Posted on 02/24/2005 1:22:47 PM PST by stan_sipple
When Gen. Omar Halleslevens was installed Monday in Managua as chief of the Nicaraguan army, the U.S. government was represented by a mere major at the change-of-command ceremony. The slight was intentional. Halleslevens is regarded at the Pentagon as a hard-line Sandinista, whose rise to power represents profound problems in Latin America.
The Sandinistas, the Marxist-Leninist revolutionary party repeatedly rejected by Nicaraguan voters, are on the verge of accomplishing what U.S. officials call a ''golpe technico'' (technical coup), stripping President Enrique Bolanos of power. It is no isolated event restricted to a small Central American country. The Sandinistas have a rich and powerful ally in Hugo Chavez, the Marxist president of Venezuela.
Chavez has not only survived all Venezuelan challenges to his power but is making great strides in spreading his ''Bolivarian Revolution'' throughout the region. Besides the Nicaraguan connection, Chavez endangers shaky elected presidents in Peru and Ecuador and is aiming at unseating Bolivia's president, as he did his predecessor. Colombia's conservative regime is busy staving off narco-guerrillas backed by Chavez. The Venezuelan is spreading his influence through Latin America more effectively than his friend and ally, Cuban President Fidel Castro, ever did.
George W. Bush, while preaching global democracy, clearly has his hands full in his own hemisphere but until now has ignored this deepening regional crisis. A few low-level officials in Washington have been ringing the warning bell. The intentional slight at Monday's ceremony was a small sign of success for them. After a spirited debate among middle-level Bush administration officials, an inter-agency meeting decided not to send anybody to an event that normally would be attended by a four-star U.S. officer. Protests from the U.S. Embassy in Managua resulted in a low-level U.S. Army officer being sent.
Elevating Halleslevens to command of the army suggests how completely the Sandinistas are back controlling Nicaragua. Nicaragua never really purged the Sandinista influence from its military. The CIA has reported that Col. Halleslevens was in the party's inner circle 15 years ago as chief of the counterintelligence directorate, funneling arms to foreign terrorists.
The state of the country's military is reflected in the conclusion by U.S. officials that Nicaraguan officers supplied the SA-7 shoulder-fired missiles that were intended to be sold to Colombian narco-terrorists last month. The purchasers were actually undercover Nicaraguan police and U.S. drug agents. The sellers caught in the sting stayed behind bars only for a short time before Sandinista lawyers got them released.
The message of disapproval from Washington is being delivered personally this week on a mission to Managua by Rose Likins, a tough foreign service officer who serves as principal deputy assistant secretary of state for political-military affairs. She is known to speak bluntly and will express outrage at the use of extra-parliamentary maneuvers to return to effective power the Sandinista former president, Daniel Ortega.
Ortega is collaborating with the disgraced President Arnoldo Aleman, the Liberal Party stalwart convicted of massive corruption who is under house arrest and is virtually a free man. They have combined to thwart the efforts of the Bolanos government to destroy the Soviet surface-to-air missiles Nicaragua collected during Sandinista rule.
The return of the Sandinistas 15 years after the voters of Nicaragua dismissed them comes at a time when the anti-American, anti-capitalist Chavez is arming Venezuela. In addition to the widely publicized purchase of 100,000 AK-47 automatic rifles from Moscow, Chavez is also buying 24 Super Tucano combat aircraft from Brazil.
Leftist presidents in Brazil and Chile turn a blind eye to the Bolivarian Revolution. The situation goes virtually unnoticed on Capitol Hill. At her confirmation hearing, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was criticized by Democratic Sen. Christopher Dodd and Republican Sen. Lincoln Chafee for being unkind to Chavez. Bush hardly ever mentions Latin America, but Rice brings a voice to the Cabinet that appreciates the infection spreading throughout America's backyard.
Theoretically, the State Department.
However, LatAm is busy rearming and going Marxist/Islamist, and nobody seems to be paying much attention. I hope somebody pages Secy Rice.
Another of Chris Dodd's plots is hatched.
Kinda cool looking actually. I wonder how hard it would be to get one.
If the southern hemisphere really is the powder keg some believe, would be interesting to know the name of the low-level U.S. Army officer sent. As a junior officer, Vinegar Joe Stillwell performed similar observer duty in China before World War II. More recently, a certain Marine Lt. Col. ran a worldwide anti-Sandinista campaign stretching from Tehran to Managua to Washington. Sometimes low-level carries more weight than do stars. That major may be a name worth watching . . . if we knew it.
Sadly the same mistake made repeatedly by emerging democracies shaking off marxist tyranny. The former marxist tyrants are allowed to simply walk away and live to connive more trouble. Only exception is Romania where they took Caucescue (sp?) and stretched his neck. In case no one's noticed, Caucescue hasn't caused any problems for Romania lately. I submit the same solution would work for Nicarauga and is probably the ONLY solution. The Ortega's and their marxist stooges would be NO threat six feet under the sod. They have exploited Nicaraugian (sp?) generosity once too often.
Do they still use these?
Who undermined the Contras? In any case, it is truly a shame that we did not overtly fight and destroy the Sandanistas using our own troops, ala Grenada. Curses to both the underminers of the Contras, as well as to CISPES and all the other dirty rats who sniped at Reagan when he started to clean up Communism in this hemisphere. Imagine how much he could have done if he would have had the support that FDR had against the Nazis?
Hey, if Nicaragua can afford 24 of them, a small home equity loan should cover the cost of one, right? Looks like a beefed up trainer. It is pretty good looking.
Oops. Venezuela is buying them. I guess you're supposed to actually pay attention to the article before commenting.
You bet. Made by Embraer in Brazil and sold as trainers and attack aircraft, they are used by the air forces of several South American Nations.
I went to the Embraer website but they don't list prices for it. I'll talk to a broker. It may be possible to get a used one. Heck you can buy most surplus warbirds on the open market and the Tucano must be more plentiful and is certainly more modern than any WWII vintage plane (And less costly to maintain). Worth a look anyway and it would certainly be more fun than a Cessna or New Piper.
This is why we need to get the CIA guys that around back in the 60s and 70s. They knew that if they tried to arrest Che Guevarra some leftist lawyers and NGO's would be up and arms about bringing him back to Cuba. So they took the appropriate action.
Is this the Communist threat we are meant to be scared of?
A well aimed spitfire could take that thing out!
I think you mean one of Zell Miller's well-aimed spitballs...
Not quite. The order to execute Che came from the head of the Bolivian army. The army unit that had captured him followed that order.
But your point is half-right: at least we didn't try to stop them from carrying out the order. Which is what we would do today...
LOL, an f4 could eat those things for breakfast. Who are they kidding?
fall out from a democrat administration that took no measures against these thugs, because the democrat thugs are kin.
the only thing clinton did was to increase the columbian drug war supposedly, but at the expense of our borders.
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