“US problem in Latin America could have been avoided”
Published: 28 August, 2009, 20:47
Edited: 11 October, 2010, 15:37
TAGS: Military, Scandal, South America, Politics, USA
A military agreement between the United States and Colombia has caused an uproar in Latin America which could have been avoided, as Michael Shifter from the Inter-American Dialogue Policy Center told RT.
The US and Colombia have agreed on a 10-year deal allowing the United States to buff up its military presence in the country – and though the Columbian government says that it is aimed at stopping drug trafficking and combating extremism, the news is not being welcomed by Latin American leaders.
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has already threatened to break off diplomatic ties with neighboring Columbia, calling the deal an “act of war” and “betrayal”.
And though the US anticipated the negative reaction of Hugo Chavez and some of the hard-line governments, the opposition by the more moderate Brazil and Chile was completely unexpected, Michael Shifter says.
“The US hasn’t learned the lesson that if there’s some sort of agreement that has to do with the use of military resources of the United States in Latin America, this is going to arouse a lot of suspicions… that is going to be a problem,” Shifter says.
He has added that the US didn’t really lay the groundwork before doing this and they didn’t consult neighboring countries. Shifter believes this was a decision made at the bureaucratic agency level that didn’t even get to the highest political levels – and the US is paying a price for that.
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4 comments
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Interesting they will make a deal with Columbia for 10 years to help deal with drugs, but do nothing at all about the poppy fields in Afghanistan. Further evidence, if any was ever necessary, that the war on drugs is like the war on terrorism. It is a war on drugs entering the US and terrorists that threaten the US and both seem to be going about as well as the other. What sort of relationship can be had with such a childish self centred country as the US?
Annex: As off shore oil naps become more numerous in West Africa, aircraft carriers and US bases become more and more numerous, so that African people will continue to be poor and they will be the exclusive beneficiaries. Now in the Pacific where volcanic “fumaroles”, there are great deposits of minerals, there we will have the next military targets. Let’s eliminate any sort of US presence in our countries and free the world of bullies and Zionism.
Of course, as always the US is to blame. Poor little FARC just want to sell their drugs, kidnaps it's victims, slit some throats and carry a marxist-leninist regime through out the entire Latin America, as want Hugo Chavez, Fidel Castro, Evo Morales, Stalinacio Lula da Silva, and others MFs who supports them. American's presence are being almost useless as the Colombian forces do most the work alone. But they train together and 'tis important. Also, Chavez and his companions from the Foro de São Paulo had tried hard to break Colombia's democracy and put another leftist SOB in presidency, but the free people of Colombia said NO. Now they just want to find excuses and methods to make Colombia bend to the Foro's rule.