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Judi Lynn

(160,215 posts)
Fri May 29, 2015, 04:18 PM May 2015

Washington Preparing for 'Political Intervention' in Latin America

Washington Preparing for 'Political Intervention' in Latin America
21:56 29.05.2015(updated 21:57 29.05.2015)

Washington is seeking to maintain its control over Western Hemisphere, making attempts to engage Latin American states in its political fold through a "two track" stick-and-carrot policy, Professor James Petras revealed.

According to American scholar James Petras, a retired Bartle Professor Emeritus of Sociology at Binghamton University in Binghamton, Washington is trying to increase its influence in Latin American countries, while negotiations between the United States and Cuba "are merely one part of a two-track policy."


"Washington's pursuit of a 'two-track policy', based on combining 'reformist policies' toward some political formations, while working to overthrow other regimes and movements with force and military intervention, was practiced by the early Kennedy Administration following the Cuban revolution," the professor noted.

In accordance with this political doctrine, Kennedy presented a new economic program of aid, loans and investments for Latin America, while at the same time boosting US military assistance and joint drills in the region.

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Washington Preparing for 'Political Intervention' in Latin America (Original Post) Judi Lynn May 2015 OP
Fast forward 60 years... Peace Patriot May 2015 #1
Brava, Peace Patriot. So good to read your comments. The world needs people who pay close attention, Judi Lynn Jun 2015 #2
Money is the reason Cuba is at the bargaining table hack89 Jun 2015 #3
It's already happening. a la izquierda Jun 2015 #4
History of U.S. Interventions in Latin America Judi Lynn Jun 2015 #5

Peace Patriot

(24,010 posts)
1. Fast forward 60 years...
Sun May 31, 2015, 12:53 PM
May 2015
...during the past 15 years Washington has evidently failed to prevent the emergence of an "anti-imperialist" movement in Latin America, losing the "battle" to center-left governments in Venezuela, Argentina, Ecuador, Bolivia, Brazil, Uruguay, Paraguay, Honduras and Nicaragua.

(SNIP) ...the White House decided to change its strategy and ... announced ... its intention to start normalizing US relations with Cuba in late 2014. At the same time, Washington cracked down hard on Venezuela, labeling the country as a "national security threat to the US."

However, the "opening to Cuba" is in fact part of wider strategy of a new "political intervention" in Latin America, the professor underscored.

"These changes within Latin America provide an 'opening' for Washington to pursue a 'dual track' policy: On the one hand Washington is increasing political and economic pressure and intensifying its propaganda campaign against 'state interventionist' policies and regimes in the immediate period. On the other hand, the Pentagon is intensifying and escalating its presence in Central America and its immediate vicinity," the professor elaborated.


(from the OP)


Professor Petras is suspicious of the Obama administration's opening to Cuba. I can't imagine why. LOL! Um, yes, I can. I share his suspicions. But I find it harder than he does (apparently) to skip past the END of the horrible U.S. demonization of Cuba and to skip past the beginning of peace talks between the Colombian government and leftist rebel fighters (the FARC) in Colombia's U.S.-armed, 70 year war against the peasantry and the unions (talks which are taking place in Cuba). WHATEVER the motives of our Corporate Rulers/MIC--and I have no doubt that they are extremely devious--these things cannot be skipped over as merely more of the same.

Is it not reasonable to credit Cuba and the Latin America Left with these two momentous developments--a potential peace in Colombia, and end of the Cuba Embargo? Has it not been THEIR courageous and tenacious efforts which have brought the U.S. Corporate Rulers/MIC to the bargaining table, on at least these two important matters? There is a dual answer to why the U.S. Corporate Rulers/MIC is at that table now, and a good part of the answer is the courage and tenacity of Leftists.

OF COURSE our Corporate Rulers/MIC are using these things as part of a strategy to recover ground from Leftist Democracies, and to reassert U.S. corporate exploitation and military power in Latin America. How could it be otherwise, given the gravely eroded, if not destroyed, democracy HERE? But I can't help but applaud the end of Colombia's civil war--if that is accomplished (talks are in progress, but it's a bumpy road)--and I can't help but applaud not only the end of the Cuban embargo but also the amazing courage and tenacity of the Cuban people, through all these decades of bloody-harassment. Who ends up being an arbiter between our Corporate Rulers/MIC and the Latin American Left? CUBA! Little CUBA! The inspirer of universal free health care and free college educations throughout the region! Cuba, where everyone eats and has a roof over their heads and can get medical care and a college education, through good times and bad. CUBA, for godssakes!

Never underestimate the Corporate Rulers/MIC. They, without question, intend to end those benefits in Cuba and elsewhere, if they can, along with inflicting slave labor, stealing vast resources and spreading the Pentagon's "Southern Command" throughout Latin America. But I think maybe we need to have more faith in democracy than we do. We've been without it for a rather long time (dating from Nov. 22, 1963, in my view), and maybe cannot really understand what honest elections and real public discourse has done, in so many Latin American countries, and can do, in problematic areas like Central America. It took a U.S.-backed coup d'etat to overturn the will of the majority in Honduras, in 2009, and another yet even sneakier coup in Paraguay, a bit later. And it is not just possible but likely that the overwhelming success of the Leftist Democracy revolution in most of South America will right these wrongs eventually, and will triumph in the end, in establishing the sovereignty of Latin America countries and a 'New Deal' for its people. It might spread here, too.

Judi Lynn

(160,215 posts)
2. Brava, Peace Patriot. So good to read your comments. The world needs people who pay close attention,
Thu Jun 4, 2015, 01:36 AM
Jun 2015

and who care about seeing the end of abuse of so many good people.

hack89

(39,171 posts)
3. Money is the reason Cuba is at the bargaining table
Thu Jun 4, 2015, 09:20 AM
Jun 2015

they face the loss of billions in annual subsidies from Venezuela and are facing the stark choice of economic collapse (and the social and political chaos that would result) or aligning with the largest economy in the region.

Cuba does great things with the money it has. But a big chunk of that money is disappearing and needs to be replaced.

Judi Lynn

(160,215 posts)
5. History of U.S. Interventions in Latin America
Sat Jun 13, 2015, 06:49 PM
Jun 2015

History of U.S. Interventions in Latin America

List follows showing US interventions South of the US Border from 1890 to 2009. Only takes a moment to scan. Eye-opening. Interference in revolutions, elections, etc.

http://www.yachana.org/teaching//resources/interventions.html

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