Print this post.From the Caribbean to Brazil, political opposition to US plans for ‘full-spectrum operations’ is escalating rapidly
By Hugh O’Shaughnessy, Special Correspondent, The Independent (U.K.) WITH SELECT COMMENTARY
Sunday, 22 November 2009 / [print_link]
US air force officers and Congressmen tour the Palanquero base in Puerto Salgar, Colombia, in August. The base is expected to host US air force counter-narcotics missions under the new bilateral deal.
The United States is massively building up its potential for nuclear and non-nuclear strikes in Latin America and the Caribbean by acquiring unprecedented freedom of action in seven new military, naval and air bases in Colombia. The development – and the reaction of Latin American leaders to it – is further exacerbating America’s already fractured relationship with much of the continent.
The new US push is part of an effort to counter the loss of influence it has suffered recently at the hands of a new generation of Latin American leaders no longer willing to accept Washington’s political and economic tutelage. President Rafael Correa, for instance, has refused to prolong the US armed presence in Ecuador, and US forces have to quit their base at the port of Manta by the end of next month.
So Washington turned to Colombia, which has not gone down well in the region. The country has received military aid worth $4.6bn (￡2.8bn) from the US since 2000, despite its poor human rights record. Colombian forces regularly kill the country’s indigenous people and other civilians, and last year raided the territory of its southern neighbour, Ecuador, causing at least 17 deaths.
President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, who has not forgotten that US officers were present in government offices in Caracas in 2002 when he was briefly overthrown in a military putsch, warned this month that the bases agreement could mean the possibility of war with Colombia.
In August, President Evo Morales of Bolivia called for the outlawing of foreign military bases in the region. President Manuel Zelaya of Honduras, overthrown in a military coup d’état in June and initially exiled, has complained that US forces stationed at the Honduran base of Palmerola collaborated with Roberto Micheletti, the leader of the plotters and the man who claims to be president.
And, this being US foreign policy, a tell-tale trail of oil is evident. Brazil had already expressed its unhappiness at the presence of US naval vessels in its massive new offshore oilfields off Rio de Janeiro, destined soon to make Brazil a giant oil producer eligible for membership in Opec.
The fact that the US gets half its oil from Latin America was one of the reasons the US Fourth Fleet was re-established in the region’s waters in 2008. The fleet’s vessels can include Polaris nuclear-armed submarines – a deployment seen by some experts as a violation of the 1967 Tlatelolco Treaty, which bans nuclear weapons from the continent.
Indications of US willingness to envisage the stationing of nuclear weapons in Colombia are seen as an additional threat to the spirit of nuclear disarmament. After the establishment of the Tlatelolco Treaty in 1967, four more nuclear-weapon-free zones were set up in Africa, the South Pacific, South-east Asia and Central Asia. Between them, the five treaties cover nearly two-thirds of the countries of the world and almost all the southern hemisphere.
The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), the world’s leading think-tank about disarmament issues, has now expressed its worries about the US-Colombian arrangements.
With or without nuclear weapons, the bilateral agreement on the seven Colombian bases, signed on 30 October in Bogota, risks a costly new arms race in a region. SIPRI, which is funded by the Swedish government, said it was concerned about rising arms expenditure in Latin America draining resources from social programmes that the poor of the region need.
Much of the new US strategy was clearly set out in May in an enthusiastic US Air Force (USAF) proposal for its military construction programme for the fiscal year 2010. One Colombian air base, Palanquero, was, the proposal said, unique “in a critical sub-region of our hemisphere where security and stability is under constant threat from… anti-US governments”.
The proposal sets out a scheme to develop Palanquero which, the USAF says, offers an opportunity for conducting “full-spectrum operations throughout South America…. It also supports mobility missions by providing access to the entire continent, except the Cape Horn region, if fuel is available, and over half the continent if un-refuelled”. (“Full-spectrum operations” is the Pentagon’s jargon for its long-established goal of securing crushing military superiority with atomic and conventional weapons across the globe and in space.)
Palanquero could also be useful in ferrying arms and personnel to Africa via the British mid-Atlantic island of Ascension, French Guiana and Aruba, the Dutch island off Venezuela. The US has access to them all.
The USAF proposal contradicted the assurances constantly issued by US diplomats that the bases would not be used against third countries. These were repeated by the Colombian military to the Colombian congress on 29 July. That USAF proposal was hastily reissued this month after the signature of the agreement – but without the reference to “anti-US governments”. This has led to suggestions of either US government incompetence, or of a battle between a gung-ho USAF and a State Department conscious of the damage done to US relations with Latin America by its leaders’ strong objections to the proposal.
The Colombian forces, for many years notorious for atrocities inflicted on civilians, have cheekily suggested that with US help they could get into the lucrative business of “instructing” other armies about human rights. Civil strife in Colombia meant some 380,000 Colombians were forced from their homes last year, bringing the number of displaced since 1985 to 4.6 million, one in ten of the population. This little-known statistic indicates a much worse situation than the much-publicised one in Islamist-ruled Sudan where 2.7 million have fled from their homes.
Amnesty International said: “The Colombian government must urgently bring human rights violators to justice, to break the links between the armed forces and illegal paramilitary groups, and dismantle paramilitary organisations in line with repeated UN recommendations.”
Palanquero, which adjoins the town of Puerto Salgar on the broad Magdalena river north-west of the capital, Bogota, is one of the seven bases that the government of President Alvaro Uribe gave to Washington last month despite howls from many Colombians. Its hangars can take 100 aircraft and there is accommodation for 2,000 personnel. Its main runway was constructed in the 1980s after Colombia bought a force of Israeli Kfir warplanes. At 3,500 metres, it is 500 metres longer than the longest in Britain, the former US base outside Campbeltown, Scotland. The USAF is awaiting Barack Obama’s signature on a bill, already passed by the US Congress, to devote $46m to works at the base.
Many Colombians are upset at the agreement between the US and Colombia that governs – or, perhaps more accurately, fails to govern – US use of Palanquero and the other six bases. The Colombian Council of State, a non-partisan constitutional body with the duty to comment on legislation, has said that the agreements are unfair to Colombia since they put the US and not the host country in the driving seat, and that they should be redrafted in accordance with the Colombian constitution.
The immunities being granted to US soldiers are, the council adds, against the 1961 Vienna Convention; the agreement can be changed by future regulations which can totally transform it; and the permission given to the US to install satellite receivers for radio and television without the usual licences and fees is “without any valid reason”.
President Uribe, whose studies at St Antony’s College, Oxford, were subsidised by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, has chosen to disregard the Council of State.
2 comments
COMMENTS BY READERS OF THE INDEPENDENT (U.K.)
The US making trouble again
floppsiefrog wrote:
Sunday, 22 November 2009 at 01:13 am (UTC)
US behaviour will shortly precipitate wide-spread loathing for the American government, which increasingly looks like it’s being run by a bunch of murderous thugs – apart from the smiling poster boy Barack Obama who is nothing more a seductive mascot to reassure prospective victims with eloquent platitudes. Hopefully, the American economy will collapse before the military is able to bring chaos and destruction to another continent.
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Re: The US making trouble again
someofusknow wrote:
Sunday, 22 November 2009 at 05:52 am (UTC)
The US government IS being run by a gang of murderous thugs -mostly the pay of the banksters of course, with Goldman Scahs featuring prominently, but the Morgan mob (who have been making trouble for over 100 years) are also in deep.
What is surprising is that there has not been another US government sponsored false-flag attack since 9/11 (people are finally waking up to the fact that the official version of 9/11 was one of the biggest lies in all of history).
Unfortunately, the worse the US economy becomes (and it definitely will get worse and worse with the glove puppet as president), the stronger the position of the militarists is likely to become; poor people without hope tend to sign up for military service just to get a warm bed and regular meals.
I guess we’ll have to wait for the rhetoric about Bolivia or Venezuela being a key components of some new ‘axis of evil’ to commence. The ‘weapons of mass destruction ready to launch’ pretext for starting a war really would be pushing credibility a bit far, so the Obummer adminiostration will have to come up with some other pretext: failure to allow US companies free reign to loot should do.
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elefante77 wrote:
Sunday, 22 November 2009 at 06:45 am (UTC)
The US are coming to help the Americans spy on Hugo Chavez, as everyone in Venezuela is sick of his fraudulent ‘revolution’, just another excuse to steal the riches of the country. Chavez and his top officials give the green light to drug trafficking, and have ruined the country, taking over private business, shutting down TV stations and either imprisoning his opponents or forcing them to flee.
It is very easy to preach when in Western Europe or North America, but try moving to Venezuela and seeing the problems that exist here. Chavez is not a socialist in the western sense at all, he is a big fraud.
EDITORS NOTE: “Elefante77” seems to be the inevitable rightwing Latin American instinctively allied with the Americans in fleecing his nation.
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voodoojedizin wrote:
Sunday, 22 November 2009 at 02:13 pm (UTC)
So you think it’s just fine for America to install its puppet dictators, control the country’s resources, take their billions and billions and billions of dollars in profits out of the country. leaving nothing left except starvation poverty and human rights abuse.
It was America and its puppet back dictators that have taken part in the murdering of tens of thousands south American Indians, human rights activists, union leaders,
And political activists. You can go to South America today and see billboards full of photographs of the thousands of people still missing.
People that say these things about president of Venezuela, you’re making a joke out of yourself for doing it.
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elefante77 wrote:
Sunday, 22 November 2009 at 06:54 am (UTC)
Maybe the Colombians want a safeguard against Hugo Chavez’s constant warmongering and threats against them. Soon he will throw out the Governors of the border states that are run by the opposition. This is why he is causing so many problems in this reason, watch and see.
It is okay for Chavez to spend millions of dollars on buying tanks, planes and guns, whilst his people live in misery, with constant water and power outages, inflation of 30%, no social benefits, etc etc?
It is about time the US grew a backbone with South America, so these tinpot banana republic dictators cannot keep walking over their people
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Learn to read you moron
find_empire wrote:
Sunday, 22 November 2009 at 08:31 pm (UTC)
Get your head out of your stupid comprador ass and read the damn article:
The proposal sets out a scheme to develop Palanquero which, the USAF says, offers an opportunity for conducting “full-spectrum operations throughout South America…. It also supports mobility missions by providing access to the entire continent, except the Cape Horn region, if fuel is available, and over half the continent if un-refuelled”. (“Full-spectrum operations” is the Pentagon’s jargon for its long-established goal of securing crushing military superiority with atomic and conventional weapons across the globe and in space.)
You still think this is just about Chavez? The Yanks are on an all-out campaign to reconquer the world using the bogus “war on terror” or “war on drugs” as a cover. They set up CENTCOM’s forward headquarters in Qatar so as to make even worse mischief in the Middle East and Central Asia. They are trying like crazy to find an African stooge who will host AFRICOM’s forward HQ so that they can make Africa safe for Exxon and Chevron. The Colombia move heralds a similar plan for SOUTHCOM as part and parcel of the Yanks’ effort to re-take their former banana republic colonies.
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Re: Learn to read you moron
elefante77 wrote:
Sunday, 22 November 2009 at 08:52 pm (UTC)
No i don’t think this is just about Chavez, I was just trying to educate people on what is happening also domestically in Venezuela. Ok, so let’s get back to the article, the geopolitics of this affecting the whole of the Americas….well I understand that the US had no policy at all towards Latin America during the George W Bush era. Funny to think that the Europeans favourite President, Obama, is now being seen as a war monger. Oh the irony!
Yes war on terror bogus, i guess you didn’t lose any loved ones on 9/11. Anyway, how do you feel about how the Spanish, British, and in the last century the Chinese, Germans and Russians all tried to conquer the world? What makes them any different from what the left wing (who like to still leave in the North) are doing now? You have a selective view of history!
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Re: Learn to read you moron
ziplik77 wrote:
Sunday, 22 November 2009 at 09:45 pm (UTC)
dont worry, they will run out of dollars soon. its like watching a car crash in extreemly slow motion. Although im not convinced the bankers have not really just got a lot richer. USA havent even begun to figure out how they will make russia and china roll over with their nuclear arsenals. USA cannot use nuclear conventional weapons to defeat enemies. why? because of the latest findings of research suggest that just 100 hirosheema sized bombs would cause enough smoke from the burning of cities to black out the sun globaly for a minimum of 7 years meaning 99.9% planetary extinction. research can be found here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_winter (under recent modeling). If you see india and pakistan on the tv having a nuke exchange it will mean you will die too. Sorry to deliver the news. Which is why america is cleverly thinking of arming gulf nations knowing that if used everyone dies. OUR LEADERS ARE TRUELLY NON RATIONAL AND INSANE. Good news though is that Obama wins nobel prize for nuclear prolif work to reduce the number of nukes in the world to less than 15,000 each which is only enough to blow up the globe 2 or three thousand times over so progress is being made.
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ginstick wrote:
Sunday, 22 November 2009 at 07:48 am (UTC)
Absolute bullshit.
Chavez is despised by the US because he threw out the US elites who were, as everywhere else, bleeding the country dry. The indigenous population is left to rot (and do the dirty work of course) but any profits and advantages go into a small number of pockets. Chavez gave his country REAL democracy, not the pretend facade we have in the North, but the real thing – people elected from the common people with an agenda to redress the imbalances imposed upon them.
The US will use these 7 bases to begin to launch attacks on Chavez and carry on their hideous policy of full spectrum domination.
And that’s the biggest problem facing humanity today – the Americans and their bloody inferiority complex, that drives them to kill, maim and corrupt everything they see so that a handful of already obscenely wealthy people can get just a little bit more wealth.
The sooner the rest of the world joins together to boycott American and to force it to behave, the better.
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andre_t wrote:
Sunday, 22 November 2009 at 09:10 am (UTC)
Latin America …the new Middle East, now the US has always supported Dictators and given a hoot about democracy in both regions. Latin America will see the creation of WMDs, a terrorist threat, UK support “bananas can reach the UK in 45 days” and the trrops in Iraq and Afganistan will soon be wandering the Andes. Lets see if China does not undertake its own initiative in Latin America, more money less military.
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Another fishing in troubled waters.
dastu11 wrote:
Sunday, 22 November 2009 at 02:00 pm (UTC)
This is another move by the murderous US government.
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This shows that civilians are not in charge in the US…
exitstan wrote:
Sunday, 22 November 2009 at 02:09 pm (UTC)
…as if that would make a positive difference.
The USAF is run by paranoid, religious extremists who are going to do all they can to ensure the decline of the US empire is not graceful, or peaceful, for anyone.
I hope S.A. fights this. They have no need for economic advice from the north. The north is bankrupt, and have no crumbs for the south anyway.
And everybody sees the wreckage left in the wake of wherever the US military parks itself.
Personally, they make my flesh crawl and I had to leave just to feel comfortable in my own skin. I was more than three decades ahead of the curve. My reward? Death threats.
Yankee Go Home. The world is not your full-spectrum-dominance theater. Haven’t you figured that out yet?
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cris123 wrote:
Sunday, 22 November 2009 at 05:18 pm (UTC)
A few comments:
1. The issue is far more complicated than the article suggests.
2. This is not ‘news’ if one thinks that news should be objective and consider more than one side to a debate; it is opinion purporting as news.
3. Although the Daily Mail may take a different viewpoint, this article is Daily Mail-esque in it’s simplicity and baseness..
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chanch5 wrote:
Monday, 23 November 2009 at 01:52 am (UTC)
A few responses:
1. There is always more to news. Take any articles in this or any other paper and go from there. It never ends.
2. It is “news” if one realises that there never has been a single “objective” article in the history of humanity since articles are perforce written from a given perspective, things are put in, others are left out, by choice, not by an”objective” God-like process.
3. Although the Independent very often publishes articles which preach right wing perspectives the Daily Mail would not disagree with, this one is one if its relatively rare steps on the left side of global perspectives.
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elefante77 wrote:
Sunday, 22 November 2009 at 06:43 pm (UTC)
Actually it is Chavez that has taken millions and millions out of the country and giving the money to his client states of Ecuador, Cuba, Bolivia, Nicaragua, Argentina, etc. The people live in misery in the barrios of Caracas and now it is being reflected in the latest polls, his popularity is around 45%, the lowest since 2002.
I get my statistics locally, as unlike most that write here, I actually live in Venezuela and witness the reality. I agree that the opposition didn’t do anything for the poor, and I that is exactly why Chavez won power, but now his promises are broken, I know so many people Chavistas that have given up on him. The crime levels here are horrendous, he takes over private companies such as coffee, milk producers, and next you find no coffee or milk in the shops.
If you want to talk about imperialism, we can talk about the Spanish, British, Portuguese, Germans, Russians, French, etc. They were the worst culprits of the last few hundred years. I am neither American or anti-American like many of you, I just want the best for Venezuela.
I would be nice if the local representative of the Human Rights Watch (who was put on a plane and thrown out the country over a year ago) could come back and start assiting in the democracy in Venezuela. What Chavez preaches is not Socialism like in Europe, he is just another tinpot dictator that likes to keep the power and money. Look at the fortunes now like people like Diosdada Cabello and his brother Adan Chavez, they have all built up billions of dollars stealing banks, stealing property, with millions in foreign bank accounts in capitalist countries, eg Antigua, Andorra, Miami, Panama. Oh and they all love buying their hummers and their shopping trips and apartments in Miami Beach. What great socialists anti imperialists! ha ha
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A conflict with LA is inevitable?
re02 wrote:
Sunday, 22 November 2009 at 06:59 pm (UTC)
The USA is slowly brewing a war in Latin America with the help of a puppet regime in Colombia and one has to be either short-sighted or brainwashed for not to see it. The CIA are creating an environment of conflict between Colombia and its neighbours so the Pentagon can intervene militarily in the region. The ultimate purpose of course is to control oil rich countries like Venezuela. For this they will have to take Chavez out of power in order to install a puppet government like in Iraq. Then they will suck as much oil out of the country as they can. Brazil is to big to attack or to invade but the second goal is to stop its growing influence in the region and in the world. The third goal is to break Unasur in to pieces.
For this the USA will launch a wave of coups to re-stablish corrupted right-wing puppet governments is the region in order to regain control of precious resources like oil, gold and lithium to benefit US corporation interests.
There is no question in my mind that at least the US will threat with the possibility of bombing Caracas somewhere in the next 5 years. They will invent any excuse imaginable for this from sponsoring and harbouring terrorists to planning to build a nuclear bomb. However, things wont be so easy for the US. For one, even there are some minor differences between countries, Latinamerica is not a dysfunctional region such as the middle east. This time Americans will loose completely the little influence they have left in the region and this time will be forever since nationalism will rise everywhere. At least South America will become a hostile territory for American interests and commerce will suffer greatly. This will strength even more the EU and the Brick influence in the region.
Colombia will be expelled from Unasur for colluding with the Americans an attack against Venezuela. Brazil and Unasur will gain influence in the world, the first as a rising superpower and the second as a union maturing very fast (in an adolescent stage).
We will see as a consequence the genesis of a military alliance like OTAN within the Unasur state members. Something that has been proposed by various Latinamerican leaders. For Argentina will be dejavu, so even they don’t have the financial means we can probably expect a small regiment of Argentinean soldiers in Venezuela’s soil (if the national congress allows it) in order to send a strong political message to Washington. For Brazil, its a matter of national security, so if the PSUV allows it they will send a large regiment of soldiers and probably will “sell” (transfer) large quantities of fighter jets to Venezuela in order to overwhelm the Colombian air force and to deter the Americans to some extend so it will be too costly to send bombers. Of course if the US decides to deploy aircraft carriers it will be another story. The Palanquero airbase could house around 100 aircraft and that will be an invasion army!
That is why Brazil is going with France’s hardware so they can produce unlimited amounts of aircraft and sell them across latinamerica without Washington embargoes in case of conflict (the main reason for Washington’s desperation to win the airforce contract in Brazil is to prevent this from happening). At the same time France has gained strong political influence in the region as a western supplier of weapons. In 5 years the Brick states and the EU will become the main supplier of weapons in Latinamerica.
We can also expect small regiments from Ecuador, Bolivia, Nicaragua, Cuba, Paraguay, Uruguay and some other Unasur and Alba countries… again this will be more like a political statement rather than a actual military threat. They know after Venezuela they could be next so better send a strong political signal in advance.
Will the US back down? I don’t know. Maybe, maybe not. One thing is certain, Venezuela will not be occupied by the USA. Brazil and the rest of Unasur will not tolerate it. Likewise we can’t predict what oil hungry superpowers like China and India or allies like Russia will do. This is not the unipolar world of 2001 any more when America’s cowboy foreign policy “either you are with us or against us” ruled the scene. The world’s rising superpowers have changed the world towards multilateralism.
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US policy makers busy creating new terrorists
corporeal_v001 wrote:
Sunday, 22 November 2009 at 07:33 pm (UTC)
Here’s the plan:
– get a bunch of angry young South Americans into a small cell
– blow up some installation (with CIA help) in the USA whilst ensuring some civilians are killed
– leave a few passports behind identifying suitable countries
– leave some angry video messages about how much these young guys hate the USA
– USA will start a new crusade
– Invade countries listed in the plan
– Install new puppet leaders
– Hold elections without any challengers
– “Win” hearts and minds
– Tada, democracy installed, job done, oil supplies secured…
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Status Quo
payneinspain wrote:
Sunday, 22 November 2009 at 09:03 pm (UTC)
Nothing changes. Individual groups will bitch over their own interests but the bottom line here is that regardless of a particular country or it’s issues the USA will continue it’s ruthless destabilization of S. America in it’s desperate quest for capitalist control of oil / bananas. They don’t know any other way to do business.
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US freedom of action in Britain yes?
bob_idle wrote:
Sunday, 22 November 2009 at 09:36 pm (UTC)
People complain when the US puts bases in Columbia but we’ve had US bases here for decades and no-one says owt.
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Re: US freedom of action in Britain yes?
goatbucket wrote:
Monday, 23 November 2009 at 04:49 pm (UTC)
Plenty of people have protested against the U.S. war machine in Britain.
Ever heard of Greenham Common?
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tonygfd wrote:
Sunday, 22 November 2009 at 09:50 pm (UTC)
its hard to think of a recent conflict that doesn’t have US interests at the source.
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By the way
yitzhakshamir wrote:
Sunday, 22 November 2009 at 11:55 pm (UTC)
Remember the Synagogue in Caracas that was trashed and the Zionist Western media blamed Chavez goons as being responsible for this act of anti-Semitism? Well, it turned out that it was the Rabbi’s bodyguard and his mates. The bodyguard was pissed off as the Rabbi, a money lender, would you believe, refused to give him a loan.
http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/news/4193
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/129876
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Re: By the way
elefante77 wrote:
Monday, 23 November 2009 at 12:14 am (UTC)
That is nonsense, the order was given by Chavez to DISIP. I can tell you that for a fact.
When Chavez took over there were 20,000 Jews in the country. Now there are just 8,000. There is constant harrasment. And I am not just sticking up for jews, Chavez has fallen out with the Catholic bishops as well, a communist regime cannot have religion as we have seen from the past in Eastern Europe.
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Re: morvelius
REPLY TO elefante77 wrote:
Monday, 23 November 2009 at 12:14 am (UTC)
The nonsense is yours, elefante77. Stop trolling this thread with your knee-jerk anticommunist baloney. It’s pure rubbish. You remind me of the reactionary Chileans denouncing president Allende for his “communism”., bla bla blah. Hogwash issuing from the fervid mind of the plutocrats and absorbed by far too many people, including yours. Go live in Zombieland, where you belong. Your arguments fly in the face of facts and a long history of arrogant imperialism in latin America. I just wonder if Brazil (under weak-spined Lula) will have the cojones to stand up to washington. Lula, at best a social democrat, can’t be trusted.
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“…so far from God and so close to the United States!” (Porfirio Díaz)
alienontherun wrote:
Monday, 23 November 2009 at 01:19 am (UTC)
Thing is, they [the US] have realized they’re losing their grip (and will not get it back no more) on Asia, Europe and Russia, hence they’re becoming more and more isolated, vulnerable and frightened.
Before this catastrophic scenario (and it serves them right!), who have they historically manipulated to their heart’s content, but over the past years have gained some leeway whilst they were busying themselves with their games in the Middle East? That’s right, you got it, the poor Latin America neighborhood. They gained too much leeway and it’s now time to set their clock back, and it’s the only place on Earth now where the US can turn their guns to with chances to reestablish their exploitation policies in order to keep themselves afloat.
Regardless, whatever the course of action they take henceforth, it won’t make their situation any better…only a transcendental happening, an act of God, if you will, could help them out at this point. They’ve come full circle, they had it.
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OLIVERIO says:
elefante77’s opinion that:
“It is interesting as well that Europeans seem to think they have never tried to colonise the world and just like to blame America for everything. Americans are damned by the left wing if they do, and damned if they don’t.
Until the millions of people in poverty are actually helped out of it, rather than having this money given away and spent on tanks, then I will keep fighting the governments of Latin America, whether they be right wing or left wing. But they are neither either, just the same old snout in the trough caudillos.”
Yes, the old colonialist regimes of Europe were greedy, amoral and often brutal, but that fact scarcely justifies America’s actions in our day. The point is that imperialism—of any shape or form—is criminal, no matter what propaganda curtain you try to hide it behind, and today’s pre-eminent imperialism is based in Washington, DC. There will be no peace until —America—a disgracefully brainwashed nation, passes from the stage of history. Since it’s so terribly large powerful, and dumb (witness the tsunami of admiration for Sarah Palin!) the prospects for the world look dim.
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bigbillhaywood wrote:
Monday, 23 November 2009 at 02:13 am (UTC)
Viva Chavez!!!!!!
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re02–
You nailed it spot-on.
It might be the best and most accurate picture of where the US is now in LA, and what the future prospects are there.
Damned nice job–thank you.
locoto