What the Heck are U.S. Marines Doing in Costa Rica? Obama's Tilt to the Right on Latin America

[Judi Lynn]

What the Heck are U.S. Marines Doing in Costa Rica? Obama's Tilt to the Right on Latin America
Submitted by BuzzFlash on Fri, 08/06/2010 -

NIKOLAS KOZLOFF FOR BUZZFLASH

The USS Makin Island, an amphibious assault aircraft carrier, is an intimading ship. Built by Northrup Grumman, Makin Island is 45,000 tons of cold steel and has living quarters for almost 3,200 sailors and Marines. Weighing in at a whopping 42,800 tons, the ship is 844 feet long and 106 feet wide. The vessel’s 70,000 horsepower hybrid propulsion system enables Makin Island to reach speeds in excess of 20 knots.

A multi-purpose ship, Makin Island is designed to transport and land Marines via helicopter, landing craft or amphibious assault vehicle. In an impressive show of force, the Navy recently deployed Makin Island to South American waters. There, the ship made visits to several ports of call including the Brazilian city of Rio de Janeiro, the Chilean town of Valparaiso, and the Peruvian capita
l of Lima. More significantly, perhaps, the aircraft carrier could soon be deployed to the Central American country of Costa Rica.

If you just did a double take that is understandable. For years, this small nation has prided itself on its adherence to pacifistic principles. In a region plagued by violence, Costa Rica historically managed to stay above the fray and the nation has not had an army since 1949. The country, with a small population of just 4 million, is seen as safer than its Central American neighbors and an attractive destination for tourists and U.S. retirees.

Costa Rica’s Controversial Drug War

So why is the Costa Rican government now inviting the U.S. Navy to patrol its local waters? Offically, the Americans will be deployed to help stem the flow of drugs northward. The ships would arrive for at least six months to assist counter-narcotics operations by Costa Rican officials. The government argues that the help is well needed. For some time, smugglers have used Costa Rica as a transshipment point for drugs coming from Colombia and Panama. Without any armed forces and with long coastlines and poorly guarded borders, Costa Rica is vulnerable to the machinations of technologically advanced drug cartels.

More:
http://blog.buzzflash.com/contributors/3570

[naaman fletcher]

1. it's the canal....

they are afraid for the Canal given Martinelli's problems and his dictator-thug mentality (not actually a dictator, but would like to be and is ignoring the courts).

[rabs]

2. So according to you,

the Pentagon is mistaken and thinks the Panama Canal is in Costa Rica.

Oh, care to enlighten us on Martinelli's "problems" and how he got elected with his "dictator-thug mentality," taking into account that he is a conservative supermarket tycoon, and just exactly which courts is he "ignoring."

[naaman fletcher]

3. yeah..

they are positioning them nearby in case they need to protect the canal.

Martinelli was elected as a reformer after years of the sort of slow and steady corruption that plagues any party that is in power too long. So he gets in and starts cleaning things up a little, but runs into the entrenched bureaucrats loyal to the opposition. He starts breaking the law and ignoring judges under the theory that the judges were corrupt. He was right about that, but the image became that he is accountable to no one and the middle class that backed him has largely turned on him. things have been bad since he was elected.

[rabs]

6. Who is threatening the Panama Canal? n/t

[naaman fletcher]

8. union strikes.

you want to get attention in Panama? Close the canal. The unions are the ultimate source of political pressure in Panama, and a few weeks ago the unions were very active. people on the ground were quite nervous. It has simmered down the last few weeks, however.

[naaman fletcher]

9. It's worth noting..

Go back and read the treaty where we "gave back" the canal. We didn't really. It says basically that we have the right to go back in any time we feel like it. I forget the exact wording but it included, I believe "internal security" and other vague terms like that.

I know you and I disagree vehemently on Venezuela and Colombia (not always as much as you think sometime you guys annoy me so I post more provocatively than I really feel). But trust me, I know Panama, and lots of people in Panama.

Panama was very close to full scale revolt two month ago. Read up on stuff like the Shah, usually its just one spark that leads to the final "we've had enough" by the populace, but otherwise on a day to day things can appear quite normal leading up to full revolts.

Panama was much closer to the brink two months ago than anyone realizes. That is when suddenly 7,000 marines are going to Costa Rica.

Remember, with out commitments in Iraq and Afghanistan we can't just do a quick airlift to Panama like we did in 1989. That is why I am 100% convinced that this is a pre-positioning of troops in the region to protect the canal.

[Downwinder]

10. By the same token almost all of Central America is at the flash point.

Predictable after the Honduras fiasco. Life is hard enough, nobody wants it harder.

[naaman fletcher]

11. Honduras, yes..

In Panama though I am talking about a very specific issue. The unions were always against martinelli, but martinelli had the middle class. Martinelli has lost the middle class, so the unions are free to act, and they have been. its been reduced the last few weeks, but this is the pattern of most revolts, a sort of up, down, up down, then one day the UP goes all the way.

I cacnelled a trip to panama last month because my partners there were scared, and we decided not to make an investment we were going to make.

[Downwinder]

12. By middle class, you mean small shopkeepers, teachers, nurses, etc?

Check where they went in Honduras.

[naaman fletcher]

13. I mean people with regular jobs in town and cities

Yes, teachers, cell phone salsemen, restaurant mangers, etc. They went for martinelli, but he quickly lost them.

[Downwinder]

14. "regular jobs in town and cities," isn't that labor?

[naaman fletcher]

15. There is sort of a distinction in panama..

As the construction and trade unions are very powerful and tied in with the PRD party. So after a slow grinding of one-party rule and its petty corruption, and also some crime issues (its almost impossible to punish children in any meaningful way, so gangs have 15 year olds commit murders and almost nothing happens to the kids) there was a feeling and desire for "change". The unions stayed with the PRD, non-unions did not.

A perfect example was my spanish tutor. She was the kid of "labor" and had always been a PRD person. Now as a young mother she voted for Martinelli, wanting less corruption and concerned about crime. Then Martinelli goes all dictator-ish. And yes, part of the reason he did was to break up some corruption, but Panamanians are smart and know the ends don't justify the means. She now wants Martinelli out. I know many panamanians who basically had similar beleifs.

With the middle class no longer supporting martinelli, the unions are putting on the pressure.. martinelli responds with more bad governance, and the cycle begins.

Meanwhile the mayor of panama city is horrible, and daily quality of life there is going down hill.

[Downwinder]

16. Had a friend who was a GM plant manager.

He said that without the Unions he would have no benefits, no eight hour day, no five day week, an no vacation.

[naaman fletcher]

17. I didn't mean my comments to be pro or anti-union, was just trying to describe

conditions on the ground.

[Downwinder]

18. I understand. Do you believe we are in recovery?

Does the "middle class" see any recovery?

[naaman fletcher]

19. I'm not sure..

I work out of my home and overseas, so my life in the US is somewhat insular. BUT, my unemployed friends are more and more getting 3-4 day jobs digging a trench, or helping with an HVAC install, or whatever whereas 6 months ago they were bumming around my house eating my BBQ (I have a general policy of not buying things for people, but anyone who is hungry can always eat for free at my house).

The local BMW dealership had hundreds of cars on the lot 6 months ago. I went to look at cars again last month and they had maybe 50 cars... "recovery" has caught the car dealers by surprise and inventories on lots are low, and they are waiting for new shipments. which sucked.. I was hoping to pick up a used bmw on the cheap as the dealer got desperate, but that didn' happen.

Mind you, people who buy BMW's are not fully reprsentative.

My point is, if you forced me to answer, I would say we are off the bottom, but I readily admit that my points of reference are not that many, and maybe not that good.

[Downwinder]

20. I disagree. But it matters not, it is all perception.

Until the hourly worker sees it, it does not exist. And until he sees it he is going to pinch every penny or Paso. So the shop owner is not going to see it.

I don't think there are sufficient funds available to the US Gov. to pull the world or hemisphere out of the depression on the horizon.

Back to Honduras (as a sample of other societies, judging from their actions I don't expect the oligarchy to chip in and help.

What is the Pentagon's forecast?

What do species do when the temperature rises?

Have to go eat, think on it.

[bherrera]

4. it seems like a cruise for the soldiers

It is silly to say this ship is "patrolling" the area. It seems to be more of a friendly trip, what the Americans call "boondoogling" to help them recruit soldiers. They just had a US ship come to Alicante, and the sailors went to the beach and to the town, and visited bars, and so on. This is what makes those young men happy, they visit places and get to know other countries. I don't see any dark reason for this tour. I do believe the USA spends too much money buying these weapons, but then, they think they are an empire. Which of course all this does is hurt their economy. But this is another subject.

[Downwinder]

5. I used to do things like that.

Take a cargo aircraft with an eleven man crew to Oslo because the Ambassador ran out of alcohol. If you ever have the opportunity, I do recommend a trip to Norway. But, stay longer than two days, that is not enough time

[bherrera]

26. Tell our friend "Judy"

Maybe she believes young sailors go to the city to visit museums and pray in the church.

[Downwinder]

28. Actually have done those, too.

In Madrid, watched the drag races, all of the taxis lined up at the stop lights with their white gloves.

Just being a paid tourist.

[rabs]

7. Ticos are joking the 7,000 Marines

will simply be 7,000 "tourists" dressed in camouflage. The warships will be their "cruise liners."

Welcome to the D.U. Latin American forum. It's good to get perspectives from Spain. :hi:

[Judi Lynn]

21. Good one! That's it, they are simply tourists with steel-toed boots. n/t

[bherrera]

23. This is the most likely answer, just tourism

I doubt they have steel toed boots. As I mentioned, we had a bunch of these American sailors in Alicante a few days ago. They went to the beach wearing sandals and towels. Some of them brought an American football game, and they gave a ball to one of the guys here before they left, so now there are young guys throwing the football they left behind on the beach.

You see, sometimes i see people become paranoid over little cause. As I mentioned, I do not like this idea Americans have, that they are an empire and should have more weapons than the combination of all the world's nations. But in this case, a cruise by these ships is only a way to give those young men a little glamour. it also leaves good will if they behave, because they spend money in the local pubs, buy food. I don't know how it is in Costa Rica, but here, the beaches are topless. And in USA, there are few topless beaches. So this means these American boys are crazy when they go and see the tourist girls walking on the sand with nothing on top. To them this is a bonus.

[Judi Lynn]

24. Fabulous. Thanks for the information. My husband was a sailor for 3 years 1/2 years.

Very familiar with sailors.

Lived overseas with him, never noticed any of the sailors going berserk over any of the locals there. Most people still manage to keep their wits about them.

Don't need your condescension. Save it.

[bherrera]

25. Naive, naive girl

You believe young, male, US sailors who have been on a ship for weeks are not going to become very excited when they see young women topless at the beach? This is incredibly funny.

[EFerrari]

29. That's ridiculous.

Our government is remilitarizing Latin America, not bookng cruises.

[bherrera]

33. I believe the Venezuelans are remilitarizing Latin America too

When I look at the information available, I see the Venezuelans are buying many offensive weapons. These seem to be purchased in a very odd fashion, because they do not integrate very well as portions of a national defense system. They seem to be capricious purchases, some of them intended to threaten small neighbors like Aruba.

The USA, like I said, is an imperial power, an idea they have which brings them more pain than profit. But the US public is not aware of this problem.

But if we look at this one item, the cruise of the ship with sailors around Latin America, it appears to be tourism for the sailors, and not "militarizing" the area. "Militarizing" the area is done a different way. For example, the US can give credits to Colombia to install Patriot missile batteries to protect their skies, this renders all the Russian planes the Venezuelans buy completely obsolete. And they can add on top a grant to allow the Colombians to obtain cruise missiles, which the Colombians could use to devastate the Venezuelan airfields and other strategic locations. The Venezuelans can not defend against a cruise missile fleet, which renders most of their purchases of weapons completely ineffective against the USA or any country the USA chooses to help.

This is true militarization, and I don't see the USA doing this. They seem more interested in letting Venezuela fry in its own grease, which they seem to be doing very well by ruining their own economy.

[Name removed]

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[Name removed]

35. Deleted message

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[dipsydoodle]

22. She probably talked him into it

.

[Peace Patriot]

27. Rightwing posters say it's noting. Leftwing posters are worried, because they

distrust corpo-fascist news sources, distrust the Pentagon and the State Department, consult alternative news sources, consider related facts and think for themselves. Who would you believe?

naaman fletcher has an interesting theory--that Panamanian labor unions might be intending to shut down the canal, thus this big U.S. military push in Costa Rica may be preparation to move to keep the canal open (that's one use for the U.S. military, I guess--busting unions), but considering a host of other facts, I think this may be distraction.

The other facts:

Secretly negotiated U.S./Colombia military agreement, granting U.S. military use of at least seven military bases in Colombia, U.S. military use of all civilian infrastructure in Colombia, and total diplomatic immunity for all U.S. soldiers and U.S. military 'contractors,' no matter what they do in Colombia. Some of these bases are on the Colombia/Venezuela border.

$7 BILLION in U.S. military aid to Colombia (and counting).

USAF bases on the Dutch islands right off Venezuela's oil coast. (Venezuela says they've done illegal overflights of Venezuelan territory.)

The U.S. reconstitution of the 4th Fleet in the Caribbean (mothballed since WW II), which Lula da Silva said poses a threat to Brazil's oil--in addition to it being a plain threat to Venezuela's.

Recent USGS report establishing that Venezuela has the largest oil reserves on earth (twice Saudi Arabia's). Currently, the profits from the oil are being "wasted" on the poor instead of stuffing the pockets of Exxon Mobil executives. Exxon Mobil refused to agree to a fair contract with Venezuela, and withdrew from negotiations in a great huff. They want revenge.

Iran a hard nut to crack. Venezuela closer to home. US war machine and "free trade for the rich"/globalization machine very thirsty for oil.

Rightwing coup in Honduras, aided by the Pentagon, whose commanders at the U.S. air base in Honduras sat on their hands while the plane taking the kidnapped president out of the country at gunpoint, stopped for refueling at their airbase; followed by democracy cosmetics compliments of Hillary Clinton and John McCain, paid for by you and me (and occurring amidst massive repression and the murder of at least a hundred anti-coup activists, including union leaders, teachers and others). One of the reasons for the coup was President Zelaya's proposal to convert the U.S. air base to a commercial airport (badly needed in Honduras). The coup secured U.S. war assets in Honduras. Another was Zelaya's alliance with Chavez and the ALBA countries (small countries barter trade group; offense to U.S. "free trade for the rich"). And the capper was Zelaya raising the minimum wage and other helps to some of the poorest people in Latin America (offense to the rich elite and to U.S. sweatshop corps in Honduras).

One of the coup generals said that the purpose of their coup was "to prevent communism from Venezuela reaching the United States" (--quoted in a report on the coup by the Zelaya government-in-exile).

Relentless psyops/disinformation campaign against the Chavez government, never more intense than now, with Washington's outgoing tool in Colombia, Alvaro Uribe, recently accusing the Chavez government of 'harboring' FARC guerrillas. When Uribe apologized for a bombing/raid inside Ecuador's territory, in March 2008, to destroy a FARC guerilla camp, and promised that Colombia would never do such a thing again--Washington's incoming tool, Manuel Santos, said that HE would not hesitate to do it again. Santos was Defense Minister during that incident, and throughout most of the carnage against trade unionists, human rights workers, political leftists, peasant farmers and others by the Colombian military and its closely tied rightwing paramilitary death squads. Uribe was "erratic" (according to The Economist--a corpo-fascist rag). Santos is not "erratic." He will carry out Washington's plans without apology.

The USAF document that Eva Golinger uncovered, describing Pentagon plans for "full spectrum" military operations in Latin America, to deal with drugs, terrorists and "anti-U.S. countries."

The history of the United States in Latin America, which has almost never varied from gross interference.

The "war on drugs"--which has been used as the cover for U.S. militarization of the region.

The Iraq War.

The Vietnam War.



---------

All in all, I think that the U.S. has a "circle the wagons" strategy, in the Central America/Caribbean region, which includes toppling the leftist democracies in this region (which are softer targets than the leftist governments in South America)--Honduras, Nicaragua, El Salvador and Guatemala (one down, three to go), horrendous violence in Colombia and Mexico, deliberately instigated by Plan Colombia and Plan Merida, respectively (to utterly crush the left in Colombia, and prevent the vast poor majority and their advocates from winning the presidency in Mexico (which they almost did in 2005)--destabilization again being the tool)--and, finally, to net Venezuela's oil into this region of U.S. dominated "free trade for the rich" and stop Venezuela's organization of the small countries to resist it.

Thus bulked up, the U.S. can take on South America, where the movement for political/economic integration and collective strength is more advanced. Venezuela is caught right in the middle of this grand design, at the top edge of South America on the Caribbean--a sitting duck for all these gathered U.S. forces, and as the linchpin oil supplier for U.S. military and corporate needs. Venezuela's and Colombia's coasts form the southern arc of the circle. Colombia is completely "pacified." Venezuela remains stubbornly independent. Venezuela must be brought to heel, one way or another. Our multinational corporate rulers and war profiteers must regain control of their "back yard" if their world domination schemes are to be realized.

They've failed to subdue Venezuela by other means--coup attempt, oil bosses' lockout, U.S.-funded recall election, lavish funding/training of rightwing groups, "divide and conquer" trying to split Venezuela from its many strong allies, and God knows what-all. So, the "circle the wagons" strategy may include instigating a proxy war against Venezuela, using the Colombian military out front, and possibly escalating U.S. involvement, as in Vietnam. The U.S. has been cagily working up to this for some time--with a slow but major military buildup, under the radar of the American people. They've created bogeyman Chavez, the "dictator"--a completely undeserved slander--to make a lot of Americans not care, to put them to sleep. They may even have their "Gulf of Tonkin"-type incident, with which to get the war started, all ready to go. Uribe's accusation about Venezuela 'harboring' the FARC may have been part of the set up. The U.S. has at least 1,500 soldiers and 'contractors' in Colombia. Any one of them gets shot at, in an incident on the Colombia/Venezuela border, and the war may be on.

There are other possibilities for the trigger. The U.S./Colombia are building a new military base overlooking the Gulf of Venezuela (major Venezuelan oil facilities) only 20 miles from the Venezuelan border. That's probably a spy facility, but any of these assets--the 4th Fleet, the bases on the Dutch islands--could be used to trump something up. Such an incident could be designed to trap Obama into agreeing, or they could wait out the 2012 election. There are already many signs that our corporate rulers and war profiteers intend to re-install Bushites in power. If they do, that pretty much guarantees a military move against Venezuela.

So, all of this is what is on MY mind as to this extraordinary business in Costa Rica--a demilitarized country permitting U.S. military maneuvers, with, lo and behold, the "war on drugs" as the excuse (cover story?). The U.S. "war on drugs" has brought us and others much evil. Its worst result may be Oil War II.

[naaman fletcher]

30. slight misinterpretation..

I think our views are more in line than you think. I don't think the point is "union busting". I think the point is to keep the canal open while at the same time having an excuse to get back into Panama (FWIW the Chinese are gaining more and more control over the facilities around the canal).

The point is, the unions ultimate leverage in Panama is the canal. As things get worse, sooner or later the canal will be affected, and the US has its excuse to go back in:

Union Slams Firing of 10 Panama Canal Workers, Breakdown in Talks
http://www.laht.com/article.asp?ArticleId=360076&CategoryId=14088

Wave of anti-union repression in Panama
http://www.ituc-csi.org/wave-of-anti-union-repression-in.html

Martinelli appoints business associates as Panama Canal Authority directors
http://www.thepanamanews.com/pn/v_16/issue_04/economy_09.html

SUNTRACS Strike Shuts Down Panama Canal Expansion Work For Second Day
http://www.panama-guide.com/article.php/20100706142816161

[Peace Patriot]

31. You didn't address the context that I laid out. You may well be right that the U.S. government's

first response to competition (in this case, China) is to "send in the Marines," and that its first response to worker demands and to any threat to its monopolists is also to "send in the Marines." The biggest crock of swill that our multinationals sell is that they love "free markets," and the other biggest crock is that their wealth will "trickle down" to the peons who actually create the wealth. These anti-democratic, anti-"free market" monopolists are now addicted to using the U.S. military to achieve their ends. THAT is why the U.S. military is occupying Colombia; that is why the U.S. military in the guise of the "war on drugs" has been spread out like a plague all over the Caribbean and Central America region, wherever the U.S. can buy and bully client states (Colombia, Honduras, Mexico, Peru, Panama and now Costa Rica): to CONTROL resources, markets and labor in the interest of the uber-rich. And if slaughtering a hundred thousand innocent people is deemed necessary to control resources, markets and labor--as In Iraq--then that is what will occur, no matter that the great majority of Americans (nearly 60%) oppose it (Feb '03, all polls).

I'm afraid that the key to what the U.S. intends to do to Venezuela and the region lay in the highly managed psyops/disinformation campaign against Chavez, and, by implication (never stated) against the people of Venezuela and the other peoples of the region who hold fair elections and seek social justice, good government, independence and peace. I have been closely watching this campaign of lies and distortion in our corpo-fascist 'news' stream, and out of the State Department, nearly from the beginning. At first I was simply appalled and outraged at the contempt for the truth. This grew into alarm, as the Bush Junta reconstituted the 4th Fleet in the Caribbean, the full horror of U.S. "war on drugs" militarization unfolded in Colombia, and with other such developments, including the rehearsal of a cross-border incident "in pursuit of the FARC" in Ecuador, the sabotage of multinational peace efforts for Colombia's 40+ year civil war, the U.S. effort to oust Morales in Bolivia using the white separatist movement, and the recent U.S. supported rightwing coup in Honduras. A STORM IS GATHERING. That is my educated impression from studying these developments.

There may be MANY uses for bully power--for our war machine and for our war dollars infused into other countries. The slaughter of trade unionists in Colombia is one. THAT is one of the uses that our "war on drugs" billions have been put to--to prepare that blood-soaked ground for "free trade for the rich." And now that they have this war machine in place in Colombia and other places, with their 'School of the Americas'-trained fascists ready to do their bidding, what ELSE are they going to do with it? I think China and Russia have kept them out of Iran. Who is going to keep them out of Venezuela?

And, really, these, our real rulers--multinational corporations, especially the oil corporations, and the war profiteers--will just swipe Obama aside with a stolen election in 2012, if the plan is to proceed with an oil war in South America and he presents any obstacle to it. We have no control over this. The vote counting system here is now so non-transparent, so privatized and so riggable--and it, too, is now such a monopoly (--ES&S, a far rightwing corporation which just bought out Diebold, now controls 80% of the voting machines in the U.S., all run on 'TRADE SECRET' code, with virtually no audit-recount controls)--that we are helpless against this. Our true rulers will install whomever they wish in the White House and in Congress, to accomplish their purpose--and it has become alarmingly clear that toppling the Chavez government and destroying Venezuelan democracy, smashing the vast leftist democracy movement that has swept Latin America and getting this region back under U.S. control is a primary goal of our corporate rulers/war profiteers and thus is a primary goal of U.S. foreign and military policy in Latin America.

"We" support the worst governments in Latin America and revile the best. That has always been U.S. policy (except for Roosevelt). It is U.S. policy now. It is profoundly anti-democratic. And to this utterly hypocritical policy has been added the Bush "doctrine" of "pre-emptive" war. War as a first resort. War in violation of international and domestic law. War as "our" right for the theft of resources and the subjugation of other countries and regions to the will of monsters like Exxon Mobil. War as a WAY OF LIFE.

There are strong democratic forces in Latin America now to foil this purpose. The U.S. is doing everything it can to sabotage them, and to derail the new cooperative spirit among Latin American countries, which is aimed at economic/political integration, in a Latin American "common market." Rather than becoming a cooperator and JOINING WITH these countries in a FAIR market, the U.S., which is now fully controlled by corporate entities who DON'T BELIEVE in a fair market--who want ALL the resources, ALL the profits, and total domination of the region--has become a pariah. Latin American leaders are even talking about abandoning the OAS and forming a new organization without the U.S. as a member. And what is our country's typical response to legitimate aspirations for fairness, especially in Latin America? To "call out the Marines"! All the evidence points to that being what the U.S. is doing again. I think they will fail this time-whether they resort to a 'hot war' or not. But that is another discussion.

You don't mention this context. Maybe you disagree with my interpretation of the facts. But you can't deny the facts--the evidence everywhere of U.S. militarization of the region. I think it's blind to look at the militarization of Costa Rica as an event limited to conditions in Panama. Maybe I am still in too much of state of shock over the Iraq War to look at this array of facts and NOT see another oil war developing--an oil war with, as in the Middle East, attendant purposes. I welcome criticism of this assessment. I would like to see you address this larger context, from your particular knowledge of Panama (which also hosts U.S. war assets which I understand are being beefed up). It seems to me that the U.S. is pressuring both of these governments to be more U.S. military-compliant--and, from the perspective of my overall assessment of what is going on the region, this seems to be following a very distinct pattern of U.S. bullying and bribery, to get its war assets in place, despite growing resistance to it throughout Latin America.

When a democracy movement threatens U.S. war assets in Honduras, they topple the government. When the president of Ecuador evicts the U.S. military base, they call him a "terrorist." When Bolivia questions and rejects the U.S. "war on drugs," they say Bolivia is aiding drug traffickers. When they want to ram a U.S. military occupation of Colombia down everybody's throats, they keep the negotiations secret from the Colombian legislature, from the Colombian people and from the other leaders of Latin America, they use the extremely corrupt, outgoing pResident as the signatory and spring it on everybody as a fait accompli. This is the pattern. The goal--as Eva Golinger found out--is "full spectrum" U.S. military activities in the region. Are these developments in Costa Rica and Panama, around the canal, not following the same pattern? Localized goals, yes, but part of a wider effort to militarize the entire region and get it back under U.S. corporate control, with outright war a distinct possibility against the most obdurate resister (and the one with the most oil), Venezuela?

[naaman fletcher]

32. OK..

I'm not sure that I fully agree with your context, but my interpretation allows for it. That is:

There is trouble in Panama due to Martinelli being an asshole. That can lead to problems for the US (Weather it is true or not i think its safe to say that mainstream US foreign policy would agree that the canal has to stay open). Giving the US a pretext to land troops.

I would add, The US would like to gain more influence over the regions.

Please correct me if I am wrong, I am not trying to be a jerk, but you would then add on something along the lines of "The evil imperialists want to take over and rape the continent and kill everybody, etc. etc.".

I don't think my interpretation of these events in anyway contradicts that. You are just looking one step further than I am. I.E. I don't think we are actually in disagreement here.

[Peace Patriot]

36. Did they not just do that--the "evil imperialists"--to Iraq?

Invade, slaughter tens of thousands of innocent people and proceed with torture, chaos-making, destruction of the society and massive theft?

Our discourse often proceeds as if that didn't happen. Even the most alert of us don't often mention it. Are they planning to do it AGAIN--perhaps with a variation of strategy, more like early Vietnam War (proxy U.S. war)?

That's the horror that I see too much evidence for, to be quiet and cautious about it. So please don't mock it with childish phrases like "evil imperialists." And while they haven't yet killed "everybody" in, say, Colombia, but they have funded the slaughter of thousands, including many trade unionists, which brings me back to Panama. It may be that Martinelli did not just suddenly, apropos of nothing, turn into an asshole. It may be that he is under CIA tutelage to incite a strike, for the very reason that the U.S. wants an excuse to occupy Panama as part of its grander design for "full spectrum" military activities in Latin America, and also to smash the unions, as our tax dollars have been used to do in Colombia and Honduras. Labor unions strike for a purpose, and for a limited period of time. They don't want to END a business--or, in this case, canal traffic. They want a better deal. And I am sure that our corporate rulers and war profiteers don't want them to have that right, nor that power. They don't want fair deals. They want slave labor and total control of all resources, to continue with this very unfree market consisting of "robber baron"-style monopolies.

You mentioned China's growing influence in the region as some sort of background motive for a U.S. military occupation of Panama. But China would have no reason whatever to want the canal shut down. In fact, they might well join with the U.S. capitalists to destroy the labor unions in Panama. So China is not a factor--or not much of a factor--as to the U.S. military buildup in the region. The main factor is the success of democracy in Latin America--the free and fair election of leftist governments in so many countries, and these countries, at long last, starting to band together in regional economic and political structures.

What I see is a continuum of U.S. policy that is anti-labor, anti-small business, anti-democratic, and pro-monopoly, that is committed to UNFAIR trade and that has demonstrated the use of massive violence to gain its ends--and has been dramatically building up U.S. military forces in the Central America/Caribbean/northern South America region.

It has me very, VERY worried, and also angry, because Obama promised a policy of "peace, respect and cooperation" in Latin America, and is not--and possibly cannot--implement it. I am angry that Bushwhack policy is still being inflicted on this region, and I think this is a HUGE mistake. Times have changed. This typical U.S. policy is outmoded, unenlightened, brutal and likely to cause a permanent breach between north and south. It is immensely harmful--to Latin Americans and to we peons here in the U.S., who are paying the bill for an unjust, harmful and dangerous policy.

How many teachers' salaries and poor peoples' medical bills could we pay with the billions we are pouring into the militarization of Latin America, where we have no enemies? How many roads could we repair? How many states could we bail out of bankruptcy? How many jobs could we create to stimulate our economy? How many small businesses could we save or initiate? These militarists are MAKING AN ENEMY where there is none. And that is disgusting and appalling, as well as entirely lacking in common sense.