Costa Rica: US Warships Cause Unease

[Judi Lynn]

Costa Rica: US Warships Cause Unease
Friday 20 August 2010

by: Jeff Leff, Global Post

Costa Rica is wary of plans to allow US Naval ships to dock on its shores.
San Jose, Costa Rica - A U.S. warship capable of deploying more than 1,000 military personnel and dozens of helicopters is headed this way — right for Costa Rica's peaceful Caribbean coast.

USS Iwo Jima comes in peace, according to a U.S. embassy statement, as part the Southern Command's "Continuing Promise 2010" mission, a humanitarian operation that aims to bring free health care, engineering projects, veterinary attention, donations and even baseball games to locals.

A charm offensive like this — a friendly naval ship armed with aid for one of the country's poorest regions — might be just what the United States needs to calm the waters around its longtime friend Costa Rica.

In July, the legislative assembly here approved a U.S. request for permission to dock 46 warships and 7,000 military personnel, mostly for narcotics missions on Costa Rican territory, sparking outrage among skeptics of the global war on drugs. The critics include outspoken politicians, pacifists, student groups and everyday Ticos, who are proud of their country's six decades without a military.

Leftist lawmaker José María Villalta said these vessels are looking for a fight. Legislator Luis Fishman said congress was uninformed when it voted and claimed the arrival of the boats would be an assault on Costa Rica's sovereignty. They filed complaints with the country's high court, which has suspended the agreement while it mulls over the case.
The blogosphere began to boil over with posts titled, "U.S. invades Costa Rica," and conspiracy theorists seethed about alleged Washington plots against neighboring Nicaragua.

More:
http://www.truth-out.org/costa-rica-us-warships-cause-unease62526

[Peace Patriot]

1. "...conspiracy theorists seethed about alleged Washington plots against neighboring Nicaragua."??

This is an oddly propagandistic piece to appear at TruthOut. Its presumption that the U.S. "war on drugs" is honest is one of the howlers in it. It reads like Time or Newsweek or the Christian Science Monitor--full of unexamined presumptions and war profiteer "talking points." And to call people "conspiracy theorists" who smell a Washington plan to destabilize Nicaragua and destroy its democracy, like they just did to Honduras, is way over the top corpo-fascist disinformation. Conspiracy theory? It would be amazing if this U.S. military invasion of Costa Rica were NOT aimed at overthrowing the leftist government in Nicaragua, and further, ultimately trying to overthrow Venezuela's leftist government and defeat the entire leftist democracy movement in Latin America. This is OBVIOUSLY Washington's political /economic aim. Now they're bringing in major military muscle, not just in Costa Rica, but in Colombia ($7 billion in military aid to a country with one of the worst human rights records on earth; a U.S./Colombia military agreement for U.S. military occupation of at least seven bases in Colombia, U.S. military use of all civilian infrastructure and total diplomatic immunity for all U.S. soldiers and U.S. military 'contractors' no matter what they do in Colombia), on the Dutch islands right off Venezuela's Caribbean oil coast, in the Caribbean with the reconstitution of the U.S. 4th Fleet, in Honduras, in Panama, wherever they can get a boot in.

This is the CONTEXT for this U.S. military invasion of Costa Rica. This is not a "conspiracy theory." This is reality. Back when Clinton was imposing cruel economic sanctions on Iraq, and bombing its perimeter, and eliminating its air force, if someone had said that the U.S. was preparing to invade Iraq, no doubt flabby thinkers like Jeff Leff would have cried "conspiracy theory!" People who use that phrase never look at the facts.

[naaman fletcher]

2. you know..

I disagree on the specific intentions here, but there is no doubt that the US military is up to no good, as usual.