Brazilian Socialist Party or PSB [Federal Deputy Eduardo Henrique ...
China and the Panama Canal
Venezuela
Bolivia Socialist
Ecuador socialist
Posted on 01/20/2007 8:15:35 PM PST by Flavius
The spectacle of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad cozying up to Latin American leaders hostile to the United States has sparked speculative comment about a replay of the Cuban missile crisis, if Iran bases missiles in those countries. As scary as that is, that’s not all there is to worry about. Ahmadinejad visited the bosses of Nicaragua, Ecuador and Venezuela last week. The distance from those places to, say, New York is about a third of the distance from Tehran to New York. It is well within range of Iranian missiles. Iran has no nuclear warheads - yet. It does have terrorists.
Making embassies in Managua, Quito and Caracas into bases for terrorist operations against the United States is a much more immediate threat than missiles. Iran has had plenty of practice in using embassies that way, most recently, according to the Argentine government, in the bombing of a Jewish center in Buenos Aires in 1994 that killed 85 people. Such a threat needs a cooperating host, impossible with governments friendly to the United States. The advent of unfriendly governments in Venezuela, Nicaragua, Ecuador and perhaps elsewhere opens possibilities for Iran. Havana would be ruled out as simply too close to the United States and too vulnerable to U.S. countermeasures, but could well be included in an embassy network. A host government friendly with the United States (Argentina’s investigation was helped by the FBI) can fight plotters through wiretaps and bugging, surveillance, sting operations, secret inspection of diplomatic mail (supposedly immune from inspection), timely expulsions of individual operatives using diplomatic cover, maybe a little sabotage of equipment - all in collaboration with U.S. intelligence agencies through both formal and back channels. In a capital like Caracas, though, where the government is controlled by an anti-American firebrand like Hugo Chavez, Iranian “diplomats” could have free rein plus cooperation from their hosts. Any help the United States got would have to come from individual Venezuelans at the risk of their careers, perhaps their lives. For Iran, an attack like those of al-Qaeda on Sept. 11 would be just as devastating as a nuclear explosion. Countering such a threat will be one of the biggest challenges yet for U.S. intelligence agencies.
Brazilian Socialist Party or PSB [Federal Deputy Eduardo Henrique ...
China and the Panama Canal
Venezuela
Bolivia Socialist
Ecuador socialist
Another gift from the US Dept of State...
Sounds like another season of "24".
cut the head off the snake?
Ahmadinejad has more cojones than brains...
with any such liftoff, Tehram will become a glass ice rink...
Someone like Putin best whisper in his ear..
Maybe buy him a new wind breaker...
I hope so. I was encouraged to see that the (somewhat leftist) president of Argentina, Kirchner, refused to attend because of the presence of the Iranian nutcase. He did so because Iran is not cooperating in the investigation of the bombing of the Jewish center in Buenos Aires some years ago. Of course, Iranian agents were involved in this and it was not even a big secret. Good for Kirchner!
Wanna bet? We don't have the will.
The "we will never forget" crowd has forgotten. The next time, they'll just cave even more to terrorists.
Half of the country doesn't even want us to win in Iraq.
No question the bad guy's are targeting South and Central America as staging grounds to attack the United States.This is one of the reasons I've been 100% against this American Union tying the US to Mexico,Canada and ultimately the rest of South America because it makes any infiltration and harm to the United States to damn easy !!!
Hell, the way bush has not pardoned our border guards, is a green light on the border for terrorists to come on in!
US oil rigs in the Gulf of Mexico come to mind. I wonder how vulnerable they are? Plus our Gulf Coast is lightly defended.
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