Hillary’s Cynicism

Atilio Boron

20/09/2009

Opinión

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In a press interview jointly offered by the U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Uruguayan President Tabaré Vázquez, Mrs. Clinton referred to the arms race underway in Latin America in an astonishing display of cynicism. According to the State Department’s press release, she said that “we have expressed concern about the number of Venezuelan arms purchases. They outpace all other countries in South America and certainly raise the question as to whether there is going to be an arms race in the region. So we urge Venezuela to be transparent in its purchases, clear about its purposes. They should be putting in place procedures and practices to ensure that the weapons that they buy are not diverted to insurgent groups or illegal organizations, like drug trafficking gangs and other criminal cartels.”

Meanwhile in Quito, as she was saying all this, the summit of Ministers of Foreign Affairs and the Defense of the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR) was floundering due to Colombia’s absolute and uncompromising opposition to the signing of a formal agreement, unanimously requested by the rest of the UNASUR governments, eleven in total, through which it might be guaranteed that American troops stationed in that country would not make incursions outside Colombian territory. A word to the wise.

Clinton’s declarations were made at almost20exactly the same time as the news released from the White House, that the universally condemned blockade against Cuba would be renewed another year and Obama remained impassive and unconcerned in the face of the case of the five Cubans imprisoned for more than ten years precisely for having fought against the terrorist organizations located in Miami. If we put these three pieces of news together, it’s evident that the expectations aroused by Obama’s arrival in the White House were illusions that have been bitterly dashed by the conduct of his administration.

The Secretary of State cannot ignore the fact that Caracas’s arms purchases reach a total that is far less than the military spending of other countries in the region. To begin with, they are much lower than the military expenditures of neighboring Colombia. According to the reports published by SIPRI, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, the military expenditures in Colombia are three times higher than in Venezuela, if American military aid is included; while in Chile the military outlays are twice as large as in Venezuela. This is standard information that Mrs. Clinton, or her advisors, should have known before delivering highly inaccurate figures. In the second place, the Secretary knows very well that Venezuela is threatened, besieged, demonized and hounded by Washington and its South American peon, Álvaro Uribe Vélez, whose background with links to drug trafficking20and paramilitaries has turned him into the White House’s docile hostage, unable to disobey any order coming from the United States government.

She also knows that the United States has decided to replace its military base at Manta (Ecuador) with seven – not one but seven – new military bases in Colombia. She also knows that Uribe, ever solicitous of his master´s commands, doesn’t want to sign any document that would tie his hands if and when the empire’s troops, scattered throughout his country, attack the neighbors, starting with Venezuela. She also knows that Venezuela has the legitimate right to defend itself, and that it should arm itself in order to repel a military aggression announced well ahead of time. It is outrageous that while Mrs. Clinton requests “transparency” from Caracas, her puppet in Bogotá refuses to make public the contents of the agreements signed with Washington regarding the seven military bases, or to open them for inspection by members of the South American Defense Council. Once again, the infamous double standard of U.S. foreign policy: one for the governments that refuse to kneel to the United States of America’s imperialism and another quite different for Washington’s friends and peons. Is this the change that Mr. Obama said he would bring to American politics?

The responsibility for this demented escalation of bellicosity rests upon Secretary Clinton and President Obama –20the military bases, the Fourth Fleet, the coup d’etat in Honduras, etcetera – in perfect synchronization with the mandate of the military-industrial complex, to which it seems that Obama has definitively submitted himself without even attempting the slightest struggle. Surely, history will not absolve them. (Translated by Sue Ashdown)

https://www.alainet.org/en/articulo/136482