October 11, 2007 We share here a useful piece from ANDRES OPPENHEIMER in the MIAMI HERALD. (Read it here.) Andres knows Ecuador and reviews regional trends. Oppenheimer is correct about Rafael Correa- he is truly arrogant and unwilling to negotiate on anything.

Add to this that he is badly educated and horribly authoritarian...and you see a bad brew in a strange new fascism.
 
We would however correct Andres's expression of the Correa - Chavez "squeeze play" on Uribe....the anti US Chavez in fact calls this their "scissors plan." And indeed it is. Scissors are far more destructive that squeezing.
 
From our perspective, we would not be as hasty as Oppenheimer to gift the analysis by Roger Noriega and Manny Rocha. Enabling often leads to throwing in the towel which is precisely the strategy from the combined WOLA, dishonest ploys from some labor unions teaming with the anti-Uribe actors, Soros-backed activists that are anti-Colombia/pro drug legalization and of course pro FARC Chavez actors.
 
Alvaro Uribe retains an economy, a society and a governmental leadership effort that has rebuilt and strengthened Colombia.
 
Chavez has launched a No Borders campaign, complete with traveling protesters, lots of money and a rash of pro Chavez hand outs, supposedly to restore "peace" between all nations. This is a ginned up effort following on his recent successes at traveling protester activists in several nations including Chile, Bolivia, Ecuador, Peru, Mexico  and Argentina which always have the impact of unsettling oil prices or local bourses and always benefit derivatives traders and never the local commonweal. Chavez, like Ahmadinejad, says he brings peace. The peace that is which comes from surrendering to his authoritarian plan which is now in bed with Iran. Ecuador today has such a "peace" but such a peace leads them to only sleep with the fishes, having acquiesced to state suicide born of state kleptocracy and statist controls over social activities.
 
Today Chavez is building a blockade around Latin America- to keep the locals in and the preying eyes of truth tellers out. Correa is immersed in this blockade first and then the aggression next plan. Soon enough this will back up the fake "people's will" of the false front effort at territorial expansion called No Borders.... aka no longer sovereign entities.
 
Uribe's Colombia does not need the goofy enabling of unmanned propagandists and girlie girls who enable crime. Uribe requires only a hand in friendship which carries respect, not goofy side bar deals with narcoterrorists and their spokespersons who recently met with Pelosi, under the guise of serving Colombia's Senate from the "Alternative Democracy" party to try to free FARC prisoners from US incarceration. US Speaker of the House Pelosi has spent more time with pro Chavez actors and pro FARC actors than she has with Uribe and anti FARC actors. Pelosi would be well advised to uphold first US foreign policy, as her job requires, with regard to criminals and drug runners. In fact, she should fire her legal counsel who comes directly from Soros's own anti-Plan Colombia group of activists. Pelosi is a Speaker with a whole DNC under the thrall of Soros, preparing the triumphant return of the pro drugs Soros as the velvet hand behind Hillary Clinton's ascendancy. Uribe is at such a juncture where the scissors he faces will not be stopped nor suspended by passive-aggressive enabling of criminality, no matter how this sounds so diplomatic and so nice. Ambassador Brownfield in Bogota is well advised to cancel his interminable toying with the anti Uribe activists who do crawl all over Quito, Bogota and Caracas like diplomats without credentials and without fact based transparency. Their acts build support for the FARC and stand in direct contradictions to common sense. The lawless criminal FARC are not nice and are not candidates for Rehab. Theirs is a winner take all. The same is so for Chavez and Correa. And Iran. This is not, as Roger Noriega suggests, a moment to throw in the towel again.
 
Roger Noriega and his cronies [in a mass setting, are themselves deeply interconnected with Soros groups and Chavez activists of symbolic and actual functions], are utterly wrong: there is no need to toss Uribe to the wolves. Indeed, one and all should be shoulders to shoulders with Uribe, joining to correct the same problems ...and fight the wolf pack. To abandon Uribe is to abandon rule of law and democracy. We have seen what happens in Ecuador and Venezuela when....rule of law is abandoned. This is not pragmatism and this is not progressivism but surrender. Surrender is cheap and it makes the lazy feel very good about themselves. It does not help anyone in this case. Ecuador surrendered and today it is the murder capital of the world. Colombia has been there and done that. Colombia seeks no retreat and no surrender. Either good men and true stand against terrorists or they enable or worse, directly support. While we have long known that Noriega prefers to blame everyone else for his own behaviors, what we see here in this direct quote is precisely the sort of ridiculously confused decision making that has laid low  honor in diplomacy, has enabled criminal cartels and has commandeered the ethos that making the best the enemy of the good is paramount. We disagree. We also hope that Noriega returns to the Ecuadorean tax payer his gains from lobbying for the joint Palacio-Correa -Chavez regime in support of their self coup and caducidad of US commercial interests. It does not signify that any gloss over this by stating that they are "disappointed" in Correa.  Disappointed means that hope had a chance. There was never anything honest or real about Correa -Chavez and hope has never had a chance under Chavez and Correa's fascism. What is real is that fascism in the Andes is at hand. Retreat, surrender, abandonment of principles and commonality with narcoterrorists and fascists is not pragmatism. It is a sin. The USA's principled position grows weak because such men and women abandon positions of principle, rule of law and all pillars of democracy.
 
- Pedro Camargo for ECrisis