Thread: US establishes 7 military bases in Columbia

Right at Venezuela's border. It never ends.

Militarizing Latin America



by Noam Chomsky



In July 2009, the US and Colombia concluded a secret deal to permit the US to use seven military bases in Colombia. The official purpose is to counter narcotrafficking and terrorism, "but senior Colombian military and civilian officials familiar with negotiations told The Associated Press that the idea is to make Colombia a regional hub for Pentagon operations," AP reported. There are reports that the agreement provides Colombia with privileged access to US military supplies. Colombia had already become the leading recipient of US military aid (apart from Israel-Egypt, a separate category). Colombia has had by far the worst human rights record in the hemisphere since the Central American wars of the 1980s wound down. The correlation between US aid and human rights violations has long been noted by scholarship.



AP also cited an April 1999 document of the U.S. Air Mobility Command, which proposes that the Palanquero base in Colombia could become a "cooperative security location" (CSL) from which "mobility operations could be executed." The report noted that from Palanquero, "Nearly half the continent can be covered by a C-17 (military transport) without refueling." This could form part of "a global en route strategy," which "helps achieve the regional engagement strategy and assists with the mobility routing to Africa." For the present, "the strategy to place a CSL at Palanquero should be sufficient for air mobility reach on the South American continent," the document concludes, but it goes on to explore options for extending the routing to Africa with additional bases.



On August 28, UNASUR met in Bariloche (Argentina) to consider the military bases. After intense internal debate, the final declaration stressed that South America must be kept as "a land of peace," and that foreign military forces must not threaten the sovereignty or integrity of any nation of the region. It instructed the South American Defense Council to investigate the document of the Air Mobility Command. Problems of implementation were left to subsequent meetings.



Establishing US military bases in Colombia is only one part of a much broader effort to restore Washington's capacity for military intervention. There has been a sharp increase in US military aid and training of Latin American officers, focusing on light infantry tactics to combat "radical populism" -- a concept that sends shivers up the spine in the Latin American context. Military training is being shifted from the State Department to the Pentagon, eliminating human rights and democracy conditionalities under congressional supervision, which has always been weak, but was at least a deterrent to some of the worst abuses.



The US Fourth Fleet, disbanded in 1950, was reactivated in 2008, shortly after Colombia's invasion of Ecuador, with responsibility for the Caribbean, Central and South America, and the surrounding waters. The official announcement defines its "various operations" to "include counter-illicit trafficking, Theater Security Cooperation, military-to-military interaction and bilateral and multinational training."



http://www.chomsky.info/articles/20090830.htm

[quote name='michaelr' date='23 February 2010 - 05:23 PM' timestamp='1266963806' post='120201']

The walking dead think this is just fine.



Question for you Horhey, your in touch with reality, are we going to leave Haiti and all that oil behind someday. Part of me thinks so, as the globalists have controlled that place forever, but then part of me says no, the US might have to share.

[/quote]



We have an Alex Jones type radio show here and I heard them talking about oil being discovered in Haiti, but I havent seen the evidence. And no, I dont believe Washington used a device to cause the earthquake.



However, it is clear Washington is taking advantage of the earthquake by implementing the "shock doctrine".

[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sZow3x646cE[/media]



In the fall 2009, U.S. and Colombian officials signed an agreement granting the U.S. military access to seven Colombian bases for ten years. (Watch the 21min. video about the agreement)



SOA Watch is extremely concerned about the drastic increase of U.S. militarization in Latin America. The bases agreement operates from the same failed military mindset that has given rise to the School of the Americas (SOA/ WHINSEC). The purpose of the bases and the purpose of the SOA/ WHINSEC are the same: to ensure U.S. control over the region through military means.



Already, the SOA/ WHINSEC is deploying "Mobile Training Teams" to Colombia and other Latin American countries, that train hundreds of soldiers annually. Over 10,000 soldiers of the Colombian military (the military with the worst human rights record in the Americas) have received SOA/ WHINSEC training and used the lessons learned in their brutal war that has left thousands dead and millions displaced.



http://www.soaw.org/article.php?id=1799