• “Obama’s Expanding Covert Wars” by Jeremy Scahill, Excerpted from the Nation, 6/4/10. “The Washington Post is reporting that the Obama administration has substantially expanded the role of US special operations forces…as part of what the paper calls Washington’s ‘secret war’ against al Qaeda and other radical organizations. Obama has increased the presence of special forces from 60 to 75 countries. ‘Special Operations capabilities include the training of local counterterrorism forces and joint operations with them,’ according to the Post….The Nation has learned that among the countries where elite special forces teams working for the Joint Special Operations Command have been deployed are Bolivia, Paraguay, Ecuador, and Peru…JSOC has also supported US Drug Enforcement Agency operations in Colombia and Mexico.

• “Muscling Latin America: The Pentagon’s New Monroe Doctrine” by Greg Grandin, excerpted from the Nation’s cover article 2/8/10)

[Ed. Note: The Nation has been mostly uncritical of US policy, but this issue’s cover shows a map of Mezo – and South America indicating - as threats – US military bases in Cuba, Honduras, El Salvador, Puerto Rico, Aruba, Curacao, Peru and seven in Colombia. Floating around the periphery is the recently reactivated Fourth Fleet.]

“In September Ecuador’s president, Rafael Correa…refused to renew Washington’s… lease on an air base (Manta)…Ecuador’s new Constitution to promote ‘universal disarmament…Washington answered with a show of force…Colombia signed an agreement granting the Pentagon use of seven military bases…Plan Colombia is not really about drugs; it is the Latin “American edition of GCOIN, or Global Counterinsurgency…

“This cycle of violence is reinforced by the rapid spread of mining, hydroelectric, biofuel and petroleum operations…In Colombia Afro-Colombian and indigenous communities fighting paramilitaries who have seized land to cultivate African palm for ethanol production…Just a month before his overthrow [Honduran President] Zelaya…introduced a law that would have required community approval before new mining concessions were granted; it also banned open pit mines and the use of cyanide and mercury…Zelaya also tried to break the dependent relationship whereby the region exports oil to US refineries only to buy back gasoline and diesel at monopolistic prices.”

[The author is Professor of Political Science, New York University, and author of Empire’s Workshop.]

• “Why Washington Cares About Countries Like Haiti and Honduras” by Mark Weisbrot, Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR), from Report, Marin Interfaith Task Force on the Americas.

“When I write about US foreign policy in places such as Haiti or Honduras, I often get responses from people who find it difficult to believe that the US government would care enough about these countries to try and control or topple their governments. These are small, poor countries with little in the way of resources or markets…
“Unfortunately…they care enough about Haiti to have overthrown the elected President Jean-Bertrand Aristide not once, but twice…In 1991 it was done covertly…the people who led the coup were paid by the US Central Intelligence Agency. And then Emmanuel Constant, the leader of the most notorious death squad there – which killed thousands of Aristide’s supporters after the coup – told CBS news that he, too, was funded by the CIA.
“In 2004…the coup was much more open. Washington led a cut-off of almost all international aid for four years…while the US State Department was telling Aristide that he had to reach an agreement with the political opposition (funded with millions of US taxpayers’ dollars), the International Republican Institute was telling the opposition not to settle.
“In Honduras last summer and autumn, the US government did everything it could to prevent the rest of the hemisphere from mounting an effective political opposition to the coup government in Honduras. For example, they blocked the Organization of American States from taking the position that it would not recognize elections that took place under the dictatorship. At the same time, the Obama administration publicly pretended that it was against the coup…”