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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 six-
year 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 county-
border 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
Cjiaincusa@aol.com. jbrewer@cjiausa.org