A Disparate Threat Proliferation In Latin America

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Column 042307 Brewer

Monday, April 23, 2007 A Disparate Threat Proliferation in Latin America By Jerry Brewer Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has risen once again, in Argentina, to organize and lead mob demonstrators against what he touts as U.S. imperialism. This as President George W. Bush visited neighboring Uruguay in March, during a five-nation tour of Latin America. Although regularly ignoring Chavez’s antics, Bush said rather assertively, “I don’t think America gets enough credit for trying to help improve people’s lives.” The Latin America tour, Bush’s longest in Latin America of his presidency, included the development and completion of an agreement with Brazil for ethanol as a leading alternative to oil. Argentina has also expressed interest in an ethanol agreement with the U.S. Chavez, on an Argentine turf podium, replied “Gringo go home” and called the ethanol idea “a crazy thing — off the wall.” The U.S. and Brazil will, under agreement, share technology to enhance ethanol production and push its development in other Latin American countries and the Caribbean. U.S. aid to Latin America last year doubled, to US$1.6 billion, whereas Chavez has spent vast sums from oil revenue on purchases of weapons from Russia. Bush contrasted the Venezuelan President’s rhetoric by saying that ethanol production in this hemisphere can bring us all out of “dependence on oil, and you’re dependent upon people to work the land.” Regional South American polls have shown noticeably low numbers for Chavez.

Colombia, a grateful recipient of U.S. aid to battle drugs, guerrillas and paramilitary insurgents, greeted Bush with a military honor guard and red carpet. President Alvaro Uribe’s administration has fared well in strengthening Colombia’s homeland security. Uribe enjoys a 65 percent approval rating in Colombia. President Bush praised Uribe’s positive efforts to bring human rights violators to justice in Latin America. Too, both discussed “Plan Colombia II,” a US$43 billion sixyear plan to continue the fight against drug organizers and guerrillas. The potential threat of terrorist organization and movement throughout the region is high. Some terrorism experts refuse to categorize terrorists under one heading, citing Hezbollah and Hamas as more complex organizations than al-Qaeda, involved in politics and social welfare networks and elections. Still, the commonality of these three terrorist organizations is an intense hatred for Israel and the United States. In South America, the tri-border confluence of Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay boasts a large melting pot of Middle Eastern ethnicity. Moreover, Hamas, Hezbollah and al-Qaeda extremists are all represented in the region. And Hezbollah has already left its murderous mark on South American soil. In 1992 they bombed the Israeli Embassy in Buenos Aires, killing 29 persons. In 1994 they struck again, killing 95 people at the Argentine Jewish Cultural Center. As a result, and due to extremists present in the tri-border region, Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency has a large contingent in Argentina. It is clear that Hezbollah, Hamas and al-Qaeda have similar, even mutual, agendas regardless of their own identities and mindset. Consequently, they are a unified ideology of hatred and murder in the global terrorism arena. More specifically, terrorist acts are their stratagem and modus operandi by virtue of their extremist mindsets. The terrorist has many faces, with each led by their respective organization’s mission or jihad. Some elements operate overtly political, as others are the muscle or brawn on the ground. Their agendas, ego and influence may often collide, but the networks and cells can and do cooperate, with Shi’a and Sunni joining together to accomplish common goals. A global terrorist threat is a potential smorgasbord of organized criminals and/or merchants of death and destruction, aligned however so slightly to exert power,

influence or control over targeted adversaries. Hezbollah currently has a military mission to defend Lebanon from possible Israeli advances into its territory. Too, they are state sponsored by Syria and Iran, which raises the “nuclear card” temperature in the scheme of things. In Latin America the terrorism threat has to be assessed from the standpoint of a training and launching or deployment base of operations. As well, drug revenue, weapons, intricate knowledge of countyborder distinctions and protocols for entry, smuggling routes and related homeland defense agendas or deficiencies fuel sinister ideas. U.S. Senator Arlen Specter (Republican, Pennsylvania) has recently suggested taking away some of the FBI’s authority under the USA Patriot Act, and he suggested the Act should be rewritten. This in response to alleged “overextensions” by agents in investigating terrorist links within the United States. However everyone in the Americas must recognize that the potential for the strengthening of terrorist cells and their heinous acts, in this hemisphere, is real and fluid. —————————— Jerry Brewer, the Vice President of Criminal Justice International Associates, a global risk mitigation firm headquartered in Miami, Florida, is a guest columnist with MexiData.info. He can be reached via e-mail at [email protected]. [email protected]