Like Old Times: U.S. Warns Latin Americans Against Leftists

[struggle4progress]

By DAVID S. CLOUD
Published: August 19, 2005

LIMA, Peru, Aug. 18-Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld's visit this week to South America had the throwback feel of a mission during the cold war, when American officials saw their main job as bolstering the hemisphere's governments against leftist insurgencies and Communist infiltration.

During stops in Paraguay and Peru, Mr. Rumsfeld and his aides warned of what they consider to be troublemaking by President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela and Washington's old cold war foe, Fidel Castro.

It was far different a year ago, when Mr. Rumsfeld was in the region calling for cooperation against Islamic terror groups. Then, he and other American officials warned sometimes skeptical governments that there was evidence that Islamic militants might be using the region's porous borders to move people, weapons and money. <snip>

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/19/international/americas/19rumsfeld.html

[HysteryDiagnosis]

1. I'm left handed... should I be concerned? As far as Dumbsfeld

goes, it's only terror or illegal, or a problem when someone else does it....

www.soaw.org


On February 21-22, 2005, eight members of the San José de Apartadó Peace Community in Urabá, Colombia—including three young children—were brutally massacred. Witnesses identified the killers as members of the Colombian military, and peace community members saw the army’s 17th and 11th Brigades in the area around the time of the murders.

Among those killed was Luis Eduardo Guerra, an internationally recognized peace activist and a co-founder of the Peace Community. In November 2002, Luis travelled from Colombia to Fort Benning, Georgia to speak out against the School of the Americas at the annual Vigil to Close the SOA/ WHINSEC.

General Héctor Jaime Fandiño Rincón is the commander of the 17th Brigade of the Colombian army. Like Luis Eduardo, Fandiño Rincón also travelled to the School of the Americas -— not to speak out for justice and peace like Luis, but as a student. Fandiño Rincón is a graduate of the notorious School of the Americas.

[wli]

2. trial ballooning pogroms of leftists in the US? what scum n/t

[Vogon_Glory]

3. Bushies Reaping What They Sowed

Gee Dubya Bush's Duck Soup Posse is reaping the consequences of its Latin American policy. By continuing the usual anti-foreign aid rhetoric and practices entrenched in "conservative" thinking and by deferring US policy-making to hard-line anti-Castro Cuban exiles, the Duck Soup Posse has ensured Latin American alienation from the current Washington regime and opportunities aplenty for other regional and great powers to move into play.

After the failed coup attempt, is it any wonder that Hugo Chavez has not only made friends with Castro as well as powers as disparate as Uruguay and Peru? He knew he was on Otto Reich's hit list.

The Bushies and other Republican Party idiotas fail to see that these are the early 2000s. The European Union, for all its flaws, is alive and well enough to do trade and give aid to Latin America. So are the Asian tigers like South Korea and Singapore. Soon, China will be increasing its presence, too.

[Massacure]

4. Like Old Times: Cuba and Venezuela warn U.S. over Right Wing Chickenhawks.