Posted on 11/14/2010 10:58:23 AM PST by jazusamo
The recent border dispute between Costa Rica and Nicaragua is a sign of an ambitious plan by Venezuela, Iran and Nicaragua to create a "Nicaragua Canal" linking the Atlantic and Pacific oceans that would rival the existing Panama Canal.
Costa Rica says that last week Nicaraguan troops entered its territory along the San Juan River - the border between the two nations. Nicaragua had been conducting channel deepening work on the river when the incident occurred.
Sources in Latin America have told Haaretz that the border incident and the military pressure on Costa Rica, a country without an army, are the first step in a plan formulated by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega, with funding and assistance from Iran, to create a substitute for the strategically and economically important Panama Canal.
The plan has aroused concern in Washington, and the U.S. has started behind the scenes efforts to foil it.[snip]
The Panamanian economy and Panamanian stability would be in real danger of collapse if another canal took away its monopoly on shipping between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.
Both capitals are accusing the other of "provocations," but it is evident that the neo-Sandinista regime is moving more military and construction equipment into the disputed river region. This week, San Jose's Minister of Public Security, Jose Maria Tijerino, announced that the Costa Rican National Police seized six military trucks that were shipped from Germany and bound for Nicaragua. The vehicles landed at the port of Limón as Nicaragua does not have suitable ports on its Caribbean coast. Later, after meeting with President Chinchilla's Security Council, Tijerino revealed that the trucks would be permitted to proceed to their destination. "This serves as an example we are [a] state of rights and are not at war with Nicaragua," explained Tijerino. Although the military trucks seized by the Costa Ricans apparently originated in Germany, geopolitical analysts should prepare for the possibility that Russia will at some point begin shipping military hardware to its old Central American client state. Since KGB asset Ortega returned to power four years ago, Moscow has pledged to upgrade Nicaragua's Soviet-vintage armed forces. Indeed, earlier this month, Nicaragua's ambassador to the Russian Federation, Luis Alberto Molina Quadra, attended a session of the Russian-Nicaraguan Intergovernmental Commission on Trade, Economic, Scientific, and Technical Cooperation. The commission held its first "post"-Cold War meeting in Managua last June.
This past Monday, Pastora announced on national radio that Managua will dispatch two more dredges to the San Juan. He did not offer a date for resumption of the dredging, but noted that the project will span two years and, when the work is complete, large ships will be able to navigate the San Juan. The National Port Company will provide one of the new dredges, while a third is being built in the town of El Viejo. Interestingly, as we have pointed out before, the first dredge to appear on site and to provoke the current commotion between Nicaragua and Costa Rica was designed by a Russian engineer
Whatever happened to the Monroe Doctrine?
Good question...It seems it’s been forgotten because of or due to Castro and Chavez.
Forget Costa Rica.
We need a Monroe Doctrine in California, Texas, New Mexico and Arizona.
We have lost a war of a attrition without firing a shot with the blessings of the entire American political ruling class.
This is, INDEED, a very serious situation. Chavez is an overgrown clown as many of his neighbor-states describe him, but he is dangerous and is becoming much more aggressive.
Unfortunately this is EXACTLY what happens as we withdraw to our borders. By no longer defending even our backyard, tyrants will move in. This move would have been UNTHINKABLE even 5 years ago. Russia learned the same lesson, but is now reversing that damage.
The West, including America, will be the only civilization in history to be conquered solely by way of words. Once a Third Worlder utters the word “Racist” Western man simply withers and dies.
The Monroe Doctrine was directed at Europe.
Interesting that we spilt the blood of hundreds of thousands of our own men and spent trillions of dollars to defeat Nazis, Communists and terrorists abroad, yet, in the end, we will be defeated by our people in our own country in the name of political correctness, our proclivities for cheap labor and the fear of being called a racist by liberals and illegals.
First of all, I despise the current governments of Nicaragua, Venezuela and Iran.
Secondly, “nature abhors a vacuum”.
A Nicaraguan canal is long overdue. Too bad someone with $$ hasn’t gotten Haliburton to get this project rolling. The US Government foreign policy is too preoccupied with the Palestinians to think about anything else that might benefit US interests, let alone the rest of the world.
IIRC, the Chinese are running the Panama Canal now.
Also, the locks on the Panama canal are too narrow.
Furthermore Nicaragua will never build a canal to compete with Panama....this was studied before the canal was built where it is....to costly plus the fear of earthquakes quashed it then and will quashed it now....And the Chicoms are very happy with the enlargement of the PC now underway.....Plus Chavez can only rely on his political officers that he appointed...they won't fight.
I agree with you on Chavez and his army. There’s also many Venezuelans very unhappy with Hugo, I’m surprised he’s still there and breathing air.
It was the OAS that requested President Reagan aid Grenada in 1983 to free them from Cuban Communist domination. This sounds like another justifiable intervention — should the request come.
Of course, that assumes the OAS would make the request. It also assumes that Obama would be on the Costa Ricans side — which I would DOUBT. It also assumes the C-in-C would have enough intestinal fortitude to order definitive action against the aggressors — which, again, I DOUBT.
We SHOULD send in the Marines, SEALS, Green Berets and Rangers (as in Grenada) to secure the CR territory — AND a sizable and defendable perimeter IN NICARAGUA as a buffer against further aggression in the near future. We should also tell Venezuela, Iran, AND Russia to keep their noses, BUTTS, and other collective body parts OUT of independent, sovereign States within the Western Hemisphere. There’s your Monroe Doctrine — and a promise to retaliate “in appropriate and overwhelming proportion” should they try something like this again.
I couldn’t agree more and in my view your doubts about Obama are well founded. He started off his term having better relations with Hugo than with the UK and that was intentional, IMO.
Sure. I believe that.
I hear you. Not if Zer0 has anything to say about it.
South America also began planning on integrating infrastructure under IIRSA and they have made some headway. Likewise, there is mucho info on IIRSA to be found on the internet.
And as some may recall, integrating infrastructure of northern Mexico, the US, and Canada was to be done under SPP(Security and Prosperity Partnership) which was announced in 2005. Many thought the SPP was the NAU.
When Calderon became Prez of Mexico in 2007 he revived efforts to jump start Plan Puebla Panama.
If it is the middle of the river, I don't see how Nicaragua can build a canal unilaterally.
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