Category: Latin America

Bolivian Autonomy Vote Predicted to Pass

No Comments

There has been some disorder, but voting proceeded relatively smoothly.

Of course, there is the whole matter of the vote being delayed by the Bolivian electoral commission, so we will see what that means.

While some of the portions of the referendum seem to be fairly standard, at least bu US standards, others, such as the right to control federal land and to sign treaties seem to me to be more of an attempt to dismantle the Bolivian state for the benefit of Exxon-Mobil than anything else.

Most of the rest of Latin America is observing this with undisguised horror, because if this sticks, it lays the groundwork for the dissolution of the existing states.

But American bankers should get some good deals out of all this chaos.

This is Not About Oil Production, It Is About Privitization

No Comments

I was wondering how long it would take, but the PAN and its ilk have been salivating at the possibility of privatizing Mexico’s state owned oil industry for decades, and now they are trying to make public theft of state assets a reality.

State ownership of the oil industry is a core value of the Mexcan body politic, so much so that there is a national holiday to commemorate the nationalization of the industry. It is considered to be a pillar of national sovreignty.

The reason that PAN loves the idea of privatization is because it will provide the opportunity to generate huge salaries and consulting commissions to the pale skinned Mexican elites who went to university at places like Harvard and Brown.

The facts are simple:

  • Mexican oil production is dropping.
  • Mexican oil revenues are at an all time high because of high oil prices.
  • It cost nothing to leave unexplored oil where it is right now.
  • There is no need to rely on big oil for the technical expertise to get at that oil.

When the Oil industry downsized and consolidated in the 1980s and 1990s, thousands of petroleum engineers and the like were without jobs, and many of them found positions with the oil services industry, which now arguably more technically capable than the big oil.

If they want these fields developed, the Mexican government could contract with companies with Halliburton and Slumberger*, and get the job done without signing over future earnings. What’s more they would get more local employment out of it, because big oil tends to employ lots of expats to get the job done.

The claims that Pemex “lacks the money and expertise” to get this done are driven by a desire among Mexican conservatives to sell $100 of oil for $1 today, because them and theirs will get an additional 50¢ in sweetheart deals.

Pemex does have problems, but these can be fixed.

*Full disclosure, one of my step mom’s life long friends is one of those Slumbergers.

Climb Down on Latin American Tensions

No Comments

Venezuela has reopened its embassy in Columbia

This is another example how Bush and His Evil Minions™ have poisoned counterterrorism operations. Before Bush and his attempts to overthrow and murder Chavez and his invasion of Iraq, this would have been a major diplomatic incident, bit you would not have seen a mobilization on the borders.

There are legitimate “hot pursuit” situations, though this increasingly appears not to have been one, and I’m expecting a Sy Hersh article in the next week or so casting doubt on the provenance of the laptops “captured” in the operation.

Some facts are clear though.

  • The FARC is a terrorist organization that is not much more than organized crime with a veneer of politics.
  • Chavez is a pompous jerk and a lousy leader.
  • As bad as Chavez is, the political classes of Venezuela are all considerably worse.
  • Mending the relationship with Chavez may be one of the bigger challenges facing Bush’s successor, unless it’s McCain, in which case, he’ll invade.

Good Point on Castro

No Comments

Matthew Yglesias wonders why Castro was so prominent on the world stage.

The answer is that it was not him, but rather the fact that he made so many people in the US power establishment crazy.

His conclusion is spot on:

I think there’s probably a lesson to be learned with regard to current issues with Islamist political movements around the world. For good reasons and for bad ones, the romance of thumbing one’s nose at the USA has powerful and important resonance for a lot of people around the world. Under the circumstances, it rarely serves our interests to get into dramatic confrontations with leaders who are far too puny to objectively threaten our interests. After all, what significance would Castro have without his superpower adversary? US persecution of the Communist regime in Havana is really the only thing it has going for it.

Thoughts on Cuba

No Comments

First, you have to read what Lower Manhattanite of the Group News Blog said. The short form is, that that the US is in the position of a stalking ex-boyfriend. To true.

Then we have Ben Sargant’s editorial cartoon:

Hoisted from Brad Delong’s comments, it’s an excellent historical perspective:

And I think he knows that he has fallen short and is pained by that. And to have his life evaluated by a moral midget like George Bush and his ilk must gall him.
Having said that, the real decision on Castro will be made by the Cuban people and above all I wish them as much freedom as possible to do this. Freedom from their own government trying to hold on to power the old way even if that is no longer appropriate. But even more, freedom from those in our country would be willing to slaughter large numbers of Cubans and destroy what good Cuba has created over these past.

Whatever Castro has been, the Cuban people have paid a high price and achieved genuine social development. The worst tragedy would be for this to be taken from them in a wave of Thatcher-Reagan-Yeltsin privatization combined with America bringing “freedom” to Cuba the way we have brought it to Iraq.

(emphasis mine)

Finally, I have a thought on why the Cubans are way more batsh%$ insane 50 years after Castro left than, for example, my Estonian acquaintance was about the USSR and Estonia 40 years after Stalin invaded:

It’s more than that with the emigres.

You have to understand that Cuba has a heritage of Spanish rule.

For 300 years, when the British Crown got too autocratic, the refrain was, “This isn’t Spain”.

Spain bought into divine right big time, and it got passed down from the Spanish crown to the despotic successors of the crown.

A coup was OK, because that was just the man at the top changing, but Castro, he broke up the estates, and gave them to the peons, some of whom were n***ers (IIRC, Cuba is now majority Afro-Cuban).

That is an affront to God, and cannot be tolerated.

Fidel Castro Retires

No Comments

My guess is that he is not long to this world. Ill health is the best explanation for his retirement.

Hopefully, this will lead to some reforms.

If the US is interested in helping the Cuban people and hastening reforms, it should take steps to formally abandon the claims of US Cuban emigré community.

The comment that Talleyrand made about the Bourbon restoration (aka Bourbon Renewal*) applies here, “They have learned nothing and they have forgotten nothing.”

While any people who wish to return should be free to do so, and any investment should be allowed, allowing old claims to be pressed will damage the country, and it is a most powerful argument against reform, that old crazies, and (in some cases) outright terrorists, would come back and take it all.

*Yes, I know, bad pun.

Who Bombed the Buenos Aires Jewish Community Center (AMIA,) In 1994

No Comments

It certainly does paint the picture of an incompetently run investigation, with conclusions being driven by political believs, rather than the facts, which is a characteristic of Bush and His Evil Minions™.

That being said, that the finger being pointed at Iran significantly began with the Clinton administration, and the inclination to blame Iran for anything bad happening in the world dates to the late 1970s, so there is a bureaucratic imperative at work here in both the US intelligence services, and the State Department.

Gareth Porter’s article is interesting, but it raises more questions than it answers.

Castro’s Final Days?

No Comments

Castro is now saying that he is too unhealthy to campaign in parliamentary elections.

My guess is that he’s not long to this world.

Hopefully, the US policy following his death will be a dropping of sanctions, and an agreement on policies to keep the Cuban émigré community out. They are more poisonous than Achmed Chalabi.

Machiavelli got it right when he said (Discourses, Book 2, Chapter 31):

“It ought to be considered, therefore, how vain are the faith and promises of those who find themselves deprived of their country. For, as to their faith, it has to be borne in mind that anytime they can return to their country by other means than yours, they will leave you and look to the other, notwithstanding whatever promises they had made you. As to their vain hopes and promises, such is the extreme desire in them to return home, that they naturally believe many things that are false and add many others by art, so that between those they believe and those they say they believe, they fill you with hope, so that relying on them you will incur expenses in vain, or you undertake an enterprise in which you ruin yourself….. A Prince, therefore, ought to go slowly in undertaking an enterprise upon the representations of an exile, for most of the times he will be left either with shame or very grave injury.

In a country of 300 million, the wacko wing Cuban émigré community has damaged US diplomacy and credibility significantly.
If they given ties to Cuba through property restoration, they will create an unstable despotic state that will be a US security risk.

To quote Tallyrand on the Bourbons, “They have learned nothing and they have forgotten nothing. “

Brazil Looking at Nuclear Sub Force

No Comments

Brazil hasallocated $540 million in R&D on the submarine and on enrichment.

They believe that they can build a submarine for $1.2 billion.

They already have the enrichment technology down.

The justification is the newly discovered offshore Tupi field and its 5 billion to 8 billion barrels of oil reserves.

Truth be told, if all they want is an air-independent coastal defense boat, there are options out there, both with stored LOX, and the idea of using a smaller nuke plant, to provide underwater endurance, but not the higher underwater transit speeds of the US fleet submarines.

The Fruits of Bush Foreign Policy, Iran in Our Back Yard

No Comments

Iran strengthens South America ties: “On the heels of a U.N. General Assembly appearance in which he said Iran will ignore demands by ‘arrogant powers’ to curb its nuclear program, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was headed to Bolivia on Thursday to establish first-time diplomatic relations with the Andean nation.”

Yes, our world is so much safer because the Avignon President is on the job.