US extends malign influence into Latin America (again)

George Bush has quietly overturned a decision to stop providing military funding to many countries in Latin America.

In this article we find that funding was originally cut off from countries that refused to indemnify the US from prosectution for human rights abuses...

A military training ban was originally designed to pressure countries into exempting U.S. soldiers from war crimes trials.

The 2002 U.S. law bars countries from receiving military aid and training if they refuse to promise immunity from prosecution to U.S. servicemembers who might get hauled before the International Criminal Court. The law allows presidential waivers.

The White House lifted the ban on 21 countries, about half in Latin America or the Caribbean, through a presidential memorandum Oct. 2 to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. The training is conducted in the USA.

A ban on giving countries weapons remains. Commercial arms sales are not affected, said Jose Ruiz, a U.S. Southern Command spokesman.

The training ban had resulted in a loss of U.S. influence in the region. The issue gained urgency after a string of leftist candidates came to power in Latin America. Rice said this year on a trip to the region that the impact of the ban had been "the same as shooting ourselves in the foot."

China stepped into the gap. Ruiz said China "has approached every country in our area of responsibility" and has exchanged senior military officials with Ecuador, Bolivia, Chile and Cuba and provided military aid and training to Jamaica and Venezuela.

A few points to note:

1. if the US are the good guys, why do they need exemption from prosecution?
   
2. I'd require more corroboration about Chinese influence in the region than the word of a US military spokesman. These guys lie, and we know it. Colin Powell at the UN, anyone?
   
3. the article's uncritical acceptance of US military claims is entirely typical of US media propaganda. "We'll fact-check and get independent verification, unless it's a US official - we can trust them!"
   
4. the US has used death squads extensively in the region before, and trains the military to do this at what used to be called the School of the Americas. School for torturers, is what it is.
   
5. "Commercial arms sales are not affected" - yeah, I bet.
   
6. The article says "the 2002 law". Now, I haven't checked, but if this law was passed by the Senate and Congress, then hasn't Bush (again) dispensed with an inconvenient law without any checks and balances on his power?
   
7. if the purpose of the change is to "stop the rot" in South and Central America, then it should be obvious that Bush is seeking to interfere in other countries' internal affairs. They are sovereign countries and the US should butt out of their business!
   
   So... give it a year or two and start bracing yourselves for reports of death squads at large in Latin American countries - again. And Americans can take comfort in knowing that while they may have told these death squads what to do, trained them how to torture, and provided the infrastructure for a network of repressive police states, it was the Latin Americans who actually did the work.
   

Rich
Why would you doubt China moving in? I think its perfectly plausible and just another reason why China is successful and we are in debt. This administration has done more damage to our foreign policy then any past government has. We have lost so much sway in South America. Those are our neighbors! We should take care of them before anyone else. On top of that by losing their respect and confidence it is no longer to their advantage to continue the suppression of what natural resources they have, Cocaine, regardless of what it does to our children and family members. They worry about their own survival now and look to who is not going to abandon or attack them possibly in the future. We wasted trillions on a stupid war when we could hve been giving training to doctors in Venezeula , we shipped Bunker busters to Israel instead of sending food, medicine and supplies to Bolivia. What did we get in return for our investments so far?? Nada. Zilch. China stepped right in and took advantage of the void. Very smart. Our loss was their gain.

Pie, for once I think we disagree... I don't believe that the US has ever truly helped their neighbours in the hemisphere. SOA/WHISC has trained death squads and the US has consistently interfered with the internal politics of the countries south of the border. Just off the top of my head, some examples:

• the September 11 coup that ousted Salvador Allende in Chile
  
• the 2002 attempted coup in Venezuela
  
• the assassination of the President of Panama on new year's day 1960 (personally overseen by then VP Richard M Nixon
  
• the takeover in Guatemala in the fifties
  
• the sorry saga of events in Haiti
  
  
  
  1. supporting Papa Doc Duvalier and his son Baby Doc
     
  2. subverting the regime of Aristide
     
  3. being unable to control the guy they put in, to the extent that the ensuing bloodbath and flood of refugees became embarrassing
     
  4. putting Aristide back in, though heavily constrained, in the ironically-named "Operation Restore Democracy"
     
  5. removing Aristide from power once again.
     
  
  
• the pattern of exploitation in Jamaica and the CIA interference with elections there
  
• propping up the death squad democracies in Brazil and Argentina
  
• too many more to mention
  

So it's really just a return to business as usual.

Originally posted by rich23
Pie, for once I think we disagree... I don't believe that the US has ever truly helped their neighbours in the hemisphere. SOA/WHISC has trained death squads and the US has consistently interfered with the internal politics of the countries south of the border. Just off the top of my head, some examples:


So it's really just a return to business as usual.

Well I wasn't disagreeing with you per se but more or less just explaining why it was a mistake for us to alienate these people like Venezuela, bolivia etc who were at one time trade partners and were purchasing (Not pseudo buying under government aid) Military equipment and other trade goods from us, and we pushed them off into the arms of China and Russia instead and a lot of it over this whole Iraq ordeal and more recently Iran. They were only telling us something that was true...what we were doing was wrong and because they disagreed with us, they were considered enemy sympathizers and insults were hurled, threats were made and arms embargoes were imposed. Now that we know they were right the whole time they have abandoned us and moved on to a new supplier.

You will probably get a charge out of this video...Not much has really changed and when you hear the name Bush...dont forget this documentary is from 1987 LOL
I know exactly what you mean when you said about South America...just so happens I saw this tonight.

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