tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-74728970504227772832011-04-21T19:04:25.442-04:00Commentary on Latin America security issues, with a large focus on Bolivia, and brief digressions as they suit meAlibi Firehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10126423134310930613noreply@blogger.comBlogger341100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7472897050422777283.post-8081394284468262007-12-08T21:50:00.000-05:002007-12-08T22:21:39.872-05:00

Yesterday the Bolivian Chief of the Armed Forces, General Wilfredo Vargas, the highest ranking military man in Bolivia, responded to calls for military intervention in the simmering social/political/regional crisis by calling opposition leaders "cowards."The military should be congratulated for that stance, even though it may not be an altruistic position. In years past, the military would have

Alibi Firehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10126423134310930613noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7472897050422777283.post-53286798323633013032007-12-07T19:43:00.000-05:002007-12-07T20:32:23.279-05:00

To the opposition in Bolivia, as well as to every objective thinking person around the world, it is hard to separate the events going on in Bolivia, and particularly the policies of Evo Morales, from the influence of Hugo Chavez. As I've said before, Chavez holds much sway with Evo. Immediately following Evo's inauguration, for example, Bolivia and Venezuela signed a series of bilateral

Alibi Firehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10126423134310930613noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7472897050422777283.post-14168538054265495322007-12-03T18:22:00.000-05:002007-12-03T19:30:17.356-05:00

I know I promised a detailed critique of Max Boot's op-ed. I'm still working on it.... It's just got kind of long and unwieldy for a blog. Maybe if I break it down and post it as separate blog entries....In the mean time, let's take a stroll through the two big news items in Latin America this past week.The biggest item, by far, is that Chavez lost Sunday's constitutional referendum in

Alibi Firehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10126423134310930613noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7472897050422777283.post-84205892363813040362007-11-17T21:34:00.000-05:002007-11-17T23:20:12.677-05:00

Earlier this month it appeared the State Department was going to force a handful of Foreign Service Officers to serve their country in Iraq. There was much diplomatic hand-wringing in Foggy Bottom at the prospect. God forbid diplomats do their duty at a time and in a place their country needs them most. Though this "diplomatic crisis" has come to an end thanks to a few honorable volunteers,

Alibi Firehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10126423134310930613noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7472897050422777283.post-50442554415126892562007-10-30T19:03:00.000-04:002007-10-30T21:48:59.060-04:00

Following US-Cuban affairs after Fidel Castro's incapacitation is kind of like watching a tennis match. On the left side of the court, sporting olive drab green shorts and matching headband, Raul Castro. On the right side of the court, wearing denim shorts and a cowboy hat, George W. Bush.First, the serve. When Raul took over as Interim President there was much speculation from policy wonks

Alibi Firehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10126423134310930613noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7472897050422777283.post-20805436084171939862007-10-29T19:53:00.000-04:002007-10-29T22:21:00.459-04:00

Sorry for the long absence. This weekend the NYT published an op-ed by an anthropologist who takes the view that his profession's backlash against helping the military in Iraq and Afghanistan is short-sided. His common-sense position is that anthropologists working for the military are not identifying who soldiers should kill or imprison but are instead providing high-speed cultural awareness

Alibi Firehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10126423134310930613noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7472897050422777283.post-82761995248958000192007-10-23T21:43:00.001-04:002007-10-23T21:45:09.124-04:00

Well, last week was exceedingly hectic at work and it left me with little energy to blog. This week is a little better, but my time in front of the computer at nights will be limited. So, I will take another short break from blogging and hope to re-engage next week.

Alibi Firehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10126423134310930613noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7472897050422777283.post-27996226963129911522007-10-13T20:12:00.000-04:002007-10-13T23:01:52.912-04:00

Six years after 18 American soldiers and anywhere from 700 to 1,500 Somalis were killed in a running battle in the streets of Mogadishu, I was sitting in a graduate classroom listening to a professor talk about national security policy and the conduct of war. One of my classmates was a US Army Lieutenant Colonel who, during that fateful day in Mogadishu, October 3, 1993, was the battalion

Alibi Firehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10126423134310930613noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7472897050422777283.post-77440222674389983332007-10-09T21:44:00.001-04:002007-10-09T21:45:01.478-04:00

A confluence of events prevents me from bloging this week. Hope to get back in the saddle next week.

Alibi Firehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10126423134310930613noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7472897050422777283.post-48933527450915146552007-10-04T23:11:00.000-04:002007-10-04T23:10:45.459-04:00

A Salon.com article by PW Singer on the problem of Private Military Companies such as Blackwater forced my hand. I had been meaning to blog about this topic since news of the Sept. 16 incident involving Blackwater came to light. The article provided the prompting I needed.Let me say at the outset that the article was very good and I generally agree with his main point--the US Government has a

Alibi Firehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10126423134310930613noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7472897050422777283.post-36887330215477622762007-10-01T21:43:00.000-04:002007-10-03T19:53:35.635-04:00

With Ahmadinejad's visit to Bolivia last week, Iran began to exploit a foothold it gained in Latin America. This foothold was provided largely by Venezuela's Hugo Chavez, who sees in Iran not only a comrade in his quixotic crusade against the United States, but also a source of inspiration in matters of defiance and defense.For Iran, Venezuela's adoration is not reciprocal. It's my sense that

Alibi Firehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10126423134310930613noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7472897050422777283.post-8801308725972146632007-09-27T19:48:00.000-04:002007-09-27T20:56:23.596-04:00

As usual, I'm a little late to the party (it's what not being able to blog until the end of a long day does to me). Evo appeared on the Daily Show on Tuesday and it's just about all the craze in the Bolivian-American blogosphere these days. All of the blogs I like to visit, Pronto*, MABB, Boz, Gringo Tambo, and others, have covered it.I provided my two cents to some friends and family earlier

Alibi Firehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10126423134310930613noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7472897050422777283.post-62596633164318105082007-09-25T21:01:00.000-04:002007-09-27T19:44:12.518-04:00

Apropos the post below, it appears that Ahmedinejad is now going to go to Bolivia on Thursday. La Razon reports that he will be bearing gifts too: the initiation of diplomatic relations with La Paz and the strengthening of commercial ties. Again, I just don't see what's in this for Bolivia.Update: Ahmadinejad arrived in Bolivia this afternoon and already the newspapers are fretting over how this

Alibi Firehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10126423134310930613noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7472897050422777283.post-89041573609437344222007-09-20T21:14:00.000-04:002007-09-22T23:11:08.131-04:00

I don't get Evo Morales. I mean, I understand that he is knee-jerk anti-American and has a man-crush on Hugo Chavez, but I don't get why he is so careless at times. So seemingly myopic.Case in point: Iran. Iran is a country that has managed to piss-off the Americans, Europeans, most Middle Eastern countries, and even the Russians and the Chinese. It is a country that kidnaps, for what else would

Alibi Firehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10126423134310930613noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7472897050422777283.post-90081831970570008362007-09-20T19:09:00.000-04:002007-09-20T20:48:42.377-04:00

Yesterday, Reuters came out with an article on vigilantism in Guatemala, a consequence of the on-going gang problem. This is not the first report of it kind. There have been similar reports focused on other countries in Central America. El Salvador comes to mind (though I can't locate that article).The gang problem in Central America does not get the type of serious attention and consideration

Alibi Firehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10126423134310930613noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7472897050422777283.post-74411183393549123582007-09-19T19:15:00.000-04:002007-09-19T21:30:28.410-04:00

Two articles came out in La Razon yesterday and today dealing with the Bolivian Army's elite baking unit, the 44th Regimental Baking Company. Just kidding, that's not the name of the unit. And the Bolivian Army doesn't have an elite baking unit. Not yet. (sidebar: boy, La Razon is really a good paper to get information dealing with Bolivian security forces. You'll notice I cite them aplenty)

Alibi Firehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10126423134310930613noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7472897050422777283.post-76717687399382482812007-09-18T21:42:00.000-04:002007-09-18T22:39:07.812-04:00

File this under It Could Be Nothing, But....In 2005 the US rendered a bunch of Bolivian Chinese-made MANPADS inoperable. With the agreement of the Bolivian Armed Forces, the US took these weapons from their storage locations in Bolivia and flew them to the US for a quick snip-and-tuck. From the US perspective, in a post 9-11 world it wasn't a good idea to have poorly secured MANPADS floating

Alibi Firehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10126423134310930613noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7472897050422777283.post-77260987615195255692007-09-18T18:46:00.001-04:002007-09-18T21:41:50.271-04:00

It appears that the US has certified Bolivia's fight against illicit drugs. In doing so, US aid to Bolivia will not be interrupted. Laying aside the monumental failure and waste of time that the US "war on drugs" has become, the Bush administration's decision to certify Bolivia is smart politics (and another example of why Assistant Secretary Tom Shannon is the right man at the right time).

Alibi Firehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10126423134310930613noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7472897050422777283.post-7742574248901947592007-09-14T18:25:00.000-04:002007-09-14T18:34:14.608-04:00

Interesting article in La Razón, today. Apparently the Bolivian police and the military are accusing each other of accepting Venezuelan aid.General Wilfredo Vargas, Commander of the Armed Forces, denied that Venezuela provides assistance to the armed forces and asked that such questions be raised with the National Police.The Inspector General of the National Police, Fernando Peláez, responded

Alibi Firehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10126423134310930613noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7472897050422777283.post-37432993488348044502007-09-13T21:35:00.000-04:002007-09-13T21:46:57.119-04:00

Last fall I attended a security cooperation conference sponsored by the National Defense University. One of the speakers was a Colombian government official who let it be known the Uribe government was investigating the possibility of shifting its drug eradication strategy from aerial spraying to manual eradication. Had I blog back then, I would have blogged about it as it is a significant

Alibi Firehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10126423134310930613noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7472897050422777283.post-53248804366566383832007-09-12T20:22:00.000-04:002007-09-12T21:30:46.545-04:00

Latin News Daily is reporting that Peruvian officials arrested three Peruvian Army soldiers on suspicion of selling weapons to FARC guerrillas. The weapons were AK-47s and, reportedly, the FARC was willing to pay up to $3,800 per rifle. As the article points out, this is an unusually large sum of money for an AK (the soldiers ended up getting paid $800 per rifle, which is more reasonable if

Alibi Firehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10126423134310930613noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7472897050422777283.post-3684471460587112352007-09-08T22:25:00.000-04:002007-09-08T22:49:07.868-04:00

As the old adage goes, people in glass houses shouldn't throw stones. Bolivian Interior Minister Juan Ramon Quintana is a former Bolivian Army officer. I believe he retired as a Major. After retirement he went into the defense and national security analysis bidness. In fact, he wrote an excellent book about the Bolivian Army's personnel system called Soldados y ciudadanos, about 10 years ago

Alibi Firehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10126423134310930613noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7472897050422777283.post-81675798559919386972007-09-06T21:05:00.000-04:002007-09-06T21:34:29.716-04:00

Bolivian newspaper Los Tiempos reports on Minister of Foreign Affairs David Choquehuanca's visit to Iran and the signing of political and economic cooperation accords. According to the article, this is the culmination of reinvigorated Bolivian-Iranian relations. The process started when Ahmedinejad traveled to Latin America and met with Chavez, Morales, and Daniel Ortega.While Choquehuanca was

Alibi Firehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10126423134310930613noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7472897050422777283.post-23688868436555875682007-09-06T20:41:00.001-04:002007-09-06T21:52:59.470-04:00

Bolivian Vice president Alvaro Garcia Linera is in the US. He is here to try to persuade the US Congress to extend a trade preference act (the Andean Trade Preference and Drug Eradication Act--ATPDEA) that allows Bolivian goods, particularly textiles, to enter the US at significantly reduced tariffs. Said act was extended once already. Garcia's pitch is that whatever other issues there may be

Alibi Firehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10126423134310930613noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7472897050422777283.post-35309618298715329702007-08-31T18:59:00.000-04:002007-09-03T21:37:59.395-04:00

Last month, while browsing the collection of a used book store, I was drawn to a small book titled, Passage to Ararat, by Michael J. Arlen, about a man exploring his Armenian identity. I quickly picked up the book, as it resonated with me on two levels.First, as someone who has read the subject of ethnic identity widely and given much thought to the issue, I was intrigued with Arlen's quest to

Alibi Firehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10126423134310930613noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7472897050422777283.post-6134686559725681832007-08-29T21:15:00.000-04:002007-08-30T21:33:36.613-04:00

This article by conservative military historian Fred Kaplan landed in my in-box three times on Tuesday. It was sent to me by friends and colleagues and, needless to say, has very likely made the rounds in the Pentagon and other national security agencies already.The article is well worth reading if you are into such matters as military innovation, institutional change, and the institutional

Alibi Firehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10126423134310930613noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7472897050422777283.post-50606589341402588482007-08-24T19:19:00.000-04:002007-08-24T20:26:57.942-04:00

W is getting hammered. In his speech at the Veterans of Foreign Wars Convention this week Bush compared the current wars in Afghanistan and Iraq to all of America's wars since WWII. Most of the criticism is coming from this line: Whatever your position is on that debate, one unmistakable legacy of Vietnam isthat the price of America's withdrawal was paid by millions of innocent citizenswhose

Alibi Firehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10126423134310930613noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7472897050422777283.post-66554505739116806392007-08-15T21:52:00.000-04:002007-08-15T22:25:39.907-04:00

Excellent article on a frequently overlooked aspect of intelligence reform: the intelligence community's, particularly the CIA's, employment practices. Mike McConnel, the director of national intelligence, echoed this themeTuesday in his remarks at the conference, in which he called for the hiringof first-generation Americans. For years, he said, intelligence agencieshabitually screened out

Alibi Firehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10126423134310930613noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7472897050422777283.post-83659550173624851492007-07-29T21:36:00.000-04:002007-07-29T21:38:17.048-04:00

Iraq 1 - Suadi Arabia 0.

Alibi Firehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10126423134310930613noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7472897050422777283.post-42226730821671264732007-07-29T21:13:00.000-04:002007-07-29T21:36:34.165-04:00

Two recent articles regarding politics in Latin America are noteworthy. The first is this article in the Washington Post describing Raul Castro’s July 26 speech in Camaguey, Cuba; during which he apparently indicated he was willing to open the country to more foreign investment. Speaking at a ceremony commemorating the start of the 54th anniversary of the Cuban revolution, Raúl Castro declared

Alibi Firehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10126423134310930613noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7472897050422777283.post-65754782863548566752007-07-25T21:42:00.000-04:002007-07-26T18:05:01.257-04:00

Iraqis love soccer. When I was in Baghdad I bought a soccer ball and organized pickup games inside our small compound. Between the Iraqi guards and soldiers, the Nepalese guards, and us Americans (usually just me), we could get enough people together to play up to 5 on 5. We couldn't play much more than that, we had a very small playing field due to the T-barriers and HESCO baskets, stacked two

Alibi Firehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10126423134310930613noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7472897050422777283.post-13444191018552668752007-07-25T21:02:00.000-04:002007-07-25T21:42:28.138-04:00

So, when juxtaposed against the traditional U.S. way of doing things, the news of the release of the 5 Bulgarian nurses and the Palestinian doctor from a Libyan jail is an interesting case study on the difficulty of dealing with rogues like Moammar Gadafi.A quick recap: these poor folks voluntarily leave their families to go live in Lybia and dispense much-needed public health. These good

Alibi Firehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10126423134310930613noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7472897050422777283.post-9479923424533255482007-07-24T20:25:00.001-04:002007-07-24T21:07:35.243-04:00

Okay, so next week we fly to beautiful Miami, Fl, for some well-deserved vacation. While I'm looking forward to seeing some friends and family, I know eventually the conversation is going to shift to the inevitable comparisons between Fidel Castro and Bolivia's Evo Morales. Some of my Cuban friends will say something like "So, how's Bolivia doing? You know, that's how Castro started...." And not

Alibi Firehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10126423134310930613noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7472897050422777283.post-20728118655163716082007-07-23T21:31:00.000-04:002007-07-23T21:36:51.580-04:00

We'll here I am. At first I resisted doing this blogging thing. I was of the impression that people who blog have to be pretty high on themselves to assume the rest of us care or are interested or even want to know their opinions. The gall. But I guess if you can't beat them, join them!We'll see how it goes. I mainly wanted a tool to help me get some of my thoughts in order. I wonder if

Alibi Firehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10126423134310930613noreply@blogger.com0