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Wednesday, July 16, 2008

Aftermath of the Colombian "Rescue" -- Todd Chretien

After explaining the results of the rescue, Chretien goes on to suggest the ever-nefarious role the U.S. will try to play in South America in the future. Portion below; whole thing here: http://socialistworker.org/2008/07/16/aftermath-of-the-rescue

AMID ALL this, one thing that is clear is that the U.S. government, after a period of relative retreat, is preparing to reassert its economic and military might against the region's left-leaning governments.

The U.S. Navy's Fourth Fleet has been conducting exercises off Venezuela's coast this summer, and Congress and President Bush just approved $500 million for Plan Merida, aimed at beefing up the Mexican military under the guise, like Plan Colombia, of fighting the "war on drugs."

Since Plan Colombia was initiated by Bill Clinton, the Colombian military has gotten hundreds of millions of dollars of aid every year. This avalanche of arms has made the Colombian military one of the most powerful in the region--far more so than the Venezuelan military, for instance--and turned the tide in the civil war.

While the turn to the left in Latin America over the past number of years cannot be reversed by mere threats from the North alone, the danger is real for the coming years--and as Uruguayan journalist Raul Zibechi pointed out, the possible victory of Barack Obama in the U.S. presidential election doesn't change that.

"It might temper the most authoritarian aspects of Uribe-ism, which explains the unease of the government in Bogotá and their hoped-for alliance with the Republican candidate [John McCain]," Zibechi wrote. "What is certain is that the plans of the Southern Command [of the U.S. military] do not depend on the tenant in the White House. They plan to promote integrated action in the region that converts it into a stable zone and an impregnable bulwark to maintain American hegemony on a global scale.

"In sum, the imperial elites plan to use the force of arms to reverse their decline, and this means re-colonization for Latin America. In a period such as this one, only mass mobilization of the people and political means can contribute to weakening the offensive coming from the North."

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