Today's Stories

May 21, 2008

Jeffrey St. Clair
Hillary Reclaims Her Innner Child

May 20, 2008

Ralph Nader
A Trip Inside Google

Uri Avnery
With Friends Like These

Patrick Irelan
The Empire and the Fleet

Ray McGovern
Come Out, Admiral Fallon, Wherever You Are

David Macaray
The UAW Strike Against American Axle

Chris Genovali
Big Oil on the Water: Skating Around the Tanker Issue

Ibrahim Fawal
Birmingham, Israel and the Nakba

Christopher Ketcham
Let Us Now Praise Famous Suicides

Andy Worthington
Guantánamo Trial Delayed

Martha Rosenberg
Merck is a Repeat Offender

Website of the Day
Defend the Students Who Pied Tom Friedman

May 19, 2008

Saul Landau
Cuba Will Live

Paul Craig Roberts
The Metamorphosis of the Conservative Movement

Brian McKenna
Brotherly Love in Philly's Badlands

Patrick Cockburn
City of the Dead: Mosul on Lockdown

B. R. Gowani
The Central Problem Pakistan Needs to Tackle

Dr. Trudy Bond
Psychologists and Torture: If Not Now, When?

Cindy Sheehan
Whose War is It?

John Mohawk
The Warriors Who Turned to Peace

Remi Kanazi
When Free Speech Doesn't Come for Free

Robert Day
I Get a Horse

Website of the Day
Evolve or Die

May 17 / 18, 2008

Alexander Cockburn
The View from the Crusaders' Castle

Tim Wise
Testosterone is Not to Blame: Why Sexism isn't the Reason for Hillary's Loss

Andy Worthington
Gitmo Trials: Betrayal, Backsliding and Boycotts

Robert Fantina
The Double-Talk Express Derails

Karim Makdisi
In the Wake of the Doha Truce

Harry Browne
Only Ireland Can Vote on EU's Future

John Ross
Suicide by Taco? The Demise of Mexico's PRD

Dave Lindorff
Fear at the Pump

Robert Weissman
Pharmaceutical Payola

Laray Polk
Bush Family Appeasement

David Yearsley
Puritans in Seattle

Ron Jacobs
Riot Squads, Privatization and the National Front

Paul Quinnett
My Last Flight

Sam Bahour
Refugees are the Key

Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor
Poverty Wages

Dr. Susan Block
The Groom May Kiss the Groom

Kim Nicolini
Paranoid Park: Inside the Fractured Landscape of Male Adolescence

Jeremy Scahill
John Cusack's War

Jeffrey St. Clair
Booked Up

Poets' Basement
Dominguez, Gerard and Davies

May 16, 2008

Stephen Soldz
Involuntary Drugging of Detainees

Jonathan Cook
Police Attack Al-Nakba March

Paul Craig Roberts
Lies of Aggression

Christopher Brauchli
A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Pharmacy

James L. Secor
Olympic Torch China: the View from Shaoxing

Franklin Lamb
Did Hezbollah Thwart a Bush/Olmert Attack on Beirut?

Linn Washington, Jr.
The Price of Protecting Racist Cops

Dave Lindorff
What West Virginia Means

May 15, 2008

Stan Cox
Big Brother Close Up

Jeff Halper
Rethinking Israel After 60 Years

Greg Moses
Living for the Children of Palestine

John Ross
Why Mexican Justice is a Euphemism

Ron Jacobs
Go to Work, Go to Jail

Binoy Kampmark
Indian Jailbirds: the Case of Binayak Sen

Eve Spangler
We Should Not Celebrate Dispossession

Martha Rosenberg
Meat Wars with South Korea

Website of the Day
Idaho Wolf Killers

May 14, 2008

Ismael Hossein-Zadeh
Oil Wars

Reza Fiyouzat
Torture, a Bully's Creed

Felice Pace
California Water Politics: Of Dams and Water Buffaloes

Hamdan A. Yousuf / Dania S. Ahmed
A Generation Defined by War

Robert Weitzel
Hillary's "Final Solution" to the Persian Problem

Ralph Nader
You're Either with the American People or the Big Auto Bosses

Dave Lindorff
Hillary, McCain and the Stupid Vote

Missy Comley Beattie
White Heaven: Hillary's W. Virginia Idyll

Neve Gordon
Israel as a Site of Struggle

Dr. Susan Block
A Washington Witch Hanging

Website of the Day
Hillary's Downfall

May 13, 2008

David Rosen
Sexual Terrorism: the Sadistic Side of Bush's War on Terror

Alan Farago
Nuclear Florida: Beachfront Reactors in an Age of Rising Sea Levels?

Saul Landau
The Crisis at Home

Saree Makdisi
Forget the Two-State Solution

Paul Craig Roberts
How Empires Fall

Andy Worthington
Gitmo's Suicide Bomber

Brother Bede Vincent
The Problem with Rev. Wright--There are Too Few Like Him

Linda Mamoun
Marketing Ethnic Cleansing

David Macaray
The Myth That Won't Die

Website of the Day
Burning the Future: Coal in America

May 12, 2008

St. Clair / Frank
The Pentagon's Toxic Legacy

Ziga Vodovnik
Rebels Against Tyranny: an Interview with Howard Zinn on Anarchism

Gary Leupp
Why All of Our Efforts Won't Stop an Attack on Iran

Frankln Lamb
Choufeit's Bloody Pentacost

Suzanne Baroud
The Ambition of Hillary Clinton

Martha Rosenberg
Farmer Ernie's Chamber of Horrors

Dave Zirin
The Boss's Boycott

Carl Finamore
I Ain't Gonna Work No More

Peter Morici
Recession Watch

Richard Rhames
The Third Way to Nowhere

Website of the Day
The Untold Story of Black New Orleans

May 10 / 11, 2008

Alexander Cockburn
Real Clear Numbers: 101,000 Casualties a Year

Franklin Lamb
Hezbollah Eases Up and Beirut Opens Its Shutters

Ciara Gilmartin
A Surge in Iraqi Detainees

Diane Farsetta
Inside a Nuclear Industry Soirée

Kent Paterson
Mother's Day in Ciudad Juarez

Alan Farago
The Social Engineers

Rannie Amiri
Beirut on the Brink

Patrick Irelan
Bolivia, Morales and the Red Ponchos

Robert Fantina
The Lexicon Legacy of George W. Bush

Nikolas Kozloff
El Salvador 2009: Another Feather in the Cap of Chavez?

George Ciccariello-Maher
The Yumare Massacre, 22 Years On

David Yearsley
Bacharach at 80

Ron Jacobs
Rosa Luxemburg's Shock Doctrine

John Holt
Can Yellowstone Survive?

David Michael Green
It's So Over

Ben Terrall
Dealing Sleep

Kim Nicolini
The Best Film of the Bush Era?

Jeffrey St. Clair
Booked Up

Poets' Basement
Gibbons, Orloski, Frisella, Gladstone-Gelman

May 9, 2008

Franklin Lamb
A Wild Day in Beirut

Andy Worthington
The Afghans of Gitmo

Benjamin Dangl
Polarizing Bolivia

Mark A. Huddle
Remembering Mildred Loving, an Unsung Hero of the Civil Rights Movement

David Macaray
Hollywood Gives SAG the Brush Off

Dave Lindorff
Team Clinton: Going Down Ugly

C.G. Estabrook
The Way We Live Now

Matt Kosko
McCain, Clinton, Obama and the Wages of Lesser-Evilism

Robert Weissman
Big Business is not the Solution to Global Poverty

Michael Dickinson
Jailing the Joint

Website of the Day
The Role of Third Parties in the U.S.A.

May 8, 2008

Sharon Smith
Rockefeller Family Fables

Saul Landau
The NATO Axiom

Laura Carlsen
A Primer on Plan Mexico

Binoy Kampmark
Food Riots are Coming to the U.S.

Kenneth Couesbouc
China's Paper Feet

Liaquat Ali Khan
Pakistan's Constitutional Shenanigans

Franklin Lamb
Blindsided, Hezbollah Mulls Its Response

Sen. Russ Feingold
Government in Secret

George Wuerthner
The Problems with Conservation Easements

Richard W. Behan
A Brief Exposé of a Fraudulent War

Adam Federman
Marching for Sean Bell

Website of the Day
State of the Air

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Controversy Over Guajira

U.S. Military Bases in South America

By NIKOLAS KOZLOFF

Despite his record unpopularity, it would appear that President Bush wants to go out of office with a bang.  Having failed to overthrow Hugo Chávez through an attempted coup, the White House now hopes to escalate pressure on Venezuela’s President by other means. 

On Saturday, a U.S. navy plane strayed into Venezuelan airspace.  Venezuelan Defense Minister Gustavo Rangel said that the aircraft "practically flew over" the island of La Orchila - where Venezuela has a military base and President Hugo Chávez has a residence - and another island before turning back.  U.S. officials claimed the plane had “navigational problems.”  

"This is just the latest step in a series of provocations," Rangel said.

From Orchila to the Fourth Fleet

Indeed, tensions have been mounting in recent days.  The Navy is now reactivating its fourth fleet in the Caribbean.  The fleet, which will include a nuclear aircraft carrier, will be based in Mayport, Florida. 

The fleet hasn’t seen any action in Caribbean waters since World War II.  In February 1942, the Germans sank a number of oil tankers full of Venezuelan crude.  The attack caused a nationalist outcry in Venezuela and Caracas began to side more openly with the allies.  In response to the attacks the U.S. patrolled the area, hunting down Nazi submarines which were wreaking havoc on allied shipping.  After the war, with no more German U-boats prowling Caribbean waters, the Fourth Fleet was dissolved. 

So, why resuscitate the fleet now? 

The navy claims the move is necessary to protect maritime security.  The real reason however may have more to do with Washington’s desire to wage a kind of psychological war against the Chávez government and to foment a climate of political tension.

From Laptops to Border Incursions

In its quest to get rid of Chávez, the White House has also sought to spark tensions between Colombia and Venezuela.  There’s a good chance that the U.S. Southern Command passed crucial military intelligence to the Bogotá government when the latter attacked an encampment of FARC guerrillas inside Ecuadoran territory.  After the March 1 assault, which resulted in the deaths of guerrilla leader Raúl Reyes as well as 20 other insurgents, and which arguably constituted an act of international terrorism, the Colombian authorities claimed that Chávez and Rafael Correa, Ecuador’s pro-Venezuelan President, were doing their utmost to support the FARC. 

As evidence they produced documents allegedly found on FARC laptop computers which remarkably survived the attack intact.  The documents, Colombia says, prove that Chávez has provided weapons, munitions, and $300 million in aid to the FARC.  After conducting its own investigation, Interpol declared that Colombia did not modify, delete or create any files, although the Andean nation did not always follow internationally accepted methods when handling the computers.  The agency stated that the documents came from a FARC camp, but investigators could not conclusively prove that the information contained within the documents was totally accurate.  

In Washington, State Department Spokesman Sean McCormack pounced on Interpol’s report, remarking that the laptop files indicating Venezuelan support for the FARC were “highly disturbing.”  Chávez has rejected the accusations, calling the Interpol report a "clown show" that "doesn't deserve serious comment."  The Venezuelan leader said all relations with Colombia as well as his country’s cooperation with Interpol would undergo “deep review.”  Seeking to rhetorically destroy his adversaries, Chávez referred to Interpol chief Ronald Noble as a "mafioso” and “an aggressive Yankee cop."  In yet another memorable outburst from the Venezuelan leader, Chávez added that Noble’s true name was "Mr. Ignoble.” 

As if relations between Colombia and Venezuela could slip no further, on Saturday, the same day that the U.S. navy plane passed into Venezuelan airspace, Chávez accused Bogotá of sending its troops across the border in an illegal incursion.  The two South American nations share a 1,370-mile border that winds through mountains and thick patches of jungle.  In a written statement, Venezuelan Foreign Minister Nicolás Maduro said that 60 Colombian troops had been intercepted in Venezuela's western Apure state, about 875 yards from the nations' shared border.

Controversy Over Guajira

Amidst ominous signs that the U.S. might be seeking to destabilize the Venezuelan government, a new controversy is swirling.  William Brownfield, the U.S. ambassador to Colombia, recently remarked that the U.S. would consider relocating its military air base at Manta, Ecuador to Colombia.  According to the New York Times, an area mentioned in later reports was the Guajira region near the Venezuelan border.  Colombia’s foreign minister, Fernando Araújo, quickly denied that Colombia had any plans to allow the United States to establish a base in Guajira.  

The controversy could not have come at a worse time. 

Already, tensions have risen as a result of secessionist efforts in the westernmost state of Zulia which spans the Venezuelan Guajira region.  Recently, the Chávez opposition in Zulia proposed a feasibility study for potential independence from the federal government.  What’s more, Zulia Governor Manuel Rosales, who lost to Chávez in the December 2006 presidential election, announced his support for his state’s autonomy. 

Speaking on his weekly TV show Aló, Presidente!, Chávez warned opposition leaders that any move towards Zulia autonomy would lead to confrontation. “I advise those individuals who want to break up Venezuela to think it through very well. We won’t tolerate a political fragmentation of our country,” he declared, adding that any such attempts would be met with force.  The Venezuelan leader went on to say that Zulia autonomy constituted an “imperial plan” designed and supported by the United States to take control of strategic oil areas.

An impoverished region, the Guajira is home to Wayúu Indians who come and go across the frontier.  The area is full of barren desert and straddles the Colombian-Venezuelan border.  Geographically remote, the Guajira has historically been embroiled in diplomatic controversy.  In 1928, Colombian authorities were so concerned about secessionist plots in the region that Bogotá's House of Deputies met in secret session to discuss "moves of Yankee agents in the Departments of Santander and Goagira which sought to provoke a separatist movement which, united to Zulia [in the midst of the Venezuelan oil zone] would form the Republic of Zulia." 

As a result of the tangled history, any talk of installing a U.S. presence in the area inevitably stirs nationalist passions.  Chávez has stated that "We will not allow the Colombian government to give La Guajira to the empire,” referring to the U.S.  As media reports surfaced, local authorities in the Guajira raised their voices in protest.  Eber Chacón, a Chávez supporter and the Mayor of Páez, a local indigenous municipality, called on the Wayúu in Colombia and Venezuela to repudiate attempts by the Venezuelan opposition to divide them with their "autonomist and separatist positions."  Chacón added that installing a U.S. base in Guajira would represent a potential threat to hemispheric security. 

From Manta to Colombia

How did we get to the point where the U.S. is actually thinking about closing its military base in Manta, Ecuador and opening a new one in Colombia?  That is a question I seek to answer in my book, Revolution! South America and the Rise of the New Left (Palgrave-Macmillan), just released in April of this year.

In Ecuador it is difficult to ignore the public climate of hostility towards the U.S. military base at Manta, which is used for drug over flights of Colombian air space.  The facility, located 160 miles southwest of Quito on the coast, is a large installation which is technically not controlled by the United States but belongs to the Ecuadoran air force. 

Many Ecuadorans believe that the United States is trying to draw their nation more deeply into the Colombian conflict, which has spilled over the border.  The air base at Manta was leased to the U.S. military for 10 years in 1999, and President Rafael Correa made it clear even before he was elected that he did not plan to extend the lease once it expired in 2009. 

During a trip to Quito, I found myself on the campus of the city’s Catholic University.  At a table, a woman was registering people to go on a bus trip to the coast to protest the base at Manta.  In the hallway, I met Gualdemar Jiménez, a local activist. 

U.S. Air Base at Manta: A Social Disaster

“Manta used to be a purely fishing town,” he explained.  “Now the fishermen don’t have access to certain parts of the ocean, which are closed off for security reasons.”  On the sea, U.S marines had intercepted Ecuadoran boats, even sinking some vessels.  “The marines are not the Ecuadoran coast guard,” Jiménez declared indignantly. 

He went on to tick off a number of other problems associated with the U.S. airbase.  For example, the base had gradually expanded over time.  This expansion had displaced campesino farmers from their traditional lands.  In addition, there had been environmental damage: within the local area, hillsides had been destroyed in an effort to acquire the necessary raw materials to mix asphalt and repave the runway.

The Manta air base contributes some $7 million to the local economy annually, but activists are critical of the lack of real economic development in the area.  The marines don’t do any shopping in Ecuadoran markets, nor do they utilize local transportation.  “The only thing they contribute to is local discos and prostitution,” Jiménez explained bitterly. 

“What you´re describing is hardly unique,” I remarked.   “It reminds me of the history of other U.S. military bases.”

“It´s a trend that is repeated around the world,” Jiménez said.  “In Vietnam, you had houses of prostitution springing up as well.”

Now that Correa is likely to give the U.S. the boot, the Americans must figure out where they may go next.  The Defense Department doesn’t have too many options: across South America, Pink Tide nations are unlikely to host a prolonged U.S. military presence on their soil.  About the only country which might agree is Colombia, but for different reasons such a move would prove perilous. 

If U.S. troops were deployed to Colombia, they would be stationed in the middle of a war zone and would be exposed to attacks by the FARC.  Politically, opening a new base on Colombian soil would further antagonize Chávez across the border.  Whether the Pentagon decides to station its base in Guajira amongst the Wayúu or elsewhere in Colombia, the installation is likely to give rise to prostitution and other negative social consequences for the local population, just like Manta.

Nikolas Kozloff is the author of Hugo Chávez: Oil, Politics, and the Challenge to the U.S. (Palgrave Macmillan, 2006), and Revolution! South America and the Rise of the New Left (Palgrave Macmillan, April 2008).

 

 

 

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