Bolivia mulls military buildup on borders with Peru, Brazil

[Judi Lynn]

Bolivia mulls military buildup on borders with Peru, Brazil
16:26, August 09, 2010

Bolivian President Evo Morales has requested the country's military to form an armed force in regions bordering Peru and Brazil, to better protect Bolivia's territory, sovereignty and natural resources.

Morales unveiled the plan on Sunday at a military review in the border town of Cobija to mark the 185th anniversary of the establishment of the country's armed forces, according to Bolivian press reports reaching here.

He cited the lack of border control and the long-time "foreign deprivation" of Bolivia's natural resources in these regions as the reasons for the planned military buildup.

Morales has been floating the idea of a military buildup in border regions since he took office four years ago. He has implemented a border security plan to prevent foreign illegal exploitation of woods, gold and other natural resources in the border regions.

http://english.people.com.cn/90001/90777/90852/7098521.html

[Peace Patriot]

1. Uribe, the Bush Junta tool in Colombia, recently accused Venezuela of 'harboring' FARC guerrillas

He did this in his final weeks in office, possibly as his last service to his Bush Cartel puppetmasters, but there is no reason to believe that his former Defense Minister, Santos, incoming pResident of Colombia, is not on the same Washington war profiteer page.

So I think there is more to this Morales action than preventing resource theft. I think that the region's leftist leaders may be on the alert for a U.S. resource WAR. Oil War II--South America.

The first target would be Venezuela. Ecuador, also on Colombia's border, and also possessing lots of oil, would be second--or netted into the initial hostilities, with simultaneous U.S./Colombian invasions over the borders into Venezuela and Ecuador "in pursuit of the FARC. Bolivia is less vulnerable to direct assault, but the ensuing regional chaos could provide an opportunity for destabilizing Bolivia (using the white separatists in the eastern provinces again), opportunistic resource theft (private operatives from Brazil) and even U.S./Colombia hostilities against Bolivia (by special forces/death squads operating from bases in Peru or Chile).

Two of Bolivia's borders--Peru and Chile--are now controlled by rightwing governments. Chile would be unlikely to engage in open hostilities against Bolivia. However, when Chile had a leftist as president, she negotiated a solution to an old dispute (once cause for a war) between Peru and Bolivia, over Bolivia's access to the Pacific Ocean, by granting Bolivia access to a Chilean port. Peru raised objections to this, claiming that the land in question was theirs. With rightwing governments in charge in both Peru and Chile, this disputed area could easily be turned into a distracting fracas, to hamper Bolivia in coming to Venezuela's or Ecuador's aid. Both governments could claim not to be involved in U.S./Colombian hostilities, but would be aiding/abetting nonetheless. It is this sort of thing that I most fear, as to Bolivia--another white separatist uprising (their last one, in 2008, was funded/organized right out of the U.S. embassy, and its goal was to split Bolivia in two, with white separatist control of Bolivia's main gas resources), and/or other efforts to deprive Venezuela and Ecuador of their allies. Chile also was instrumental--when leftist Michele Batchelet was in charge--in strongly opposing the split-up of Bolivia, and strongly backing up Morales when he threw the U.S. ambassador out of Bolivia. Would this billionaire rightwinger, Pinera, do the same? Not likely.

Worst of all--aside from the bloodshed, resource theft and regional chaos that U.S. war profiteers may be contemplating--is the draining of resources, in poor countries, from solving poverty problems and proceeding with social and economic development, by having to fund military defenses, and having to think about potential hostilities, rather what they WERE thinking about: cooperation, integration, peaceful improvement of their societies.

This is what U.S. policy has done under the Bush Junta, and is continuing to do under the Obama administration--militarize Latin America, wherever they can acquire client states, infuse billions of dollars in military aid into rancid, bloodsoaked governments like those in Colombia and Honduras, support fascist regimes, create threats to the peace, pay out multimillions to rightwing groups and political operatives, plot against democratic governments, and keep legitimate, democratic governments in a state of unease and fear.

[Bacchus39]

2. or it could be to prevent the poaching of resources like the article states

the US and Colombia didn't invade under Bush, didn't invade under Uribe, won't under Obama, despite what Hugo keeps saying.

[Peace Patriot]

3. You could be right. But there is a whole of evidence that we shouldn't ignore,

that a war is being prepared, and Latin American leaders are well aware this evidence, especially of the U.S. military buildup, and of new signs of hostile U.S. intention, such as the coup in Honduras. Evo Morales is aware of it. They are all aware of it. So I think it's a fair guess that beefing up Bolivian military forces is about more than resource poaching. And it's a sad fact, too, that the only real threat to the peace in Latin America is the one posed by the USA!

[Bacchus39]

4. I don't think a US invasion of Bolivia is something to be worried about n/t

s

[Peace Patriot]

5. No, I don't either. But that's not how it would work. A war plan--to take Venezuela's and Ecuador's

oil--would involve disabling Venezuela/Ecuador's allies prior to hostilities, not necessarily invading them but instigating disorder (like another white separatist uprising in Bolivia--which has already been rehearsed--or the sea access dispute with Peru, a U.S. client state--or in alliance with Brazilian smugglers and paramilitaries)-- distracting these allies, exhausting their resources, making it hard for them to come to Venezuela/Ecuador's aid. Such a war could well see Bolivia providing significant aid to Venezuela/Ecuador, including troops. What I'm saying is that I suspect that this is what is on Morales' mind--not just localized disorder but localized disorder in the context of a U.S./Colombia war on Venezuela/Ecuador--disorder aimed at crippling Bolivia's ability to aid Venezuela/Ecuador if the U.S. instigates a shooting war. Bolivia needs to be prepared for both.

Of course he wouldn't SAY this. But it is quite interesting, for instance, what Lula da Silva said, when the Bush Junta reconstituted the 4th Fleet in the Caribbean. He said that it is "a threat to Brazil's oil"--and proposed that South America create a common defense in the context of UNASUR. Can anyone seriously believe that the U.S. would attack Brazil? He was talking about Venezuela, which everyone south of the border knows is a U.S. target, and perhaps the potential impacts on Brazil if the U.S. instigates a regional war. (If Brazil comes to Venezuela's aid, then Brazil's oil is also threatened.)

We may be seeing evidence of a U.S. war plan for dealing with Venezuela/Ecuador's allies, in operation already, with the rightwing coup in Honduras, which was directly aided by the Pentagon and indirectly by the State Department. The U.S. was looking at a solid block of leftist governments in Central America--right up the peninsula: Nicaragua, Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala--none of whom would support a U.S. military move on Venezuela/Ecuador. President Zelaya had not only allied with Venezuela in the ALBA trade group, he had proposed conversion of the U.S. air base in Honduras to a commercial airport. U.S. war assets in Honduras were threatened. The U.S. moved to knock out an ally--Honduras. With Zelaya as president, Honduras would not have cooperated with a U.S. military move on Venezuela.

There are economic issues as well, of course. Zelaya had raised the minimum wage in this very poor country--an offense to the U.S. corporate sweatshop operators in Honduras. John McCain had interests in privatizing Honduran telecommunications. (He was deeply involved in the Honduran coup.) The Honduran military's U.S. gravy train was threatened should Honduras go the way of, say, Ecuador, and kick the U.S. military out of the country. Lots of money involved. But the Pentagon's behavior with regard to Zelaya's kidnapping raises additional questions--on top of economic and war profiteering. It raises strategic questions, that is, protection of war assets for war purposes. The plane carrying the kidnapped president of Honduras out of the country at gunpoint stopped at the U.S. air base in Honduras for refueling (the very air base that Zelaya wanted to convert to a commercial airport, badly needed in Honduras). What were the U.S. commanders at this air base doing as Honduras' democracy was destroyed--playing video games? Maybe, by sitting on their hands while this occurred, they were just acting in support of corporate interests, but, given Honduras' traditional role as the steppingstone for U.S. aggression in the region, it is a very legitimate question to ask, how important would the USAF and USN facilities in Honduras be, to air and sea hostilities against Venezuela/Ecuador and to controlling the leftist governments in Nicaragua, El Salvador and Guatemala, in a war on Venezuela/Ecuador? And was this the main reason that U.S. commanders let the plane refuel and fly out of their base?

The U.S. is directly funding the worst governments in Latin America--Colombia, Honduras, Peru and others--and is actively supporting rightwing groups in countries with leftist governments, with millions of dollars in USAID and other U.S. taxpayer money pots, and God knows with what covert operations--they never tell we who are paying for it what our SECRET agencies are doing. (We've seen the detritus of some of these anti-Venezuela, anti-Ecuador ops in the press, but you have to read between the lines to figure out what's going on.) This is standard operating procedure for the U.S. government--and the Obama administration is no different from the Bush Junta in this regard. The U.S. has been unable to budge the voters of Venezuela, Ecuador or any other leftist countries with these overt and covert ops. These and other leftist governments are hugely popular and have won election after election with big majorities (--transparent elections, unlike those we have here). So is the U.S. going to add a war to these other outrages, because our corporate rulers and war profiteers can't topple these DEMOCRATIC governments by other means?

There is growing evidence that they are planning to, but, whether or not they do, we can be sure that faraway, landlocked Bolivia, tucked into the heart of South America, is somewhere on the dart board of the Pentagon--should Oil War II be given a go--and has been on the dart board of the State Department and the CIA for some time, as to sabotage short of outright war. (The white separatist insurrection in 2008 was funded/organized right out of the U.S. embassy, and Evo Morales threw the U.S. ambassador and the DEA out of Bolivia, because of it.)

Evo Morales is well aware of all of this, and is very likely taking it all into consideration in decisions to beef up the Bolivian military.

[Bacchus39]

6. if insurrection is the concern, sending troops to the border regions makes no sense

it would be within Bolivia that the problem is occuring, not from the outside. once again, the stated problem, poaching of resources along the border region, is the plausible reason for Morales to send troops there just as he stated.

and I've seen your war prediction a hundred times before. it didn't happen under Bush, not under Uribe, and it ain't going to happen under Obama.

[Peace Patriot]

7. That depends on whether or not aid to the insurrectionists is coming over the border.

And there were indeed border issues in the white separatist insurrection in 2008. In that case, there is no evidence that any border country was involved. One of the murderers of the unarmed peasantry fled over the border into Brazil, for instance, but there was no question of Brazil aiding the insurrection--quite the opposite. However, in the case of Paraguay, you have to wonder what the U.S. plan might have been. Under the rightwing government of Paraguay, the U.S. had 500 troops in the country, doing maneuvers with the Paraguayan military and controlled an air base through which special forces or mercenaries could have been deployed to Bolivia. But, shortly before the Bolivian insurrection, Paraguay elected its first leftist president, ever--Fernando Lugo, who opposes the presence of the U.S. military in Paraguay and said so during the campaign. If there was a plan to aid the Bolivian white separatists from Paraguay, this might have prevented it. The Bush Junta was also simultaneously overseeing their final act, here, the wreckage of our economy--and may have been distracted.

The U.S. is probably now actively trying to unseat the new leftist president of Paraguay, to regain its military foothold in the heart of South America. Lugo recently refused U.S. troops. He also had to purge the military, recently, because of a coup plot. (The U.S. has been allied with the rightwing leaders, including a bloody dictator, and with the most rightwing elements in the military, in Paraguay, for decades.) It is naive and simply wrong to assert that the U.S. is not interested in military domination of this region, wherever it can worm its way in, with bullying, bribery or "war on drugs" bullshit, and, given what's going on between Colombia and Venezuela, it is foolish to believe that the U.S. would not use its military domination to cause trouble. It already is.

Peru, Chile and Paraguay (if they manage to topple Lugo) are all possible conduits for trouble against the Morales government. Peru is being militarized by the U.S., much like Colombia, Honduras and Mexico have been--with huge infusions of military aid in the guise of the "war on drugs." This may be for enforcement of "free trade for the rich," or it may have even darker purposes. Chile now has a rightwing billionaire as president, and will likely be more U.S.-compliant. (Chile's leftist president was a key player in turning back the white separatist uprising in Bolivia, and in settling its old sea access dispute with Bolivia, which Peru is still trying to sabotage. Will this new rightwing president of Chile instead foment trouble for Bolivia--perhaps over the sea access issue--or wink at U.S. trouble-making in Bolivia from Chilean territory? Hard to say yet, but it's definitely worrisome.)

Bolivia's location and its difficult terrain give it some security, but it is most certainly a U.S. target for destabilization. The U.S. is allied with the rightwing opposition, including rioters and murderers. And Bolivia is a strong ally of Venezuela and Ecuador, more direct U.S. targets because they have lots of oil and are more directly in the way of U.S. plans to dominate the Caribbean region. You'd have to be blind not to see the security issues that this presents for Bolivia. We can be sure that Morales is not blind to them. And you'd have to have a very rightwing view of things to abet the blindness of others to these glaring facts.

[Bacchus39]

8. no PP, I simply agree with Morales in this instance

troops are being deployed to limit illegal poaching on the Bolivian side of the border region. though, I do understand that you distort every bit of news from latin america into a supposed US invasion that has not happened, isn't happening, and not going to happen.