Upon assuming the US presidency, Joe Biden asserted in his first major foreign policy address, “America is back!” For Latin America and the Caribbean, this has meant an “aggressive expansion” of the US military in the region.
US Military Projection in Latin America and the Caribbean Intensifies
Los Choneros is tied to the Mexican drug Sinaloa Cartel and Los Lobos to Jalisco. Ecuador itself, together with Bolivia and Colombia, is part of the so-called cocaine triangle, which is the world’s largest producer of the drug. From Ecuador, it travels overland to Brazil and Peru and by sea to Mexico, European countries, and the African market.
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Finally, and thirdly, another version of the reason for the current conflict outbreak is the activation of the CIA and their agents who want to destabilize the entire Andean region (after all, the situation in Peru and Chile is also complicated). Although it sounds like a conspiracy, given the skills of US intelligence agencies and their networks in Latin America, it should not be dismissed, but more attention should be paid to the activities of State Department agents who do not want to lose the region.
Interestingly, when I highlight and look up, ‘cocaine triangle’, Apple brings up the Wikipedia page for ‘CIA involvement in Contra cocaine trafficking’. 🤔
Related (Money & Front Organizations):
Read More »Two centuries after the speech that inaugurated the United States’ policy toward the region, five Democratic lawmakers call for an end to the Cuban embargo and the declassification of secret CIA files, as well as reforms to the IMF and the OAS
A group of US representatives call for an end to the Monroe Doctrine and interventionism in Latin America
Doubtful that this will ever happen.
Previously:
With the conflict in Gaza provoking debate over what constitutes a violation of international humanitarian law, The Onion asked Americans to define a “war crime,” and this is what they said.
Americans Try To Define ‘War Crime’
During his 26-year papacy, John Paul II elevated 483 individuals to sainthood, reportedly more saints than any previous pope. One personage he beatified but did not live long enough to canonize was Mother Teresa, the Roman Catholic nun of Albanian origin who had been wined and dined by the world’s rich and famous while hailed as a champion of the poor. The darling of the corporate media and western officialdom, and an object of celebrity adoration, Teresa was for many years the most revered woman on earth, showered with kudos and awarded a Nobel Peace Prize in 1979 for her “humanitarian work” and “spiritual inspiration.”
Michael Parenti: Mother Teresa, John Paul II, and the Fast-Track Saints
“The only way for Palestinian children to sleep in peace is for Israeli children to sleep in peace. The only way for Israeli children to sleep in peace is for Palestinian children to sleep in peace. War will never achieve this.”
Relations Sour Between US and Colombia Over Colombian President Petro’s Refusal To Condemn Hamas
You might not know it by the relatively scant news coverage, but the U.S. congressional delegation, led by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, that visited Brazil, Chile, and Colombia in August marked a big step forward in the development of a new U.S. approach to Latin America and highlighted the important role that the U.S. progressive left has to play in it.
AOC-Led Delegation Can Push for New Approach to Latin America
Related:
AOC urges US to apologize for meddling in Latin America: ‘We’re here to reset relationships’
Asked if the left needs to build a counterweight network, Ocasio-Cortez, whose trip to Latin America was branded “AOC’s socialist sympathy tour” by Rupert Murdoch’s conservative Wall Street Journal newspaper, replied: “I absolutely believe that the battle for democracy must be transnational and it must be global, and it especially must be hemispheric.
CHIUL, Guatemala − Life in Bartolo Báten’s village has been defined by corruption: A teacher who can’t get a job at the school until she pays a bribe. A water project that runs out of money before the pipes reached town. Sick residents who can’t afford the medicine that’s available elsewhere.
Insurgent candidate tells Guatemalans: Stay, don’t go to the U.S. This time, they’re listening. (archived)
Related:
Seven Decades After Guatemala Coup, Bernardo Arévalo Sees a Dramatic Rise (Will Freeman, CFR)
Arévalo and Semilla are centrists—but in a country where politics habitually skews right, they are often described as center-left. “Semilla has a social democratic element, but its program is centrist, and it also has some center-right followers,” said Lucas Perelló, a political scientist who has spent time studying the party’s formation. Arévalo says he wants to gradually universalize existing social assistance programs to include a greater share of poor Guatemalans, reduce the cost of medicines and healthcare, and link isolated parts of the country through new infrastructure—doable tasks, given Guatemala’s exceptionally low share of debt as GDP, and necessary ones, given the country’s soaring poverty and malnutrition rates.
On security issues, another major concern for Guatemalans, Arévalo promises to increase state presence in crime hotspots, reclaim jails from gangs, and use intelligence-gathering to dismantle mafias. He says Bukele’s anti-gang strategy is not applicable to Guatemala. He is also critical of human rights abuses in Venezuela and Nicaragua and Putin’s war on Ukraine and has no stated plans to recognize China over Taiwan. Asked for a leader he admires, he named the ex-president, José Pepe Mujica, of Uruguay, where he was born during his father’s exile.
Why Is the Biden Administration Rewarding Elliott Abrams?
The United States owes other nations something different, something new. Democracy is in peril at home and abroad partly because of the impunity that keeps Abrams employed. Though his latest role may be somewhat ceremonial, his appointment is out of step with the demands of our time. There should be consequences for someone like Elliott Abrams. At minimum, it ought to be possible to fail out of public service, but for that to happen, we have to change the way we define failure. The massacre in El Mozote was one such failing — not a regrettable historical footnote but a catastrophic atrocity that indicts the administration Abrams served. His reward must be ignominy. The world deserves nothing less.
Previously:
Biden Nominates Elliott Abrams to Public Diplomacy Commission
Ms. Cat’s Chronicles 
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