The Americas Archive

Some statements go down in history with such a painful belly flop that one can never again quote them without thoroughly soaking them in the deceptively soothing balm of irony. It’s not quite Chamberlain’s immortal “peace in our time,” but the words uttered by President George W. Bush on Sept. 5, 2001, little more than seven months into his first term, clearly fall in this category. That day, the Bush White House was hosting its first official state visit. President Bush stood next to Mexican president Vicente Fox on the South Lawn and earnestly declared, “The United States has no […]

With the advent of Democratic majorities in both houses of Congress and the unfolding of the Lewis Libby perjury trial, the famous “16 words” are back and, in the most literal possible sense, with a vengeance. It is not only on MSNBC or in the pages of the Atlantic Monthly — which had a cover story on Presidential lying — that “Bush lied!” is again the order of the day. In Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearings on Iraq last month, one Senator after another seized the opportunity to assail the administration’s credibility. “I have not been told the truth again […]

WASHINGTON — Blame the sign, or the sumptuous location in the heart of what the world’s diplomatic capital calls “embassy row.” The affair, held on a freezing afternoon in late January, certainly had draw. More than two dozen people, nearly all men and nearly all somewhat dodgy looking in that classic discrete-agent-of-a-foreign-government sort of way, gathered to bid on a hulking, neglected row-house boasting a fabulously curious sign: “BANK AUCTION, FORMER LIBIAN EMBASSY.”<<ad>>Any auction is bound to make the heart beat fast, regardless of whether the crowd features shady characters from various diplomatic outposts. But when they do drop in […]

Last month’s uranium smuggling episode in Georgia has renewed concerns about nuclear terrorism. In that incident, a rogue Russian trader sought to sell 100 grams of highly enriched uranium on the local black market. According to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the primary multinational institution involved in these issues, 662 confirmed cases of smuggling of radioactive materials occurred between 1993 and 2004. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) recorded 215 reported incidents of nuclear trafficking in 2005 alone (though it is unclear whether the increase resulted from more sales attempts or improved detection and reporting procedures). At the […]

One of the most important issues the new Congress will need to address is how to revise the Visa Waiver Program (VWP). During President Bush’s visit to the Baltic countries, in late November 2006, he announced the administration’s intention to seek a limited expansion of the VWP, providing new entrants accept measures yielding what Michael Chertoff, secretary of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), has termed a “net increase in security.” A bipartisan group of U.S. Senators recently introduced the Secure Travel and Counterterrorism Partnership Act of 2007 to achieve this objective. On Feb. 15, the Senate Homeland Security and […]

MIAMI — Venezuela is beefing up its military capabilities by land, sea and air in preparation for what one senior official called a possible “asymmetrical conflict” with the United States. Venezuelan Ambassador to the United States Bernardo Alvarez said that while his country is preparing for possible warfare with the United States — a notion President Hugo Chavez has repeatedly asserted — Venezuela is nonetheless in complete compliance with international and regional non-proliferation treaties. By characterizing a warfare scenario with the United States as “asymmetrical,” the ambassador was acknowledging the distinct firepower and personnel advantage of the United States, though […]

BOGOTÁ, Colombia — U.S aid to Colombia, the largest recipient of U.S aid in the Western Hemisphere, is set to pour in at the same levels as in previous years. But with a Democratic majority in the U.S. Congress, the focus of that aid may shift more toward social spending and away from military spending. In the 2008 budget request, the Bush administration asked for $586 million for Colombia, a slight decrease from $587 million in 2006. The bulk of aid is earmarked for the Colombian armed forces, with 76 percent allocated to counterinsurgency and anti-narcotics operations and the remainder […]

The U.S. military is working on an array of non-lethal weaponry for use in both Iraq and Afghanistan in hopes of curtailing civilian casualties, according to military officials. Some non-lethal devices for crowd control and thwarting suspected suicide bombers are already in use in Iraq, albeit in a limited capacity, though most have yet to make a debut on the battlefield or at checkpoints. That could soon change. Last month, the Pentagon unveiled what appears to be the flagship of its non-lethal deterrent arsenal, a system that uses focused “millimeter waves” of energy to create an intolerable heat sensation on […]

BOGOTÁ, Colombia — For years, paramilitary death squads and guerrillas waged a campaign of terror and violence against the indigenous Kankuamo people in the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta mountains of northeastern Colombia. Their goal was to seize coca plantations, control narcotrafficking routes and profit from large infrastructure projects. In Kankuamo areas, the paramilitaries would gather the people together to watch as they brutally killed someone, or tossed their victims in the road to be run over by cars. Now, however, many of those and other paramilitary leaders are in jail, facing harsh penalties and potentially large payments that are […]

U.S. authorities are pushing forward with a newly designed system of special military tribunals to try suspected terrorists detained at the U.S. Naval Base Guantanamo Bay. With the first cases expected to be announced this month, it remains to be seen whether such high-level suspects as Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (KSM), the accused mastermind behind the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, will be on the docket. Congress passed legislation calling for the new system in September, after President George W. Bush announced the transfer of KSM to Guantanamo, and after the U.S. Supreme Court deemed an earlier tribunal system set up […]

UNTIMELY DEPARTURE — The U.S. intelligence community is upset at John Negroponte’s sudden departure from his post as the director of national intelligence after less than two years. According to one insider, Negroponte has left unfinished the important structural reform he began shortly following his appointment as overall head of the country’s 15 intelligence services two years ago. President Bush shifted Negroponte, a veteran diplomat, from national security to fill the second ranking position at the State Department when Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice’s first choice, Robert Kimmitt, the deputy secretary of the Treasury, didn’t want to transfer to Foggy […]