in the White House to do it. It IS possible that they have excluded the Gulf of Venezuela from their "circle the wagons" area in the Caribbean/Central America, but acquisition of that huge oil supply is a logical requirement of dominating that region, and there sits the oil, and their sits their bogeyman "dictator"--built up in American minds from a thousand Associated Pukes' false, unfactual impressions.

And, as I said, it could also be 'mere' war profiteering--the creation of a phantom need for major U.S. military operations in Latin America, just to keep looting U.S. taxpayers. A number of Latin American countries have kicked the failed U.S. "war on drugs" out of their countries, and many Latin American leaders are questioning it--so U.S. 'war on drugs'-dependent corporations like Dyncorp and Blackwater and the builders of warships, AF jets, helicopters and so forth, and the suppliers of guns, bullets, uniforms and whatnot--maybe had to reconfigure all the military booty into a new need to "pacify" the Caribbean/Central American region with Colombia as the main base of operations. Common sense has NEVER informed the U.S. "war on drugs." So it could just be a reconfiguration and expansion of that useless, failed, corrupt, militaristic, brutal boondoggle.

But it looks like more than this, to me--that is all that I am saying. It looks like a "circle the wagons" war plan with the Gulf of Venezuela as an essential part of the "circle."

There is one other possibility--or perhaps at attendant purpose--which is asserting U.S. military domination across the "Global South"--laterally to Africa and Asia. USAF and other planning documents seem to point to this--a much bigger geopolitical plan. But it would certainly seem to be an essential element of such a plan to first eliminate opposition to U.S. dominance in Latin America--and Venezuela is No. 1 on the "Ten Most Wanted List" of defiers of U.S. domination.

[Bacchus39]

8. the US buys oil from Venezuela already

I see no motive for military action in Ven as you do. I see it as Chavez needs a bogie man to cover up for his problems at home. I also don't see Chavez as the lynch pin for relations within latin america as you do. Chavez is a minor player with a big mouth.

the use of basis in Colombia is for anti-narcotics and likely to help root out FARC. the war on drugs is a joke, but its simply a continuation of that failed policy. Colombia has decided to puts its alliance with the US and not Chavez or Castro, wise move, despite dumb drug policy. that is what Hugo is upset about. he is not Simon Bolivar.

[Peace Patriot]

10. The biggest oil reserves in the world. TWICE Saudi Arabia's! (-recent USGS study).

You underestimate US geopolitical designs, and how much our corporate rulers need that oil and want to control who gets access to it, and who profits from it, and you also underestimate their seething hatred for the Bolivarian Revolution and what it has meant for corporate negotiations in Latin America and for U.S. policy there and elsewhere.

--Venezuela said 'FY' to mighty Exxon Mobil when Exxon Mobil wouldn't agree to a fairer split of the oil profits for Venezuela and its social programs. Little countries don't do that. They're supposed to beg and bow and scrape to get U.S. investors.

--Venezuela has now given one of the Orinoco Belt concessions to a relatively small, relatively unknown Italian oil company who agreed to Venezuela's terms and who was thrilled to get the business. Little Latin American countries don't do that. They obey U.S. dictates to favor U.S. corps on whatever terms U.S. corps demand.

--Brazil has now taken the same stance, with regard to their big new oil find: Brazil keeps sovereign control of its resource, Brazil gets a big chunk of profits for poverty programs. (The presidents of Brazil and Venezuela are close allies, and meet monthly to discuss just such issues as this.)

--Bolivia just did the same thing with regard to their gas resource and multinationals, and I believe they had Venezuelan advisors.

--Some of the richest resources in the western hemisphere are no longer 'easy pickuns' for giant, powerful, U.S. corporate predators backed by the U.S. military. The little countries are acting like they don't care. That has to be stopped.

--Bolivia threw the U.S. ambassador and the DEA out of Bolivia. Little countries don't do that.

--Ecuador threw the U.S. military out of Ecuador. Little countries don't do that. They bow and scrape and act grateful for being occupied.

--Paraguay just refused a U.S. military deal. They don't want U.S. military boots on their soil. Extraordinarily little Latin American countries with no oil--and hardly anything else--don't do that. They fund their militaries with U.S. taxpayer dollars and act grateful for it, and welcome U.S. military 'advisors' and 'trainers'.

--The U.S. dominated World Bank/IMF has seen its portfolio in Latin America drop to near zero, because of Venezuela's creation of the Bank of the South and promotion of locally controlled development funds and anti-"Shock Doctrine" policies. The World Bank/IMF is a major instrument of U.S. corporate domination and looting of Latin American resources, public services and workforces, and destruction of Latin American agriculture. Little countries don't do that. They bend over and act grateful for ruinous loans.

--Multiply the above facts and situations a thousand times, and understand the nightmares visiting U.S. corporate board rooms and the Pentagon. Big countries with big militaries at the service of their big corporations don't tolerate little countries acting this way.

--Mel Zelaya was acting this way, in a particular client state of the U.S., Honduras--joining ALBA (the Venezuela-Cuba organized trade group challenging U.S.-imposed "free trade for the rich" in the Caribbean/Central America region), raising the minimum wage in Honduras (rife with U.S. corpo sweatshops), proposing that the U.S. military base in Honduras be converted to a commercial airport, proposing reform in Honduras, challenging the U.S. toadying rich elite. First victory for U.S. corpos in Latin America in a long time--re-establishing, in at least one country, that little countries don't do this. They bow and scrape and accept bribes and welcome "free trade for the rich" and love being occupied.

The rightwing coup in Honduras establishes just how much U.S. corpos want to END Venezuelan influence, and how much Hillary Clinton's State Department wants to please them. Obama could have stopped that coup on Day One. He did not. And that pretty much destroyed his "new era" of "peace, respect and cooperation" in Latin America, because everybody south of the border knows what Clinton did in Honduras (sneaky, backdoor support of the coup) in his name. He could not counter the will of U.S. corpos and thus lost all the good will that he had initially enjoyed.

Further, this was an anti-Chavez plot. All of the players in Honduras said so. They railed against "communism" and Chavez/Venezuela. That was their main motive, by all accounts--Zelaya had allied with Chavez and had raised the minimum wage and had taken other progressive measures because of Chavez. Chavez = power to the people. And one of them actually said that their coup was intended to "prevent communism from Venezuela reaching the United States." "Communism," to them, means standing up to the U.S. corpos who line their pockets and standing up to the U.S. military which funds and their trains their own fascist military forces.

If ideas like that "reach the United States," they are finished. If the people of the U.S. should loosen the vulture grip around our necks of our global corporate predators and war profiteers, it's all over for people like the "ten families" who rule Honduras. Chavez was making inroads. People here were beginning to hear about, oh, universal health care in Venezuela. (If Venezuela can do that, why can't we?) We are now as much victims of U.S. corpo-fascist rule as the Latin Americans have been. And these dangerous ideas were creeping up the peninsula from Venezuela, with leftist electoral victories in Nicaragua, El Salvador, Guatemala and a close call in Mexico, in addition to Zelaya's left turn in Honduras. LEFT ideas. UPPITY ideas. Ideas of SOVEREIGNTY and INDEPENDENCE and COLLECTIVE CLOUT against corporate/war profiteer rule. And this, with nearly all of South America having gone leftist: Venezuela, Brazil, Chile, Bolivia, Ecuador, Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay (!).

When the leftist won in Paraguay, Evo Morales (Bolivia) sent him this message: "Welcome to the Axis of Evil!" THEY know what is going on with their own new and revolutionary uppityness and U.S. reaction to it. Why don't you?

Now, does all this mean that U.S. is going to invade Venezuela? I don't know. All I know is that, starting in 2008, the U.S., a) began surrounding Venezuela with U.S. military assets, b) tried a coup in Bolivia and a bombing/raid on Ecuador (possible rehearsals for military strategy), and c) intensified the psyops/disinformation against Chavez (including that CIA "suitcase full of money" caper out of Miami, and the "miracle laptops" BS, and of course the steady drumbeat of "Chavez the dictator," etc.)

Means, motive and opportunity. Is "opportunity" being manufactured as we speak? Is this the reason for more U.S. troops and 'contractors' in Colombia, and U.S. occupation of seven bases, and this new base on the Guajira peninsula, and the illegal overflights of Venezuelan territory, and the reconstitution of the US 4th Fleet in the Caribbean--to maximize opportunities for a "Gulf of Tonkin"-type incident and be ready to pounce when it occurs? I don't know. All I can say is what I see. To me, it looks like a war plan. Could be 'mere' war profiteering with more "war on drugs" bullshit and boondoggles. But given the MOTIVES I have outlined above, I think it is more than that. I think they want the Gulf of Venezuela and its HUGE oil reserves folded into their "circle the wagons" "free trade" zone in the Caribbean/Central America. (For starters--they will then have more power to restore U.S. rule in places like Bolivia and Brazil.) And I think they want to STOP this huge leftist movement that has swept the region, and Chavez/Venezuela are "Enemy no. 1" for inspiring and organizing this movement, especially as to its assertion of local control of resources, government budgets, loans/financing, labor conditions and other sovereign, national, local regulation of big and multinational business.

They MIGHT be able to accomplish this 'politically,' with USAID/CIA funding of every rightwing group in Venezuela and with the intensifying psyops/disinformation campaign and with god knows what else they have in train to topple Chavez. But I don't think they can. The Chavez government has been too good for the great majority of Venezuelans, and Venezuelan voters have, thus far, been a savvy lot. They KNOW what the Chavez government has done for them, both as to empowerment and a fairer deal economically. And the USAID/CIA are working with a fractious lot on the right in Venezuela, poisoned with far rightwing coupmongers and the very greedy and corrupt. I don't think they can put much of a dent in the Chavez majority in the National Assembly nor defeat Chavez if he runs again. So, what are the options for our corporate rulers when they can't wreck a democracy the cosmetic way? Their penchant is to get brutal. And George Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and the NYT gave them the option of hijacking the U.S. military directly to their purposes.

The U.S. doesn't have much else. It has no more "moral" force in the world. Iraq, torture and banksterism, and now Honduras, have taken care of that. We no longer stand for anything--not peace, not democracy, not opportunity in 'the land of the free/home of the brave,' not the "rule of law," not "raising all boats" with benevolent Marshall Plans. The U.S. manufacturing base has largely been outsourced. Its public coffers have been thoroughly looted and bankrupted. It is fast losing its edge in education. Its local infrastructure is falling apart. It can't even muster the spine, against its own corporate looters, to provide leadership on climate change. Pretty much all that our corpos have left, with which to assert their domination schemes, is blunt force, and they clearly have the power to commandeer this huge war machine to get what they want.

For all of these reasons, I EXPECT a military move against Venezuela--perhaps cleverly designed as a local secessionist movement, or Colombia "defending" itself, or some other strategy that gives it the guise of something other than naked aggression. Who knows? They may be arming and training some fake FARC guerrilla group, as we speak, to create the "crisis." I don't know when, and I obviously don't know--and can't know--for sure. I have never said otherwise. i don't have a crystal ball. All I can do is warn people that I think that another oil war is in the planning stages, that war assets are being put in place and that there is plenty of motive for the actual rulers of the U.S. to do this.

And I think the U.S. will lose. It is one of the worst ideas that the Pentagon has ever mapped out on the Big Board. It will be Vietnam all over again. And it will be the "Waterloo" of the U.S. empire. But bad, BAD ideas--invading Iraq, torturing prisoners, "surges," the U.S. "war on drugs," mortgage derivatives, bankster bailouts, de-regulation, insurance-run health care, the 'Patriot' Act, spending ten billion dollars in Colombia and a trillion dollars on war, et al--seem to hold sway in the U.S. Common sense ain't in it. Are we going to see yet another bad idea implemented? I don't see much that can stop it--if that's what our corporate rulers decide they want done.

[protocol rv]

11. USA doesn't have to invade Venezuela

It doesn't make sense. Nobody here likes Chavez anyway, except for the very poor, and they wouldn't know how to put on a pair of boots and a helmet to work in a refinery or an oil rig. Chavez is losing popularity everyday, things are not so good.

And if the Americans want to do something about Venezuela, they don't need to invade, all they need to do is put one ship near Barcelona, which is where the oil comes out (you are wrong about Maracaibo, this is no longer the place where most of the oil is produced, because the production there has dropped a lot since Chavez took over). And if the Americans put a war ship near Barcelona, and tell the tankers not to load the oil, then nobody will load the oil, and we in Venezuela will be in big trouble.

All this talk about war is caused by Chavez, who is desperate to make people forget things are so bad here, it's non sense. First, because Chavez is already on his way out, and second because if the Americans need to do something, they will not do it in the Gulf of Venezuela, they will do it in Barcelona, and that has nothing to do with Colombia.

[Judi Lynn]

12. The "very poor"...."wouldn't know how to put on a pair of boots and a helmet to work in a refinery"?

Your words fall on deaf Democratic ears here. Only the non-Democratic right-wingers who troll here would agree with you.

The American Democratic Party has ALWAYS been the party which has advanced the interests and well-being of the "very poor," and has been the progressive party since the onset of the industrial age to the present. We are the party completely aligned fully with labor laws, protection of the "very poor", and civil rights.

The party which would even DREAM of mocking the "very poor" would be the Republican Party here, and this site was not designed to address their interests. Your time would be better spent elsewhere.

[protocol rv]

14. Funny

I don't see the Democratic Party advancing the interests of the very poor in the USA. They are a middle class party, I think. Think about it, this American democratic party was the one which involved the USA into the Viet Nam war, a war intended to please the military industrial complex. And now President Obama is pleasing the same military industrial complex sending more soldiers to Afghanistan.

If you want to discuss American politics, then this is OK, but this is the Latin American forum. And my comment was very well thought. The point is that Chavez' support is now deriving only from very poor people, who are uneducated and can't perform advanced functions in the oil industry, or any other industry. And Venezuela is gradually suffering from a serious brain drain as the competent people leave. This Chavez regime could have a fatal result for Venezuela, because it is hard to recover all the brains and experience, once they have left. You don't see it happening every day, but I do.

Let me give you an example from history, when the Catholic Kings expelled the jews and moors from Spain, they expelled out of Spain a lot of very smart and educated people. This really damaged Spain's ability to develop during the industrial revolution, and left it poor and subject to invasion by the French and the British. Although it was partially caused by their extreme dependence on the America's wealth, their collapse was also caused by the lack of brains and education. And this is what we see happening in Venezuela. It is gradual, but it is very pernicious. Thus, the impact of the Chavez regime, even if he is defeated soon, will be serious, because so many smart young people already left, and many of them will not return.

[Peace Patriot]

13. Well, you've given yourself away, protocol rv. The very poor "wouldn't know how to put on a pair of

boots..." Yeah, they would, if they had boots. And that's one of the things that the Chavez government has tried to insure--by cutting extreme poverty by over SEVENTY PERCENT--that everybody has boots, shoes, decent clothes, good nutrition, educational opportunities and a chance at a decent life.

Funny how "very poor" little kids take to reading and learning things, when given half the chance. Funny how "very poor" little kids--street urchins in Caracas--have learned to play the violin and other classical instruments, and how to conduct orchestras, and funny how the Venezuelan Children's Orchestra is now the most touted classical music orchestra in the world, and one of its street urchin products is now conducting the Los Angeles Philharmonic. Tell THEM they "can't do" something--something so intellectually difficult that privileged people study at it for years, and something requiring such discipline that privileged people often drop out. Little street kids--5, 6, 7 years and up--playing Beethoven the way it was meant to be played. Many thousands of them, all over Venezuela, in "La Systema."

So, yeah, give the "very poor" some boots and a helmet and training and a job at a refinery, and he or she will do just fine. In fact, that's just what happened after the oil bosses' strike in 2003, when the oil corps tried to bust the Venezuelan economy and get rid of Chavez, and shut down the oil industry, and sabotaged the computers in the refineries. A bunch of poor Chavistas came forward, figured it all out and put the oil industry in Venezuela back into operation. No need for the oil elite ripping everybody else off and shilling for Exxon Mobil. The poor can do it themselves.

Your statement that "the very poor ... wouldn't know how to put on a pair of boots and a helmet to work in a refinery or an oil rig," is absurd, on its face--and so bigoted that it calls your other statements into serious question. Your strategic sense is also screwy. The US 4th Fleet could put Venezuela in a vise, by blockading Barcelona and the Gulf of Venezuela...then what? They have to occupy the port areas and at least Caracas. That means ground troops. They are creating "full spectrum" USAF facilities in Colombia, for long range spying and bombing. But if they use that, too...then what? Most likely--if this war comes to pass--they will combine a local fascist insurrection, to provide a facade of "legitimacy," with the Colombian military as the "shock troops," to minimize U.S. presence and casualties, and will only implement naval and air force maneuvers in support. The fascists declare their "independence." They invite the Colombian military to aid them in their "independence" fight. The corpo-fascist press here goes into full war mode and manufactures a "public outcry" to save these "freedom fighters" in Venezuela from that "dictator," Chavez--and the U.S. president, willingly, or under pressure, provides "support." A blockade has to be part of a strategy of occupation.

This scenario is what I think Donald Rumsfeld had in mind, in his 12/1/07 op-ed in the Washington Post, "The Smart Way to Defeat Tyrants Like Chavez," in which he urged "swift action" by the U.S. in support of "friends and allies" in Latin America: "swift action" by the U.S. military in support of CIA-arranged fascist uprisings--or possibly in support of Colombia via a manufactured border incident (how the Vietnam war was escalated). What happens from that point on depends on events--but, if Vietnam is any guide (and there are many resemblances to that war already), if the local "freedom fighters" and the Colombian military start losing, the U.S. will escalate and it will become a U.S. war formally. Once they have the Venezuelan military engaged, they will not retreat; they will not suddenly become peaceful and wise; they will fight on. And that's how it will be sold here, too. "We can't ABANDON our friends," "We can't let THEM lose" becomes, "WE can't lose! WE're Number One!" And thus they will escalate and become fully mired in "a land war in Latin America," and likely push inland to topple the legitimate government of Venezuela, if they have dislodged it from Caracas.

You see, it doesn't really matter whether oil production has been shifted to Barcelona. The goal is not to stop production and shipping; the goal is to topple Venezuelan democracy and install a puppet government with control at least of the coast and the northern oil provinces. Guajira could be for a blockade, for spying, for infiltration, for ferrying troops in, or as a USAF base if they lost Aruba/Curacao. It's a very strategic location for a number of military exigencies. And the U.S. military would need to continually protect this oil acquisition. It would not just be a matter of blockading something, or rocket fire or bombs. It would be a matter of creating a facade of "legitimacy," pushing others out front, "supporting" them, taking over when they fail, increasing U.S. military participation, setting up a puppet government, protecting the puppet government and pushing the front away from the prized oil reserves and facilities. And they will have an open border from Colombia all down the length of Venezuela from which to do this--send in troops, special ops, 'contractors,' tanks, whatever--plus several USAF bases in Colombia.

You need to think more flexibly. The "very poor" can conduct orchestras and run oil refineries--and fight wars as well. And the Pentagon, no doubt, has several strategies mapped out. They are putting a lot of flexible capabilities in place. In fact, I would say that it is characteristic of what I can see of their planning. They will have assets in the Caribbean, on the sea and on islands, in Central America (Honduras--both air base and port facilities-secured by the coup), throughout Colombia, and on the Pacific (Colombian coast, and Panama--possibly to net in Ecuador and its oil). They've got the FARC and the "war on drugs" as cover and excuses. They've got a number of toady governments with which to obstruct concerted action in defense of Venezuela (Peru, Colombia itself, Honduras and now Chile). A lot of planning flexibility. It's not much like Iraq (where options were very limited); it's much more like Vietnam, although much closer to home and even more open. The Venezuelan coast and oil region must look like a "sitting duck" to the Pentagon. They have a lot of ways they can approach it. And once they take it, they have to keep it--which means war in the interior, long term war and various kinds of long term planning.

And--like you--they are no doubt greatly underestimating the fighting capabilities of the "very poor." They made that mistake in Vietnam--and got defeated by little brown people in straw hats and sandals--and are pretty mystified to this day as to how they could happen. Underestimating the "very poor" in Latin America, and their desire for sovereignty, self-government and social justice, is a very, very big mistake.

[protocol rv]

4. America tends to be an aimless empire

I don't think the Americans realize they're aimless, their imperial policy is a mess. Just look at the stupid things they did in Somalia, Yugoslavia, Georgia, Iraq, and Afghanistan. This deal with Colombia is small potato compared to the mega mistake in Iraq.

[Bacchus39]

9. yep, definitely n/t

n

[bvar22]

2. Worse than "dangerous"

It is STUPID, non-productive, and immoral.

Our hostile policy toward the emerging genuine democracies in South America is closing the door to those markets, and driving them straight into the arms of Russia and China.

If we continue to support the repressive, Right Wing, Terrorist Governments (like Colombia), we WILL lose an entire continent.