Brazil President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva
embraces Iran Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad: It seems there are a growing
number of significant
nations opposed to U.S. plans to clamp down on
Iran.
La Jornada, Mexico
Iran, Latin America and the Blunders of Empire
"The U.S.
push for another round of sanctions against Iran is part of a vast and risky
scheme of destabilization aimed at 'regime change' in Iran … this persistent
belligerence since the triumph of Iranian revolution in 1979 has enormous
potential to inflame the Middle East and the world beyond.
Foreign Minister Celso Amorín and Hillary Clinton in Brazil during her Latin American tour, just before Amorin delivered a sharp but pleasantly delivered rebuke to the U.S. on Iran sacntions, March 3.
Hours before their meeting with U.S. Secretary of State
Hillary Clinton during her recent tour of Latin America, President Lula and
Foreign Minister Celso Amorín of Brazil publicly expressed their conviction that
it would be imprudent to "push Iran to the wall. … The prudent method is
to establish negotiations." This expression of preventive (and cautious)
diplomacy is another indication of the change in the global and hemispheric balance
of power, which is occurring amid an economic, financial and large-scale strategic
crisis, the management of which demands calm and an adherence to established
international norms.
Lula and Itamaratí [the Ministry of Foreign Affairs] effectively softened the impact of an
intense U.S. diplo-military and econo-financial campaign by the United States
in Latin America and the rest of the world, pushing for another round of
sanctions against Iran. Part of a vast and risky scheme of destabilization
aimed at "regime change" in Iran, this persistent belligerence since
the triumph of Iranian revolution in 1979 has enormous potential to inflame the
Middle East and the world beyond.
Another ominous sign of imperial imprudence last week involved
the Financial Action Task Force (FATF),
an inter-governmental body created in 1989 to fight money laundering and the
funding of terrorist groups. FATF listed Ecuador
among the countries "at risk," due to its "strategic
deficiencies" and supposed "weaknesses in the fight against money
laundering and funding of terrorism."
Ecuador Foreign Minister Ricardo Patiño responded to this
arbitrary singling out by saying that his country had passed the test and done "everything
necessary … to fight drug trafficking, asset laundering, the laundering the cash
from illegal businesses and, of course, as part of this, the financing of
terrorism."
Patiño says that not only was it a, "grave error and an
insult to the dignity and sovereignty [of Ecuador]," but also, as
President Correa maintains, it was a decision connected to the relations his
country has with Iran, which date from 1973 and continues with, "all the
precautions needed in terms of financial issues." When the FATF was asked
to explain its inaction in the face of Ecuador's misdeeds, it arrogantly argued
that it was due to Ecuador’s "non-compliance" with its
recommendations!
Posted by WORLDMEETS.US
Secretary of State Clinton and Brazil President
Lula enjoy a light
Moment, before Lula and his foreign minister
rebuked the U.S.
The bankruptcy of U.S. diplomacy is obvious: an investigation
of its own Government Accountability office (GAO) has shown that between 2003
and 2008, 29 firms that have Pentagon contracts worth over a billion dollars increased
their use and creation of subsidiaries in tax havens by 26 percent (these tax havens include the Cayman Islands, Bahamas, Switzerland, Dutch Antilles, Bermuda,
Luxembourg etc.), in order to forego taxes, destabilize workers in the United
States and avoid paying for worker medical insurance.
"It is very striking," says one political
analysis, "that those great global shelters used to hide corporate wealth
from the IRS have also been identified by police and other investigators as key
money laundering locations for international drug trafficking." According
to report number GAO-10-327,
in 2008 those Pentagon contractors maintained almost 1,200 tax haven
subsidiaries, without the White House, IMF or FATF making even a peep, although
then-Senator Obama was well aware of the situation.
Given the proven close collaboration among CIA covert
operations, drug and arms trafficking, subversive activities of the so-called "intelligence
community" and the activities - and profits - of these contractors
(military-industrial and security services), it is clumsy to attack Quito
[Ecuador's capital] and other members of ALBA [Bolivarian Alliance for the
People of Our America] with baseless accusations. It is a major blunder, in the
face of legislative scrutiny and agencies like Interpol, to launch such an
offensive just as this GAO report, published in January, 2010, points to a
scandal similar to the Iran-Contra
operation against the Sandinistas, but to the tenth power.
