Posted on 12/09/2007 7:05:00 AM PST by sukhoi-30mki
China poised to take over U.S. base at Ecuador's invitation
Ecuador’s president has offered the Chinese government an airbase currently serving as one of the last U.S. military outposts in South America.
Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa said during his recent visit to China that he would offer Beijing a lease on the Manta Airport, the presidential website reported last week.
Currently, Manta is used by U.S. military forces for operations. The contract is up in 2009 and Correa will not renew it, a transport and public works ministry communications official told BNamericas.
Correa said access to the air base is part of a plan for Manta to become a “doorway” for China’s entry to Latin America. Air base operations are limited to one building, but it shares the runway with the city's Eloy Alfaro international airport terminal.
Terminales del Ecuador, a subsidiary of Hong Kong-based Hutchison Port Holdings, is already operating Manta’s port. Government officials have already spoken of additional Chinese investment for such projects as a rail system. Hutchison has close ties to communist leaders in Beijing and also operates ports at both ends of the Panama Canal.
We have to watch our southern border ever more carefully.
Lets be environmentally correct here. Make sure the base is left exactly the same as it was when we came in, destroy any runways, tear down all infrastructure including all buildings, power generation, and water supplies.
Jack
Good thing we have a fence across the southern border. Sending a big thank you to our elected officials. Oh and getting rid of the Panama Canal was a good idea too.
Great. South America will soon be crawling with chicoms.
I would assume the President had the authority to renew the license? Contract? Whatever it was regarding the Panama Canal. Under whose watch did it expire?
The appropriate response would be to bring in a vast amount of concrete and steel I-beams, remove all buildings and plow deep, irregular 20’ trenches. Then fill the trenches with wet concrete, with I-beams sticking out of it at angles.
Or plant cratering charges for later use...
A pity the Monroe Doctrine no longer applies in our hemisphere. Soon, we will have a Chinese colony on our southern border whether that’s the border with Mexico or the former Mexico’s southern border.
Ecuador has just chosen sides in the inevitable conflict between the US and China. It will regret that decision.
Let’s see now: China controls the Panama Canal; it has military units in Mexico (and, unless Bush kicked them out, in Long Beach, CA, facilities which were provided to the Chinese military by the Clinton Administration); it has strong ties with Cuba, Venezuela, and El Salvador; and now it will be getting an aibase in Ecuador. Obviously, Latin and South America, both of which are very much into socialism, are eagerly welcoming the Chinese dragon. Funny that they think of America as an imperialist. Just wait till they see what China has in store for them as repayment for siding with it. China does not embrace “diversity” of any stripe.
Should we be “made” to leave the base, we should take every piece of equipment, (don’t care the cost”, destroy each and every building we constructed and completely destory the runways. Let the Equedorians build their own airport. We should leave NOTHING of worth or standing.
Time for a renewal of the Monroe Doctrine.
The best known Peanut Farmer in Plains, GA.
I would assume Jimmah Cahtah.
You assume correctly.
We should leave everything standing and operational in a normal state of repair.
But clandestinely excavate a subterranean hollow beneath the base, so the runway will collapse first time a transport lands. Good for a chuckle anyway.
“Time for a renewal of the Monroe Doctrine.”
That would require strong leadership, something America has been without for 20 years.
True.
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