The Militarization
of Latin America: Obama Already 'Ahead of Bush'
"Inspired
by the example of Puerto Rico, which got rid of the Yankee Marines in Vieques,
Latin America mustn't rest as long as there is a singe U.S. military base left on
its territory."
Rear Admiral Joseph D. Kernan, recently commander, Naval
Special Warfare Command, is the new commander of the reborn
Fourth Fleet. He will be responsible, according to the U.S. Navy, for
ships, aircraft and submarines operating in the Caribbean, and Central
and South America.
Over the past decade, in the United
States as well as locally, the Right has suffered major political defeats in
Latin America, which explains why the Washington elite have decided in favor of
a policy of force in the region. They're falling back on the only resource over
which the United States retains overwhelming superiority, even if that means
having to sacrifice the cosmetic image-laundering Barack Obama tested out at
the Fifth
Summit of the Americas in Port of Spain. That is what's behind the resurrection
of the U.S. Fourth Fleet,
the decision to install military bases in Colombia, as well as the strange coup
d’état in Honduras.
Posted
by WORLDMEETS.US
When speaking of bases, we refer
to the network of more or less permanent facilities that spread out from
continental U.S. territory, through Puerto Rico, Central America, the
Netherlands Antilles, Colombia - and even into Paraguay - executing electronic missions,
satellite espionage, as well as the monitoring and refueling of military aircraft
either for combat or the transport of rapid-reaction expeditionary forces. In sum,
a network of more-or-less formal installations for the purpose of maintaining territorial
control over Latin America and its natural resources and supporting the subversive
activities of the CIA. Its primary objective: to destroy the Bolivarian
Revolution and seize the enormous energy reserves of Venezuela.
A U.S. aircraft carrier, supporting vessels and supersonic air
support: One of the most intimidating naval displays on earth.
But is a Fleet - the Fourth Fleet - needed for Latin
America?'
Such a use of force isn't new:
the United States has systematically done so before, with its plans to
destabilize the revolutionary process in Venezuela, Bolivia and Ecuador, as it has
for half a century against Cuba - which includes its cruel blockade. The
novelty this time is the return to an emphasis on military action that hasn't
been seen in Latin America since the invasions of Granada and Panama in the
1980s - which already places the Obama presidency ahead of Bush in terms of militarizing
the region.
The long series of political
victories - electoral and non-electoral - of popular and progressive movements
and governments in the region, the region's progress and social transformation
and, above all, continental unity and integration symbolized by the emergence
of Bolivarian Alliance for the
Americas, the Union of South
American Nations, Petrocaribe,
the Bank of the South
and Telesur, as well
as the proven capacity of the region’s governments to deal with or act against imperial
dictates, like the Yankee-Uribista [U.S.-Colombia] aggression against Ecuador
or the attempted separatist coup d’état against Evo Morales, constitute a
serious and unprecedented setback for U.S. hegemony in the region. This seems
to have dragged the dominant groups in the U.S. to conclude that they've lost
the political battle for the Latin American masses and are left with no
solution but to back with force the (few) allied states they have left, or as a
last resort, use its own forces.
What this attitude demonstrates
is not the strength of the Empire and the regional Right, but rather its
weakness. Lacking an argument, its incapacity to win the ideological and
political battle in Latin America has been plain to see, from the Caracazo riots [Caracas in 1989]
to the indigenous uprising in Chiapas. To this could
be added the collapse of the policy of world domination launched September 11,
2001 with the military debacles in Iraq and Afghanistan; the Israeli defeat at
the hands of Hezbullah in Lebanon; the terrible Russian counterattack in the
Caucasus [Chechnya] to the Georgian attack orchestrated by the U.S. and Israel.
As a climax can be thrown in the capitalist financial crisis and its terrible
socio-economic impact. All of these factors have demoralized the Right and
deepened its ideological and political defeat - but this is very far from
having brought about its surrender or paralysis, as seen by the facts cited at
the beginning of this article.
It is therefore essential for
the independence of Latin America that we win the battle in the streets and
turn the region into a zone of peace. Instead of a few bases of war we should
create thousands of “bases for peace” throughout our America. It's very
symbolic that the first meeting for peace be a resounding popular response to
the Day
Against Chávez observed by the Right in Colombia and Miami on September
4th, with CNN as an amplifier. Inspired by the example of Puerto Rico,
which got rid of the Yankee Marines in Vieques, Latin
America mustn't rest as long as there is a singe U.S. military base on its
territory.
