Posted on 05/04/2014 9:02:25 PM PDT by Tailgunner Joe
Costa Rica's top diplomat voiced alarm Sunday that Nicaragua is boosting its military ties to Russia, in his view to the point of dependency.
"Russia is facilitating the arming of Nicaragua -- ships -- and they have spoken about buying jets and other weapons. I fear problems are in store," Foreign Minister Enrique Castillo told La Nacion daily.
The two Central American nations have border disputes before the International Court of Justice.
Castillo said he believed there was cause for concern that Managua's leftist government "is being armed, and is entering into a relationship of military dependency with Russia."
Last month, Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega said his country was "committed to further strengthening and modernizing the army" with the help of any country willing to provide aid.
He did not give details of an agreement between Nicaragua and Russia.
But Russia's ambassador in Managua had confirmed in March that Moscow is interested in building a military resupply base in Nicaragua.
Russian defense chief Sergei Shoigu has said that Russia is weighing increasing its military presence in countries including Nicaragua, Cuba and Venezuela -- particularly bases to refuel Russian warplanes far from home.
All three of the countries Shoigu mentioned are leftist allies and harsh critics of the United States.
Nicaragua Army Chief General Julio Aviles had said this was just "speculation."
And Nicaraguan authorities have said that there was no talk of Russian bases in Nicaragua, but rather of potential refueling and resupply of Russian jets and/or ships.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov visited Nicaragua last week, and met with Ortega on a trip that also took him to Chile, Cuba and Peru.
Russia has faced international condemnation over its actions in Crimea, which has switched to Moscow from Ukraine after pro-Russian forces seized the peninsula.
Crimea is a top strategic interest for Russia since it hosts Moscow's only warm-water port open year-round.
What’s Costa Rica worried about? They don’t have a military and they dislike American gringos. It’s all good, right?
Typical picture of a typical Democrat being a typical UPPITY Democrat.
There are a lot of ex-pats in Costa Rica, and Americans I know who have been there as tourists have spoken favorably of their experiences.
I have been to Costa Rica. Absolutely loved it; we were treated wonderfully everywhere we went.
Yet another disastrous call by Obama.
“The San Francisco Democrats in 1984 included the Lt. Governor Massachusetts who, that year, would be elected to the Senate — John F. Kerry. Within months of taking his Senate seat, Kerry and Senator Tom Harkin of Iowa would head to Nicaragua and help the Soviet backed Daniel Ortega. Through Kerry’s efforts, the House of Representatives scuttled funding the Western backed Contras. The Soviet Union then poured money in to help Oretega’s Sandinistas. The San Francisco Democrats who blame America first are now in charge of our foreign policy. The outcome is as Kirkpatrick saw. The San Francisco Democrats put their head in the sand, blame America first, and foreign powers smelling weakness and unseriousness begin plotting. The San Francisco Democrats have ignored the timeless truths of Ronald Reagan’s “Bear in the Woods” ad. In their childish superiority, they think it all jingoistic nonsense.”
Not a surprise. They want the Sandinistas back in charge
This would today...read like a Graham Greene novel.
Today...Nicaragua is mostly a socialist country with wide-open economic values and structure. Half the leadership (over fifty years old) in small towns, counties, and at the national level....have some connection back to the Sandinistas.
What the Sandinistas were fighting were the elite guys at the top of the national leadership chain and family-run politics. So, those two groups are gone.
For Russia to arm up Nicaragua now...you’d basically have to go out to the peasants and marginal life-style folks of Nicaragua, and say that the Sandinistas version 1.0 failed, and we need Sandinistas version 2.0 to come in and fight a new fresh guerrilla war.
It’s hard to see how you could invent the group all over again, and pursue the same strategy. Maybe they need a Sandinista Lady GaGa character, some whacked-up Cuban mercenaries, a Idaho militia member or two, and a hot Latino theme song that the peasants sing when attacking. Put a History channel video team on the ground, tape the whole thing, and run a new show on Mondays...entitled: Sandinista Commander, with a bearded guy reciting Marx and sipping whiskey from a jelly jar.
You under estimate what the true goal of the Soviet Union (formerly known as Russia) and its thug leader Putin really is
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