Replies

Venezuela - Oil

Are you aware that Venezuela is already run by a communist dictator? Venezuela is an insignificant trading partner with the US, despite the large heavy crude deposits there. What in the world would an anti-drug air base have to do with oil in Venezuela?

Panama - Strategic canal

Is your theory here that the Panama Canal is protected by an anti-drug airbase? Are you not aware that the United States protects the canal with other assets? Wouldn't the assets wasted in Ecuador be better used in Panama anyhow?

Chile- Copper

Please, there is ZERO effect on global copper production impacted by this air base.

Brazil Sugar Cane – ethanol fuel/sugar…….

Hahhahahaha. Brazilian sugar cane production is thousands of miles away and is economically unimportant to the US anyhow. You might as well argue that Antarctic guano production facilities could be impacted by this air base.

Do you know why we went into Grenada, where a huge runway paid for by the Soviets was being built? Do you think that runway largely built by Cuban workers and DDR (East German engineers) was for tourism and commercial use? Do you realize the Marxist aligned Nicaragua (Sandinistas) were backing the Marxist regime in Grenada?

Yup. And I supported Reagan in that action. That has nothing to do with an anti-drug airbase in Ecuador.

Do you know why we had a missile crisis years ago with Cuba; what kinds of missiles were being emplaced?

Yup. And once again, that has nothing to do with an air base in Ecuador or the drug war.

Let’s talk trade; can you grasp the concept that after the US, Brazil is the largest economy on either side of the canal to whom we export 15+ billions dollars worth per year?

Yes I can. And an anti-drug air base in Ecuador will have zero impact on securing Brazilian trade, the importance of which you overstate. $15 billion is not even 1% of US national product. If Brazil disappeared off the face of the earth tomorrow, the US economy would not miss a beat. You are pretending it is as important as Canada, which it is not. Brazil is largely irrelevant.

Monroe already understood the importance and in 1923 the “Monroe Doctrine” was declared. There has never been a time, not even before the declaration of independence when the US existed in a vacuum. South America is our backyard. What happens there affects us. Others have influence there and when we ignore this part of the world, powers that are not allied with us reach their arms into this region and fill the vacuum. It has always been that case.

I was unaware that the Monroe Doctrine was declared quite so late after Monroe left office, but thanks for the history lesson. After you research the Monroe Doctrine a little more to get your date right, you might consider that not existing in a vacuum does not require useless air bases in unfriendly countries. Further, not having an air base in Ecuador does not equate to ignoring the rest of the world.

Today the spot light is on Islam and the Middle East. Our backyard is nonetheless significant and disengagement will only net worsen our situation. Taking off the pressure from drug cartels that hire mercenaries, a nation from which near ¾ of the worlds cocaine originates, will allow well financed and ruthless thugs to threaten a democracy that even with our financial aid, with our military and DEA assistance, intelligence via CIA/NSA and NIMA (It’s been renamed) still has to have secret courts and judges deliver verdicts from behind mirrored bulletproof glass since sentencing a cartel member often equates to a death sentence for the judge. Do you know what a “Columbian necktie” is?

Ecuador is not "our backyard". It is not even in the same zip code. Tell me why the people and government of a democratically elected Ecuadorian government want the US to leave? You seem to hold out democracy as the goal but refuse to accept that the people do not want the US military on their soil. Leaving the air base and withdrawing 400 staff does not equal disengagement.

As I wrote before- Politically the “domino theory” may it be in South East Asia after we withdrew from Vietnam, the Middle East today, the fall of the wall in 1989 and the shattering of the East block, the breaking apart of the former Soviet Republics, or South America; it holds true! Cuba, Venezuela, and the dynamics of a more affluent, more aggressive Russia change the dynamics in South America. Even China has a larger influence in this part of the world than ever before. Like domino’s, the smaller fringe states quickly tend to align themselves with whomever they see as being the power brokers. The rise of Russia, Cuba, and Venezuela in this region is no positive trend. Do you know who the FARC are in bed with? Do you know where a lot of their money comes from?

Those who argue for disengagement are idiots.

What about those who think that the United States is a colonial power? Are they "idiots" too? What about people who are unable to distinguish betewen removing an air base and disengagement? Are they idiots? What about people who think that the government of Evo Morales is not already a domino that has fallen? Are they idiots?

jas3