One of the main goals of the U.S. policy of military intervention is the control of strategic goods, which includes natural resources, energy and biodiversity, along with the implementation of an economic model that promotes the privatization of "basic services". These "services" are, in fact, basic rights such as health, education, social security, etc. According to writer Eduardo Galeano, the United States always finds "noble causes" to justify the war. They never admit "killing with the intention of pillage".

The Military Strategy of the United States

Maria Luisa Mendonça¹

Historically, U.S. foreign policy has been marked by constant military interventions around the world. After the attacks of September 11^th, 2001, in New York and Washington, U.S. military strategy begins a new phase, marked by a policy of “war without limits".

Various analysts debate the meaning of this strategy. Some believe that the U.S. uses its last resources to maintain its political, economical, cultural and military hegemony, since the attacks of September 11 demonstrated the country’s vulnerability. Others believe that these events created favorable conditions for the maintenance and even the widening of the political, economical, cultural and military power that the U.S. exercises in the world.

For human rights organizations, what is important to understand is the mechanism used in this new phase of imperialism. The current U.S. government establishes its foreign policies based on the image of the world as a "battlefield". Its strategy with regard to those peoples or countries considered as "enemies" can be expressed in the form of direct combat (from defamation campaigns to military intervention) or through the control of resources that guarantee the welfare or even the survival of these people.

One of the main goals of the U.S. policy of military intervention is the control of strategic goods, which includes natural resources, energy and biodiversity, along with the implementation of an economic model that promotes the privatization of "basic services". These "services" are, in fact, basic rights such as health, education, social security, etc. According to writer Eduardo Galeano, the United States always finds "noble causes" to justify the war. They never admit "killing with the intention of pillage".

It is evident that the U.S. government disseminated false information about the existence of weapons of mass destruction to justify its intervention in Iraq, when the main reason for the war was the control of the country’s oil reserves. In addition to that, Iraq has one of the most important water sources in the Middle East, located at the Tigris and Euphrates rivers.

Recently, representatives of the U.S. government intensified their criticism of Iran as a way of propagating the image that the nuclear program of that country represents a threat for the world. Iran is today one of the main powers in the Middle East and possesses large reserves of oil and natural gas. These would be the real reasons for a possible military intervention in the country, besides the U.S. concerns with agreements on economic cooperation between Iran, China and Russia.

In Latin America, the Campaign for the Demilitarization of the Americas has studied the U.S. military presence in the area. This presence is concentrated in regions rich in natural resources, such as the Plano Puebla Panama region (South of Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean), the Amazon region and the Triple Border region (between Brazil, Paraguay and Argentina).

The visit of the U.S. Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, to Brazil in March of 2005, was a clear example of this policy. The main topics on Rumsfeld’s agenda were the SIVAM (System of Monitoring the Amazon), the monitoring of the Triple Border, the continuity of Brazilian military presence in Haiti and the concern with the relationship of Venezuela with other Latin-American countries.

SIVAM is a set of radars and sensors with capacity to monitor 5.5 million Km² in the Amazon. The project, begun during the government of Fernando Henrique Cardoso, cost Brazil $1.4 billion and was given to Raytheon, one of the main U.S. military contractors, after a strongly contested bidding.

Regarding the Triple Border, one of the main interests of the United States is the control of the Guarani aquifer, the planet’s biggest source of water with 1.2 million Km². To justify its presence in the area, the U.S. government has called for the need to fight "terrorist cells". However, the former head of the FBI in Brazil, Carlos Alberto Costa, contradicts this thesis. "After an exhausting investigation in collaboration with the CIA and the countries’ secret services, we could not prove the existence of terrorist cells there", he stated in an interview to the magazine Carta Capital. 

As a way of ensuring control of the region, the U.S. proposed a bilateral military agreement with Paraguay, initiated in June of 2005. The agreement foresees a series of military exercises, exchange of military information and of "specialists in civil matters", strategic seminars with members of the Southern Command (a sector of the Pentagon that acts in Latin America), and programs of "cultural immersion" in the U.S. Military Academy, among others. A group of 400 U.S. Marines is already in Paraguay. These officers have a series of exemptions, such as diplomatic immunity and release from customs requirements, as described by the following items of Law 2594, approved by the Paraguayan National Congress:

"Article 1, item C: The Government of the Republic of Paraguay will grant customs release on import/export, as well as local tax exemption for products, properties and materials for officers of the United States (...) outside of conformity with the Paraguayan legislation ".

"Article 1, item E: (...) The Government of the Republic of Paraguay will assume total responsibility for any claim generated by the use of projects constructed, total or partially, during the development of the exercises ".

Human rights organizations signaled the possibility of the U.S. controlling the Mariscal Estigarribia base, in the west of Paraguay. This base has the capacity to shelter up to 16,000 soldiers and has a runway of 3800 meters, which would hold military airplanes, guaranteeing fast access to the territories of Bolivia, Brazil and Argentina.

The U.S. intensified the negotiations to reach a military agreement with Paraguay after the Argentine Congress vetoed a project that would allow military training led by the Southern Command in its territory. These activities, known as Águilas III, should have begun in 2003.

The strategy of seeking neighboring countries, after the rejection of a project, also happened during the implementation of the Law Enforcement Academy (ILEA). This "academy" is actually a version of the School of Americas for Latin-American police officers and aims at influencing the legislative and judiciary structures of the countries in the region. After the proposal was rejected in Costa Rica, the U.S. initiated negotiations with the government of El Salvador, where the project was recently implemented. However, there is a strong movement against it from social organizations that denounce the lack of transparency in the negotiations, and demand that the project be voted on in the National Congress.

U.S. military intervention in different parts of the world has generated an increase in human rights violations, forced the migration of millions of people, destroyed the environment and caused the loss of people’s self-determination. In Latin America, a recent example was the intervention in Haiti.

A long process of repression of popular movements created the conditions for the removal of President Jean Bertrand Aristide, commanded by the United States and France. Currently, this intervention is given legitimacy by the United Nations "Peace Forces", led by Brazil. The operation of the Brazilian Armed Forces in Haiti has been the target of a series of denunciations of human rights violations.

To keep its economic and military hegemony, the U.S. invests in a huge amount of technological equipment. This ranges from communication and espionage systems to "smart bombs" (such as those that destroyed archaeological sites, schools, hospitals, museums, and universities in Iraq) and mechanisms for the control of the reproduction of life, such as biotechnology.

This strategy also needs agents to promote economic policies linked to military goals. One of these agents is the World Bank, which works as a "brain", elaborating concepts also used by other institutions such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Trade Organization (WTO). The current leadership of the World Bank makes the relation between the economic and military strategies even more evident. The World Bank’s current president, Paul Wolfowitz, was U.S. Vice-Secretary of Defense. The president of the Inter-American Development Bank (arm of the World Bank for Latin America) is Luiz Alberto Moreno, former ambassador of Colombia in Washington and one of the authors of Plan Colombia.

In addition, the World Bank is responsible for implementing huge infrastructure projects for the appropriation of natural resources, and functions as the head of "reconstruction" plans in situations of natural disasters or "post-conflict". In Afghanistan, for example, the World Bank promoted the privatization of the public health system as part of its reconstruction project. In the Asian countries affected by the Tsunami, the Bank stimulated the establishment of big fishing and tourism companies, banishing fishing communities that were living on the coast.

The current military strategy of the U.S. government represents a great challenge for human rights organizations in the whole world. Therefore, it is important to strengthen the networks of social mobilization and solidarity. An important coalition was one that gave origin to the simultaneous protests in 60 countries against the war in Iraq, which mobilized around 40 million people in February of 2003.

In Latin America, the Campaign for the Demilitarization of the Americas (CADA) was created to bring together grassroots organizations, and carry out hemispheric campaigns. This alliance supports social movements that fight for access to land, work and dignity. Its goal is to build an egalitarian and sustainable alternative for the social and cultural integration of people’s movements in the Americas.

1 Maria Luisa Mendonça is a journalist and director of Social Justice and Human Rights Network