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the good news that the Fourth Fleet would not enter Argentina's territorial
waters or inland rivers "without being invited."  Shannon's timing was
impeccable.  President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner's six month-old
regime, which has been roiled by months of mobilizations led by big soybean
farmers, was on maximum alert - the "soyeros" have blocked the nation's
highways since last January after Fernandez tacked a 15 per cent tax on
exports in order to finance  programs for the poor.

Bi-lateral relations between Washington and Buenos Aires have been in the
tank since the U.S. charged supposed bagmen for Venezuelan president Hugo
Chavez with financing Fernandez's campaign. The so-called scandal of the
"Maletas" ($800,000 USD was alleged to have been smuggled into Argentina in
a suitcase or "maleta") is a scenario that Queen Cristina (as she is taunted
by political opponents) labels "garbage."  

Writing in the Mexican daily La Jornada, left Latin American analyst Raul
Zebichi concludes that Shannon's voyage to Buenos Aires to sell the Fourth
Fleet to Fernandez during the soyero crisis amounted to "deliberate
destabilization."  The sailing of the Fourth Fleet is "naked aggression by
Washington to regain its hegemony" on a continent where U.S. influence has
been impressively diminished by the serial victories of the Latin American
electoral left.

Undersecretary Shannon then moved on to Bolivia where that majority
indigenous Andean nation's president Evo Morales is viewed by Washington as
one of the ringleaders of the anti-American wave sweeping the southern
continent.  

Bolivia is not a target for the U.S. Fourth Fleet, having lost its access to
the ocean in the Guano War of the late 19th century.  Nonetheless, Morales
denounced U.S. ambassador Phillip Goldberg's support of the right-wing
"autonomy" movement that is promoting the secession of five Bolivian
provinces, reading Shannon e-mails sent by U.S. AID officials to Bolivian
citizens threatening aid cut-offs if they continued to support his
government.

Only in Colombia, the first stop of Shannon's checkered journey, did he find
some satisfaction.  Touching down soon after the immaculately scripted
"rescue" of Ingrid Betancourt and 14 hostages held by the weakened FARC
guerrilla army, Tom Shannon laid on the blarney.  The Fourth Fleet's
intentions were honorable and "non-hostile." The war ships will safeguard
commercial shipping lanes and provide additional drug interdiction. 

It didn't take much effort to sell President Alvaro Uribe, George Bush's top
flunky in Latin America, on the idea.  Uribe even offered Barranquilla as a
homeport away from home for U.S. war ships.  Fourth Fleet deployment to
Colombia will provide much needed backup for Washington's anti-drug, War on
Terror Plan Colombia, a $6,000,000,000 boondoggle that has succeeded in
expanding the nation's cocaine acreage by 27 per cent in 2007.
Full story: http://www.counterpunch.org/ross07292008.html