First, consider this little noticed Rumsfeld op-ed in the WaPo three months ago...
"The Smart Way to Beat
Tyrants Like Chávez," by
Donald Rumsfeld, 12/1/07http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/11/30/AR2007113001800.htmlRemember the "Project for a New American Century"? NeoCons are not shy about announcing their war plans. It's just that our corporate media is so supine, so in the thrall of war profiteers, that it fails to cry the alarm, and our politicians, of course, are all for the corporate oil wars. Now that Iran has been denied to the oil warriors (by China, and because it is well defended), the target countries are Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador and Argentina.
Venezuela and Ecuador are members of OPEC and have lots and lots of oil. Bolivia has some oil, and lots of gas (and a simmering rightwing separatist movement in the gas/oil rich provinces that the Bush Junta is funding and arming). Argentina just had a big oil find, but, equally importantly, is a tough, leftist ally of the other three. These countries form the nexus of the Boliviaran Revolution--a grass roots democracy and social justice movement aimed at South American self-determination and independence from U.S./first world domination. They are allied in various ways with other leftist governments--in Brazil, Uruguay, Chile and Nicaragua. Indeed, the leftist social justice movement has swept the continent. It IS the future. This is the problem that Rumsfeld has set himself to solve, on behalf of Exxon Mobil, Occidental Petroleum, & co., and assorted U.S. war profiteers.
All four countries oppose the corrupt, murderous U.S. "war on drugs"--a military/police state boondoggle worth billions to U.S. war profiteers--in addition to believing that their countries' oil and other resources should benefit the people who live there. These leftist policies are like a crucifix to vampires like Rumsfeld. They hiss, they turn green, they bare their fangs--they know that their power is critically threatened by them.
Hugo Chavez is one of the most innovative and certainly the most visible of the leaders of this democracy movement. He has been a Bushite target for some time, and no effort has been spared in promulgating the total lie that he is a "dictator." I won't go into the OVERWHELMING EVIDENCE that he is not. Suffice it to say, that, if Donald Rumsfeld asserts it, it is not true.
Rumsfeld names Venezuela as his target, but does not limit his plan. I believe the above four countries are his target area--and he means to clean out this hotbed of democracy in the Andes region, regain global corporate predator control of the Andes oil fields, and re-install fascist dictatorships that will do the bidding of Exxon Mobil et al. The Bush Junta has already tried to topple the Chavez government, in several ways, including support of an outright coup attempt in 2002--and they have failed. Rumsfeld urges a more aggressive approach: a) economic warfare (to destabilize the country and foment civil chaos); and b) the U.S. should then act "swiftly" in support of "friends and allies" in South America (fascist thugs planning coups within these countries, and/or the fascist government of Colombia, a Bush Cartel client state, the recipient of billions in Bush/U.S. military aid).
Exxon Mobil just fired the first shot in this war (initiated just prior to Rumsfeld's op-ed, and recently come to fruition): A few weeks ago, Exxon Mobil took legal action to freeze $12 billion in Venezuela's assets (in a dispute over Venezuela's 60% share in Venezuela's own oil--a deal that Norway's Statoil, France's Total, British BP and even Chevron have agreed to). A move like this, against a country--and a good democracy at that--has only one purpose: destabilization. It is the sort of kneecapping threat that gangsters use to terrorize neighborhoods. 'You don't pay us our protection money, we set fire to your store.' (Note: The fascist elite in Venezuela--funded by our tax dollars, in USAID-NED and other funds--is meanwhile busy creating food shortages with hording and stirring up other trouble.)
Part 2 of Rumsfeld's plan--how to get U.S. boots on the ground in the Andes region (outside of Colombia)--is trickier. That plan is in motion--with yesterday's raid over the border into Ecuador--a deliberately provocative and unnecessary act. Colombia (Bush client state) BOMBED the site IN ECUADOR, invaded a camp where FARC guerillas were SLEEPING (according to Ecuador President Correa's account), and killed them all--17 people.
The context of this hostile action are the recent efforts by Venezuelan President Chavez, the President of France, several other South American leaders (Brazil, Argentina), the families of FARC hostages, and the six hostages who have been released (negotiated by Chavez, in spite of every effort of the Bushites to sabotage it), to broker a peace settlement in Colombia's FORTY+ YEAR civil war. Peace is the last thing in the world that Rumsfeld & co. want to see in the Andes region.
Further context: Rafael Correa, President of Ecuador, pledged not to renew the U.S. military lease on the Manta (Ecuador) air base. The lease expires in 2009. This gives Rumsfeld & co.'s plans for destabilization of the region, toppling of its democratic governments, and regaining control of the oil, special urgency. Rumsfeld also needs his "unitary executive" Bush to take the "swift" U.S. action that Rumsfeld wants--direct U.S. military intervention in the region. Bush, of course, is out of office at the end of the year (hopefully), and it will be trickier to get a Democrat--or even McCain--to undertake NEW U.S. military action, in this totally dubious cause. (Clinton is gung-ho "Chavez is a tyrant" material; Obama is iffy; McCain is a Bushite oil warrior--but any of them might balk at Rumsfeld/Exxon Mobil directives. Only Bush/Cheney are reliable--partly because they need global corporate predator protection from war crimes trials.)
So the time is NOW--from Rumsfeld's and Exxon Mobile's point of view. I expect that, next, we're going to see turmoil in the rightwing separatist movement in Bolivia. That could give Rumsfeld & co. a fascist launching pad further to the south (re: Argentina?), and, at the least, it could cripple one of the Bolivarian allies. The rich rural landowners are trying to split off the provinces where the gas and oil are, from the central government of Evo Morales, the first indigenous president of Bolivia (in a country with an overwhelmingly indigenous population), to deny benefit of those resources to the poor majority. These rightwing landowners have militias, kill peasant farmers, and have staged all sorts of violent protests and incidents to disrupt the county. It is a simmering problem. And Rumsfeld and Bushites like simmering problems.
There are dozens of "tip of the iceberg" incidents in South America, exemplifying the Bush Junta's visible and covert activities to undermine and topple these democratic countries, and dozens of facts (involving large financial interests) that I could cite as well, for their core motives. But, in view of the Iraq War--and their failed plan to nuke Iran--the main one is clear: oil. The Bushites have been doing everything they can to drive a wedge between these oil rich countries, break up their alliance, and destroy their democratic governments--and they have failed. Now they seem quite geared up to try outright war, and are looking to stage the circumstances to get this war started NOW. They won't be able to finish it. But it will be like a hand grenade tossed into the lap of the next President--in fact, they might toss into the middle of the November election, to sabotage a Democratic antiwar candidacy (Obama) or to make Clinton at least uncomfortable and defensive (eroding her potential base).
With Venezuela and Ecuador up in arms over border violations, and sending troops to their borders with Colombia, the situation is ripening--maybe not fully ripened. Someone upthread objected that the U.S. has no troops to spare, to send to South America. That may be true. But it has some military forces there already (for the "war on drugs"), and it has battleships, other war craft and the air force--and it still has the spy base in Manta, Ecuador. And Rumsfeld has the entire Colombian military (armed and funded by our tax dollars--billions of them)--which is obviously at his beck and call--PLUS Blackwater mercenaries (active in Colombia, training and recruiting "for Iraq"), rightwing paramilitary death squads in Colombia, in border areas, and no doubt secreted inside Venezuela (recent evidence of it) and other countries, and homegrown paramilitaries and militias in several countries.
This is a THEORY. I want to stress that. It's what I'm seeing, putting various puzzle pieces together--that what Rumsfeld is doing, in his "retirement," is instigating Oil War II. A theory--if it's a good one--helps you predict what will happen. I've been predicting this kind of trouble in the Andes region for months, on the basis of this theory--and here it is--just the sort of "hot" situation in which Rumsfeld's "swift" U.S. action in support of "friends and allies" in South America would be activated. And this follows an economic destabilization move, by Exxon Mobil, as Rumsfeld lays out.
I also think Rumsfeld & co. will fail. The trend in South America is overwhelmingly for social justice, democracy and peace. This movement can be disrupted--and grief and suffering inflicted on people--but it cannot be stopped. And the new leftist governments covering the continent are too strongly allied, to be easily divided. The most vulnerable is probably Bolivia--with its Bushite-supported, rightwing separatist movement--and I have long thought that that would be Rumsfeld's back door into the Andes, to topple Venezuela and the others. And that could still certainly be part of the long term war plan. But it looks like the threat of peace in Colombia's civil war was a more immediate danger to Rumsfeld's plans, and had to be dealt with, by instigating violence in Colombia's border areas with Ecuador and Venezuela. Whatever Rumsfeld's plan is, please understand that the FARC is just a circumstance that the Bushites are using--to arm Colombia, to militarize the region, to justify torture and slaughter--not just of FARC guerrillas, but of many others--union leaders, small peasant farmers, political leftists, human rights workers, journalists--and to maintain forces in the region to regain control of the oil.
Venezuela has a vital interest in peace in Colombia. For one thing, there are many thousands of refugees from Colombia in Venezuela, fled from the civil war. The civil war interferes with lawful trade--and regional trade is big on Venezuela's agenda. And Chavez is, of course, well aware of the Bush Junta's motives in militarizing Colombia. So he put himself at risk as a peace negotiator, getting some hostages released. The Bushites tried to sabotage that, and failed. Now they are doing this--a major sabotage of the hopes for peace. In my opinion, these are the preliminaries to Oil War II.
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