There are American troops in much of South America. Is this ominous? Are the Americans up to something? There were rumours about a prison camp in Paraguay. Does anybody know anything?

For example, this is from the 2007 International Affairs budget request: (emphasis mine)

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South America (Bolivia, Ecuador, Paraguay, Peru, Venezuela): $19.5 million to consolidate democratic gains and to address deep-seated economic and social problems in the Andean region and in Paraguay. In Venezuela, and as needed in Bolivia, U.S. funds will support efforts to protect and strengthen civil society, independent media, human rights organizations and democratic political parties. Funds will be used to reform the justice sector, strengthen democratic institutions, promote the rule of law, and make sub-national government practices more effective through improved transparency and accountability. Additionally, funding will facilitate expansion and implementation of free trade agreements, and will be used to fight corruption and promote respect for human rights.

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Here's the whole thing. (Try searching for Colombia, and note how much of this budget is aimed at the drug trade. I may post on this some other time.)

I presume that this report is what you're talking about with respect to Paraguay. I don't know much more about it, I'm afraid. (But there's a lot of interesting reading there.)

Here's my worry: more and more, I'm hearing anti-democratic rumblings from neocons, and the old Venezuela-as-part-of-the-Axis-of-Evil meme is starting to show up again. These are probably linked; in other words, since there is no credible argument any more that Chávez is not legitimately elected, the next move is to deny the value of legitimate elections. And Chávez's belligerence makes him a convenient publicity target. I can only hope that Chávez really knows what he is doing.

Even if it is just posturing on both sides, though, it has a chilling effect on democracy in the rest of South America. For example, it is a constraint on Evo Morales. Evo is not a good scarecrow; he's too smart, too diplomatic, and too genuine; you really cannot help liking and respecting him. So it's very convenient to link him to Hugo Chávez; US spin strategy seems to be to never mention Bolivia without suddenly dragging Chávez into the equation; aside from the occasional snide "populist coca-chewer" remarks, the idea seems to be to avoid getting him in the news.

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Originally posted by Rici Lake:
I presume that this report is what you're talking about with respect to Paraguay. I don't know much more about it, I'm afraid. (But there's a lot of interesting reading there.)

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Yes. My problem is that almost everything I read on the subject seems to originate with Benjamin Dangl. There is very little else. Maybe there is, but not translated.

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The United States does not have a military base in Paraguay and has no plans to establish one. The United States has not asked the Paraguayan government for a military base, nor does it intend to station soldiers in Paraguay. As explained below, limited, short-term deployments of U.S. military personnel are scheduled to take place for a series of joint exercises with the Paraguayan military between July 2005 and December 2006. Most personnel deployed will not remain in Paraguay for more than 45 days.

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For the 2005-2006 series of exercises, small numbers of U.S. personnel – generally 10-20 persons at a time – will train with their Paraguayan counterparts for periods of two to six weeks. No U.S. soldiers will be deployed for an extended period of time, and there will never be more than a few dozen U.S. service members in Paraguay for longer than 45 days.

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Originally posted by Cougyr:

You can't imagine how often I saw and heard comments like that during the early Vietnam years. While that State Department report might be correct, they have lied so frequently that they can't be considered credible.

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Originally posted by Cueball:
How would that be possible? In most cases they don't even have the time to discover that they have moved from the friends list to the enemies list, let alone time to concoct a massive disinfromation campaign.

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