Military Crisis in South America: The Results of Plan Colombia

[Robbien]

The military operative executed by Colombian soldiers on Ecuadorian soil to kill the FARC commander Raul Reyes is part of the strategy of the United States to alter the military balance in the region. In the crosshairs is Venezuelan and Ecuadorian oil; however it also serves as a check on Brazil as an emerging regional power.

What we are witnessing could be the first phase of a vast offensive to destabilize the "Bolivarian Revolution" and to alter the relationship between the powers in South America. This strategy has been implemented in stages. First there was Plan Colombia, intended to strengthen the military capacity of the Colombian state and place it among the most powerful on the continent. Next came the "spilling over" of the internal war into neighboring countries. The third stage seems to be "pre-emptive war," which has become the Pentagon's most widely used military strategy since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

This is the first time in a long time that Washington has taken the offensive in the region, and it is capable of putting a significant portion of Latin American countries behind its strategy.

. . .

In 2003, sociologist James Petras pointed out that the main worry of the U.S. Southern Command, who is the real architect behind regional politics, is that "Colombia's neighbors (Ecuador, Venezuela, Panama, Brazil), who are suffering the same adverse effects of neoliberal politics, shift politically against the military domination and the economic interests of the United States."6 This is why the strategy thought up for Plan Colombia does not consist so much in winning the internal war as it does in spilling it over into neighboring countries as a form of neutralizing their growing autonomy from Washington. Militarizing the relationships between nations is always a good business for whoever supports the hegemony with military superiority. In this sense, the FARC play a functional role in Washington's war plans.

more . . .
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1206/68/

[Joanne98]

1. KICK

[Robbien]

4. Four hundred armed men at the beck and call

of Uribe is very disturbing. Colombia has one of the biggest armed forces in the world and THE biggest in Latin America.

That fact astounds me.

[movonne]

2. kick

[pscot]

3. As long as the war mongers are in the saddle

no nation is safe.

[amihol]

5. consequences?

[mqbush]

6. Argentinians in the 1990s had to barter for goods and

services, as the currency had collapsed, the direct result of IMF's mugging. Washington likes Central and South American countries beaten down so they pose less of a "threat" to US dominance. In 1954, we overthrew a thriving populist democracy in Guatemala, because it was bringing that country out of grinding poverty. Chile, 1973. Oh, you know the list. I'd like to see the day that the US becomes a good neighbor in the world community, but that likely won't happen for another 50 years.