Jon Queally - Revealed: The US 'Dirty War' Veteran Who Trained Iraqi 'Death Squads'

Exclusive Guardian/BBC investigation shows how Gen. Petraeus and Donald Rumsfeld unleashed 'dirty war' tactics and 'torture regime' in Iraq

A special investigation by The Guardian newspaper and BBC Arabic that took place over 15 months claims to reveal a shocking, but substantial connection between the murderous tactics of US-backed Latin American 'death squads' in the 1980's and the rise of a similar tactics—including secret detention centers, torture, disappearances, and mass killings—that helped spark a sectarian civil war between Shia and Sunni rivals in the violent days triggered by the US invasion of Iraq in 2003.

And the connection, according to the investigation, lives in a gated golf community in Texas and has a name: (Ret.) Colonel James Steele.

"Steele's contribution was pivotal" in Iraq, says the report. And his time in El Salvador nearly 20 years earlier made him a perfect choice for the Pentagon's Donald Rumsfeld, who took control over a plan to  break the back of an insurgency unwilling to conform to US occupation.

"It was a role made for Steele," the investigative team writes. "The veteran had made his name in El Salvador almost 20 years earlier as head of a US group of special forces advisers who were training and funding the Salvadoran military to fight the FNLM guerrilla insurgency. These government units developed a fearsome international reputation for their death squad activities. Steele's own biography describes his work there as the "training of the best counterinsurgency force" in El Salvador."

Read More:

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2013/03/06-7

Chris Hedges -- The War in the Shadows

A Swedish documentary filmmaker released a film last year called “Last Chapter—Goodbye Nicaragua.” In it he admitted that he unknowingly facilitated a bombing, almost certainly orchestrated by the Sandinista government of Nicaragua, which took the lives of three reporters I worked with in Central America. One of them, Linda Frazier, was the mother of a 10-year-old son. Her legs were torn apart by the blast, at La Penca, Nicaragua, along the border with Costa Rica, in May of 1984. She bled to death as she was being taken to the nearest hospital, in Ciudad Quesada, Costa Rica.

The admission by Peter Torbiornsson that he unwittingly took the bomber with him to the press conference was a window into the sordid world of espionage, terrorism and assassination that was an intimate part of every conflict I covered. It exposed the cynicism of undercover operatives on all sides, men and women who lie and deceive for a living, who betray relationships, including between each other, who steal and who carry out murder. One knows them immediately. Their ideological allegiances do not matter. They have the faraway eyes of the disconnected, along with nebulous histories and suspicious and vague associations. They tell incongruous personal stories and practice small deceits that are part of a pathological inability to tell the truth. They can be personable, even charming, but they are also invariably vain, dishonest and sinister. They cannot be trusted. It does not matter what side they are on. They were all the same. Gangsters.

All states and armed groups recruit and use members of this underclass. These personalities gravitate to intelligence agencies, terrorist cells, homeland security, police departments, the special forces and revolutionary groups where they can live a life freed from moral and legal constraints. Right and wrong are banished from their vocabulary. They disdain the constraints of democracy. They live in this nebulous underworld to satisfy their lusts for power and violence. They have no interest in diplomacy and less in peace. Peace would put them out of business; for them it is simply the temporary absence of war, which they are sure is inevitable. Their job is to use violence to purge the world of evil. And in the United States they have taken as hostages our diplomatic service and our foreign policy establishment. The CIA has become a huge private army, as Chalmers Johnson pointed out in his book “Nemesis: The Last Days of the American Republic,” that is “unaccountable to the Congress, the press or the public because everything it does is secret.” C. Wright Mills called the condition “military metaphysics”—“the cast of mind that defines international reality as basically military.”

Since the attacks of 9/11, the U.S. Special Operations Command (USSOCOM)—which includes the Green Berets, the Army Rangers and the Navy SEALs—has seen its budget quadrupled. There are now some 60,000 USSOCOM operatives, whom the president can dispatch to kill without seeking congressional approval or informing the public. Add to this the growth of intelligence operatives. As Dana Priest and William M. Arkinreported in The Washington Post, “Twenty-four [new intelligence] organizations were created by the end of 2001, including the Office of Homeland Security and the Foreign Terrorist Asset Tracking Task Force. In 2002, 37 more were created to track weapons of mass destruction, collect threat tips, and coordinate the new focus on counterterrorism. That was followed the next year by 36 new organizations; and 26 after that; and 31 more; and 32 more; and 20 or more each in 2007, 2008, and 2009. In all, at least 263 organizations have been created or reorganized as a response to 9/11.”

Read more.. http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/the_war_in_the_shadows_20120820/

Shamus Cooke - Obama's Second Latin American Coup

The recent coup against Paraguay's democratically elected president is not only a blow to democracy, but an attack against the working and poor population that supported and elected President Fernando Lugo, whom they see as a bulwark against the wealthy elite who've dominated the country for decades.

The U.S. mainstream media and politicians are not calling the events in Paraguay a coup, since the president is being "legally impeached" by the elite-dominated Paraguayan Congress. But as economist Mark Weisbrot explains in the Guardian:

"The Congress of Paraguay is trying to oust the president, Fernando Lugo, by means of an impeachment proceeding for which he was given less than 24 hours to prepare and only two hours to present a defense. It appears that a decision to convict him has already been written...The main trigger for the impeachment is an armed clash between peasants fighting for land rights with police...But this violent confrontation is merely a pretext, as it is clear that the president had no responsibility for what happened. Nor have Lugo's opponents presented any evidence for their charges in today's ‘trial.’ President Lugo proposed an investigation into the incident; the opposition was not interested, preferring their rigged judicial proceedings."

What was the real reason the right-wing Paraguay Senate wanted to expel their democratically elected president? Another article by the Guardian makes this clear:

Read More:

http://www.countercurrents.org/cooke240612.htm

Survey: Latin American and Asian cities lead way in planning for global warming

Quito, Ecuador, is not considered a global leader by most measures. But there is one way in which Quito is at the forefront of metropolises worldwide: in planning for climate change. For more than a decade, officials in Ecuador's mountainous capital have been studying the effects of global warming on nearby melting glaciers, developing ways of dealing with potential water shortages and even organizing conferences on climate change for leaders of other Latin American cities.

In so doing, Quito officials represent a global trend: The cities that are most active in preparing for climate change are not necessarily the biggest or wealthiest. Instead, they are often places buffeted by natural disasters and increasing changes in temperature or rainfall. In places where the climate seems to be a growing threat to human lives, resources and urban infrastructure, local officials have been working with scientists, conducting assessments and examining which new measures may best prepare them for the future.

Indeed, as an MIT survey released today shows, 95 percent of major cities in Latin America are planning for climate change, compared to only 59 percent of such cities in the United States.

Read More:

http://phys.org/news/2012-06-survey-latin-american-asian-cities.html

Renee Parsons - U.S. Hegemony in Latin America

While the 'misconduct' of Secret Service agents with prostitutes in Colombia is a significant, if titillating scandal, most media reports have missed the tectonic political shift that surfaced at the recent Summit of the Americas meeting.

The Summit, an offshoot of the Organization of American States organized in 1948, consists of 35 western hemisphere nations that meet on a tri-annual basis with the U.S. historically setting the agenda since the summit's inception in 1994.

The president arrived, smooth and impeccable, with, no doubt, the expectation of encouraging new investment and trade initiatives at the first business seminar conducted since the Summits began. Attending were over three hundred U.S. business executives with Chamber of Commerce President Tom Donohue in attendance to push for a free trade deal with Brazil. Once China began out-hustling the U.S. for its share of the global pie in Latin America and as the U.S. bogged down in a decade of war with an enduring economic catastrophe on its hands, Summit countries took the opportunity to readjust their vision of Uncle Sam's once omnipotent authority. That readjusted vision has offered a measure of independence from U.S. trade markets as well as U.S. domination on policy decisions. While not known for its historical memory, the U.S. does not usually react kindly to previously compliant nations flexing their sovereign muscles, U.S. AID to Latin American and the Caribbean at $1.3 billion in 2010 will most likely provide the necessary tether for continued cooperation.

Read More:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/renee-parsons/us-hegemony-in-latin-amer_b_1445244.html

Peru Investigates Deaths of Hundreds of Dolphins

Scientists and Peruvian officials are investigating a mass die-off of hundreds of dolphins along the South American country's coast.

Officials have been studying possible factors in the dolphins' deaths including a virus or seismic oil exploration that has recently been carried out off northern Peru.

A total of 877 dolphin carcasses have been counted recently along the shore in the northern regions of Piura and Lambayeque, Deputy Environment Minister Gabriel Quijandria said Thursday.
He said experts are studying whether the animals could have succumbed to a virus. "So far, it's the most probable hypothesis, and it isn't the first time it's happened. There have been cases in Peru, in Mexico, the United States," Quijandria said.

An analysis of the beached dolphins' internal organs hasn't found the sort of symptoms that experts have seen in other cases when dolphins have been affected by seismic tests, Quijandria said in a radio interview. He said the seismic tests produce underwater noise that can harm dolphins. But he also said that in Peru it's the first time such dolphin deaths have coincided with seismic work and that the dolphins began dying before the tests started.

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http://www.opednews.com/populum/linkframe.php?linkid=149241

Gary Younge - Abroad, as at home, Obama coasts on a wave of disappointment

In January 1903 the US signed a treaty with Colombia that would have provided unfettered access to the Panama canal. Unfortunately, the terms were not good enough for the Colombian senate, which refused to ratify it. At the time, Panama had been a region of Colombia for 80 years. Undeterred by the annoying matter of Colombian sovereignty the US encouraged, incited and facilitated Panama's secession from Colombia.

The newly independent Panama gave its American enablers all it wanted. In the face of considerable criticism, the US president, Theodore Roosevelt, looked to the closest members of his cabinet to help him justify his actions. Unable to articulate a principled defence they simply endorsed them with gallows humour. "You have shown that you were accused of seduction," said his secretary of war, Elihu Root. "And you have conclusively proved that you were guilty of rape."

This was not the last time Colombians would be screwed by the US. Earlier this month several secret service agents and military personnel were embroiled in a scandal with Colombian sex workers. More than 20 have so far been implicated in the scandal after local police intervened in a dispute between an agent and an escort. She said he'd agreed to pay her $800 for the night; he offered her only $30. She eventually left the hotel after being paid $225.

Read More:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/apr/22/abroad-obama-coasts-wave-disappointment

Jim Lobe - U.S., Latin America Growing More Distant, Warns Think Tank

"The United States must regain credibility in the region by dealing seriously with an unfinished agenda of problems, including immigration, drugs, and Cuba – that stands in the way of a real partnership," according to Michael Shifter, president of the Washington-based Inter-American Dialogue (IAD).

The 20-page report, entitled "Remaking the Relationship", described current inter-American relations as "generally cordial but lack(ing) in vigor and purpose". It suggested that Washington, in particular, has failed to fully come to terms with Latin America's strong economic and political progress over the past two decades.

It also concluded that the two sides "need to do more to exploit the enormous untapped opportunities of their relationship in economics, trade, and energy", as well as to work more closely together on global and regional problems.

"They need to breathe new life and vigor into hemispheric relations," it stressed.

"The United States must regain credibility in the region by dealing seriously with an unfinished agenda of problems, including immigration, drugs, and Cuba – that stands in the way of a real partnership," according to Michael Shifter, president of the Washington-based Inter-American Dialogue (IAD).

Read More:

http://www.nationofchange.org/us-latin-america-growing-more-distant-warns-think-tank-1334209393

Luis Hernandez Navarro - Bolivia has transformed itself by ignoring the Washington Consensus

Gabriela Oviedo is a fashion model and TV personality. She is a 28-year-old brunette, almost six feet tall. Born in the Bolivian province of Santa Cruz, she was elected as the national beauty queen in 2003. In 2004, Gabriela took part in the Miss Universe pageant. There she was asked to name one of the biggest misconceptions about her country. In awkward English, she answered: "Um … unfortunately, people that don't know Bolivia very much think that we are all just Indian people from the west side of the country. It's La Paz, all the image that we reflect, is that poor people and very short people and Indian people ... I'm from the other side of the country, the east side, and it's not cold, it's very hot and we are tall and we are white people and we know English."

Gabriela's answer, heavy with racism, raised such a wave of outrage in her country that she was forced to give up the contest. Two in every three Bolivians are indigenous people. Her answer, however, was not an isolated occurrence. It reflects the persistence of a white, deeply anti-indigenous Bolivia, which survives today even though deep changes have been introduced, including the approval of anti-racist legislation.

Read More:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2012/mar/21/bolivia-washington-consensus

Christopher Sabatini - China’s Geostrategic Designs on Latin America

In the last 5 years China’s military activities in Latin America and the Caribbean have grown at an unprecedented rate.   Beijing now regularly hosts officers from Colombia, Chile, Mexico, Peru and Uruguay  in its military academies, has expanded arms sales and technology transfers to countries like Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil and Venezuela, and in October last year even sent  a navy ship to the Caribbean.

Is China—now Brazil and Chile’s number-one trade partner—buttressing its economic interests in the Western Hemisphere with military ties and alliances?  Is this the Middle Kingdom’s equivalent of President Barack Obama’s Pacific pivot to balance China’s saber rattling in Asia? There’s no doubt that China’s torrid economic growth rate and its arrival as an emerging—if not already emerged—global economic superpower has shifted the international system and brought a more muscular Chinese foreign policy.  That policy—part of what the Chinese labeled its “Going Out” strategy—has come with a growing Chinese diplomatic, economic and even military presence in many of its closest trade partners.  Given China’s need for raw materials to feed its manufacturing growth and urbanization—gobbling up everything from iron, to oil, to soybeans and frozen chicken—the country’s rise has been felt most obviously (at times with alarm) in the developing world, including Latin America.

Read More:

http://www.americasquarterly.org/node/3311