Honduras, Colombia, Cuba: US Sticking with Monroe Doctrine (Interview with Arnold August)

[Downwinder]

http://hondurasoye.wordpress.com/2009/11/27/honduras-colombia-cuba-us-sticking-with-monroe-doctrine-interview-with-arnold-august/

[Peace Patriot]

1. Yup, I called this correctly, way back during the election campaign when Obama

spoke to that Cuban mafia group in Miami (May 2008, I think). I heard the Monroe Doctrine in his speech. He said that Latin America "needs U.S. leadership." I had been following the remarkable arising of one after another native, homegrown leaders across South America--in Venezuela, Brazil, Argentina, Bolivia, Ecuador, Paraguay, Uruguay, Chile--and then in Central America--Nicaragua, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras. Why would these bold, courageous, visionary new leftist leaders "need" U.S. leadership? Latin Americans had elected THEIR OWN leaders--in a magnificent demonstration of the vibrancy of their democracies. But Obama seemed totally oblivious to the insult he was hurling at all Latin Americans and at their elected and very popular leaders.

The "Monroe Doctrine" is that Latin America belongs to the U.S. Europe, keep out! That's how it originated. And it has come to mean that Latin America is the U.S. "backyard." (I think Henry Kissinger--that murderous dirtbag, who helped bring down one democracy after another in Latin America--is the one who coined the term "our backyard" for the other half of the western hemisphere). Obama threw the typical slurs at Hugo Chavez, said he would deign to "talk to Cuba," and promised to flood Latin America (other peoples' countries) with Peace Corps volunteers and a rash of new U.S. consulates in obscure rural areas. Soon afterward (as I recall), a US Peace Corps volunteer in Bolivia disclosed that the US embassy was telling Peace Corps volunteers to spy on the people they were working with. And, in September, the president of Bolivia threw the US ambassador and the DEA out of Bolivia for colluding with the white separatists who wanted to split up Bolivia and take Bolivia's main gas/oil resources with them. They were soon rioting and murdering peasant farmers.

That's what US embassies, and US consulates, and the US DEA, and the US military, and the corrupt, failed, murderous US "war on drugs" means to Latin Americans: spying, destabilization, supporting fascist thugs, instigating civil wars, toppling democracy, denying the "will of the people," and inflicting torture and death.

It was a "tin ear" speech. He could not hear his own words, and seemed to be totally ignorant of the momentous developments of the last decade, except for that predictable rightwing jab at Chavez. I think he refrained from saying "dictator," and said "increasingly authoritarian" or some much. And that gave me hope. That he didn't say "dictator." My, my, how desperate for hope I was.

Anyway, I remember someone here at DU scoffing at me for warning that Obama's speech about Latin America had "Monroe Doctrine" overtones. This Honduran coup and the SEVEN new US military bases in Colombia are harbingers of worse yet--a return to the blood-soaked U.S. policies of the Reagan regime.

But you know what? I don't think the people of Latin American are going to permit it this time. Latin America is going to be Obama's "Waterloo," if he doesn't reverse course and join the 21st century.

August mentions the seven bases and says that they and the Honduran coup are intimately linked. I agree with that. Honduras was the Pentagon's "lily pad" country for launching "dirty wars" against Honduras' neighbors during the Reagan reign of horrors. It is a critical link in the military chain from the seven bases in Colombia over the "hump" of South America to the Caribbean, where the Bushwhacks reconstituted the US 4th Fleet (mothballed since WW II), surrounding Venezuela's important northern oil region (adjacent to Colombia and the Caribbean). The new bases in Panama are also part of this chain. Zelaya wanted to convert the US military base in Honduras to a commercial airport. That is probably the main reason he was deposed.

The Pentagon is putting war assets in place, and very likely has a war plan. I don't know whether Obama is on board for this war, but he is permitting the preparations to go forward. If they can't have Iran's oil (China being the main bar to that), they want Venezuela's (and Ecuador's--adjacent to the Colombia to the south). And the Bushwhacks, at least, want to wreak havoc on Latin America, depose this new leftist leadership, and break up these democracies and their trade groups, to restore US corporate domination of the region. If Honduras is an example of Obama's respect for democracy, then I'm afraid both we, the people of the US, who are funding all of this and providing the cannon fodder, and the people of Latin America, who may have to defend themselves, are in for a difficult time. And they WILL defend themselves. "Waterloo" is going to be a very appropriate word for the U.S. and for Obama, if they proceed with this war plan that I think Rumsfeld initially designed. It promises to be Vietnam all over again, trying to subdue a people whose passion is independence.

[Braulio]

2. Venezuela and Cuba hardly have vibrant democracies

As a matter of fact, the common thread for these communist regimes is the way they erode civil rights and erode democracy. It never existed in Cuba under Castro. And in Venezuela, it is being destroyed by a regime which ignores election results and is increasingly intolerant of any opposition at all. What can we say when their slogan becomes "Socialism or death"? They're intolerant tyrannical communists, the same they have ever been, everywhere they take power, they entrench themselves in, create dictatorships, and ruin the economy. They are cancerous.

[Peace Patriot]

3. Your VIEWS are "cancerous," Braulio. They really are. The cancer of warmongering.

In which country in Latin America have thousands of union leaders, human rights workers, community organizers, small peasant farmers, journalists and others been MURDERED by the military itself and by their closely tied paramilitary death squads, to silence them and to inflict terror on everybody else?

That would be Colombia--the recipient of $6 BILLION in U.S. military aid--our favorite country in all of Latin America.

In which country of the western hemisphere was the Constitution and the rule of law shredded beyond recognition by executive "signing statements," by tyrannical designation of prisoners of war as "enemy combatants" so as to violate provisions of the Uniform Code of Military Justice, the Geneva Conventions, the United Nations Charter and other treaties and laws approved by Congress, by establishment of torture dungeons around the world, by pervasive domestic spying, by politicalization of the justice system and by massive secrecy and grand theft of the public coffers?

Which country of the western hemisphere slaughtered one million innocent people to steal their oil?

Which country in the western hemisphere let the banksters run apeshit wild and crash the economy, and is now permitting said banksters to loot FUTURE generations of trillions of dollars, in order to ADD TO the ungodly profits of their crimes?

In which country in the western hemisphere is it not possible to verify ANY election?

The answer to the last four questions is the United States of America. Not Venezuela. Not Cuba.

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

Your specific allegations against the Chavez government in Venezuela are so off-the-charts wrong that they might as well have come from the rancid pages of the Wall Street Urinal. Pure unfettered "Big Lie" propaganda.

"...a regime which ignores election results."

Venezuela has one of the most honest, fair and transparent election systems of any democracy in the world. Their system is transparent on its face, and has been certified as honest, aboveboard and transparent by every one of the major international election monitoring groups--the Carter Center, the OAS, the EU and others.

The Chavez government has NOT "ignored" ANY "election results." If you are speaking of the 69-amendments vote, which they lost by a hair--probably because one of the 69 amendments was equal rights for women and gays in a Catholic country--they did NOT ignore It. They gracefully conceded, and a year later put ONE of those amendments (lifting the term limits on the president and other officials) to a stand-alone vote of the people, and won. Because they lost the first vote so closely, they had every right in the world to put an important question like term limits to a stand-alone vote, to find out if THAT was why the 69-package of amendments lost. And they proved that it wasn't the term limit amendment. The people of Venezuela overwhelmingly approved lifting term limits, and allowing Chavez (and others) to run for office again.

The 69-amendment proposal is the only election Chavez has ever lost. So, if you're not talking about that, what ARE you talking about? What election are you talking about that the Chavez government "ignored"?

"They're intolerant tyrannical communists... they entrench themselves in, create dictatorships, and ruin the economy."

Beyond the beyond, Braulio. You sound like that raving maniac, Joe McCarthy.

"Intolerant"? The Chavez government tried to get an equal rights amendment passed. Women, gays, the indigenous, African-Venezuelans, and the brown majority have never experienced a more just government, never in Venezuela's entire history. And the poor have never, ever had as much opportunity for education and decent lives. "Intolerant" because they don't agree with the views of the rich and the coporate, and don't listen to Washington's dictates? That's not intolerance. That's just common sense.

"Tyrannical"?

Chavez has scrupulously adhered to the Venezuelan Constitution, and has asserted NO power that the Constitution or the National Assembly has not given him. Name one law that he has broken. Name one power that he has asserted that was not rightfully his as the elected president of Venezuela.

{i]"They entrench themselves"{/i]?

Yeah, well, that's the nature of politics, ain't it? Did FDR and the "New Dealers" entrench themselves? You bet they did. The key to whether this is "tyranny" or "the will of the people" is TRANSPARENT elections.

"(They) create dictatorships"?

I guess if you're Exxon Mobil, you'd perceive Chavez as a "dictator." Chavez has enjoyed a 60%-range approval rating throughout his tenure. The people of Venezuela have repeatedly voted for him, just like the people of the US repeatedly voted for FDR, because they wanted and needed his leadership. The foaming-at-the-mouth rightwing press of the "New Deal" era called FDR a "dictator," too. It's a hazard of running a government "of, by and for the people."

"They ruin the economy"?

There is nobody better at ruining economies than our own corpo-fascists. They've done it with the World Bank/IMF throughout Latin America. Now they're doing it to us.

Leftists like Chavez are PICKING UP THE PIECES, after the prior decade of U.S. dictated "neo-liberal" polices of rightwing governments that utterly destroyed their economies, impoverishing millions of people. The Chavez government has been an excellent money manager (setting aside $43 billion in international cash reserves, WHILE fully funding numerous social programs), has acquired 60% of the oil profits for the people of Venezuela through hard-nosed negotiations on their behalf, and presided over sizzling economic growth of 10% over the previous five years, in a MIXED socialist/capitalist economy, with the most growth in the private sector (not including oil).

That's a pretty good record for "communists."

:rofl:

The problem with your analysis is that it ignores the facts, in its steamy rush to demonize "communism." You can't even see the good aspects of an actual communist system--Cuba's--such as their very excellent health care program. And don't you think it's a bit unfair to blame "communism" for "ruining" Cuba's economy, when Cuba has been under a suffocating U.S. economic embargo for more than forty years?

You are not fair. You are not objective. You use language ("they are cancerous") that is barely disguised war talk, such as we heard from the far rightwing and the military back in the 1960s--for instance, regarding Vietnam, that we should "nuke 'em back to the stone age." They are worthless shit. They are "cancerous." They all think alike. They are sub-humans. They, they, they. You don't see human beings, trying different solutions to human suffering. You can't even see the dramatic differences between Venezuela and Cuba. For instance, there are still rich people in Venezuela, and lots of them. The rightwing dominates the news media in Venezuela with a relentless din of criticism including vicious, lying criticism. International election monitors freely roam Venezuela, during elections, and in fact helped design Venezuela's election system at the invitation of the Chavez government. And on and on. "They." These worms. These "communists." These exterminatable scum. They're all alike.

And I very much fear that your viewpoint is still running U.S. policy, and is heading us right off the cliff to another Vietnam, this time in South America.

[mackerel]

4. I hope we can strike a balance and not turn our backs completely.

Argentina, Peru and Chile are not so far back in our history and all the atrocities that happened in the '70's.