Conspiracy theory about Ecuador untrue
Posted on Monday, 03.26.12
Conspiracy theory about Ecuador untrue
Otto Reich’s and Ezequiel Vazquez Ger’s March 15 deceptive analysis of Iran’s relationship with Ecuador and other Latin American nations, Iran’s stealth financial partners in Latin America, will do more to confuse readers than help them understand the nature of bilateral relations.
Reich and Vazquez Ger intersperse baseless terms like “anti-American” with misleading characterizations of Ecuador’s relationship with Iran. Like all countries, Ecuador maintains diplomatic and commercial relations with countries all over the world. And Iran is hardly our top trade partner. According to figures from Ecuador’s Central Bank, for every $100 worth of goods Ecuador exported to the United States last year, it sent roughly just one cent worth of goods to Iran. It’s also worth mentioning that bilateral trade between Ecuador and Iran dropped to almost zero last year. The items Ecuador trades with Iran, mostly bananas and flowers, are not subject to the sanctions imposed by the United Nations, the United States and the European Union.
The article mistakenly portrays Ecuador as a country that facilitates money laundering, which is far from true. The government of Ecuador, guided by principles and conviction, fully implements procedures that aid local authorities in the fight against money laundering. Recent implementation of measures, as recommended by the Financial Action Task Force of South America, demonstrates our commitment on this issue.
If Reich and Vazquez Ger insist on analyzing Ecuador’s global partnerships, they should provide readers with proper context. Countries across the Americas, including the United States’ neighbors Mexico and Canada, maintain diplomatic and commercial relations with Iran as well. Conspiracy theories about Ecuador and other nations may fit nicely into the authors’ worldview that is stuck in the Cold War, but they don’t serve The Miami Herald’s readers.
More:
http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/03/26/2710518/conspiracy-theory-about-ecuador.html#storylink=cpy
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...and is yet another example of transglobal oil corporations running U.S. foreign policy.
It's kind of amusing (if it weren't so awful) how Chevron got the venue for the Indigenous lawsuit against them (for their foul pollution of a swath of the Amazon rainforest the size of Rhode Island) changed from the U.S. to Ecuador, when Chevron had the extremely corrupt rightwing ruling establishment of Ecuador literally in their pocket, then, after the leftist democracy movement in Ecuador and the election of a leftist government (the first stable, pro-people government in Ecuador, basically ever), and they couldn't buy the judge in Ecuador, they went back into U.S. courts and tried to get a U.S. judge to rule that the Ecuadoran courts are corrupt and their rulings should be rendered moot in the U.S. and everywhere else. (Such hubris! Such lies! Such irony!)
So, when Ecuador was corrupted by them, Chevron wanted the lawsuit in Ecuador, and when Ecuador became incorruptible by them, they wanted it back in the U.S.
Meanwhile, the uncorrupt judge in Ecuador ruled that they owe the Indigenous $18 billion (about half of what they requested) for cleanup of the horrible stinking pools of oil sludge that Chevron's subsidiary, Texaco, had left all over the rainforest, for health care for medical sufferers from the toxins and for economic and other damages (destruction of a fishing-hunting way of life).
Chevron has a BIG STAKE in toppling Ecuador's democracy--both because these filthy greedbags will be out $18 billion (if Ecuador can make their judicial ruling stick) and because of the precedent. (One of their execs actually said that they can't let "these little countries" defeat them.)
Ecuador has been uppity in several ways. A couple of years ago, its leftist president, Rafael Correa, fulfilled a campaign promise by evicting the U.S. military (Dyncorp) from its base in Manta, Ecuador. Ecuadorans (80%) hated this base as a violation of their sovereignty. Thus, the U.S. military lost a major foothold for spying, for making trouble and for future wars. Only 20% liked the base (if that--some probably didn't have an opinion) and those are the traitorous fascists who collude with the likes of Otto Reich to destroy their own country and subject it to rule by the U.S. and the rich elite.
This crap about Iran is typical of Otto Reich--a truly bad actor in the Reagan-Bush Horrors in Latin America, who probably arranged the bombing of a Cuban civilian airliner (and helped one its perp escape from prison in Venezuela), and who very likely was behind both the 2002 rightwing/military coup attempt in Venezuela and the successful coup in Honduras in 2009.
BAD ACTOR. VERY bad actor. When he isn't serving our worst presidents as the chief architect of fascist horrors in Latin America, he's a lobbyist for Lockheed Martin, McDonnell-Douglas and other out-of-control war profiteers and for corporate monsters like AT&T and Bell Atlantic. He was foreign policy adviser to John McCain (telecommunications interests in Honduras) and is on the board of directors of the U.S. military "School of the Americas" (where fascist military from LatAm are schooled in the latest torture techniques).
So think about this. Why is he using Iran to build a case for war against oil-producing countries with leftist governments in Latin America? Hm?
WHY is he doing this?
The question is NOT how credible are his lies about Ecuador. The man lies for breakfast, lunch and dinner and then goes home to sleep at night and lies in his dreams--and has done so his entire career. He is a PAID liar for the worst actors on earth. He is in the category of Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld liars. Whatever they say, the opposite is true; whatever they accuse others of doing, they are doing or planning to do.
I suppose I'm glad that this article rebuts him point by point and that the Miami Hairball has published it--but, really, has the Hairball not thereby accomplished REPETITION of this garbage from Otto Reich?
Otto Reich is not just "stuck in the Cold War." He is one of the most vicious operatives of the transglobal corporations and war profiteers who rule over us. If there was any justice, he would be in jail for what he has done in Latin America--yet he, like Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and others, are free to run around planning new horrors for us and for other people.
WHAT is being planned here, for Latin America, by inference of his accusations?
Iran is a country that has invaded NO ONE, but whose neighbor, Iraq, was invaded by the U.S. inflicting vast slaughter and mayhem right next door to Iran. Iran is a country that the U.S. has grossly interfered with for half a century, a country that, at long last, established a republic--one that may not be to our liking, and may be flawed--but is theirs--and is seeking bilateral trade around the world, as most countries do. Why shouldn't Iran do this? And why shouldn't other countries trade with Iran? Because they may want nukes as a deterrent to a U.S. invasion a la Iraq? They HAVE MUCH REASON to fear such an invasion. And--just as with Iraq, and just as with most of U.S. Middle East policy for the last half century--the U.S. motive would be to CONTROL THE OIL. That has been the U.S. motive since 1954, when the U.S. overturned Iran's first democracy because their new president--a war hero--had nationalized the oil! Then the U.S. inflicted the Iranians with the horrible "Shah of Iran" for 25 years of torture and repression. That's what the U.S. DOES to oil rich countries--it un-democratitizes them!
Ecuador is a country that has invaded NO ONE, but whose neighbor, Colombia, has been drenched in blood, mostly with the murders of trade unionists, human rights workers, journalists, peasant farmers and other advocates of the poor, using the corrupt, murderous, failed U.S. "war on drugs" as the excuse and $7 BILLION in U.S. military aid as the means. This U.S.-created horror spills over the border into Ecuador with the flight of tens of thousands of poor Colombians into Ecuador, creating an unstable border and the cost to Ecuador of millions of dollars in humanitarian aid. Ecuador is a country that U.S. corporations, the U.S. government and the U.S. military have grossly interfered with for half a century--most recently by Chevron-Texaco's vast toxic oil spills, and, even more recently, by the U.S./Colombia dropping 500 lb. U.S. "smart bombs" and invading over the border, to slaughter 25 sleeping people in a FARC hostage release camp just inside Ecuador's border (nearly starting a war between the U.S./Colombia and Ecuador/Venezuela).
Ecuador has proceeded peacefully and lawfully and democratically to counter gross U.S. bulling and interference.
What does Otto Reich want to do this oil rich country? He wants to un-democratize it. He wants Chevron to control its courts. He wants the oil profits to ALL go to Chevron and other transglobal corporations and NONE to the poor of Ecuador for health care, education and other bootstrapping. He wants the U.S. to install a U.S.-controlled dictator to do the bidding of U.S.-based transglobal corporations. He wants U.S. military bases there, in a farflung Pentagon network (the "Southern Command"
to control and aggress against the "global south." He wants wanton murders of trade unionists, human rights workers, peasant farmers and others, as in Colombia. He wants to do these and other things to Ecuador against the clear will of the people of Ecuador. They want independence. They want to benefit from their resource wealth. They want DEMOCRACY. They want their rainforest to be cleaned up and local people compensated for Chevron's crimes.
Otto Reich would brutally deny the people of Ecuador everything that they want and everything that they've fought for years to achieve. And he is using the latest U.S. "enemy" (read: oil producer), Iran, to try to achieve his evil purposes in Latin America.
He is not just after Ecuador's oil, of course. He's after Venezuela's as well. And he's after Brazil's. (It was Lula da Silva, recent president of Brazil, who said, of the Bushwhack reconstitution of the U.S. 4th Fleet in the Caribbean, that it "is a threat to Brazil's oil"!) Otto Reich wants these countries back in the Reagan/fascist dictator mold. He wants to see thousands tortured, thousands 'disappeared,' thousands murdered, millions living in fear. He would re-torture the current president of Brazil (who was imprisoned and horribly tortured by the U.S.-backed fascist regime, in her youth). And he, a terrorist himself, is using wholly unjustified accusations of "terrorism" against Iran to get what he wants in Latin America.
I have no reasons of diplomacy for blunting what I think of Otto Reich and the evil bastards that he serves (as the writer of this article may have had). I'm calling as I see it: It is a war plan. Nothing that Reich says about Ecuador has any more reality or credence than did the "weapons of mass destruction" in Iraq. It is war propaganda.. And it started with the Miami mafia reps in Congress even before the Diebold Congress was seated (late 2010). They held a meeting about what they were going to do with their newfound power and war in Latin America was their answer.
And the tragedy is that we don't have a strong enough democracy here to stop it. These warmongers want to put their next "war president' in the White House, once they have sufficiently clouded over the mindboggling crimes of the last one? Believe me, they have the power to do so. They also probably have the power to overrule Obama, if he doesn't want such a war, and to proceed with it ANYWAY, as Otto Reich did in Honduras, six months into the Obama administration*. At the least, Obama and his administration are guilty of laying some of the ground work for more U.S. oil wars, including one in LatAm, just as Bill Clinton did for Bush Jr & Junta on Iraq. They've already got Latin American blood on their hands--in Honduras and in Colombia (and Mexico). Does Obama want a war in LatAm? Probably not. Could he be cornered/pressured into it? Yes. Do some actions of his administration point to war prep? Yes (but not all). Can he be easily replaced when conditions are ripe for Oil War II: Latin America? Yup.
Some RWers here at DU have ridiculed me for "predicting" a U.S. war on Venezuela. I did not predict a war--I warned of one, in view of all of the Bush Junta/Pentagon preparations for such a war.
This Otto Reich war propaganda prompts me to re-issue my warning. It is a very worrisome omen. At least some portion of the U.S./Corporate/War machine wants such a war. They desperately want to re-conquer and to un-democratize Latin America. And I don't see any way to stop them, if that's what they decide upon--except the people of Latin America themselves, unwarlike as they are, uniting in a political/economic block with defensive powers and severing Latin America from the U.S. for a couple of centuries. That is not such a crazy idea. They have formed new organizations--notably UNASUR (all South America) and CELAC (all Latin America)--that might be able to do just that.
If Otto Reich and those behind him get their hands on our war machine again, it will be disastrous, to say the least. Disastrous for us and for others. That is where these lies from Otto Reich are going. If they can't have Iran (and China and Russia, along with Iran's innate strength, make that war problematic), they want Ecuador and Venezuela and are probably aiming at Brazil. IT'S THE OIL! That is how evildoers like Otto Reich gain power over U.S. policy.
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*(I'm convinced that the rightwing/military coup in Honduras in mid-2009, only six months into the Obama administration, was of Bushwhack design and also may have included traitors in the U.S. military and the U.S. diplomatic corps, working for Bushwhack ends against Obama's stated policy of "peace, respect and cooperation" in Latin America. But Obama/Clinton's response to it was terrible. They continued to fund the coupsters (while lying that they weren't). They took steps to legitimize the coup, including a blatantly rigged U.S. State Dept.-run 'election.' They have completely ignored blatant human rights violations--many murders and other horrors. And they furthermore yielded to blackmail, on their LatAm appointments, by freshman Senator Jim DeMint (SC-Diebold). If they didn't okay the coup, he would hold up their appointments forever. (And one of these positions in LatAm was very important to the Bushwhacks--rewarding their Colombian "fixer," William Brownfield, with the Western Hemisphere "drug czar" position. He was likely involved in Bush Junta crimes in Colombia and was most certainly involved in covering them up.)
(The Honduran coup is therefore something of a prototype for how the fascists here could strongarm Obama into a war that he didn't want. Some of their Pentagon buds would instigate it, one way or another ("Gulf of Tonkin"?); he would be trapped into supporting them--as JFK refused to be, during the CIA "Bay of Pigs" operation in Cuba. Obama is far weaker than JFK in dealing with the MIC--and he probably wants to go on living. He would likely compromise and get sucked in. Currently, he is following the military brass' strategy on Iran. They opposed Rumsfeld/Cheney on nuking Iran. That is why Rumsfeld was forced out (in late '06). They want to weaken it first, for conventional bombing/invasion and/or overthrow, and that is quite a task. Iran is much stronger than Iraq was when the U.S. invaded.
(My point is that Obama is going along with this war prep--and also, I don't know how much power he has to stop the war prep, if he opposes the war--in either of these cases, Iran, or the oil-rich countries with leftist governments in Latin America. War prep is in place and on the increase in LatAm. (More U.S. military bases in Honduras, for instance.) Obama has not stopped it or undone any of the war prep--and he continues the U.S. propaganda campaign against the Chavez government and other leftist leaders. He seems to have approved the peace between Colombia and Venezuela. That's one of the big items on the positive side (Obama peaceful intent). But that is a complex story involving Obama's obligation to cover up Bush Junta crimes. The main Colombian player in that situation (warmongering against Venezuela)--Alvaro Uribe--was very dirty, indeed, and had to be jettisoned (while being protected to prevent disclosures). This may not have been a positive Obama choice of peace but more the wish of Uribe's successor, Manuel Santos, who may have bargained for it. This situation was doubly complicated by Santos' recent call for the legalization of drugs--quite a bombshell. Does Colombia have the right to legalize drugs any more than Ecuador, Venezuela and Brazil have the right to trade with Iran? Will U.S. war profiteers/corporate rulers put up with this? Some really big conflicts here between U.S. dominion and LatAm sovereignty--with Otto Reich and backers lusting for dominion.)
