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And an Iranian foothold gives rise to numerous concerns, including weapons smuggling, the presence of more Hizballah fronts, as in Venezuela, and Iran's other possible plans, recalling the 1994 bombing in Argentina in which high-level Iranian officials have been implicated. Not to mention the possibility of Iran's using Nicaragua as a base from which to attack the U.S. and other targets in the Western Hemisphere in the event of military intervention against its nuclear program.
"Iran making push into Nicaragua," by Todd Bensman for the San Antonio Express-News:
MONKEY POINT, Nicaragua — The second military helicopter in as many days hovered over the jungle and then landed to a most unwelcome reception from several dozen angry Rama Indian and Creole villagers.
Rupert Allen Clear Duncan, a leader of some 400 Creole who live along the shoreline, confronted the foreigners dressed in suits and military uniforms that day in March and demanded to know the purpose of their aerial trespasses.
"This is our land; we have always lived here, and you don't have our permission to be here," Duncan spat, when refused the courtesy of an explanation.
Not until Duncan threatened to have his machete-waving followers damage the aircraft did they learn that some of the men were from the Islamic Republic of Iran and had come promising to establish a Central American foothold in the middle of their territory.
As part of a new partnership with Nicaragua's Sandinista President Daniel Ortega, Iran and its Venezuelan allies plan to help finance a $350 million deep-water port at Monkey Point on the wild Caribbean shore, and then plow a connecting "dry canal" corridor of pipelines, rails and highways across the country to the populous Pacific Ocean. Iran recently established an embassy in Nicaragua's capital.
[...]
What worries state department officials, former national security officials and counterterrorism researchers is that, if attacked, Iran could stage strikes on American or allied interests from Nicaragua, deploying the Iranian terrorist group Hezbollah and Revolutionary Guard operatives already in Latin America. Bellicose threats by Iran's clerical leadership to hit American interests worldwide if attacked, by design or not, heighten the anxiety.
"The bottom line is if there is a confrontation with Iran, and Iran gets bombed, I have absolutely no doubt that Iran is going to lash out globally," said John R. Schindler, a veteran former counterintelligence officer and analyst for the National Security Agency.
"The Iranians have that ability, particularly from South America. Hezbollah has fronts all over Latin America. That is not new. But it's certainly something we're starting to care about now."
Gee, that's nice.
[...]
Few Nicaragua observers believe Iran seriously plans to follow through on any of its $500 million promises or has any obvious need for trade ties with one of Latin America's poorest countries.
Opposition politicians say they understand why Iran might want relations with oil-rich Venezuela and Bolivia but wonder aloud if Iran really is so interested in Nicaraguan bananas as their return on investment.
Those who view Iranian intentions with suspicion point to the new Iranian diplomatic mission in Managua as one reason for all the promises.
"They use their embassies to smuggle in weapons. They used them to develop and execute plans," said Oliver "Buck" Revell, who served as associate deputy director over FBI intelligence and international affairs. "Diplomats have immunity coming and going. It is a protected center for both espionage and, on occasion, for specific operations. So an embassy in Managua is definitely an area that will be of concern to our national security apparatus."
[...]
Also in recent months, the U.S. military repeatedly has accused Iran's Revolutionary Guard of using diplomatic cover in Iraq to help insurgents kill American soldiers. Iran denies that charge too. In October, the Bush administration and Congress designated the Revolutionary Guard and its elite arm, the Quds force, as global terror organizations.
Israel is worried about Nicaragua, too, noting the Israeli business community in next-door Costa Rica, Jewish populations throughout Latin America and Iran's repeated vows to militarily destroy the Jewish state. Israel has promised to take action alone if diplomacy fails to halt Iran's nuclear programs.
Said one Israeli envoy in the region who requested anonymity, "It's just that they could use their diplomatic infrastructure to repeat Argentina. They'll promise millions, they won't send a penny. But they will send a delegation."
Read it all.
Posted by Marisol at December 18, 2007 7:51 AM
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Nice how Iran constantly sucks up to the worst regimes in the Americas in order to irk the US. What does the US do? Issue laughable NIE's and say how nice it is that the Russians are sending nuclear fuel to Tehran. Either we have willful idiots running things in Washington or flat out traitors-either way we have one hell of a problem.
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at December 18, 2007 7:58 AM
Monkey Point, eh? Ahmadinejad should feel right at home there.
Posted by: ImNoDhimmi at December 18, 2007 8:04 AM
If push comes to shove, it's nice to know that there are Iranian assets and interests to seize and hold captive--if they wage a dirty war through proxies and terror, let's hit them in like fashion and harder. We may certainly learn from the Israelis how to wage an unconventional war.
Posted by: John C at December 18, 2007 8:15 AM
If push comes to shove, it's nice to know that there are Iranian assets and interests to seize and hold captive--if they wage a dirty war through proxies and terror, let's hit them in like fashion and harder. We may certainly learn from the Israelis how to wage an unconventional war.
Posted by: John C at December 18, 2007 8:16 AM
If push comes to shove, it's nice to know that there are Iranian assets and interests to seize and hold captive--if they wage a dirty war through proxies and terror, let's hit them in like fashion and harder. We may certainly learn from the Israelis how to wage an unconventional war.
Posted by: John C at December 18, 2007 8:17 AM
And yet we have a pourous border
Posted by: Elric66 at December 18, 2007 9:02 AM
"Palestinians" and other Arabs have been arriving in Latin America for some time. And the Lebanese and Syrian Christians, who are often the descendants of those arrived earlier, are worked on by these newer Muslim arrivals -- the theme of "Uruba" or "Arabness" is played upon. Some of these Christian Arabs are, or can become, islamochristian supporters, just as elsewhere in the West, and some have nothing to do with it. But the Muslim influx alone is worrisome. Heavily Catholic Latin America -- or Catholic and now Evangelical Protestant -- may not, however, be as hampered by its own self-imposed solicitudes and hesitancies as hobble efforts in North America and Western Europe to deal with the menace of Islam. But help, practical help, logistical help, is needed to locate, and monitor, these threats, and deal with them appropriately. It should not be a case only of "helping los norteamericanos" to stop terrorist threats but of helping themselves, the people in Latin America who are part of the West, and who so far live in an area that has been freer of the threat than other parts of that West. Those who recognize the menace of Islam to the art, science, freedoms, and indigenous folkways -- and Islam crushes diversity, for it is a one-size-fits-all Total Belief System, whatever those constant propagandistic pratings about "Islam is not a monolith." Islam is indeed a monolith as a mental system, for it is not so much a religion as a Total System, covering politics, economics, social life, and attempts not only to regulate -- to command or prohibit -- every facet of existence, but also supplies a Complete Explanation of the Universe, offers a Total Belief-System that is not merely indifferent but hostile to everything that is outside Islam, and that includes the non-Islamic histories, and cultures, of Latin America, whether of the Spanish and Portuguese who arrived, and their descendants, or of the indigenous Indians and the rich profusion of their own histories, or of what comes of the mix.
Those in Latin America, properly alerted to the danger, are likely to be harder-headed in dealing with such a threat. No one should stop them.
Posted by: Hugh at December 18, 2007 9:14 AM
Those in Latin America, properly alerted to the danger, are likely to be harder-headed in dealing with such a threat. No one should stop them.
Posted by: Hugh at December 18, 2007 9:14 AM
Washington will try to stop them. Just like they wanted Mushy Raff to be kinder and gentler in Pakistan.
Posted by: ISLAMSFORLOSERS at December 18, 2007 9:27 AM
From a previous posting on Chavez and Islam:
"Islam and Marxism claim to offer, in their different ways, social – that is, economic -- justice. Marxism failed, and was seen to have failed, in the Soviet Union. In China, while the Communist Party continues to hold power capitalism, of the most unpleasant Dickensian-era kind, has been permitted to develop. Some of those who might once have been Marxists, or thought they were, because that was the most obvious vehicle for the expression of their resentment, discontent, unhappiness, may now find, because Communism seems so comically out-of-date, to find their new Answer to Everything in Islam. In any case Chavez, who started as a crude leveler, and has become a los-de-abajo caudillo, of the kind limned by Miguel Angel Asturias in El senor presidente and by many others (Martin Luis Guzman, Mario Vargas Llosa), appears to have a fondness for Islam not because he has the faintest idea what it is about, but because he knows one thing: it is the enemy of the United States, and by embracing or endorsing Hezbollah he thumbs his nose at the Colossus of the North. What he, Chavez, a primitive man, does not know, is that Islam does not offer social justice, is far more cruel and unfair in the distribution of wealth, both within Muslim countries, and among Muslim members of the umma, and that it has nothing to offer the world, save for a totalitarian belief-system. Of course Chavez cannot understand this, and of course the introduction of Hezbollah influence into Venezuela, and the appeal to anti-Americanism that also proved so effective for Arab and Muslim interests in turning much of the public in Western Europe against its own interests, as it overlooked the Muslim invasion, will have disastrous consequences not only in Venezuela, but in other countries of Latin America.
This is something that those in Latin America, whatever criticisms and doubts they may have about the United States and its historic role, must realize is a threat to liberal democracy. So far Muslims have not been permitted to enter Latin America in great numbers, though there are significant communities of Muslims (and of islamochristain Lebanese) in Brazil and Argentina, and certainly in that Wild West between Argentina, Brazil, and Paraguay, and there are people of Arab descent who have climbed to the political top – think of Carlos Menem, bribed to prevent a thorough investigation of the people behind the bombing of the Jewish Center in Buenes Aires, Shafik Handal in Central America, and others. They are dangerous, and Chavez himself, bad enough without Hezbollah, is by allowing Hezbollah freedom of maneuver in Venezuela, doing things that will damage all Venezuelans – who have been damaged quite enough
[Posted by: Hugh at September 2, 2006 4:53 PM]
at December 18, 2007 9:39 AM
Well done Rupert Duncan...stand firm and don't accept any of the inevitable bribes.
Posted by: grobari at December 18, 2007 9:45 AM
And we don't need a fence at our border? Because anyone who comes from Latin/South America *can't* be a threat?
Puh-lease.
Posted by: V.I.N.C.E.N.T. at December 18, 2007 10:08 AM
So what are we waiting for? South and Central America are jam packed with gangs that would stomp their own Grandmothers to death for a pack of cigarettes.
Slip them a few dollars through third or fourth parties, with instructions to eleminate the Iranian presence in their countries, and the problem will be solved in short order.
Of course we couldn't let Nancy Pelosi or Harry Reed find out what we're doing. They'd blow our cover and demand a very public investigation of the whole thing.
Posted by: rational at December 18, 2007 10:57 AM
Chavez is dumber than a doorknob, but dangerous nonetheless.
There is already a muslim presence in South America and it only gets stronger. What we will see are people fleeing in even greater numbers to avoid the muslim violence. And where will they go? (I'll give you a guess - only one - I don't want to use up all the guesses in the world. And the Democrats want to defund the fence they are not building that they promised to build/fund.)
Posted by: R_not at December 18, 2007 11:06 AM
The Bush administration is up to their necks in sleaze, drugs and arms sales to repressive socialist and islamic regimes around the world. This story is one more nail in the coffin of our democracy.
We may be forced to march on washington in the coming years.
Posted by: leonthepigfarmer at December 18, 2007 11:35 AM
"Chavez is dumber than a doorknob"
and what does that make bush?
Posted by: leonthepigfarmer at December 18, 2007 11:48 AM
We may be forced to march on washington in the coming years.
by leonthepigfarmer
And we'll be the ones who end up behind bars. Count on it.
Posted by: PMK at December 18, 2007 11:57 AM
PMK
yep, i guarantee that once democrats get in all of us who post here will be facing criminal charges and mr spencer, savage other conservative right wing etc talk show hosts bloggers will be facing lengthy jail sentences.
at December 18, 2007 12:12 PM
They are just trying to Spread World Peace in the Americas, why do you hate World Peace? :~(
(sarcasm for those deficient in sarcasm detection abilities)
Posted by: AllahSnackbar at December 18, 2007 12:39 PM
"yep, i guarantee that once democrats get in all of us who post here will be facing criminal charges and mr spencer, savage other conservative right wing etc talk show hosts bloggers will be facing lengthy jail sentences."
leonthepigfarmer,
Yes indeed, and those hate crime laws many think are so wonderful, are the very tools they'll use to come after us.
Posted by: rational at December 18, 2007 1:56 PM
As part of a new partnership with Nicaragua's Sandinista President Daniel Ortega, Iran and its Venezuelan allies plan to help finance a $350 million deep-water port at Monkey Point
.....................
I'm sure Ortega thinks his dealings with Iran are just a way to get some free development money while twitting his old enemies in the US. By the time Nicaraguans realize their mistake, they will be paying dearly for it.---we probably all will.
at December 18, 2007 2:51 PM
And even with THIS going on south of the border, it is proving well-nigh IMPOSSIBLE to get Washington DC's beltway harlots to police the US-Mexico border adequately! (and the Bush Administration aka boatload of idiots can take a bow on this one since they screwed up big time on it too).
Posted by: pythagoras at December 18, 2007 3:41 PM
As someone who was intimately involved with the Creole "Nicas" during the eighties while living in Central America, I knew the Indians and Blacks that made up the population of the Atlantic coast of Nicaragua. These are the same people who sucessfully resisted the Sandinistas. They endured unimaginable torture and murder at the hands of the Communists and never lost hope. The mohamedans will not have an easy time in this region. It took a long time before they were even ready to trust me. You do not want to be on their bad side in their own back yard! Kinda makes me want to go back for this new threat.
Posted by: TexasInfidel at December 18, 2007 10:40 PM
Texas Infidel - how about that Bluefields Music?! They know how to do it. I was there 78-82 including the two revolutions. The Iranians will have fun cutting a highway through that jungle, which is as dense as they get. You cannot land a helicopter anywhere near Monkey Point except on the beach. And I remember those babes with 3-foot long machetes watching, always watching. Duncan and others up and down the coast will be a thorn in their sides. We should supply clandestine aid to these guys.
This coast was originally colonized by the English and they left. They left some English traditions, including a variation of the language with most of the East coasters. When Samoza was dictator they petitioned the queen of England to take over the east coast. Never came to anything.
Posted by: Jimmy Bones at December 19, 2007 3:12 AM
...Nicaragua and other South American countries are soft targets for Islamists...
...They should ban Muslim Immigration now...
Posted by: exsgtbrown at December 19, 2007 7:25 AM
I enjoyed your take on the whole Latin America issue.
I tell you with numerous Iranian-supported Hizballah training camps, especially in Paraguay, recruiting centers throughout Latin America, the strong support that Chavez and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad give each other, the oil deals between Castro and China, and let’s just add Saudi Arabia to the picture too, Latin America is increasingly becoming more active and determined in its support for not only the largest Lebanese terrorist organization, Hizballah, but worse yet, Iran.
Gee this is great! What's even better is the importance that this issue presents to our beloved state dept. officials.
This whole Latin American picture kind of reminds me of the good old Soviet days with Red China and its support to “Sendero Luminoso” or the Shining Path guerrilla group from Peru, the Soviet Union’s love relationship with Cuba, its proliferation of Chile with the Allende administration, Paraguay, Colombia (The FARC), Nicaragua and the “Sandinistas” with the infamous Ortega… It’s as if the world politik chess game did not change, but what changed are the players and how these players play. Well… let’s just say that the rules have also changed. Some don’t get deterred and are willing to do what it takes at any cost.
Oh, I miss you Détente (razryadka)
Mesopotamia versus Egypt!
Posted by: Siren at December 19, 2007 4:32 PM
What most Americans are unaware of is that both Iran and Hezbollah are making aggressive efforts to organize a "Latin El Jihad" against "The Gringo", both inside and outside the US, making alliances with Venezuela's Chavez, Mara-18, Mara Salvatrucha, MEChA and Aztlan - a direct result of the cowardly State Department's and the Criminal Imbecile Agency's latest display of cowardice in issuing the Chamberlainian NIE report, emboldening the Khomeinis and all other anti-Americans.
In Sudan in early 1990's, bin Laden addressed class after class of jihad volunteers with a standard pep talk: "America seems to be mighty to most people, but in reality it is weak and cowardly. Look at Vietnam and Beirut: as soon as American soldiers begin arriving home in boxes, the Americans panic and run away from the battle". He soon proved himself right when Clinton ran away from Somalia after the "Black Hawk Down" incident.
Bin Laden is on record in numerous fatwas, manifestos and TV addresses and interviews gleefully stating that he was encouraged by Reagan's and Clinton's cowardice in running away from Beirut and Mogadishu respectively. Indeed, bin Laden's al-Qaida jihadis were trained by the same Hezbollah who committed mass murders of Americans in Beirut.
By consistently chickening out of the fight with Iran and Hezbollah for the past 27 years, the big, stupid, cowardly Uncle Sam has dug a very big, deep and wide grave for his own country.
Ruslan Tokhchukov, EnragedSince1999.
Posted by: Enragedsince1999 at December 19, 2007 9:02 PM
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