Ex Colombian President Samper warns against "pre-war" with Venezuela

[spanza]

Source: El Universal

Former Colombian President Ernesto Samper warned on Wednesday against a "pre-war situation" with Venezuela due to the mishandling of the military agreement executed by Colombia and the United States for the use of military bases and lack of communication between the Colombian and Venezuelan governments.

The ex president told Caracol Radio that the crisis is bigger and bigger and efforts should be made to open communication channels between Colombian President Álvaro Uribe and his Venezuelan counterpart Hugo Chávez, Efe reported.

"I would dare say that we are in a pre-war situation; the mishandled issue of the bases; Venezuela feels threatened by the bases; the government signs the bases, without a public discussion on the matter and all this begins to accrue," he reasoned.

Read more: http://english.eluniversal.com/2009/11/04/en_pol_esp_ex-colombian-preside_04A3000251.shtml

[RaleighNCDUer]

1. Can I hear a big 'Duh!'?

The PTB (which does not necessarily include our President) WANT to see border tensions escalate. Next thing you know there will be a FARC attack against a Colombian military installation which will result in US casualties - and provide 'proof' that FARC is being supported by Venezuela.

Any bets?

[sabrina 1]

3. Sounds familiar and since the American people

have been pretty much indoctrinated to view Venezuela as an enemy, helped along by people on progressive boards posting anti Venezuela media propaganda and picking up more propaganda from the rightwing noise machine such as Breitbart, will they fall for it again and cheer on yet another unnecessary war?

[spanza]

4. Thanks for your concern about us

Did you notice that this article is about Semper strongly criticizing Uribe?

[sabrina 1]

5. Yes, I did notice that.

My concern is more for us actually. Most Americans did not agree with the war in Iraq before the lies convinced them that Iraq was a threat to this country. Now we are involved in two meaningless wars. In the run up to those wars, the rhetoric was similar to what we are seeing re Venezuela, it rarely changes actually when the US has interests somewhere. The war mongers count on the gullibility of the population and fear.

I doubt the US will openly go to war in South America. For that region of the world, there have always been different tactics. Backing coup d'etats, as has already happened in Venezuela is one way. Sewing dissent, and using situations as is reported in the OP to escalate violence until they get the desired effect. An overthrow of the Chavez government is very desirable to those in this country who believe the US has the right to dictate what other countries do with their resources.

I have friends in Venezuela and do not consider the Chavez government to be any threat to this country, other than to the Multi National Corps who profit from countries ruled by US puppet governments. They get the oil contracts, the people of those countries lose control of their resources and I can't think of one, in S.A. or the ME where the population in general has benefited from the interference of the US.

It's clear the people of Iraq and the people of Venezuela want to control their own destinies and do not want US interference. That is their business and they should work out their own problems. Iow, we in this country need to leave other countries alone.

We have more than enough problems right here that need attention and a majority of Americans, other than those on the far right who are happy to drop bombs on anyone who they see as 'different', do not want any more wars or secret wars as has happened in the past in Central America and Afghanistan.

Are you Venezuelan btw? And if so, do you want the US to help overthrow your government? I have to say, much as I despised the Bush criminal administration, I would never have wanted another country to interfere.

[spanza]

13. Yes, Sabrina, I am Venezuelan

And the worst thing that could happen to us is a military conflict with Colombia in which your government would automatically intervene. Now, please note one thing: Venezuela is not divided between chavistas and supporters of US imperialism. I imagine that you understand how dangerous and despotic would be the use of that logic in any country.

[sabrina 1]

17. Thanks for your response. Spanza ~

We agree than on US interference in Venezuela. Regarding your statement about how Venezuela is divided politically, I have never been there, so am familiar only with I read about your country. However, I am aware that that countries are far more complex than the impressions often given in the media.

May I ask, what would you like to see happen for the future of your country? Also, do Venzuelans feel that relations have improved with the US since George Bush left office, or are they, as is the case with many here in the US, disappointed in Obama so far, in the sense that nothing appears to have changed?

[spanza]

18. For the future

of Venezuela... I'd like to see plurality and space for criticism within the system of power. Unconditional support for a man is very different from unconditional support for a cause. When critical thinkers are gradually excluded from government positions, it tends to lead to mediocre and unquestioned leadership. An electoral revolution, like the one that happened in Venezuela, needs a permanent process of self-questioning, readapting and avoiding to depend on one personality.

In Venezuela, social justice, equity, strong social policies and reduction of poverty must lead to the growth of an autonomous middle class that doesn't depend on unstable oil revenues as much as it does today. We must concentrate on the structural causes of poverty and exclusion, and the entire society has to participate in the process actively. In order to achieve that, the system of power needs to be as inclusive of progressive tendencies as it can. We need a social consensus.

Concerning Obama, I think that he's shown very little concern for Latin America until now... unfortunately. And even though I understand he's acting on many fronts at the same time, I think his administration has severely mishandled issues like the obviously unwanted bases in Colombia and the military expulsion of Zelaya. I give him the benefit of the doubt but he must act quickly. Especially now, when tensions are rising very fast between Venezuela and Colombia. The redefinition of the American policy in Latin America is crucial right now.

[corpseratemedia]

2. hTe oil needs to be "freed" again

pony up:sarcasm:

[ShortnFiery]

6. How DARE that Hugo Chavez keep his Venezuelan oil nationalized.

The ruling elites want their grubby Oil-stained hands on that natural resource.

PRIVATIZE the Oil Fields Venezuela or prepare to be invaded!

[Peace Patriot]

7. Hauntingly similar to Vietnam. "Only" 600 US soldiers and 600 US mercenaries (!)

to begin with, in this deal with Colombia (they said "only" a few hundred US "advisers" in Vietam, early on). They will be immune from Colombian laws. And seven new US military bases will be established in Colombia--a government with one of the worst human rights records on earth--already receiving $6 BILLION in US military aid. Extremely corrupt US puppet government that will do whatever the Pentagon says, to keep that military booty coming. The Pentagon will be using all the civilian airports as well. There is this melding of civilian/military as in Vietnam. The government is militaristic. That is the only way it can stay in power, propped up by lavish US military spending.

Thousands of political leftists, labor leaders, human rights workers, journalists, small peasant farmers and others--people who advocate for the very poor majority of Colombians--have been slaughtered by the Colombian military and its closely tied rightwing paramilitary death squads. The chaos caused by the US "war on drugs" is like the chaos that the CIA was causing in Vietnam--brutal repression of the Buddhists, for instance--to get rid of the US installed president, Diem, before JFK could arrange neutral status for Vietnam in the "Cold War"--as had been arranged for Laos. (This is documented in James Douglass' book, "JFK and the Unspeakable: Why He Died And Why It Matters"--a very important book.) The US "war on drugs" has caused displacement of several million people in Colombia--mainly extremely pour peasant farmers, some driven from their lands by toxic pesticide spraying, others mostly by the Colombian military and its death squads (whom a UN human rights reports just said are responsible for 75% of the extrajudicial murders in Colombia). Many of the displaced have fled over the borders into Venezuela and Ecuador, mostly from the Colombian military and its death squads. This kind of mayhem is designed to easily control a country's population--much like Rumsfeld used in Iraq, and certainly like the CIA used in Vietnam--to bend every event and every resource toward whatever the US purpose is.

The objects of all of this military spending and basically US invasion of Colombia--"invited" by the very corrupt government (also similar to Vietnam)--is neither drug interdiction nor the FARC leftist guerrillas of Colombia's 40+ year civil war. The object appears to me to be to create a launching pad into neighboring countries--rather like Honduras was for the Reagan killers in the 1980s (launching death squads into Nicaragua and El Salvador) but on a much bigger scale. The destinations for the launching pad would be Venezuela's main oil region adjacent to Colombia in the north (on the Caribbean--where the US 4th Fleet is now roaming, reconstituted by the Bushwacks) and into Ecuador's main oil region adjacent to Colombia to the south. The object of the CIA in Vietnam was to create a civil war. They established the corrupt South Vietnamese government and funded it and its army, in opposition to the far more legitimate government of Ho Chi Minh (the country's liberator from the French colonialists) in the North. The oil war plan that I think Rumsfeld left on the desk for South America may involve creating civil wars in Venezuela's and Ecuador's oil regions.

In fact, Ecuador's president has stated publicly that there is a coordinated rightwing plot to instigate secessionist movements against the governments of three countries--Ecuador, Venezuela and Bolivia. The Bushwhacks tried out the secessionist idea last September in Bolivia, with the white separatist movement, which wanted to split off Bolivia's gas/oil rich eastern provinces into a fascist mini-state in the control of Bolivia's main resource. That effort failed, but it may be tried again. Fascist politicians in Venezuela's and Ecuador's oil regions openly talk of secession. This is another similarity to Vietnam--rightwing malcontents and greedbags getting lots of US aid, and the US then being invited to invade the country in 'defense' of these 'patriots', and running their own war for their own purposes. Though the object in Vietnam was not oil--the notion of instigating a civil war, by providing material support to forces who otherwise would not have had the support or wherewithal to oppose a legitimate government, is hauntingly familiar.

Those of us who have been following events in these countries over the last several years know that the US/Colombia have already rehearsed a joint bombing/raid into Ecuador (the bombing/raid that killed 25 sleeping people in Raul Reyes' temporary hostage release camp just inside Ecuador's border). That raid was useful for stopping all hope for peace in Colombia's civil war, for psyops against Ecuador's leftist president, as well as against Chavez, and for a third purpose (possibly the main one) of a US/Colombia coordination of forces in staging a border incident. As to psyops, the Colombians claimed to have seized Reyes' laptop computer--at a site that was blasted by ten 500 lb US "smart bombs" (according to the Ecuadoran military, who also said that Colombia did not have the capability to deliver such bombs)--and then began issuing wild statements saying, for instance, that Chavez was helping the FARC get a "dirty bomb," and that Correa was also a "terrorist lover." The incident almost caused a war between the US/Colombia and Ecuador/Venezuela (March 2008). Lula da Silva of Brazil credits Chavez with preventing it.

So, clearly the region is being set up for another "Gulf of Tonkin"-type incident, which would be triggered when the secessionist forces inside Venezuela's and Ecuador's oil regions are ready to "declare their independence" and ask for US/Colombian support. And I believe this is what Rumsfeld was talking about, in his op-ed of 12/1/07 in the Washington Post, in which he urges "swift action" by the US in support of "friends and allies" in Latin America. (The op-ed is entitled, "The Smart Way to Defeat Tyrants Like Chavez.")

Another parallel to Vietnam--and one of the spookiest ones--is the QUIETUDE in the US about the buildup of US military forces in South America. This is very similar to what was happening in the US circa early 1960s, while the CIA manufactured a war in Vietnam, and JFK eventually turned against it and tried to stop it. Three days after JFK's assassination, LBJ said, "Now they can have their war." He was talking about Vietnam. There is more to this, but I won't go into it here. My point is that these dire events that were occurring within the government--for instance, the struggle between JFK and the CIA and the Joint Chiefs over nuking Russia, and over Vietnam--the American people had no idea that our government was planning a war that would kill 2 million people in Southeast Asia, and over 55,000 US soldiers. By the 1964 election (after Kennedy's death the previous November), LBJ could run as "the peace candidate" (and win by a huge landslide) and the voters did not know that he was lying. (I remember it well. It was my first vote for president. I voted for peace!) By 1965, we were in a full-scale war in Vietnam, on the basis of the "Gulf of Tonkin" incident which has been manufactured--invented, made up, not real.

The deal for establishment of seven new US bases in Colombia was done in secret, excluding the Colombian congress and people. Neither was there any consultation with other South American leaders, all of whom have objected to this US buildup. But the Great Quiet in the US is even more remarkable and disturbing. The seven bases deal has to come to the US Congress for approval. The Bushwhack appointee to the Colombian embassy, Brownfield--a very bad dude, believe me--just "signed" this deal in Colombia on behalf of the US government. I have no idea what President Obama thinks of it, but he may be helpless to prevent it, even if he opposes it. Jim DeMint is blackmailing Obama, by holding up all of this Latin America appointments, ostensibly because Obama opposed the rightwing coup (DeMint's good buds) in Honduras, but this blackmail may be more connected to the Colombian seven bases deal, with very significant war profiteer booty involved--but even more than this, with a WAR PLAN involved, lurking somewhere in the Pentagon, out of sight, out of mind.

[clear eye]

8. Thanks to you, PP, at least some of us at DU know

what sources in the MSM, even prestigious print sources like the NYT, won't tell us. Perhaps the citizens groups in the U.S. like United for Peace & Justice will be ready this time.

Between the healthcare debacle, the looted Treasury, the mideast wars, and the preparation for war in SA, the PTB may be underestimating the backlash. They may be able to keep it out of the media, but can they keep it off the streets?

Or do they think it will all be directed just at Obama?

[clixtox]

9. Easily!

The sheeple don't have a clue and absolutely prefer to keep it that way. In fact if anyone tries to explain what is actually happening, for instance that America has an empire, to the typical American patriot, their reaction is likely to only make them believe that you are some sort of anti-American subversive. This bogus conclusion can even cause a physically violent reaction. Most Americans can't conceive that America actually isn't the most universally loved, benevolent and beneficent nation of all time. The truth is pretty close to exactly the opposite being the case. America is the "evil empire", the "axis of evil", America has unleashed the worst, and deadliest, terrorists, and murderous terrorist acts, in the history of the world. Ever! Like A-bombs blasting Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Any legitimate expression of outrage about the USA's machinations in SA are co-opted and diluted by the multitude of injustices, and their opaqueness, perpetrated and coordinated by the USA government. This is what happened in the lead-up to our war crimes in Iraq. Anti Iraq war organizing was used by other legitimate movements to further their agendas by piggy-backing them, or vice-versa, with the anti Iraq war sentiment. This diluted focus dumped the wind and hindered any of the necessary momentum from developing. I imagine that nothing much will change any time soon.

Easily!

Even if everything changes and the rage felt by the masses is transferred to the streets, the only place any pressure for change has ever been successful, the police, that were supposed to serve and protect us, have been militarized and trained to brutally repress any outbreak of democratic spirit. Check the reaction to planned, peaceful demonstrations at the recent political conventions. The repression begins long before the planned events even occur. Our "freedoms" are history, too inconvenient for our corporate and political masters, the pawns of the uber-rich who run, and ruin, our lives.

"We need a miracle"

[Peace Patriot]

10. The NYT is on board for Oil War II-South America. Their reporter Simon Romero is the Judith Miller

for South America--a lying dirtbag who is one of the lead operatives of the psyops/disinformation campaign against Chavez. They are not just failing to inform the public--they are warmongers of the first order.

If I didn't know about Rumsfeld's op-ed (December '07), the US/Colombian bombing/raid on Ecuador (March '08), the Bushwhack reconstitution of the US 4th Fleet in Latin American waters (summer '08), the US/Bushwhack experiment in secession/civil war strategy in Bolivia (September '08), the Bushwhack connections to the Honduran coup (June '09), and the Bushwhack deal for seven new US military bases in Colombia (now), the intense and escalating psyops/disinformation campaign against Chavez, led by the NYT, would strongly point to war. Such propaganda campaigns are very expensive--involve many resources of our government and its corporate rulers--and this one has gone over the top in that respect. It is pervasive, relentless and has been going on for more than five years, with ever escalating viciousness and 'Alice in Wonderland' untruth. The American people are being SET UP, just as with the WMDs in Iraq touted on the front page of the NYT month after month in the leadup to that genocidal war.

In fact, it is the psypos/disinformation campaign that led me to first suspect that an actual war was in the planning stages. Such campaigns generally only have one purpose--war. But I thought for a long time that it was just your typical corpo-fascist media bullshit, that they didn't want us to get any notions of, oh, say, universal free medical care or universal free education through college, or the use of a natural resource like oil to help the people, from Venezuela*. I thought it was to keep us stupid. I had begun tracking down all the allegations against Chavez, and finding them to be untrue on their face, but I kept wondering WHY. Why was our corpo/fascist media lying so egregiously, and so relentlessly about Chavez? Every corpo-fascist news outlet, without exception, was repeating these lies, over and over and over again. And they were throwing these lies into articles that weren't even about Chavez or Venezuela. Really, it is an astonishing. Chavez--one of the most peaceful and transparently elected leaders in the world--had been turned into a "dictator" solely on the basis of relentless lying! With Saddam, they at least had something to work with. With Chavez, they have nothing--NOTHING!

Then elements of the war plan began seeping out--very muffled here--but quite scary, if you managed to catch them along the way and put them all together. Suddenly, this psyops/disinformation campaign began to look very scary, indeed. It is a nearly an exact repeat of the WMDs in Iraq media campaign--with the same actors (including the NYT) and, I am fairly convinced, the same purpose--to re-gain US global corporate predator control of the oil by force! Both things--the media campaign and the military buildup--have ancillary purposes, to be sure. But when you put the psyops/disinformation campaign together with the US 4th Fleet, the seven new US military bases in Colombia, etc., it is a compelling picture of a war in the making.

Listen to the quiet. Does anybody in this country even know that we just signed up for Colombia's civil war? It's South Vietnam all over again.

-----------------------


*(One of junta generals in the Honduran coup said that, by their coup, they were "preventing communism from Venezuela reaching the United States"--quoted in a report on the coup by the Zelaya-government-in-exile. Apart from his hubris, as to keeping the "swine flu" of 'communism' from our shores, his comment points to the Bushwhack/corpo-fascist origins of that coup, and to one of the purposes of the psyops/disinformation campaign against Chavez--to keep the people of the US from getting any socialist ideas. The coup has other purposes, though. Honduras is an important war asset to the Pentagon, with a long bloody history of being used as a "lily pad" country for US aggression against its neighbors. Zelaya wanted to convert the US military base in Honduras to a commercial airport.)

[Judi Lynn]

11. This article spells out some of the anti-democratic NY Times Latin America bias:

June 20, 2007

The New York Times vs. Hugo Chavez
The Record of the Newspaper of Record
By STEPHEN LENDMAN

Dictionaries define "yellow journalism" variously as irresponsible and sensationalist reporting that distorts, exaggerates or misstates the truth. It's misinformation or agitprop disinformation masquerading as fact to boost circulation and readership or serve a larger purpose like lying for state and corporate interests. The dominant US media excel in it, producing a daily diet of fiction portrayed as real news and information in their role as our national thought-control police gatekeepers. In the lead among the print and electronic corporate-controlled media is the New York Times publishing "All The News That's Fit To Print" by its standards. Others wanting real journalism won't find it on their pages allowing only the fake kind. It's because this paper's primary mission is to be the lead instrument of state propaganda making it the closest thing we have in the country to an official ministry of information and propaganda.

~snip~
In "The Myth of the Liberal Media," Herman explains the "propaganda model" focuses on "the inequality of wealth and power" and how those with most of it can "filter out the news to print, marginalize dissent (and assure) government and dominant private interests" control the message and get it to the public. It's done through a set of "filters" removing what's to be suppressed and "leaving only the cleansed (acceptable) residue fit to print" or broadcast electronically. Parenti's "Democracy For the Few" is democracy-US style the rest of us are stuck with.

~snip~
The New York Times has an ugly record bashing Hugo Chavez since he was elected with a mandate to make participatory social democracy the cornerstone of his presidency. That's anathema to Washington and its chief media ally, the New York Times. Since 1999 when he took office, it hammered Chavez with accusations of opposing the US-sponsored Free Trade of the Americas (FTAA) without explaining it would sell out to big capital at the expense of his people if adopted.

Following his election in December, 1998, Times Latin American reporter Larry Roher wrote: (Latin American) presidents and party leaders are looking over their shoulders (worried about the) specter....the region's ruling elite thought they had safely interred: that of the populist demagogue, the authoritarian man on horseback known as the caudillo (strongman)."

The Times later denounced him for using petrodollars for foreign aid to neighbors, equating promoting solidarity, cooperation and respecting other nations' sovereignty with subversion and buying influence. It criticized his raising royalties and taxes on foreign investors, never explaining it was to end their longtime preferential treatment making them pay their fair share as they should. It bashed him for wanting his own people to benefit most from their own resources, not predatory oil and other foreign investors the way it was before Chavez took office. No longer, and that can't be tolerated in Washington or on the pages of the New York Times.

When state oil company PDVSA became majority shareholder with foreign investors May 1 with a minimum 60% ownership in four Orinoco River basin oil projects, the Times savaged Chavez. It condemned his "revolutionary flourish (and his) ambitious (plan to) wrest control of several major oil projects from American and European companies (with a) showdown (ahead for these) coveted energy resources...." Unmentioned was these resources belong to the Venezuelan people. The Times also accuses Chavez of allowing "politics and ideology" to drive US-Venezuelan confrontation "to limit American influence around the world, starting in Venezuela's oil fields."

It calls him "divisive, a ruinous demagogue, provocative (and) the next Fidel Castro." It savored the 2002 aborted two day coup ousting him calling it a "resignation" and that Venezuela "no longer (would be) threatened by a would-be dictator." It reported he "stepped down (and was replaced by (a) respected business leader" (Pedro Carmona - president of Fedecamaras, the Venezuelan Federation of Chambers of Commerce).

Unmentioned was that Carmona was hand-picked in Washington and by Venezuelan oligarchs to do their bidding at the expense of the people. He proved his bona fides by suspending the democratically elected members of the National Assembly and crushing Bolivarian Revolutionary Constitutional reforms, quickly restored once Chavez was reinstated in office. Carmona fled to Colombia seeking political asylum from where Venezuela's Supreme Court now wants him extradited on charges of civil rebellion. Unmentioned also was that the Times had to dismiss one of its Venezuelan reporters, Francisco Toro, in January, 2003 when Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) revealed he was an anti-Chavista activist masquerading as an objective journalist.

~snip~
Times business columnist Roger Lowenstein is on board to make it happen. He claims, with no substantiation, Chavez "militarized the government, emasculated the country's courts, intimidated the media, eroded confidence in the economy and hollowed out Venezuela's once-democratic institutions." Turn this on its head to know the truth Lowenstein won't report - that Chavez militarized nothing. He put his underutilized military to work implementing Venezuela's Plan Bolivar 2000 constructing housing for the poor, building roads, conducting mass vaccinations, and overall serving people needs, not invading and occupying other countries and threatening to flatten other "uncooperative" ones.

Venezuela's courts function independently of the democratically elected President and National Assembly. The media is the freest and most open in the region and the world with most of it corporate owned as it is nearly everywhere. Further, business is booming enough to get the Financial Times to say bankers were having "a party," and the country never had a functioning democracy until Hugo Chavez made it flourish there.

Times Venezuelan reporter Simon Romero is little better than Lowenstein or others sending back agitprop disguised as real journalism in his Venezuelan coverage, including RCTV closure street protests. He made events on Caracas streets sound almost like a one-sided uprising of protesters against Chavez with "images of policemen with guns drawn" intimidating them. He highlighted Chavez's critics claiming "the move to allow RCTV's license to expire amounts to a stifling of dissent in the news media." He quoted Elisa Parejo, one of RCTV's first soap opera stars, saying "What we're living in Venezuela is a monstrosity. It is a dictatorship."

He quoted right wing daily newspaper El Nacional as well portraying the RCTV decision as "the end of pluralism" in the country. Gonzalo Marroquin, president of the corporate media-controlled Inter-American Press Association (IAPA), was also cited saying Chavez wants to "standardize the right to information (indicating) a very bleak outlook for the whole hemisphere." He invented corporate-cooked polling numbers showing "most Venezuelans oppose Mr. Chavez's decision not to renew RCTV's license." In fact, the opposite is true and street demonstrators for and against RCTV's shuttering proved it. Venezuelans supporting Chavez dwarfed the opposition many times over. But you won't find Romero or any other Times correspondent reporting that. If any try doing it, they'll end up doing obits as their future beat.

Back in February, Romero was at it earlier. Then, he hyped Venezuela's arms spending making it sound like Chavez threatened regional stability and was preparing to bomb or invade Miami. Romero's incendiary headline read "Venezuela Spending on Arms Soars to World's Top Ranks." It began saying "Venezuela's arms spending has climbed to more than $4 billion in the past two years, transforming the nation into Latin America's largest weapons buyer" with suggestive comparisons to Iran. The report revealed this information came from the US Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) making that unreliable source alone reason to question its accuracy and what's behind it.

The figure quoted refers only to what Venezuela spends on arms, not its total military spending. Unmentioned was that the country's total military spending is half of Agentina's, less than one-third of Colombia's, and one-twelfth of Brazil's according to Center for Arms Control and Nonproliferation figures ranking Venezuela 63rd in the world in military spending. The Center also reported Venezuela's 2004 military budget at $1.1 billion making Romero's $4 billion DIA figure phony and a spurious attempt to portray Chavez as a regional threat needing to be counteracted. At that level, he's also outspent by the Pentagon 500 to one, or lots more depending on how US military spending and homeland security readiness are calculated, including all their unreported or hidden costs.

More:
http://www.counterpunch.org/lendman06202007.html

[AlphaCentauri]

12. and Uribe wants to be re elected?

what a joke

[clixtox]

14. Kicking all of this crucial info to the top... N/T

[spanza]

15. Lula intends to arrange a meeting between Chávez and Uribe

Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva said that he aims to arrange a meeting between his Colombian and Venezuelan counterparts to settle their differences, the Brazilian newspaper Valor reported.

The Brazilian Head of State lamented that his US counterpart Barack Obama forgot about Latin America after having promised a renewed relationship.

Lula criticized the agreement that allows US military to use Colombian bases and requested President Uribe to give assurances that the operations will be limited to the Colombian territory.

On the alleged concerns of the United States about President Hugo Chávez, Lula said that there is a mutual mistrust.

"I do not know whether Americans should be concerned about Chávez or Chávez about Americans," he said.

As for the differences between Venezuela and Colombia and the alleged threats by Chávez to close the border and eliminate bilateral trade with its neighboring country, Lula said that nobody can make politics out of newspaper headlines.

He said that the economies of Colombia and Venezuela are complementary.

Lula said that he trusts that Chávez will get on well with Colombian President Álvaro Uribe and that he intends to arrange a meeting between the two leaders on November 26, in the Brazilian city of Manaus.

The Brazilian President has invited the leaders of the Amazon countries to visit Manaus in order to hold a summit where Presidents will adopt joint positions ahead of the Climate Conference to be held next December in Copenhagen.

He recalled that he recently had dinner with Chávez and had a luncheon with Uribe. Lula said that he will manage to sit the two leaders together on the same day in Manaus.


http://english.eluniversal.com/2009/11/06/en_pol_esp_lula-intends-to-arra_06A3011533.shtml

[EFerrari]

16. Venezuela isn't the only country objecting to the further militarization

of Colombia.