I'm going to quote some of it. But first I just want to point out that the article is dated 2008 and speaks of Blackwater's INTENTION to exploit the (ahem) death squad 'market' in Latin America. I remember picking up somewhere, 3 or 4 years ago, that Blackwater had already been operating in Colombia, and this "informal" assassination program dates back to 2002.
--
EFE: 05/05/2008-18:21:00
Blackwater said looking at LatAm for growth opportunities
By Fernando Puchol.
Madrid, May 5 (EFE).- Blackwater, the U.S. firm that has made a fortune providing paramilitary services in Iraq, has its sights fixed on Latin America as a future market....(Paraphrase: Scahill was presenting his book on Blackwater and discussed Blackwater's transformation into one of the most influential actors in the U.S. military-industrial complex. He said that it was now diversifying and looking toward Latin America.)
'Blackwater could end up in Latin America," said Scahill, who emphasized that the Pentagon had urged (Blackwater)... to apply to join a plan to fight drugs, mainly in Mexico and Colombia, that has a $15 billion budget.'
It is through these private firms that Washington wants to guarantee its presence in the region without 'leaving a military footprint,' the journalist said, adding that the billions of dollars that the United States has invested over the past 15 years in the anti-drug fight in the region has been for 'the counterinsurgency struggle.'
Scahill cites the example of Colombia, which receives from Washington roughly $500 million per year to fight drug trafficking, of which, in turn, Bogota allocates a good part to pay for the services of firms with the same characteristics as Blackwater, like DynCorp.
'The future is in the training and preparation of Latin American troops, with the objective of having small paramilitary teams working for these companies in Latin America. We will see an increase in the presence of these firms that decide to set up in the region,' Scahill predicted.
The logic is that of business and the free market, the same thing that motivated Blackwater and other firms that hire out mercenaries to establish themselves in the cheap labor markets of countries like Chile, Honduras, El Salvador, Peru and Bolivia.(SNIP)
Most of the personnel working for such firms are former soldiers who got their training during the "dirty wars" that several Latin American military dictatorships waged against their own peoples in the 1970s and '80s....
Scahill says in the book that 'one of the largest contingents of non-U.S. soldiers imported to Iraq by Blackwater was made up of former Chilean commandos, some of whom had been trained or had served during the brutal military dictatorship of Gen Augusto Pinochet." EFE http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=405x4182---------------------------
Lots of interesting items in this article (and, obviously, in Scahill's book--which I haven't yet read).
We mustn't forget DynCorp--which likely participated in the bombing/raid on Ecuador in 2008, where 500 lb U.S. "smart bombs" were dropped on the FARC's hostage and peace negotiator, Raul Reyes (likely intended to end all those hostage releases and Reyes' effort to negotiate a peaceful end to Colombia's 70+ year civil war). 25 sleeping people were blown to bits. I hadn't thought of DynCorp as being like Blackwater--but, when you think about it, of course they are. Their relationship with the Pentagon is perhaps more formal and involves administrative work as well as providing plane, pilot and bombs for dirty ops (and who knows what else? the "miracle laptops"?). DynCorp was running the U.S. base in Ecuador. The new leftist president kicked the U.S. military out of Ecuador, and thus DynCorp ended up in Colombia, where the Pentagon now has use of at least 7 military bases. In any case, that's what they are--mercenaries--just like Blackwater.
Note that Scahill is speaking, in 2008, of
future Blackwater intentions in Latin America. I think they were in operation in Colombia a lot earlier than that.
Clearly, the corrupt, failed, murderous U.S. "war on drugs" is a war profiteers' boondoggle--their fallback for weathering the ups and downs of the Forever War in the Middle East. And we are beginning to see that the two are related, not only as gravy trains, but also as to training assassination teams and so on. And "Free trade for the rich," in a region that has seen a huge leftist democracy movement, can't proceed without continued assassinations of trade unionists and other advocates of the poor--as we have seen in Colombia and Honduras.
"War on drugs" = "counter-insurgency." I remember when the Bush Junta linked the "war on drugs" billions for Latin America, to the "war on terror." Thus, U.S. taxpayers end up paying for Colombians to kill Colombians, in their 70 year civil war, and the drugs just keep on flowing.
Mexico! All that carnage! Is Blackwater there? Are they doing to Mexico what they did to Iraq--pitting tribe against tribe, causing general mayhem?
Colombia, Mexico, Chile, Honduras, El Salvador, Peru! Wow! I had no idea of the number of Latin American countries that Blackwater has been operating in, or intends to operate in. Blackwater and similar firms. Hm. I'm wondering about those Irish and Eastern European thugs who intended to assassinate Morales in Bolivia. I'm wondering about Chiquita in Colombia as well, and the death squads they hired to murder the trade unionists on Chiquita farms. (The scandal that AG Eric Holder was involved in, as Chiquita's lawyer.)
The viciousness of this plan is striking--Blackwater and other such assassins and thugs hiring out to private multinational corporations all over Latin America, in anticipation of more U.S. "free trade for the rich."
Well, we'd better get to work on getting rid of those 'TRADE SECRET' voting machines. With this Puke Congress, I fear that U.S. depravity is going to get worse before it gets better.
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