when Rumsfeld was in neighboring Paraguay visiting US troops a few months ago. Rumsfeld also said that MAS, Morales's political party, wasn't even a real party. Rumsfeld also raised the specter of having another pro-Chavez government in Latin America.
As much as I hate the war in Iraq, it is the fact that our military is bogged down in that quagmire that has saved the lives of millions elsewhere who could be under American attack as we speak.
Four years ago when Morales ran for President, the Bush regime went to extreme measures to defeat him, sending cash to the ruling government and having Condi Rice threaten the Bolivians with serious consequences if Morales were elected.
It is getting to the point that I view the United States as the greatest threat to freedom and peace the world has seen since the rise of the Third Reich.
Last Updated: Wednesday, 17 August 2005
US warns of Bolivian interference The US defence secretary has accused Cuba and Venezuela of fomenting unrest in Bolivia, which has led to the overthrow of two presidents since 2003.
Speaking in Paraguay, a close US ally, he asked South American nations to take a multi-lateral approach to the issue.
<snip>
US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said there was evidence that both Cuba and Venezuela had been "involved in the situation in Bolivia in unhelpful ways".
He did not give more details.
BBC South America correspondent Tom Gibb says Washington is clearly worried that the strongly anti-US coca grower, Evo Morales, who has led many of the Bolivian protests, could win elections there in December.
Mr Rumsfeld's accusation represents a significant stepping-up of attempts to isolate the left-wing Venezuelan President, Hugo Chavez, our correspondent says.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4158998.stm23 August 2005
''Intelligence Brief: Rumsfeld Visits Paraguay and Peru''
In an attempt to reverse the cycle of instability that has erupted in the Andean states of South America and that continues to intensify, U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld visited Paraguay and Peru on August 16-18.
The pressing reason for Rumsfeld's trip is the deterioration -- from Washington's viewpoint -- of the political situation in Bolivia, where President Carlos Mesa resigned earlier in the summer after the country was torn apart by autonomy movements in its relatively prosperous south and by mass populist direct action in its poverty stricken north. Washington's primary concern is the escalating support for Evo Morales, the charismatic leader whose base among the northern coca growers has widened to include significant portions of Bolivia's indigenous majority and whose Movement Toward Socialism, which falls in line with the cooperativist ideology of Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez, commands the most significant bloc in the Bolivian Congress.
Washington, which has accused Caracas and Havana of lending support to Morales, fears that populist movements opposed to its strategic aims now have a genuine chance to come to power in the Andean states and institute socialist economic models in place of neo-liberal capitalist free trade, thereby excluding U.S. influence in the region. Although Bolivia is the proximate threat, Peru and Ecuador are also experiencing increasing instability from populist pressures. In Peru, three coca-growing regions have passed ordinances permitting free cultivation of the crop, and, in Ecuador, protestors in the country's oil-rich Amazon region have occupied petroleum facilities -- cutting off the flow of crude oil -- to advance their demands that transnational oil companies increase their spending on infrastructure improvements and social programs.
The overriding aim of Rumsfeld's trip to Paraguay and Peru, where he met with the countries' presidents and defense officials, was to persuade them to increase military cooperation with Washington and to create a coalition geared to isolating Caracas in the hemisphere. Subsidiary goals were to encourage Asuncion's crackdown on smuggling, the drug trade and financial support for Middle Eastern Islamist groups operating in Paraguay's region bordering Brazil and Argentina, and to bolster Lima's commitment to curb coca production for export. The present strategic importance of Paraguay and Peru for Washington is enhanced by the fact that they border Bolivia.
http://www.pinr.com/report.php?ac=view_report&report_id=351&language_id=1
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