Militarizing Latin America
Noam CHOMSKY
The 'drug war', like the 'war on crime' and 'the war on terror', is
pursued for reasons other than the announced goals.
The United States was founded as an 'infant empire', in the words of
George Washington. The conquest of the national territory was a grand
imperial venture. From the earliest days, control over the hemisphere
was a critical goal.
A protest rally |
Latin America has retained its primacy in US global planning. If the
United States cannot control Latin America, it cannot expect 'to achieve
a successful order elsewhere in the world', observed President Richard
M. Nixon's National Security Council in 1971, when Washington was
considering the overthrow of Salvador Allende's government in Chile.
Recently the hemisphere problem has intensified. South America has
moved toward integration, a prerequisite for independence; has broadened
international ties; and has addressed internal disorders, foremost, the
traditional rule of a rich Europeanized minority over a sea of misery
and suffering.
The problem came to a head a year ago in Bolivia, South America's
poorest country, where, in 2005, the indigenous majority elected a
president from its own ranks, Evo Morales.
In August 2008, after Morales' victory in a recall referendum, the
opposition of US, backed elites turned violent, leading to the massacre
of as many as 30 Government supporters.
In response, the newly-formed Union of South American Republics (UNASUR)
called a summit meeting. Participants, all the countries of South
America, declared 'their full and firm support for the constitutional
Government of President Evo Morales, whose mandate was ratified by a big
majority'.
"For the first time in South America's history, the countries of our
region are deciding how to resolve our problems, without the presence of
the United States", Morales observed.
Another manifestation, Ecuador's President Rafael Correa has vowed to
terminate Washington's use of the Manta military base, the last such
base open to the United States in South America.
In July, the US and Colombia concluded a secret deal to permit the
United States to use seven military bases in Colombia.
The official purpose is to counter narcotics trafficking and
terrorism, 'but senior Colombian military and civilian officials
familiar with negotiations', told the Associated Press "that the idea is
to make Colombia a regional hub for Pentagon operations".
The agreement provides Colombia with privileged access to US.
military supplies, according to reports. Colombia had already become the
leading recipient of US military aid (apart from Israel-Egypt, a
separate category).
Colombia has had by far the worst human rights record in the
hemisphere since the Central American wars of the 1980s. The correlation
between US aid and human rights violations has long been noted by
scholarship.
The AP also cited an April 2009 document of the US Air Mobility
Command, which proposes that the Palanquero base in Colombia could
become a 'cooperative security location'.
From Palanquero, "nearly half the continent can be covered by a C-17
(military transport) without refueling," the document states. This could
form part of 'a global en route strategy', which 'helps achieve the
regional engagement strategy and assists with the mobility routing to
Africa'.
On Aug. 28, UNASUR met in Bariloche, Argentina, to consider the US
military bases in Colombia.
After intense debate, the final declaration stressed that South
America must be kept as "a land of peace," and that foreign military
forces must not threaten the sovereignty or integrity of any nation of
the region. And it instructed the South American Defense Council to
investigate the Air Mobility Command document.
The bases' official purpose did not escape criticism. Morales said he
witnessed US soldiers accompanying Bolivian troops who fired at members
of his coca growers union.
"So now we're narco-terrorists", he continued. "When they couldn't
call us communists anymore, they called us subversives, and then
traffickers, and since the September 11 attacks, terrorists". He warned
that 'the history of Latin America repeats itself'.
The ultimate responsibility for Latin America's violence lies with US
consumers of illegal drugs, Morales said, "If UNASUR sent troops to the
United States to control consumption, would they accept it? Impossible".
That the US justification for its drug programs abroad is even
regarded as worthy of discussion is yet another illustration of the
depth of the imperial mentality.
Last February, the Latin American Commission on Drugs and Democracy
issued its analysis of the US 'war on drugs' in past decades.
The commission, led by former Latin American presidents Fernando
Cardoso (Brazil), Ernesto Zedillo (Mexico), and Cesar Gaviria
(Colombia), concluded that the drug war had been a complete failure and
urged a drastic change of policy, away from forceful measures at home
and abroad and toward much less costly and more effective measures,
prevention and treatment.
Heading for war |
The commission report, like earlier studies and the historical
record, had no detectable impact. The non-response reinforces the
natural conclusion that the 'drug war', like the 'war on crime' and 'the
war on terror', is pursued for reasons other than the announced goals,
which are revealed by the consequences.
During the past decade, the United States has increased military aid
and training of Latin American officers in light infantry tactics to
combat 'radical populism', a concept that, in the Latin American
context, sends shivers up the spine.
Military training is being shifted from the State Department to the
Pentagon, eliminating human rights and democracy provisions formerly
under congressional supervision, always weak but at least a deterrent to
some of the worst abuses.
The US Fourth Fleet, disbanded in 1950, was reactivated in 2008,
shortly after Colombia's invasion of Ecuador, with responsibility for
the Caribbean, Central and South America, and the surrounding waters.
Its "various operations include counter-illicit trafficking, Theater
Security Cooperation, military-to-military interaction and bilateral and
multinational training", the official announcement says.
Militarization of South America aligns with much broader designs. In
Iraq, information is virtually nil about the fate of the huge US
military bases there, so they presumably remain for force projection.
The cost of the immense city-with-in-a-city embassy in Baghdad is to
rise to $1.8 billion a year, from an estimated $1.5 billion.
The Obama administration is also building mega-embassies in Pakistan
and Afghanistan.
The United States and United Kingdom are demanding that the US
military base in Diego Garcia be exempted from the planned African
nuclear-weapons-free-zone, as US bases are off-limits in similar zoning
efforts in the Pacific.
In short, moves toward 'a world of peace' do not fall within the
'change you can believe in', to borrow Obama's campaign slogan.
Courtesy: The Progressive |