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$7 BILLION to the Colombian military and its death squads. BILLIONS to Exxon Mobil, et al, for way overpriced war oil. TRILLIONS, all told, to military contractors for the Forever War. BILLIONS to the banksters, who, but for Reagan-Clinton-Bush deregulation, would have been solvent. And how many billions have the USAID/CIA been pouring into rightwing groups to topple democratic governments, like those in Bolivia, Ecuador, Venezuela, Paraguay, Nicaragua, El Salvador--as they did in Honduras? We, the taxpayers, aren't privy to that total amount.
The U.S. is on the WRONG side in every struggle--funding, organizing and abetting the worst elements in Latin American society. Where is our support for free universal health care for the vast poor millions of Latin America? Where is our support for free education through college for the vast poor millions of Latin America? Where is our support for decent wages? Where is our support for honest, transparent elections? These are fundamental decencies and democratic processes that Latin Americans have had to fight for ON THEIR OWN, and are winning ON THEIR OWN, against the BILLIONS of U.S. tax dollars poured into Latin America to defeat them.
Wrong, wrong, WRONG. The U.S. has a bad name in Latin America for the very good reason that it is ALWAYS on the WRONG side in the struggle for DECENT government.
I'm also struck by the PITTANCE that the U.S. was donating to climate change programs in one of the poorest countries in Latin America, Bolivia. $3 million wouldn't be enough to even clean up the recent mass grave containing up to 2,000 bodies of 'disappeared' local community activists, nearby to a U.S. military base in La Macarena, Colombia--a mass grave whose rotting bodies have been poisoning children who drink the local water. La Macarena has been a region of particular interest and activity by the U.S., and apparently also the U.K., militaries. Why can't they even clean up the mass graves of rotting corpses, let alone condemn mass killing or admit to their complicity? $3 million wouldn't fund an investigation of the U.S. funded/organized white separatist rioters and murderers who gunned down some 30 unarmed peasant farmers in Bolivia in September 2008. No, South American countries have to fund that investigation on their own. $3 million couldn't rival the cocaine income of a single U.S. friendly fascist general or politician in Colombia or Honduras. $3 million would be SPARE CHANGE to Dyncorp and Blackwater. $3 million wouldn't come close to funding a CIA "dirty tricks" team in a single democratic country. We spend BILLIONS on these HORRIBLE purposes, and NEXT TO NOTHING on saving the planet.
They're mad at Evo because he ripped the veil off their hypocrisy at Copenhagen. And, typically, they turn to bullying, arm-twisting, coercion, political punishment and worse, because, apparently, that is all the U.S. government and political establishment knows how to do--that, and killing people. No matter who is president.
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