Why Latin America Didn't Join Washington's Counterterrorism Posse
Why Latin America Didn't Join Washington's Counterterrorism Posse
Monday, 18 February 2013 11:05 By Greg Grandin and Tom Engelhardt, TomDispatch | News Analysis
There was a scarcely noted but classic moment in the Senate hearings on the nomination of John Brennan, the president’s counterterrorism “tsar,” to become the next CIA director. When Senator Carl Levin pressed him repeatedly on whether waterboarding was torture, he ended his reply this way: “I have a personal opinion that waterboarding is reprehensible and should not be done. And again, I am not a lawyer, senator, and I can't address that question.”
How modern, how twenty-first-century American! How we’ve evolved since the dark days of Medieval Europe when waterboarding fell into a category known to all as “the water torture”! Brennan even cited Attorney General Eric Holder as one lawyer who had described waterboarding as “torture,” but he himself begged off. According to the man who was deputy executive director of the CIA and director of the Terrorist Threat Integration Center in the years of “enhanced interrogation techniques” and knew much about them, the only people equipped to recognize torture definitively as “torture” are lawyers. This might be more worrisome, if we weren’t a “nation of lawyers” (though it also means that plummeting law school application rates could, in the future, create a torture-definition crisis).
To look on the positive side, Brennan’s position should be seen as a distinct step forward from that of the Justice Department officials under the Bush administration who wrote the infamous “torture memos” and essentially left the definition of “torture” to the future testimony of the torturer. (“If a defendant [interrogator] has a good faith belief that his actions will not result in prolonged mental harm, he lacks the mental state necessary for his actions to constitute torture.”)
And keep in mind that Brennan has good company for his position. Recently, the Open Society Institute published the most comprehensive investigation yet of the offshore system of injustice that George W. Bush and his top officials set up to kidnap “terror suspects,” imprison them without charges or end, and torture and abuse them, or “render” them to other countries willing to do the same. It turns out that 54 nations (other than the U.S.) took part in setting up, aiding, and maintaining this American global gulag. It’s a roster of dishonor worth noting: Afghanistan, Albania, Algeria, Australia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Belgium, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Canada, Croatia, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Djibouti, Egypt, Ethiopia, Finland, Gambia, Georgia, Germany, Greece, Hong Kong, Iceland, Indonesia, Iran, Ireland, Italy, Jordan, Kenya, Libya, Lithuania, Macedonia, Malawi, Malaysia, Mauritania, Morocco, Pakistan, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, South Africa, Spain, Sri Lanka, Sweden, Syria, Thailand, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom, Uzbekistan, Yemen, and Zimbabwe.
More:
http://truth-out.org/news/item/14629-why-latin-america-didnt-join-washingtons-counterterrorism-posse
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...and prosecutors (and leftists), calling everybody who opposed him a "terrorist," consolidating the trillion+ dollar cocaine revenue stream into fewer hands, brutally displacing FIVE MILLION peasant farmers from their lands, creating a criminal regime in which some one hundred of his closest political associates are in jail or under investigation for ties to rightwing death squads, drug trafficking, illegal domestic spying, election fraud and other crimes, and he was for sure too busy concocting Rumsfeldian dirty tricks like the "miracle laptop" as excuses for war with Venezuela and Ecuador, to be bothered torturing Islamists, but he did accomplish a great deal for the Bushwhacks. Look at all of the above--decapitating labor unions, terrorizing the countryside, spreading murder and mayhem--all that prep for U.S. "free trade for the rich" plus boffo war profiteering for U.S. military contractors! Even the USAID got their pockets padded creating "pacification" programs for the U.S. funded/trained Colombian military!
It's a curious question why Uribe didn't get off on torturing Islamists in addition to everything else he did for the U.S./Bushwhack government. He did, however, host Blackwater, which got "fined" a couple of years ago by the U.S. State Dept. (Clinton/Obama) for "unauthorized" "training" of "foreign persons" IN COLOMBIA "for use in Iraq and Afghanistan." We gotta wonder what THAT was about. ("Unauthorized," my ass.) Tip of the iceberg?
But why you are focused on this ONE QUESTION--about Uribe--I don't know, except maybe to distract from the import of the article that it was South American LEFTISTS who drew the line on the Bushwhack torture and mass murder spree. Do you think it exonerates Uribe from his many crimes that he didn't have the opportunity to torture Islamists? His blood-spattered career counts for nothing with you, if that particular perk didn't come his way?
What is your point in asking this question? There are NO Latin American countries on the torture list. So that includes, say, Mexico, which at the time had a Bush toady president, Felipe Calderon. Neither did he render or torture (though he unleashed a U.S./Bushwhack-funded bloodbath on drug trafficking with thousands of innocent victims). But it's interesting about Calderon. When Bush jr. visited Mexico, Calderon addressed him in a public speech, lecturing him on the sovereignty of Latin American countries and mentioning Venezuela as an example. He also, though he accepted the bloodbath money, specified (at least publicly) that Mexican authorities would control it, not the DEA and the Bushwhacks. As a matter of fact, it is very perilous, politically, for any Latin American politician to be perceived as a U.S. toady, so even those who are must make noises that they are not, to have credibility with their own people.
Uribe pushed his luck to extremes in that regard, and got shot down by the Colombia Supreme Court, for instance, when he secretly negotiated and secretly signed a U.S./Colombia military agreement (greatly expanding the U.S. military presence in Colombia and including total diplomatic immunity for all U.S. personnel including all U.S. military 'contractors'). The Colombian court declared it unconstitutional. Some rightwing Colombians may have no scruples about murdering union leaders and other advocates of the poor, but they may still--and in fact certainly do--feel patriotic pride. It is a VERY TOUCHY matter in Latin America--for everybody, not just leftists. So that may be WHY Uribe didn't go further and sign up for rendition and torture.
Are you suggesting that Uribe balked at torturing Islamists on human rights principles?
What ARE you suggesting?
..."to other allies who needed easier access for their part in this"? I don't actually know what you mean by that ("proximity to other allies who needed easier access for their part in this"
but why would those countries torture Islamists, or render them to be tortured, any more than Latin American countries would? How are they more "proximate" to anything connected to the "war on terror" than Latin America? Many Latin American countries are a lot closer to "ground zero" (9/11) than most of the countries on the list that DID torture or render. And Latin Americans certainly have more intimate connections here--economic, social, family, cultural--than people of any other region. Also, many Latin American immigrants travel overland to and from the U.S.--it's a tradition and a natural migration in many ways, probably from ancient times--and crisscross the thousands of miles of U.S. borders, legally and illegally. So you'd think that Latin American countries would be worried about Islamic terrorists using those routes to the U.S. and felling some of their tall buildings along the way.
But, no, Latin America wanted no part of U.S. paranoia, torture and rendition. But Iceland did? I mean, that is just weird.
And an even weirder name on the list of cooperators is IRAN. Also LIBYA. 
I'll get to that in a minute (see U.S. "stupid" x 3, below).
Latin America is also very closely tied to Africa. Brazil bulges out toward Africa (the shortest route between the Americas and both Africa and Europe). And, of course, the population of Latin America is profoundly influenced by Africa because of the slave trade of previous eras and for other reasons. One of the tenets of the new Latin American economy is "south-south" trade, with African-Latin American trade as a major goal. And northern Africa, in any case, is involved in a violent struggle with Islamic jihadists and is a U.S. "war on terror" war zone (where the U.S. is making stupid, stupid, STUPID mistakes, such as toppling Ghadaffi and paving the way for jihadists to take over in the consequent mayhem). So why aren't Latin American governments concerned about all this, and happily torturing and rendering like everybody else?
Geography doesn't even come close to explaining it. Where is the U.S. "war on terror" located? Where is the Islamic jihadist war on western civilization located? Chechnya/Russia? Bali, for godssakes? London? Sudan? Jihadist incidents, movements and wars occur all over the world, and the U.S. "war on terror" war theater is the entire world. And need I mention that, like the CIA and its bombing of a Cuban airliner, the jihadists have targeted commercial airliners, thus making the skies and private air travel a war theater and you would think that any country with an airport would gladly torture or render threats to air travel, no matter how remotely they are located from "war on terror" hot spots.
I think the answer to Latin American non-cooperation on torture and rendition is much more complex than Geography and doesn't even include Geography in the sense you mean (remote from the "war on terror' theater of war). Latin America is heavily influenced by the long, terrible history of U.S. terrorism in Latin America, born of proximity ("our backyard" . In that sense, Geography may have been in play. They have had the misfortune to be within easy reach of the CIA and the "School of the Americas" and the whole Imperial machine, which can perhaps be summed up with the phrase "the Southern Command" (SouthCom--the Pentagon's view of Latin America--their "back yard" war theater). That may be the only Geographical fact of importance: They KNOW us. THEY have been the targets of similar U.S. wars, in which Latin Americans were demonized, tortured and murdered, often for mere assertion of their human and civil rights, and elected governments were overturned merely for asserting their independence and social justice principles.
The following presidents and recent former presidents in Latin America were imprisoned and tortured, or otherwise harmed, by U.S.-backed fascist regimes: The president of Brazil (Dilma Rousseff--tortured). The recent former president of Brazil (Lula da Silva--imprisoned for union organizing). The recent former president of Chile (Michele Batchelet--imprisoned and also lost family members to torture). The president of Uruguay (Jose Mujica--imprisoned, tortured). The president of Bolivia (Evo Morales--kidnapped and beaten up by DEA-connected police). The president of Nicaragua (Daniel Ortega--an entire war waged against him, by the Iran-Contra Reagan criminals, to stop Nicaragua's very justified and relatively unbloody revolution--many of his supporters were murdered, most of them non-combatants.) The president of Venezuela (Hugo Chavez--imprisoned for two years but not tortured; became a hero in prison for a low level officers' armed rebellion against a government that had slaughtered hundreds of poor protestors).
This is powerful evidence of the tenor of things in Latin America: get tortured or otherwise mistreated by U.S.-backed fascists and, as soon as people have the chance, they elect you president of the country!
This still doesn't account for Uribe--the Bushwhacks' mafia boss president of Colombia, who would certainly not balk at torturing, rendering or murdering anybody the Bushwhacks told him to. But I think that the complexity in this case, which is not so easy to see, but is definitely real, is the INFLUENCE of these new leftist leaders and the huge leftist movement which put them in office. Sovereignty may be an issue to all Latin Americans, including rightwingers (and possibly even Uribe) but the ASSERTION of sovereignty has been UNSUCCESSFUL--or only cosmetic--until the left gained ascendance in regional institutions and regional alliances. A Calderon may SAY that Mexicans will control Bushwhack "war on drugs" billions, but the reality is that, by accepting those billions, Mexico inevitably loses sovereignty (loses control over its own policy; becomes subject to U.S. "war on drugs" policy).
Torture and rendition, by U.S. dictation, is a SOVEREIGNTY issue. Sovereignty is THE issue in Latin America, above all others, and what the new leftist movement has done is to combine sovereignty with solidarity and alliance--that is, having each other's back, vis a vis U.S. interference; and successfully ASSERTING sovereignty by means of alliances and regional unity.
It's quite interesting to compare Chavez and Uribe, as to U.S. intentions and Latin American reactions to U.S. intentions. For instance, the Bushwhacks sent down the dictate that Latin American leaders "must isolate Chavez." Nestor Kirchner, president of Argentina, replied, "But he's my brother!" Lula da Silva, president of Brazil, then went out of his way to publicly befriend and endorse Chavez. Latin America basically said, "Fuck you!" to the Bushwhacks (on Chavez and also on Cuba). But guess who DID get isolated--on a number of occasions, for a number of collusions with the Bush Junta? Alvaro Uribe--who was universally condemned by Latin America for the U.S./Colombia bombing of a border area of Ecuador and was forced by this unified LatAm opinion to apologize and to promise in writing never to do it again. He was also condemned for his secret U.S./Colombia military agreement (near universal condemnation; it was ultimately declared unconstitutional by the Colombian supreme court), and for a number of other specific collusions with the U.S. (Bush Junta).
I don't think there is a region on earth where toadying to the U.S. is such a touchy subject, nor where there is such a strong, organized and democratic movement to repel U.S. dictation.
One other aspect of this complex picture--that helps explain Latin America's universal refusal on U.S. torture and rendition--is Latin America's reliance on the RULE OF LAW, and on INTERNATIONAL LAW, to repel U.S. dictation and achieve independence, and also to prevent regional conflicts. The U.S./Colombia bombing of a FARC camp on Ecuador's border left Latin Americans AGHAST at the violation of international law! They were FURIOUS--universally furious--at this violation of THE LAW. They would brook no excuses (such as "hot pursuit," which turned out to be a lie anyway). They BELIEVE IN THE LAW. And when Uribe started acting like a "little Bush" and casting off THE LAW, they came down on him like a ton of bricks.
These events (Uribe vs Latin America) occurred in the latter part of the Bush Junta--so they still don't fully explain Uribe not torturing and rendering Islamists--but such developments do not happen overnight. They are the result of a LONG history of U.S. interference in Latin America, with one country after another having struggled mightily during the immediate previous decades (1990s, early 2000s) to, once and for all, establish democracy, sovereignty and independence in individual LatAm countries and in the region. So, although the end of the story is Uribe being universally condemned for a terrorist act and an egregious violation of international order, the beginning of the story goes back decades to the development of these trends and to the establishment of institutions by which to express them.
In short, even Uribe and the U.S. client state of Colombia really COULDN'T participate in torture and rendition without very serious consequences in the REGION. Ask yourself, what would have been the result if Uribe HAD tortured and rendered? Here is one quite possible result: the cut-off of diplomatic relations and all trade with Colombia by the rest of Latin America.
By 2000, Hugo Chavez was elected in Venezuela. By 2004, Lula da Silva was elected in Brazil. Nestor Kirchner was elected somewhere in there, in Argentina. That's three big countries with the leftist leaders who would have led such a fight (isolation of Colombia for cooperating with U.S. torture and rendition). It may have taken such leadership but then again it may not have, so universal is Latin American belief in international law and horror at violations of it, such as unjust war, torture and rendition.
Latin America suffered egregious U.S. terrorism, bullying and violations of sovereignty throughout the "Cold War." They were not about to let that happen again. Latin American countries may have many internal problems of violence, drug trafficking, corruption and so forth; and in some cases, armed insurrection, internally; and--for those who have invited the scorpion of the U.S. "war on drugs" into their midst--consequent loss of control of policy (sovereignty), and many attendant horrors, but OFFICIAL violation of INTERNATIONAL law, such as torture and rendition, goes to the heart of Latin America's entire experience with the U.S., and to its recovery from that experience.
I admit the complexity of this argument but I think it is central. Uribe could not have cooperated with this particular U.S. horror without inviting universal approbation in the region and possibly very serious diplomatic and economic consequences--even worse than he incurred by his U.S.-aided violation of international law in Ecuador.
The article's example is not Chavez but Lula da Silva. He's the one, according to the article, who so awesomely told the Bushwhacks to go hell with their torture. I don't imagine they asked Chavez. They probably thought they could "divide and conquer" Lula--and found out otherwise. Nevertheless, it cannot be denied that Chavez and the Venezuelan people were the avant-garde of the assertion of Latin American independence and sovereignty--as well as social justice, and human and civil rights. They are an important key to the POWER of these ideas at long last being IMPLEMENTED in the region. Rightwing leaders may huff and puff about sovereignty but often they don't mean it, or their actions contradict their words. They and midling leaders ("neo-liberals" just go ahead and hand the country over to U.S. transglobal corporations, banksters and military contractors. Venezuela was the first to say no, in this era. So they deserve some credit for others saying no and making it stick.
About Iran--another stupid, stupid, STUPID mistake by the U.S.: Iran shows up on the U.S. torture and rendition list. Iran! What's that all about? 1. Iran is PERSIAN (not Arabic). 2. Iran, which has a legitimate and fairly decent government, has not invaded anybody and is not at war with anybody. 3. Iran is THREATENED BY Al Qaeda and similar jihadist groups, NOT collusive with them. And 4) Iran is not, and has never been, a threat to the U.S. Indeed, the opposite is true--the U.S., which invaded its next door neighbor, Iraq, and slaughtered hundreds of thousands of people there, displaced millions and left utter ruin in its wake, is a grave threat to Iran. This may be why Iran tortured and rendered--to avoid U.S. invasion. But it also has its own motive (stability) for opposing jihadists, and a cultural motive as well (it is not Arabic).
Iran need not be an "enemy" of the United States and shouldn't be treated as an "enemy" of the United States. It has done NOTHING against the United States and it does not tolerate anti-U.S. terrorists. I certainly won't defend their participation in U.S. torture and rendition. It is an egregious violation of international law and of human rights principles--and NONE of the listed countries should have engaged in it. But it IS evidence--one item among many--that it is not, and should not be treated as, a U.S. "enemy."
Interestingly, some of the strongest Latin American opposers of U.S. torture and rendition--Brazil and Venezuela, for instance--ALSO perceive this lack of threat in Iran and have reached out to Iran, with diplomatic and economic efforts. So much for your Geography argument (re: non-proximity). We live in a "globalized" world. The melting Arctic ice should tell us that. Every part of this world is connected to every other part. Events on the far side of the world instantly come home. Brazil and Venezuela see the demonization of Iran as a threat to Brazil and Venezuela! All of Latin America--but most especially the countries with lots of oil--saw the Bushwhack invasion of Iraq as a threat to themselves AND a violation of the sacred principles of international law by which they have prevented conflicts in their own region and have asserted their own democracy, sovereignty and independence.
All of Latin American opposed the invasion of Iraq. Uribe's government was unique in cooperating with that war in some respects but he didn't dare send troops to join Bush's "coalition of the willing" nor openly support that horrible violation of international law. He let Blackwater train its death squads in Colombia, allowed recruiting of privateers from the U.S. funded/trained Colombian military, let the U.S. experiment with its drones and USAID "pacification" programs and other techniques of conquest, and kept the cocaine flowing to the U.S. (to addle U.S. youth and force them into servitude in the military, and also to aide in the development of a police state here) but most of this was surreptitious or indirect. He really could not support the war on Iraq openly any more than he could support U.S. torture and rendition. The most he could do was to try to bend the U.S. "war on terror" to his own purposes--for killing his own people (not just FARC guerrillas but also labor leaders, teachers, community activists, political leftists, peasant farmers and others) or U.S. aided illegal domestic spying, or trying to demonize the presidents of Venezuela and Ecuador as "terrorist lovers" or--perhaps his most important motive--sucking in billions of U.S. taxpayer dollars in military aid.
This regional CLIMATE of opposition to U.S. imperialism--the result of U.S. imperialism in Latin America over a long period of time, and the result also of the more recent struggle to overcome that history--is WHY Colombia is NOT on the list of cooperators with U.S. torture and rendition. It was culturally impossible for Uribe to do that, despite his being a Bush Junta protege and a murdering dirtbag.
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THE LIST OF COOPERATORS WITH U.S. TORTURE AND RENDITION: "Afghanistan, Albania, Algeria, Australia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Belgium, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Canada, Croatia, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Djibouti, Egypt, Ethiopia, Finland, Gambia, Georgia, Germany, Greece, Hong Kong, Iceland, Indonesia, Iran, Ireland, Italy, Jordan, Kenya, Libya, Lithuania, Macedonia, Malawi, Malaysia, Mauritania, Morocco, Pakistan, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, South Africa, Spain, Sri Lanka, Sweden, Syria, Thailand, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom, Uzbekistan, Yemen, and Zimbabwe." --from the OP
