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Iraqi democracy at odds with US strategy
Compiled by Eamon Martin
Apr. 23 (AGR)-- Despite effusive White House rhetoric about “bringing
democracy to Iraq,” on the ground, the US military is openly trying
to influence the composition of the country’s future leadership.
On Tuesday, hundreds of thousands of Shiite Muslims swarmed through
Iraq’s holy city of Karbala in a pilgrimage marked by religious
fervor and slogans demanding that US troops get out of the country.
“We are against colonization and occupation, we have finished with
one repressive regime and don’t want another,” said a protester
in Baghdad, Ahmed Abdel-Zahra.
As Iraqi Shiite demands for a dominant role in Iraq’s future mounted,
Bush administration officials admitted this week that they underestimated
the Shiites’ organizational strength and are unprepared to prevent
the rise of an anti-American, Islamic fundamentalist government in the
country.
On Monday, one meeting of generals and admirals at the Pentagon involved
a teach-in on Iraq’s Shiites and the US strategy for containing
Islamic fundamentalism in Iraq.
The Shiite sect makes up about 60 percent of Iraq’s 26 million
people. If united, the Shiites could dominate Iraqi politics in a democratic
system.
US forces control barely one square mile of Baghdad. Already, Shia clerics
are in complete control of the suburb of Sadr City, a slum of two million
people. They also run several southern towns, including al-Kut and the
holy cities of Najaf and Karbala.
They have also told American and British forces that they will not tolerate
any prolonged occupation of Iraq.
“In the beginning, our opposition to foreign occupation will be
expressed by peaceful means,” Sheikh Qaazem al-Nasari, a leading
Shia, said this week. “If, after a certain point, non-violence
produces no result, we will then have to decide what to do.”
On Friday, Sadr City belonged emphatically to the hundreds of armed
men of the Sadr Movement’s militia and to a second group loyal
to the rival Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, both bearing arms in open
defiance of the US troops who have flooded the city.
The CIA has cultivated some Shiite clerics and is helping to move them
into towns such as Najaf where they hope to manufacture a political
base. “We want to find more moderate clerics and move them into
positions of influence,” a senior administration official said
this week to the Washington Post.
Large protests have made it clear that many Iraqis want the United States
out of the country as soon as possible. Mass demonstrations against
the US presence are a daily occurrence.
Tens of thousands of Muslims poured out of mosques and into the streets
of Baghdad on Friday, calling for an Islamic state to be established.
Across Iraq, hundreds of thousands demonstrated against Washington’s
presence. For Iraq’s Shiite majority, it was a day of celebration.
For US and British forces, it was a day of warning. Shia and Sunni clerics
urged the congregation, in fiery sermons, to show their bitterness to
the Americans.
In Shia areas of Baghdad, including Sadr City, the text of a speech
by Ayatollah Mohammed Emami-Kashani, an influential cleric, was read
out. It said: “Unite with each other and send America and Britain
out of your country. It is a duty for the Iraqi nation.”
As they gathered in the streets, the marchers chanted: “Leave our
country, Iraq belongs to Iraqis.” Banners in English and Arabic
declared: “No to America. No to Secular State. Yes to Islamic State”,
“We reject American hegemony”, “No Bush, No Saddam, Yes,
Yes to Islam”, “No Shias, no Sunnis, Yes, Yes for United Islam”
and “We want true freedom, not American puppets”.
Cleric Ahmed al Kubeisy used his sermon to attack what he called the
US occupation, telling the Americans, “you are the masters today,
but I warn you against thinking of staying. Get out before we force
you out.”
Another cleric warned that “long queues of holy warriors”
were lining up to fight the Americans.
A US patrol was surrounded by one of Friday’s crowds and one of
the soldiers, fingering his rifle, told people to back off, “or
I’m going to shoot you.”
In a development likely to further inflame tensions between US-led forces
and Iraq’s Shiite community, prominent cleric Mohammed al-Fartusi
charged he had been beaten by US troops this past week.
US officials said they could not confirm al-Fartusi’s arrest, but
reports that the prominent mullah had been detained infuriated Shiites.
Thousands of Iraqi Shias had on Tuesday staged noisy demonstrations
calling for al-Fartusi’s release outside Baghdad’s Palestine
Hotel, where the US forces have set up their headquarters.
Demonstrators have gathered daily in front of the large downtown hotel,
calling for Iraqis to be allowed to manage their affairs immediately,
and chanting: “No colonialism.”
The Pentagon’s men: Ahmad Chalabi & the
INC
Across Baghdad, Iraqi political parties have slowly begun opening up
new offices this week. But only one group shares a base with US Special
Forces soldiers, has a private army trained by the Americans and is
guarding a local hospital alongside US troops.
Both Ahmad Chalabi and Mohammed Zubaidi deny they are Iraqi leaders-in-waiting
and claim to be driven only by a desire to serve their nation and people.
Both recently returned from years in exile and are virtual unknowns
in the land of their birth. Many Iraqis, for obvious reasons, view both
with suspicion.While each has been a senior member of the Iraqi National
Congress (INC) -- a disparate band of exiles cultivated by Washington
after the Gulf War -- both deny they are US tools.
But they are shunning the Shiite majority, especially the groups with
the largest following. According to early reports, Mohammed Zubaidi
was installed as mayor of Baghdad at a meeting called by US officers
last Sunday. Zubaidi said he had the consent of occupying US troops
and had been coordinating with US forces, meeting with them everyday.
Aggravating unease over the widespread belief among Iraqis that the
Americans only covet the country’s oil, Zubaidi said not much later:
“I invite all US companies to come here to work in Baghdad and
make business in this country. We are a rich country. Now we are considered
the first country in oil.”
Senior US officials quickly denied the appointment, which was odd, considering
Zubaidi was speaking in the third-floor suite of the Palestine Hotel,
which has become the US military headquarters in Baghdad.
But the INC, and Ahmad Chalabi in particular, have been the principle
beneficiaries of millions of American dollars provided by the Congressional
Iraqi Freedom Act passed under the Clinton adminstration, and have been
favored by Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and his deputy, Paul
D. Wolfowitz.
Chalabi, who left Iraq 45 years ago at the age of 12 and has been convicted
of bank fraud in Jordan, is clearly the man to watch, at least as far
as the Pentagon is concerned. He is heavily protected by US soldiers
on a mansion-lined street in Baghdad’s richest neighborhood. Two
weeks ago, the US military transported him and 600 mercenaries of his
self-declared “Free Iraqi Fighters” into southern Iraq. A
wealthy businessman, he returned to the capital this week, where he
immediately settled into Uday Hussein’s exclusive party house with
a contingent of bodyguards and his armed fighters. The INC militia --recruited
in recent months inside and outside Iraq and trained by the US military
in Hungary, dress in surplus American-style desert fatigues.
In addition, about 230 of Chalabi’s fighters have undergone training
at a northern Iraqi miltary hospital turned by the Americans into a
special operations base. On the outside wall of the base, the words
“Iraqi National Congress have been painted.
Chalabi pays the salaries and for the weapons and food out of his own
pocket, Nabeel Musawi, 42, the deputy director of the INC said. The
Pentagon, which commands the fighters, is providing the training and
transportation.
While many of his men are Iraqi exiles trained by Americans, others
have been hired within the past two weeks.
Local people say young men hired for $200 each have been tearing through
the streets in pick-up trucks, carrying assault rifles and chanting
pro-Chalabi slogans. Some say they have been stealing cars at gunpoint.
In Nasariyah, elements of Chalabi’s Pentagon-backed army have been
accused by US troops themselves of lawlessness. US marines complain
they have been ordered to hand over assault rifles taken from groups
of looters and remnants of the old regime to members of Chalabi’s
forces.
Chalabi has already announced a meeting of a council in Baghdad with
the next few weeks to select a one- to three-person executive council,
which would become the core of an Iraqi transitional government until
general elections are held.
Zaab Sethna, one of his lieutenants, said this week that Chalabi was
now ready to set up a headquarters in the center of Baghdad.
Since arriving in Iraq’s capital, Chalabi has already assumed the
airs of a president-designate at his new headquarters. His supporters
and bodyguards tour the city in a fleet of new four-wheel drives decked
out with his portrait and flying strange blue, green and yellow flags,
the significance of which Chalabi will not explain.
The only opposition leader who openly backs the presence of American
troops is Ahmad Chalabi, who wasted no time staging a flurry of press
conferences in defense of the US.
“The United States of America does not want to run Iraq,”
Chalabi told the press this week. “That’s what President Bush
has said, and I believe him.”
On Sunday he called for US forces to remain in Iraq until the country
holds elections, a process which he said could take two years.
“The military presence of the United States in Iraq is a necessity
until at least the first democratic election is held, and I think this
process should take two years,” Chalabi said.
On Friday, driving through the capital, a car carrying the flag of the
Iraqi National Congress and a large photograph of Chalabi was sprayed
with automatic gunfire. After Friday prayers, when thousands of miltant
supporters of the late Ayatollah Mohammed al Sadr spilled onto the streets,
Chalabi’s name was openly derided.
Flying in the face of most reports, Chalabi responded by saying that
news of emerging assertions of power by clerics and religious groups
in some cities should be viewed as mere acts of defiance against Saddam
Hussein after a period of repression, rather than a threat to stability.
“I do not think this should be read as anyone trying to set up
an authority or to challenge whatever emerges from the process of an
interim authority,” he said.
Until now, aside from those closely following recent events, few, if
any, Iraqis had ever even heard of the INC or Ahmad Chalabi. But at
last Friday’s rallies, Shiites repeatedly shouted: No to an American
government! No to Chalabi!” One banner in English read: “No
to all Chalabis, no to any military government.”
The show of Shiite fervor hit its peak just as retired US three-star
general Jay Garner, the American civil adminstrator for Iraq, continued
a tour of Iraq’s battered infrastructure, devastated by 12 years
of strict US-led economic sanctions and three weeks of intense bombing.
Garner said a post-Hussein elected government would be headed by one
leader who could represent the country’s diverse ethnic make-up.
“The new government of Iraq will have one leader, one army, one
government,” he said.
Sources: Agence France-Presse, Al Jazeera,
Associated Press, BBC, Boston Globe, Daily Telegraph (UK), Guardian
(UK), Independent (UK), International Herald Tribune, IPS, Irish Times,
NBC, New York Times, Observer (UK), Reuters, Sydney Morning Herald,
Times (UK), Toronto Star, Washington Post, Washington Times
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Republican-friendly Bechtel wins $680m
Iraq contract
The Bush administration faced fresh accusations of overt
political favoritism this week after it awarded a major Iraq reconstruction
project to the Bechtel Corporation, the San Francisco-based construction
giant, which has close ties to the Republican Party and the White House.
Bechtel was offered a contract worth up to $680 million last Thursday
to restore Iraq’s water and electricity supply and build roads,
schools, sewers and hospitals. It was one of six companies, all American,
who were invited to compete in the closed-door bidding process overseen
by the US Agency for International Development.
Bechtel’s selection has added to the growing suspicion that the
administration is intent on using the reconstruction process as a way
of rewarding its corporate friends and keeping control of post-Iraq
firmly in US hands.
One of the best-connected, most powerful and most secretive companies
in the world, Bechtel’s tentacles extend deep into the corridors
of power. Bechtel’s ties with the American intelligence service
has earned it the nickname “the working arm of the CIA.”
Bechtel has made $1.3 million in political donations over the past four
years, 60 percent of it to Republicans. Its board of directors includes
George Shultz, who was Secretary of State during the Reagan administration.
Its chairman and chief executive, Riley Bechtel, was recently appointed
to George Bush’s export council. Bush also named Ross Connelly,
a former Bechtel executive, as executive vice president and chief operating
officer of the Overseas Private Investment Corp. - the agency that supports
US investment around the globe. One director of Bechtel Holdings is
Sir John Jennings, the former chairman of Shell Oil.
Israel seeks Iraqi oil pipeline
In 1983, Shultz and current Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld sought
to persuade now-deposed Iraqi president Saddam Hussein to let Bechtel
build a pipeline to carry Iraqi oil to the Red Sea.
Now, the plans being discussed between Washington, Tel Aviv and the
US-sponsored Iraqi National Congress are to build a pipeline to siphon
oil from newly conquered Iraq to Israel.
The plan envisages the reconstruction of an old pipeline, inactive since
the end of the British mandate in Palestine in 1948, when the flow from
Iraq’s northern oilfields to Palestine was re-directed to Syria.
Now, its resurrection would transform economic power in the region,
bringing revenue to the new US-dominated Iraq, cutting out Syria and
diverting oil to controversial regional US ally Israel.
US intelligence sources confirmed that the project has been discussed.
One former senior CIA official said: “It has long been a dream
of a powerful section of the people now driving this administration
[of President George W. Bush] and the war in Iraq to safeguard Israel’s
energy supply as well as that of the United States.”
James Akins, a former US ambassador to the region, said: “This
is a new world order now. This is what things look like particularly
if we wipe out Syria. It just goes to show that it is all about oil,
for the United States and its ally.”
Akins was ambassador to Saudi Arabia before he was fired after a series
of conflicts with then Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, father of
the vision to pipe oil west from Iraq. In 1975, Kissinger signed what
forms the basis for the Haifa project: a Memorandum of Understanding
whereby the US would guarantee Israel’s oil reserves and energy
supply in times of crisis.
The memorandum has been quietly renewed every five years, with special
legislation attached whereby the US stocks a strategic oil reserve for
Israel even if it entailed domestic shortages - at a cost of $3 billion
in 2002 to US taxpayers.
The Bechtel contract follows on from the even more controversial choice,
made in the opening days of the war, to give management of Iraqi oil
fires and oilfield reconstruction to Halliburton, the Texas oil services
company where Vice President Dick Cheney was chief executive from 1995
to 2000. Halliburton was promised as much as $7 billion worth of work.
In the US, several members of Congress – all Democrats – have
demanded an investigation of the bidding process, and the selection
of Halliburton in particular. Cheney is reported to be receiving anywhere
from $160,000 to $1 million a year from Halliburton in deferred severance
payments.
Sources: AP, Independent UK, Observer UK,
Toronto Globe and Mail
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Hands off Iraqi oil, Mid-East states
tell US
Iraq’s neighbors said on Saturday US-led forces that
invaded the country had no right to exploit its oil and should pull
out as soon as possible, giving the United Nations a central postwar
role.
A meeting of Iraq’s immediate neighbors as well as Egypt and Bahrain
said US forces had to reestablish stability and security after their
invasion, but should leave as soon as possible and allow Iraqis to form
their own government.
“(The ministers) affirmed that the Iraqi people should administer
and govern their country by themselves, and any exploitation of their
natural resources should be in conformity with the will of the legitimate
Iraqi government and its people,” they said in a joint statement
read by Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal.
“If what they (the occupying forces) intend is the exploitation
of Iraqi oil, it will not have any legitimate basis,” Faisal told
a news conference after the talks in the Saudi capital.
Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Maher said the participants wanted a
swift withdrawal of US-led forces. “We cannot accept a military
government. There is an occupying power with responsibilities. But for
there to be a military government, this is something I don’t think
anyone will accept.”
Referring to recent US threats against Syria, the ministerial joint
statement said: “We completely reject the recent threat against
Syria, which can only increase the likelihood of a new cycle of war
and hatred. We call on the United States to enter into dialogue with
Syria and to activate the Middle East peace process.”
The ministers also endorsed a Syrian proposal - primarily aimed at Israel’s
suspected nuclear arsenal - to turn the Middle East into a region free
of weapons of mass destruction.
The talks included the foreign ministers of Turkey, Iran, Kuwait, Jordan,
Syria, Egypt and Bahrain. Sources: IPS,
Reuters
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Americans accused of ignoring killings
by Kurds
For decades, Saddam Hussein ‘Arabised’ northern
Iraq. Many non-Arab citizens were forced to relinquish their Kurdish,
Assyrian or Turkmen identity or face expulsion. Now his ethnic cleansing
is being reversed, with bloody results. A bitter conflict is unfolding
in northern Iraq between the minority communities, with the Americans
accused of turning a blind eye to killings and ethnic cleansing. Hundreds
have already died in inter-ethnic clashes.
“We’ve suffered under Saddam and we were very happy to see
him go,’ said Khalil Mirza, 47. “But one tyranny has been
replaced by another.” Mirza was forced to flee his village two
weeks ago. He is one of thousands of Arab villagers forming armed militias
to resist attempts by local Kurds to force them from the land they have
been farming for decades.
The Kurds are being blamed for a violent campaign of intimidation against
the Turkoman population. Organizations representing the Turkomans say
they want British and European troops to protect them because the Americans
are acquiescing in what is taking place.
Since Apr. 10, when Kirkuk fell to Kurdish forces, at least 40 civilians
have been killed in inter-ethnic violence. Nobody knows how many people
live in Kirkuk. The size of the population and its ethnic breakdown
are so sensitive that every census since 1957 has been rigged or suppressed.
Three peoples claim this town as their own - Arab, Turkoman and Kurd
- and the oil fields on its fringe make it a prize worth having. Each
of the three is armed, each is frightened of the others, and each believes
it can call on outside forces.
Both the Kurds and the Turkomans claim the city as their historic capital,
both basing their arguments on the old nationalist premise of having
been there first and in greater numbers.
“We have had a series of attacks as soon as the war ended and the
Kurds moved in,” said Mohammed Kemal Yaycili, an executive officer
of the Turkoman Front. “The Americans said they had asked the Kurds
to leave, but nothing happened. When we complained to [them] about the
attack, nothing happened either. The Americans favor the Kurds. They
are working hand in hand.”
Sources: Independent UK, Observer UK, Reuters,
Sydney Morning Herald
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Children falling victim to cluster bombs
Doctors in emergency rooms and in children’s wards
in Baghdad are seeing more and more children who have stepped on unexploded
ammunition, or simply picked it up to play with. Despite the exhortations
of US civil society groups months before the war began, the United States
armed forces utilized cluster bombs, which release hundreds of smaller,
lethal “bomblets”, each of which can explode into hundreds
of metal fragments, often claiming civilian lives. According to the
international press reporting from within Iraq, cluster bombs were used
in military operations throughout the country.
Four US soldiers on patrol were wounded Saturday when an Iraqi girl
accidentally handed them an M-42 bomblet and it blew up. One soldier’s
leg was amputated.
Residents of the Dura neighborhood in southeastern Baghdad have been
trying to negotiate their way through what appear to be US cluster pieces
scattered through the area, including some found hanging in trees.
Hala Hassan and her brother, Ali, aged five and two, are too stunned
to talk about their encounter with a bomblet.
“They thought it was a kind of ball,” said Hala’s aunt,
weeping. “They only wanted to play.”
Tiny fragments of shrapnel flew upwards into Hala’s legs and into
Ali’s face. At least one of them is still lodged deep in his cheek.
Just the day before, three boys, aged between 7 and 14, were killed,
and two injured in a similar tragedy just 500 yards away.
A high proportion of the bomblets do not go off and lie where they fall,
capable of exploding at any moment. The devices can remain embedded
in the ground for years.
On Apr. 2, the Pentagon acknowledged that it had used cluster bombs
in the city of Al Hillah. The International Committee of the Red Cross
reported dozens of civilians dead and 300 injured as a result of that
attack.
Sources: AP, IPS, Tierramérica, Times UK, Sydney Morning Herald
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Minuscule blood lead levels impair intelligence
Ithaca, New York, Apr. 16 (ENS)— Lead may be harmful
even at very low blood concentrations, scientists from three institutions
have found. The results of a five-year study released today show that
children with blood lead concentrations below the federal definition
of an elevated lead level suffer intellectual impairment from the exposure.
The study by researchers from Cornell University, Cincinnati Children’s
Hospital Medical Center, and the University of Rochester School of Medicine
will appear in the Apr. 17 edition of The New England Journal of Medicine.
The research was funded by the National Institute of Environmental Health
Sciences (NIEHS).
Children with blood lead levels below 10 micrograms per deciliter, the
threshold currently used by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
(CDC) to define an elevated lead level, were the focus of this study.
Previous research has dealt with lead’s effects in the 10 to 30
micrograms per deciliter range, still the new study finds impairments
at lower lead levels.
For the rest of this article, please see www.ens-news.com.
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United States’ Latin American expansion
cloaked by conflicts
Analysis by Jeremy Bigwood
Washington, DC, Apr. 18 (IPS)— While much of the world’s
attention has been focused on Iraq, Afghanistan and Israel-Palestine,
Washington has quietly boosted its military presence in Colombia, supposedly
to search for contractors kidnapped by leftist insurgents, but as part
of a strategy to tighten its control of the country, and the region,
say many observers.
Published figures show that US military overt and covert operations
have clearly been expanding in the Andean Region. In Colombia alone,
the number of US military personnel, which was limited by the US Congress
through the Andean Regional Initiative at 300, is already closer to
400. That does not include “civilian contractors” engaged
in both covert and overt operations.
Washington’s plan is to “economically and militarily wipe
out the social and indigenous movements in order to obtain their resources
and territories”, said Bolivian Congressman Evo Morales, echoing
a view popular in the region. “The undercurrent of these plans
is the same program as has been going on for the last 500 years —
the eradication of our indigenous cultures,” he told IPS.
“The ‘Andean Regional Initiative,’ which replaced ‘Plan
Colombia,’ ‘New Horizons,’ ‘Three Plus One,’
the ‘Cabañas,’ ‘Unitas,’ and Águila
military exercises are all components of this plan,” added Morales.
“Viewed as a whole, these elements make up a new and expanded version
of the old counterinsurgent ‘Plan Condor’ of the 1970s,”
the covertly US-led alliance of the armies of Argentina, Chile, Uruguay,
Brazil, and Paraguay, which killed hundreds of leaders and members of
the progressive left, ensuring that it would not come to power in the
region and threaten US dominance.
The US military says the legal precedent for its presence throughout
Latin America is the Monroe Doctrine, an edict dictated by a US president
in 1823, which was never voted on by Congress, much less by those affected
— Latin Americans.
While originally formulated to keep other nations out, the Doctrine
basically says that Washington can intervene anywhere it wants in the
Americas. “It’s not unrealistic. In some ways the Monroe Doctrine
could be interpreted to justify Yankee imperialism throughout the region,”
said Steve Lucas, spokesman for the US military presence in the region,
known as the United States Southern Command (USSOUTHCOM).
A quick look at the map appearing on the Command’s website appears
to confirm that view. What most of us call South and Central America
— from the southern Mexican border southward — on the military
map becomes the new land or “area of responsibility” (AOR)
known as “USSOUTHCOM” (with the exception of the Falkland
and South Georgia Islands, which are still listed as British-controlled).
The military’s “New Horizon” program “is now being
exercised all over the AOR (area of responsibility) — Central America,
parts of the Caribbean, and South America,” said Lucas from his
Miami office. Involving primarily US reservists and the Air Force, it
focuses on “civic action” — “the building of roads,
schools, drilling wells and all of these other kinds of stuff to improve
the infrastructure,” he added.
But Morales sees it differently. “Recently in Bolivia, under the
cover of US ‘civic action’ programs, a group of North American
military officers came into our country — not doing social work,
but intelligence studies.”
According to long-time independent researcher and Latin America expert
George Ann Potter, “Nobody in Latin America and the Caribbean thinks
that US military civic action programs are anything but intervention.”
“With the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, the US lost the pretext
of ‘communism’ for its intervention in Latin America and the
Caribbean — other than Cuba — and it quickly assumed the ‘war
on drugs’ as an excuse for military presence. And after 9/11, the
pretext for intervention became the ‘war on terrorism’,”
added Potter, a professor at the Catholic University of Bolivia.
In fact, the State Department’s “three-plus-one” program
was set up to monitor “suspected activities of Hezbollah and Hamas
financiers in the tri-border area [Paraguay, Brazil, and Argentina],”
according to Ambassador Cofer Black, the department’s coordinator
for counter-terrorism.
Little else is known about the program, even by Lucas, who told IPS,
“As far as I know there are no US Army activities in the tri-border
area. At least nothing overt. Nothing in the terms of our exercises
as such.”
But Morales says it is “merely another invented pretext for US
intervention and control. I don’t believe that there is a terrorist
threat there. The ‘war on drugs’ is the main pretext for US
intervention in the Americas, and there are no illicit crops that far
south, so the US government has to invent novel threats to intervene
there. The ‘war on terrorism’ is just a pretext, nothing more
... to construct more bases like those in the Bolivian Trópico.”
More bases have been going up throughout the region, from the “forward
operating locations” (FOLs) in El Salvador, Ecuador, and the Caribbean
islands of Aruba and Curacao, to many smaller centers for radar surveillance
and ‘narcotics control.’
Other activities include overt US military training exercises with Latin
American armies: “Cabañas” for the armies of the region
— under US command and control; “Unitas” for the navies
and “Águila” for the air forces.
Why the training? According to Lucas, “If we can train and equip
other people to act in what we consider to be US national interests,
then that, of course, is our job. And we have been successful in training
other people to do that so far, particularly in the last few decades
in Latin America.”
While opposing the concept, Morales generally agrees with Lucas’
assessment, adding that the exercises are “part of Bush’s
electoral promises to take control of Latin America through the training
and control of the Latin American armed forces by the US armed forces
— expanding the Andean Regional Initiative — which essentially
means US bases throughout Latin America.”
In the shadow of international conflict, the instruments of US control
of Latin America are now being expanded and fine-tuned. But the region’s
people are not accepting US justifications for this expansion. If these
opposing trends and perceptions continue, it is only a matter of time
before the expansion seriously clashes with the stakeholders of the
region.
“Nobody who I know in Latin America looks favorably on US military
bases in the region,” said Potter.
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