Dark Armies, Secret Bases, and Rummy, Oh My!

[Clara T]

Dark Armies, Secret Bases, and Rummy, Oh My!
By By Conn Hallinan | November 21, 2005

Editor: John Gershman, IRC

Foreign Policy In Focus www.fpif.org


It would be easy to make fun of President Bush's recent fiasco at the 4th Summit of the Americas in Mar del Plata, Argentina. His grand plan for a free trade zone reaching from the Artic Circle to Tierra del Fuego was soundly rejected by nations fed up with the economic and social chaos wrought by neoliberalism. At a press conference, South American journalists asked him rude questions about Karl Rove. And the President ended the whole debacle by uttering what may be the most trenchant observation the man has ever made on Latin America: “Wow! Brazil is big!”

But there is nothing amusing about an enormous U.S. base less than 120 miles from the Bolivian border, or the explosive growth of U.S.-financed mercenary armies that are doing everything from training the military in Paraguay and Ecuador to calling in air attacks against guerillas in Colombia. Indeed, it is feeling a little like the run up to the ‘60s and ‘70s, when Washington-sponsored military dictatorships dominated most of the continent, and dark armies ruled the night.

U.S. Special Forces began arriving this past summer at Paraguay's Mariscal Estigarribia air base, a sprawling complex built in 1982 during the reign of dictator Alfredo Stroessner. Argentinean journalists who got a peek at the place say the airfield can handle B-52 bombers and Galaxy C-5 cargo planes. It also has a huge radar system, vast hangers, and can house up to 16,000 troops. The air base is larger than the international airport at the capital city, Asuncion .


Would the United States try to destabilize Bolivia's economy while training people how to use military force to insure Enron, Shell, British Gas, Total, Repsol, and the United States continues to get Bolivian gas for pennies on the dollar? Quite likely.

<snip>

Will it be as easy as it was in the old days when the CIA could bribe truckers to paralyze Chile and set the stage for a coup? Nothing is easy in Latin America anymore.


http://www.fpif.org/fpiftxt/2939

[babylonsister]

1. They are such bloody warmongers!

I honestly didn't know about this.
Thanks for the article, Clara T, and welcome to DU! :hi:

[eleny]

2. I only smell one cow pie in this article

"The Bush administration has made the “Triple Frontier Region” where Brazil, Paraguay, and Argentina meet into the South American equivalent of Iraq's Sunni Triangle.

According to William Pope, U.S. State Department Counterterrorist Coordinator, the United States has evidence that 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed spent several months in the area in 1995. The U.S. military also says it seized documents in Afghanistan with pictures of Paraguay and letters from Arabs living in Cuidad del Este, a city of some 150,000 people in the tri-border region."

Oh my god! Arabs living in South America! Cover the children's eyes!

Thanks for posting this article and welcome to DU.