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Eugene

(61,807 posts)
Thu Jan 3, 2019, 10:14 PM Jan 2019

Brazil's Bolsonaro says he is open to hosting a U.S. military base

Source: Reuters

WORLD NEWS JANUARY 3, 2019 / 4:23 PM / UPDATED 2 HOURS AGO

Brazil's Bolsonaro says he is open to hosting a U.S. military base

Brad Brooks, Lisandra Paraguassu
5 MIN READ

SAO PAULO/BRASILIA (Reuters) - Brazil’s new President Jair Bolsonaro said on Thursday that he would be open to the possibility of the United States operating a military base on his country’s soil, a move that would form a sharp shift in direction for Brazilian foreign policy.

Bolsonaro, who took power on Tuesday, said that Russia’s support of President Nicolas Maduro’s “dictatorship” in neighboring Venezuela had significantly ramped up tensions in the region and was a worrying development.

Asked by the SBT TV network in an interview taped on Thursday if that meant he would allow U.S. military presence in Brazil, Bolsonaro responded that he would certainly be willing to negotiate that possibility.

“Depending on what happens in the world, who knows if we would not need to discuss that question in the future,” Bolsonaro said.

-snip-


Read more: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-brazil-politics/brazils-bolsonaro-says-he-is-open-to-hosting-a-u-s-military-base-idUSKCN1OX1SR
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Brazil's Bolsonaro says he is open to hosting a U.S. military base (Original Post) Eugene Jan 2019 OP
There is already a heavy US American presence throughout the Americas. Judi Lynn Jan 2019 #1
Its all gamesmanship and bluster right now. GatoGordo Jan 2019 #2

Judi Lynn

(160,449 posts)
1. There is already a heavy US American presence throughout the Americas.
Fri Jan 4, 2019, 01:37 AM
Jan 2019

Last edited Fri Jan 4, 2019, 02:33 AM - Edit history (1)

The US has 6 bases it uses in Colombia already, or more, has sent personnel to various countries throughout under one guise or another, often claiming they are there to help with humanitarian causes, etc. and, in case that isn't enough, George W Bush, as LatAm started voting leftists into Presidencies, reactivated the Fourth Fleet to ply the waters of the South Atlantic, and Pacific, patrolling, stopping in and out of ports surrounding South America, and both sides of Central America, as well as the Caribbean. They are all OVER the place.

~ ~ ~

United States Military Bases in the Caribbean, Central and South America
Presentation for the 4th International Seminar for Peace and Abolition of Foreign Military Bases
Guantanamo, Cuba
November 23-24, 2015
By US Army Reserves (Retired) Colonel and former U.S. Diplomat Ann Wright

. . .

The 2015 U.S. Department of Defense Base Structure Report states that the DOD has property in 587 bases in 42 countries, the majority located in Germany (181 sites), Japan (122 sites), and South Korea (83 sites). The Department of Defense classifies 20 of the overseas bases as large, 16 as medium, 482 as small and 69 as “other sites.”

These smaller and “other sites” are called “lily pads” and are generally in remote locations and are either secret or tacitly acknowledged to avoid protests that might lead to restrictions on their use. They usually have a small number of military personnel and no families. They sometimes reply on private military contractors whose actions the U.S. government can deny. To maintain a low profile, the bases are hidden within host country bases or on the edge of civilian airports.

. . .

In the past two years I made several trips to Central and South America. This year, 2015, I travelled to El Salvador and Chile with School of the Americas Watch and in 2014 to Costa Rica and earlier this year to Cuba with CODEPINK: Women for Peace.

As most of you know, School of the Americas Watch is an organization that has documented by name many graduates of the U.S. military school initially called School of the Americas, now called the Western Hemispheric Institute for Security Cooperation (WHINSEC), who have tortured and murdered citizens of their countries who opposed their governments’ oppressive policies-in Honduras, Guatemala, El Salvador, Chile, Argentina. Some of the most notorious of these murderers that sought asylum in the United States in the 1980s are now being extradited back to their home countries, particularly to El Salvador, interestingly, not because of their known criminal acts, but for violations of U.S. immigration.

. . .

Most do not know that a second U.S. law enforcement facility is located in Lima, Peru. It is called the Regional Training Center and its mission is “expanding the long-term liaison relationships among foreign officials to combat international criminal activity and by supporting democracy by stressing the rule of law and human rights in international and domestic police operations.”

On another trip with SOA Watch, when we visited Jose Antonio Gomez, the Minister of Defense of Chile, he said had received many requests from other human rights groups to sever ties with the U.S. military school and that he has asked the Chilean military to provide a report on the need to continue sending personnel to it.

However, the overall relationship to the U.S. is so important that Chile accepted $465 million from the United States to build a new military facility called Fuerte Aguayo purportedly to enhance training in military operations in urban areas as a part peacekeeping operations. Critics say that the Chilean military already had facilities for peacekeeping training and that the new base is to give the U.S. larger influence in Chilean security issues.

Chileans hold regular protests at this facility and our delegation joined in one of those vigils.

. . .

More:
https://worldbeyondwar.org/united-states-military-bases-in-the-caribbean-central-and-south-america/

~ ~ ~

OPINION: THE USES OF THE U.S. NAVY’S FOURTH FLEET
http://cimsec.org/opinion-uses-u-s-navys-fourth-flee/23415

There is NO actual need for a US base in Brazil. By the way, one of these articles refers to a carrier group in use in SouthCom is actually a floating military base. With a little thought, it's easy to see how it's true.

The Americas are thoroughly penetrated already. Another base in Brazil can do absolutely no good for anyone beyond the ambition of a filthy dictatorship trying to flesh itself out for major control through violence of the population, and to serve as a dirty threat to its neighbors.

 

GatoGordo

(2,412 posts)
2. Its all gamesmanship and bluster right now.
Fri Jan 4, 2019, 11:39 AM
Jan 2019

Maduro says Putin is going to put an airbase on a small island, which is being poo-pooed by Putin. Now this Bolsonaro bluster.

Nobody believes any of it.

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