The blog This Ain’t My First Rodeo recently linked to one of my posts on Chávez’s growing ties with Iran, a story I ran with from Mexico’s largest and most respected newspaper El Universal that reported that at least two of Mexico’s drug cartels were sending some of its personnel to Iran for training. Apparently, I am “poisoning the well” for some future US invasion of Latin America. His post is so full of misinformation that I have decided to lasso him with a rope of facts.
Here is the relevant part of his post entitled appropriately enough World War III DEA Disinformation Chatter Sending Red Flags in Mexico, Colombia, Bolivia, Ecuador, Paraguay and Venezuela:
Just this week, my news filters started picking up what increasingly appears to be a disinformation campaign aimed at “poisoning the well” in Latin America:
* “DEA Reports Show That Mexican Cartel ‘Thugs’ Are Receiving Training From Iranian Revolutionary Guard”
* “Mexican Drug Cartels and Islamic Radicals Working Together”
Something is up. They are cranking up the propaganda machine perhaps in preparation for a future deployment of U.S. forces in Mexico, Colombia and/or Paraguay. For now, their intention seems to be to threaten and to terrorize. Imagine that.
Mexico, in stoking up the heat on the drug cartels, has fallen into anarchy within its northern states along the U.S. border. Although the Bush Administration recently announced funding support for the Mexican military in their violent struggle against the Sinaloa Federation and Gulf Cartels, it is possible that more direct support may have been “placed on the table,” even though the cartels have devolved into interior power struggles and internecine wars for territorial control.
Bolivia and Ecuador are lining up with our OPEC “enemy,” Venezuela, who currently supplies 25% of our imported oil. Both are currently experiencing diplomatic conflagrations with the right-wing government of Colombia, which the Bush Administration supports. Issues involve Colombia’s alleged cross-border incursions into Bolivia, Ecuador and Venezuela in pursuit of left-wing guerrillas whom Colombia claims have been given sanctuary by them. Venezuela has vehemently denied any support.
All the while, the Bush Administration has recommissioned the 4th Fleet and sent it to the Caribbean off the coast of Venezuela. The Navy has already launched acts of provocation, in the form of “accidental” flyovers of Venezuelan island territories in the Caribbean, drawing protests from Chavez. At the same time, Ecuador demanded that the United States close its airbase in that country, which we did, moving it to Colombia.
Last week, it was revealed that George W. Bush’s man in Bogota, President Álvaro Uribe [right], just happens to be one of the former captains of Colombia’s infamous Madeline cocaine cartel, led by Pablo Escobar [left], who was “reportedly” killed in a joint operation of DEA and Colombian government forces in the 90s. What appears to have occurred is that CIA and Mossad handlers lost control over both Escobar and Daniel Noriega of Panama after Vice President George H. W. Bush, Oliver North and John P. Walters, who is not surprisingly the current “Drug Czar” under George W. Bush-43, spent so much “persuasive” effort in bringing them into the CIA Colombian “plaza” in order to benefit the Contra counter-revolution against Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua.
This should be fun. Where to begin. Let’s start with the assertion that the United States imports 25% of its oil from Venezuela. It’s actually more like 9%. According to the Energy Information Agency, the United States imported 1,166,000 barrels of oil from Venezuela in May 2008 out of a total import of 12,742,000 barrels. Doing the math, that’s 9.15%. The United States imports more from Canada, Saudi Arabia and Mexico than it does from Venezuela. Furthermore, not all hydrocarbons are created equal. The ideal is light sweet crude and that comes largely from the Middle East. Venezuela’s oil is a heavy gook which requires special refineries for processing. Those refineries are largely in the United States and the Virgin Islands so Venezuela’s oil of necessity has but few markets. Not to say that if Venezuela were cut its supplies to the US that wouldn’t hurt the US, it would, but it would also cripple Venezuela, a country that cannot even feed itself. Venezuela is, for now, more dependant on the US than the US is on Venezuela.