Three U.S. "forward operating bases" in Honduras

[Ibrahim]

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/06/world ... .html?_r=1

Lessons of Iraq Help U.S. Fight a Drug War in Honduras
FORWARD OPERATING BASE MOCORON, Honduras — The United States military has brought lessons from the past decade of conflict to the drug war being fought in the wilderness of Miskito Indian country, constructing this remote base camp with little public notice but with the support of the Honduran government.

It is one of three new forward bases here — one in the rain forest, one on the savanna and one along the coast — each in a crucial location to interdict smugglers moving cocaine toward the United States from South America.

What could possibly go wrong?

[Mr. Perfect]

We've got to get rid of this George Bush President! Tinker, get your fleabaggers on this one and get that Bush out of the WH! Get the nodes on it!

[Demon of Undoing]

America is going to turn to some sort of neo-Monroe doctrine on steroids. Drugs and narcoterrorism will be declared the permanent Eastasia, and all will go well.

[Enki]

The drug war is changing in a very significant way in Latin America. President Santos of Colombia saying legalization is on the table, where President Obama was on the same stage saying it's not on the table.

There is a move toward a different type of war, a development war. It is starting up and will weave a tapestry that unites the Americas economically.

But the mode of the drug war is very different now from what it has traditionally been.

[Nonc Hilaire]

But the mode of the drug war is very different now from what it has traditionally been.

It had to change. Penitentiary slave labor, narcotics, financial fraud and killing off brown foreigners are pretty much the only U.S. industries left standing.

[Ibrahim]

But the mode of the drug war is very different now from what it has traditionally been.

It had to change. Penitentiary slave labor, narcotics, financial fraud and killing off brown foreigners are pretty much the only U.S. industries left standing.

The defense and security industries realize that public opinion is turning against interminable Middle East deployments. It benefits them to diversify into Central American deployments. Also, it's worth noting the lack of fanfare these days. Compare the media blitz pre-Iraq 2.0 compared with the way the drone campaigns have crept into Pakistan and Yemen with barely a press release, and a US "Green Zone" being built in Sanaa, as well as these FOBs in Honduras.

[Apollonius]

Well, as the Republican members of this board keep pointing out, Democrats always get a free pass from the media when it comes to foreign military adventures.

[Ibrahim]

Well, as the Republican members of this board keep pointing out, Democrats always get a free pass from the media when it comes to foreign military adventures.

There is widespread criticism of Obama-era drone and S.F. assassinations, but mostly from specialist media, e.g. foreign correspondents working in and reporting from Yemen. The US media panders to the US audience, and both are just bored of the Middle East conflicts.

[Mr. Perfect]

There is widespread criticism of Obama-era drone and S.F. assassinations, but mostly from specialist media, e.g. foreign correspondents working in and reporting from Yemen.

IOW nobody.

The US media panders to the US audience, and both are just bored of the Middle East conflicts.

Interestingly timed according to who holds the political levers.

[Azrael]

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/06/world ... .html?_r=1

Lessons of Iraq Help U.S. Fight a Drug War in Honduras
FORWARD OPERATING BASE MOCORON, Honduras — The United States military has brought lessons from the past decade of conflict to the drug war being fought in the wilderness of Miskito Indian country, constructing this remote base camp with little public notice but with the support of the Honduran government.

It is one of three new forward bases here — one in the rain forest, one on the savanna and one along the coast — each in a crucial location to interdict smugglers moving cocaine toward the United States from South America.

What could possibly go wrong?

I wonder if the bases in Honduras are really there because of the "drug war", or if their real purpose is to cause trouble for Nicaragua and President Ortega.

It's starting to look like 1986 again.

[Azrael]

Well, as the Republican members of this board keep pointing out, Democrats always get a free pass from the media when it comes to foreign military adventures.

Not really. When Reagan had forward operating bases in Honduras, it wasn't to fight against drug lords, it was to put drug lords in power in Nicaragua through the use of terrorist gangs. Republicans call the Contras "freedom fighters", but to the victims of their campaign of massacres, rapes and bombings (they generally ran away from the army) they will forever be reviled as terrorists.

And if Congress decides to cut funding for these bases, Obama wouldn't resort to selling weapons to Iran in order to continue operations without Congressional oversight.

[Doc]

Well, as the Republican members of this board keep pointing out, Democrats always get a free pass from the media when it comes to foreign military adventures.

Not really. When Reagan had forward operating bases in Honduras, it wasn't to fight against drug lords, it was to put drug lords in power in Nicaragua through the use of terrorist gangs. Republicans call the Contras "freedom fighters", but to the victims of their campaign of massacres, rapes and bombings (they generally ran away from the army) they will forever be reviled as terrorists.

And if Congress decides to cut funding for these bases, Obama wouldn't resort to selling weapons to Iran in order to continue operations without Congressional oversight.

http://blogs.wsj.com/corruption-current ... cable-say/

Nicaragua Government Took Bribes From Drug Traffickers, Cable Says

By Samuel Rubenfeld

U.S. diplomats accused Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega’s government of taking bribes from drug traffickers in exchange for freeing suspects, in cables released by Wikileaks.

Oswaldo Rivas/Reuters
Nicaragua’s President Daniel Ortega’s government accepts bribes from drug traffickers, harbors terrorists and attempts to endear itself to Iran, according to leaked U.S. diplomatic cables.

The bribes formed a kind of “judicial ‘campaign finance’ machine” in return for not-guilty verdicts, according to a May 5, 2006, cable from the U.S. Embassy in Manangua, Nicaragua. It says the ruling Sandinista party regularly accepted cash from drug traffickers, “usually in return for ordering Sandinista judges to allow traffickers caught by the police and military to go free.” The scheme, the cable said, was run by the director of the state security service and overseen by Supreme Court judges, including Rafael Solis and Roger Camillo Arguello.

The Nicaraguan Consulate in Washington declined to comment, deferring to the Foreign Ministry, which didn’t respond to a request for comment. Government representatives in Managua couldn’t be reached. The State Department didn’t respond to a request for comment on the cable.

Arguello is accused in the cable of coordinating a “complicated scheme to make 609,000 dollars in drug money seized from two Colombians ‘disappear’ from a Supreme Court account,” and he allegedly did it by funneling it into Sandinista party accounts.

Solis, in an interview with Nicaraguan television cited in a Washington Post story, said the accusations in the Wikileaks documents are “baseless and have no credibility.”

In another example, a Sandinista candidate for regional elective office in March 2006 allegedly tried to bribe a judge with $108,500 to free convicted drug trafficker Marvin Funez. “According to prosecutors, this was not the first time that Rigoberto Gonzalez Garbach had tried to bribe judges to free drug traffickers,” the cable said.

Ortega also had a notable history with terrorists, according to a second cable. During the 1980s, he “he invited international terrorists from Italy, Lebanon, Libya, the Palestinian territories, and Spain” to come to Nicaragua and use it as a base for operations, the cable said.

Leaders of the Argentine “Los Montoneros” group resided in Nicaragua and engaged in military activities with the Sandinistas at the end of the 1970s and into the 1980s, the cable said.

A third cable, this one from May 2008, alleges that Ortega attempted to endear his country to Iran, which he viewed as a “revolutionary soul mate” because they both toppled regimes in 1979. Ortega sought investment, but Iran rebuffed him, it said.

He also allegedly received “suitcases full of cash from Venezuelan officials” when making official trips to Caracas, Venezuela, according to the cable, which cites firsthand witnesses. However, a fourth cable from Feb. 25, 2010, said that though Ortega allegedly received nearly $1 billion from Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, Ortega’s constant need for cash is “likely now wearisome for Chavez who faces growing domestic economic difficulties.”

http://www.iwp.edu/news_publications/de ... -nicaragua

Tropical Chekists: The Sandinista secret police legacy in Nicaragua
Demokratizatsiya: The Journal of Post-Soviet Democratization

By J. Michael Waller

Posted: Saturday, July 31, 2004

PAPERS & STUDIES

Demokratizatsiya: The Journal of Post-Soviet Democratization

Publication Date: Summer 2004

As a revolutionary regime, the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) that overthrew strongman Anastasio Somoza in 1979 swept away all vestiges of the old order. Virtually every single government structure, including the constitution, judiciary, legislature, and all instruments of security and force, was demolished and replaced with an entirely new system.

There were no efforts at “reform.” Instead, there was only a total break with the previous regime and all its components. The FSLN led a revolutionary Government of National Reconstruction in a broad coalition with leaders of the anti-Somoza democratic opposition. That government, headed by a junta that scrapped the old laws and ruled by decree, enjoyed strong support from Europe, the United States and Canada, and much of the rest of the world.

But although the United States and western Europe quickly pledged and delivered large-scale support, the Sandinistas, while maintaining a democratic, pluralistic facade, immediately prepared to move against members of its coalition who did not share the FSLN’s Marxist-Leninist ideology. Their ultimate goal was the establishment of a one-party state.2

Upon assuming power, one of the FSLN’s first objectives was the creation of instruments of force under strict party control. The Front began to implement this policy within days of the coup against Somoza under the guidance—or, more accurately, under the direction—of Cuban and East German advisers. This was done while the FSLN enjoyed broad popular support and international goodwill. Non-FSLN members, while welcomed in many government posts where the FSLN lacked its own qualified cadres, were deliberately isolated from the so-called “power ministries”—the Ministries of Interior and Defense.

[Azrael]

It looks like the neocons are cooking up some propaganda to start another war.

[Doc]

It looks like the neocons are cooking up some propaganda to start another war.

Julian Assuage is a Neocon?

[Azrael]

He isn't the one who made the accusations.

Diplomats have been stirring up trouble in Latin America for a long time.

Don't shoot the messenger.

[Doc]

He isn't the one who made the accusations.

Diplomats have been stirring up trouble in Latin America for a long time.

Don't shoot the messenger.

I am not the one that brought up Neocons. If you would noticed the POTUS is NOw Obama and was Obama on Feb. 25, 2010

However, a fourth cable from Feb. 25, 2010, said that though Ortega allegedly received nearly $1 billion from Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, Ortega’s constant need for cash is “likely now wearisome for Chavez who faces growing domestic economic difficulties.

[Azrael]

If American diplomats always had good intel, it might have saved us from the debacle in Iraq.

I don't know whether or not the allegations are true and neither do you.

Oh, and just in case you forgot, this is a thread on bases in Honduras.

Do you deny that the last time we had such bases in Honduras, they were to support the Contras, who were, among other things, drug smugglers?

[Doc]

If American diplomats always had good intel, it might have saved us from the debacle in Iraq.

I don't know whether or not the allegations are true and neither do you.

Oh, and just in case you forgot, this is a thread on bases in Honduras.

Do you deny that the last time we had such bases in Honduras, they were to support the Contras, who were, among other things, drug smugglers?

First the intent in Iraq was right.
Secondly you brought up

Diplomats have been stirring up trouble in Latin America for a long time.

Not were stirring up but "have been" stirring up.

The cables were in the past.

We have bases in Honduras right now. Mostly for jungle warfare training. Honduras benefits since the Army corp of engineers practices things like road building there. But there was the time when the Arkansas national gaurd forgot all their equipment there. Bill Clinton got a letter from the Regan Admin thanking him for that.

http://www.richardpoe.com/2003/10/29/bi ... onnection/

Mr. Clinton’s alleged ties to the CIA would explain some later episodes during his tenure as Governor of Arkansas, when his state became a staging-point for President Ronald Reagan’s secret effort to supply the Nicaraguan Contra rebels. An Arkansas State Trooper, L. D. Brown, has testified in a deposition that he was inducted into the CIA on Mr. Clinton’s suggestion, and then went on two clandestine flights to deliver weapons to Central America.

Mr. Clinton was even commended for his “patriotic” work by the Reagan White House after he had sent the Arkansas National Guard to Honduras for manoeuvres. The deployment was a ruse by the Pentagon, according to Morris. The Arkansas Guard left its “excess” inventory behind, providing a cache of weapons that were slipped to the Contras. …

The point is not that Bill and Hillary Clinton are Right-wingers in disguise – although Morris demolishes the pretence that they were progressive reformers in Arkansas. It is that they have no conviction, no ideology, no guiding purpose. Driven by raw ambition, they will make any compromise necessary to advance their interests.

[Enki]

Doc Obama is a Neo-Liberal. Neo-Liberals and Neo-Cons are basically the same thing. The main difference is that Neo-Cons think war is glorious, for other people's kids. And Neo-Liberals think war is distasteful but is necessary to accomplish the nation's aims. So they both want the same thing, the only real difference is in the way they kill people.

[Doc]

Doc Obama is a Neo-Liberal. Neo-Liberals and Neo-Cons are basically the same thing. The main difference is that Neo-Cons think war is glorious, for other people's kids. And Neo-Liberals think war is distasteful but is necessary to accomplish the nation's aims. So they both want the same thing, the only real difference is in the way they kill people.

I disagree. Obama is more of a war hawk than anyone in the Bush Admin ever was. He said as much on his web site before he got elected. Would not rule out invading Pakistan as I recall. He is also much more of a crony capitalist. If one of his friends came up with a solar powered Abrams tank you can be sure he would be looking ever where in the world for places to invade.

[Ibrahim]

Its pretty even. US air power, and probably the attendant SF presence on the ground, was and is going on in Pakistan ever since late 2001/early 2002. Both Bush II and Obama were steadfast on Afghanistan, and I guess you could say that Libya was Obama's version of Iraq. An optional war that wasn't directly tied to US interests. Its just that Libya was done better due in no small part to the lessons learned by the failure of Iraq. I'd give Bush II the edge because Iraq was a decade long, Libya so short, and Iraq was clearly about enriching certain private interests. But you can argue it either way.

Obama is very much a neo-liberal in terms of political labeling. There is nothing traditionally left-wing about him. But there is very little that is left-wing about anything in mainstream American politics after Carter. The majority doesn't want it.

[Doc]

Its pretty even. US air power, and probably the attendant SF presence on the ground, was and is going on in Pakistan ever since late 2001/early 2002. Both Bush II and Obama were steadfast on Afghanistan, and I guess you could say that Libya was Obama's version of Iraq. An optional war that wasn't directly tied to US interests. Its just that Libya was done better due in no small part to the lessons learned by the failure of Iraq. I'd give Bush II the edge because Iraq was a decade long, Libya so short, and Iraq was clearly about enriching certain private interests. But you can argue it either way.

Right Michael Moore made more money from investments in Halliburton than Cheney did. But the Iraq war was all about crony capitalism.

Obama is very much a neo-liberal in terms of political labeling. There is nothing traditionally left-wing about him. But there is very little that is left-wing about anything in mainstream American politics after Carter. The majority doesn't want it.

Obama is a stereo typical left wing *leader*. Which is all about cronyism. AKA Chicago style politics.

[Ibrahim]

Its pretty even. US air power, and probably the attendant SF presence on the ground, was and is going on in Pakistan ever since late 2001/early 2002. Both Bush II and Obama were steadfast on Afghanistan, and I guess you could say that Libya was Obama's version of Iraq. An optional war that wasn't directly tied to US interests. Its just that Libya was done better due in no small part to the lessons learned by the failure of Iraq. I'd give Bush II the edge because Iraq was a decade long, Libya so short, and Iraq was clearly about enriching certain private interests. But you can argue it either way.

Right Michael Moore made more money from investments in Halliburton than Cheney did. But the Iraq war was all about crony capitalism.

If its a profit competition I'll take Haliburton and KBR over Michael Moore. KBR probably billed the US taxpayer more for one valve than Moore made on five of his cookie-cutter documentaries.

Obama is very much a neo-liberal in terms of political labeling. There is nothing traditionally left-wing about him. But there is very little that is left-wing about anything in mainstream American politics after Carter. The majority doesn't want it.

Obama is a stereo typical left wing *leader*. Which is all about cronyism. AKA Chicago style politics.

Both the Democratic and Republican parties are all about cronyism. The entire right-wing campaign of privatization is all about turning over public assets to be exploited for profit and destroyed by private industry, and the military is a giant welfare scheme that turns public money into private wealth. You're got a two party system with a far-right party and center-right party. You're screwed.

[Azrael]

Doc Obama is a Neo-Liberal. Neo-Liberals and Neo-Cons are basically the same thing. The main difference is that Neo-Cons think war is glorious, for other people's kids. And Neo-Liberals think war is distasteful but is necessary to accomplish the nation's aims. So they both want the same thing, the only real difference is in the way they kill people.

I disagree. Obama is more of a war hawk than anyone in the Bush Admin ever was.

You really are quite a specimen.

Bush started a war in Iraq. Bush started a war in Afghanistan. Hundreds of thousands of troops were send over there and thousands of them died. So did hundreds of thousands of civilians.

Obama got involved in a war in Libya that was already occurring. If we had stayed out, Gaddafi would have massacred tens of thousands, or even hundreds of thousands of people. Obama didn't send in the troops. None of our troops died. And Gaddafi actually attacked the U.S. multiple times.

He said as much on his web site before he got elected. Would not rule out invading Pakistan as I recall. He is also much more of a crony capitalist.

No, Bush was the crony capitalist. Billions were wasted on no-bid contracts to Bush's cronies for the wars and for the response to Katrina.

If one of his friends came up with a solar powered Abrams tank you can be sure he would be looking ever where in the world for places to invade.

In your imagination.

[Doc]

Doc Obama is a Neo-Liberal. Neo-Liberals and Neo-Cons are basically the same thing. The main difference is that Neo-Cons think war is glorious, for other people's kids. And Neo-Liberals think war is distasteful but is necessary to accomplish the nation's aims. So they both want the same thing, the only real difference is in the way they kill people.

I disagree. Obama is more of a war hawk than anyone in the Bush Admin ever was.

You really are quite a specimen.

Wow what a typical left wing argument.