All right, y'all, welcome back.
It's anti-war radio.
I'm Scott Horton and our next guest on the show today is Nicholas Kozloff.
His website is nicholaskozloff.com.
Believe it or not, it's spelled exactly like it sounds.
Uh, N-I-K-N-O-C and, uh, Nicholas, Nicholas Kozloff.
And, um, he's got this piece at Al Jazeera, aljazeera.com.
Oh, wow.
I guess they got that URL from those imposters after all these years.
Um, what's behind Obama's new military base in Chile?
Oh, welcome to the show.
How's it going?
Thank you for having me.
Uh, well, you're welcome.
I'm very happy to have you here.
Uh, tell me what is behind Obama's new military base in Chile?
Well, ostensibly it's to coordinate for, uh, to help facilitate, uh, peacekeeping operations and Chile in recent years has been deploying peacekeeping troops to Haiti.
And so I think the U S Pentagon has had to downsize, uh, significantly and is looking for collaboration from other countries.
So officially that's the, uh, the reason for the new base in Konkon in the coastal city of Konkon in Chile.
However, I think given the history of U S involvement in, in the Southern cone in Chile and Argentina in the 1970s and, uh, 1980s, this raises some eyebrows.
And so I think, um, activists are certainly justified in feeling somewhat suspicious about whether U S has ulterior agenda in this case.
All right.
Now, what kind of base are we talking about here?
Exactly.
And by the way, I should say for the audience, you really got to read this thing because it goes all in depth about the consequences for the people on the ground there and, and in other places too, you get the background.
So go ahead.
You have free reign here today.
Yeah.
It's well, the, uh, physically the base is meant to simulate urban warfare.
So perhaps this is meant to prepare Chilean troops are going to be deployed to Haiti, for example.
Uh, that's a charitable view.
Uh, there's another possible, uh, ulterior agenda, which is that this base is being constructed at a time of acute political and social tensions in Chile, and so I think that raises eyebrows and, and I think if you read the secret cables released by the, uh, uh, whistleblowing outfit, WikiLeaks, they suggest that there's been significant, uh, military and security collaboration between the United States and Chile in recent years.
And that's a little, that's a little disappointing in my view, because I would have thought that, uh, we'd turn the page on that military cooperation and it harks back to the dark days of the US backed, uh, uh, Augusto Pinochet military dictatorship, uh, in the 1970s with horrific human rights abuses.
And so, so I think that this base is being installed at, at this time where you have restive students and this low level intensity warfare against Chile's largest indigenous group, the Mapuche Indians.
And so I think a lot of people are wondering, well, what is this?
It could, could there be some other agenda at foot here?
Well, you know, it's not like they even have the myth of the Soviet juggernaut taking over all of South America and coming up through Texas like Red Dawn and taking us all over whatever anymore.
The Soviet empire is dead and gone a long, long time ago.
Who's left the penguins?
I mean, what in the hell is there to fight down there other than, oh, I guess you said their own people.
Well, uh, that's, that's a good point.
And I think, I mean, who's, who's even lobbying for this thing?
Is it just the Pentagon is looking for work or you got the body armor industry lobbyists saying, you know, Hey, let's arm up some more cops.
Let's find countries where we can arm up cops.
Or what is this?
Well, I think it's not entirely clear.
And this is also happening in the context of yet another US base that was recently constructed just across the border in Argentina.
It's the first US base ever in Argentina in the Chaco region of, of, in the north of the country, which is a strategic location, which is close to Bolivia and Paraguay.
And so you have now two bases in the U S Southern cone.
And I think for me, this is almost like back to the future because you had very tight, uh, security collaboration during, um, for example, um, the, the Nixon years and, uh, the overthrow of the INJ government in Chile and operation Condor and all of the collaboration, the hunt down leftist radicals in that, um, in that region of South America.
But yeah, I think the question is, well, what, what is behind this?
I mean, in, in the case of Argentina, the, the Pentagon says, well, this is for humanitarian relief and, uh, but, uh, some legislators in Argentina have been saying, look, this is a Yankee base and there've been protests against it.
And so this whole story of the Southern cone has really fallen under the radar of the mainstream media.
I think one other long-term, uh, possibility, and I don't think this is necessarily the case now, but say in 10 or 20 years, perhaps the United States might see Brazil as a rival in the region.
So it possibly could be a hedge against Brazil to have Argentina and Chile within the U S uh, sphere of influence in case Brazil gets too powerful.
I think for the time being, Brazil is, is kind of a reluctant ally of the U S even though there's underlying tensions, but in the future, it might be convenient for the U S to have these bases in the Southern cone, just to cross the border from Brazil.
There, see, now you're thinking like an imperialist.
That's good.
I, uh, I have to assume that you're right about that.
It's not altogether misplaced because the U S it's not like they're trying to prevent Americans from using cocaine or something.
Yeah, well, the, the, the political leaps in the U S right.
Have been a little concerned about the rise of Brazil.
So, and you did have the head of the Stratfor corporation, George Friedman in his own secret correspondence saying that we need to keep tabs on Brazil.
So I don't think it's a concern right now, but I think in other diplomatic correspondence, the U S diplomats openly say we are in a competition with Brazil for regional influence in South America.
So I think maybe in 10 or 20 years, this could be convenient for the Pentagon.
Well, and you know, don't forget how mad they got at Brazil for doing exactly what Barack Obama asked them to do, which was make a nuclear deal with Iran for them.
Yeah.
And I think, I think that, uh, that right now, I think the United States of the Pentagon needs Brazil because, uh, we're doing this pivot to, uh, Asia.
And so Obama just called for redeploying military forces to the Pacific.
So in the interim and in this, uh, period of, of, um, downsizing, I think the United States needs Brazil.
And Panetta was recently in Brazil and he spoke in Rio and he talked about how he wanted Brazil to help, uh, monitor patrol the seas and, um, do joint military exercises in Africa at which maybe a reflection of the fact that U S is stretched a bit thin and it's deployed in, in the Pacific.
So it may need Brazil and some of these other countries to step up to the plate and help the United States and other areas where we're stretched a bit thin.
So I think in the short term, Brazil is not a challenge or necessarily a threat, but I think in the longterm, perhaps, like I said, having these bases in other areas, like the Southern Cone could be a check, uh, Brazil is going to make a bid for a larger regional ambition.
Can you tell us real quick about, uh, this guy, minister Goni and the school of the Americas, and then we can pick it back up on the other side of the break as well, if you want.
Sure.
Well, I think that, uh, like I said, the, the, um, construction of this base in Chile is occurring in a time of acute political and social tensions.
And so there's been this, like I said, this low level, intense, state warfare against indigenous people in Chile.
And the, um, upper echelons of the Chilean military are, uh, are trying to revive this US military collaboration, which you would have thought would have gone out of style at the end of the Pinochet years, but seems to be rearing its ugly head once again.
And so the, uh, the, um, minister of, uh, I'm sorry, we got a holler right there.
It's my fault.
Uh, bad set up there.
Hard break built in Nicholas Kozloff.
He's got this great piece at Al Jazeera, what's behind Obama's new military base in Chile, but we'll be right back after this.
All right, y'all.
Welcome back to the show.
It's anti-war radio.
I'm Scott Horton.
I'm talking with Nicholas Kozloff.
It's got this great piece at Al Jazeera called what's behind Obama's new military base in Chile, and I'm sorry, I asked you too big of a question right before the break there.
It's sloppy of me, but anyway, that's the way it goes.
Uh, we're talking about, uh, this guy Goni, who's what politician or general general, the school of the America's new torch notorious torture school in the days of the cold war, especially like in the Reagan years, right?
This is where anybody who was a right-wing torture Colonel in Latin America was a graduate of this American school, how to torture people to death, uh, you know, kind of thing, um, get a master's degree in that.
And, um, so now it's called the Western hemisphere Institute for security cooperation.
That's very nice to hear, but, uh, is that still what they teach is how to torture people to death, or is it more just broader lessons in how to be a reliable Quisling or what's the deal?
Well, I think whatever the cosmetic changes in, uh, they renamed the school, but you know, whatever the changes, the schools should be shut down in light of the horrific history.
So it's really eyeopening to read about in the WikiLeaks cables, how the Chileans want to continue to send their military to, uh, study at the, uh, the, uh, formerly known, uh, school of the Americas.
And so, um, and in one cable, uh, the head of the armed forces, Jose Goni says that, unfortunately there are some opponents of the school in Chile, but we should educate them and, and organize some junkets of, so the Chileans can come and see the school and, and so to launch a kind of public relations war and in other cables, uh, the same minister is fraternizing with the Americans and talking about the need to, uh, combat Hugo Chavez and monitor Venezuelan influence in Bolivia and Brazil.
And so, so this base that's been constructed in Chile now is happening in that context of the, there's still the Chilean military, uh, this vestige of the earlier Pinochet years.
And so despite the fact that there have been some leftist, leftist governments in Chile, um, not currently, but in recent years, I think you still have this vestige of the earlier mentality in Chile.
And then the other thread of this discussion has to do with this, um, really nasty conflict between the indigenous people and the Chilean state.
And in other cables, uh, the, the FBI is, uh, mentioned as, um, um, collaborating with the Chilean ministry of interior to monitor the Mapuche Indians in Chile, which is very ironic given that the FBI was, has a notorious record as far as indigenous people in the United States, if Leonard Peltier is any indication.
And so now the FBI is apparently collaborating with the ministry of interior in Chile, in this low level conflict against the Mapuche, which has to do with their own natural resources and the Chilean state's desire to export those raw materials in line with its own free trade economic model.
And unfortunately the Mapuche were the largest indigenous group in Chile.
They live on top of a lot of these resources, such as the logging and salmon and whatnot.
And so in the cables, you know, the FBI is mentioned as collaborating with the ministry of interior to monitor these indigenous people.
So all of this is the context for this new base, which I find a bit disturbing.
Yeah, boy, you gotta love Bradley Manning and, uh, Julian Assange for bringing us those WikiLeaks.
People try to play down, oh, well, you know, it was a little bit embarrassing for Hillary Clinton, you know, the little credit card scandal and this and that.
There's so many stories about who is whose sock puppet.
And, you know, Bradley Manning even said the stuff in here about how the first world exploits the third.
It's just not right.
We've got, I gotta get this stuff out into the public so that there can be reforms.
I mean, this is exactly the kind of thing he was talking about.
If it's not the specific thing he was referring to here.
Yeah, absolutely.
And also, you have the Assange expedition now making the news.
And so, but I personally think that all of that is certainly important.
I think Bradley Manning and Julian Assange and all these larger than life characters in the WikiLeaks scandal deserve the media spotlight.
My, my only concern is that the actual cables that illuminate U.S. foreign policy, sometimes they just don't deserve, they don't get the same media scrutiny that Julian Assange gets.
And so I think for a long time now, I've been looking at what these documents say about the U.S. foreign policy and in Latin America.
And I think it's very interesting because on the one hand you have this public rhetoric amongst these left leaning regimes in Latin America that we're all against imperialists, but then you see what goes on behind the curtains and how the United States is dividing a lot of these different countries and Argentina and some of these countries that ostensibly belong to this leftist pink tide in the region, say something very different in private to the Americans.
They have concerns about Brazil, for example, and the rising power of Brazil.
And they say things like, well, don't pay any attention to what, to what, to our embrace of Hugo Chavez.
We're so it's one thing to to to pay attention to what they're doing publicly, but in private, they're still trying to get into the good graces of the United States.
Right.
Yeah.
You know, I was actually going to ask you about that.
I saw here on your bio page.
It's nicolascosloff.com.
You're the author of Hugo Chavez, Oil, Politics and the Challenge to the U.S.
And now I remember Greg Palace talking about how Hugo Chavez had taken 20 billion dollars out of the New York Fed and turn around and load it, loaned it at low interest to the other countries of South America in a way that wasn't, you know, IMF exploitation.
It was just, hey, you need a loan, I'll give you a loan and kind of did fair business with him and cut the IMF and all of them out.
Plus took all this money out of the Fed.
And that had really made a lot of people angry.
But then again, that was 10 years ago or more.
And of course, you know, I guess they have to deal with him and he has to deal with the United States.
Right.
Doesn't Shell Oil and doesn't Houston, Texas thrive on Venezuelan oil all day?
I mean, these guys have a very solid relationship, really, don't they?
I don't know.
What is the evolution of that?
Is that it?
Well, yeah, that's the irony in in Venezuela, because even as Hugo Chavez rails against the U.S. and certainly the Bush administration, it's been a little a little more muted under Obama.
But the irony is that without the money from the United States that pays for Venezuelan oil, Hugo Chavez wouldn't have been able to carry out his Bolivarian revolution and all of his social programs.
So.
That's a certain certainly one ironic twist on developments in Venezuela, although there are certainly a lot more.
Mm hmm.
Well, you know, I don't know the ins and outs of which oil companies have, you know, more or less influence in Washington, D.C., or, you know, whether it's the guys who are allies with or have, you know, solid relationships with him who really have the sway or whether it's their competition or what.
I don't know if anybody knows those deep politics right now.
I'd like to know where to read that.
Well, it remains to be seen, I think, just as in previous elections, you know, this upcoming election in September, I'm sure the United States is once again dispersing money in in many in many ways to the Venezuelan opposition.
So I think what the WikiLeaks table shows that in the short term, I think the United States is interested in overturning this populist left in Latin America, which includes Venezuela, his protege in Ecuador, Rafael Correa, Bolivia and well, in Honduras, they were well, that's that's a whole other story.
I mean, Manuel Zelaya was also a Chavez protege and things didn't really go as well as way in that case.
But still, I think Washington is concerned about this populist left bloc.
I but I would add that I think in the long term, what this misses is that Brazil is going to be the main challenge for regional dominance, and I think you see this in the cables that that diplomats are already aware of the fact that in Peru, for example, the United States is in a direct confrontation with Brazil for a regional influence.
And the current president of Brazil is excuse me, of Peru, hired a Brazilian team for his presidential campaign.
And so and there's a lot of Brazilian economic interest in Peru.
And so in one cable, United States ambassador in Peru writes, we are in a direct competition with Brazil in Peru.
So I think, you know, Venezuela had a certain impact on the local the local neighborhood in South America.
It had disproportionate influence because of its oil.
But Venezuela is a middle sized country, about twenty seven million people.
But in the long term, you have Brazil, well, ten times that amount of people, the economic output of all the other South American countries combined.
And I think that the US political elites are looking somewhat I have some concerns about that.
And so I think that's maybe what to look for in the long term.
Hmm.
Well, I hope your next book is perhaps that that that is an interesting lens through which to view these military bases in the southern cone and in the Chaco region of Argentina, the first ever U.S. base in Argentina and now in Chile.
Well, I hope your next book is what all the WikiLeaks say about America's policy in Latin America, because there's so much and so many different countries and whatever.
But it's got to be summed up somewhere where people can get their head around it.
Like me, for example, I've written really extensively about that, probably dozens of pieces.
If the listeners want, they can log on to my website and under the heading WikiLeaks, you'll see all of the pieces that I've done since late 2010, which talk about the rise of Brazil.
They talk about the U.S. embassy in Caracas and what a low level, you know, diplomatic intrigue that's been going on in Venezuela, in Ecuador, you know, in Central America.
So I've written very extensively about that.
Yeah.
Yeah, I see 51 posts under the tag WikiLeaks at your site again.
Everybody, it's NikolasKosloff.com.
I don't know how to bookmark that thing or something.
All right.
Hey, thanks so much for your time and for this great article.
And all of this, it's I really appreciate it.
OK, thanks a lot.
All right, everybody, that's Nikolas Kosloff.
His website again is NikolasKosloff.com.
And yeah, you can check out all of his books and articles and everything else there.
Check out the latest at Al Jazeera.com.
What's behind Obama's new military base in Chile?
