Neoliberalism or chaos
Those were the days when Washington could mastermind, with impunity, an old-fashioned military coup in its backyard -- as in Brazil 1964. Or as in Chile during the original 9/11 -- in 1973, as seen through crack Chilean film maker Patricio Guzman's moving documentary about Salvador Allende.
History, predictably, now repeats itself as farce as the 2016 coup has turned Brazil -- the 7th largest economy in the world and a key Global South player -- into a Honduras or Paraguay (where recent US-supported coups were successful).
I have shown how the coup in Brazil is an extremely sophisticated Hybrid War operation going way beyond unconventional warfare (UW); four generation warfare (4GW); color revolutions; and R2P ("responsibility to protect"), all the way to the summit of smart power; a political-financial-judicial-mainstream media soft coup unveiled in slow motion. This is the beauty of a coup when promoted by democratic institutions.
When constitutional attributions are redirected to Congress that keeps the Executive under control while generating a culture of political corruption. Politics is subordinated to economics. Companies engage in campaign financing and buy politicians to be able to influence the political powers that be.
That's how Washington works. And that's also the key to understand the role of former leader of the Brazilian lower house Eduardo Cunha; he ran a campaign financing racket out of Congress itself, controlling dozens of politicians while profiting from proverbially fat state contracts.
The Three Stooges in what I called the Provisional Banana Scoundrel Republic are Cunha, Calheiros and Temer. Temer is a mere puppet while Cunha remains a sort of shadow Prime Minister, running the show. But not for long. He's already been suspended as the speaker in Congress; he bagged millions of US dollars in kickbacks for those fat contracts and stashed the loot in secret Swiss accounts; now it's a matter of time before the Supreme Court has the balls -- it's not a given -- to throw him in the slammer.
NATO vs. BRICS, all across the spectrum
And that brings us once again to The Big Picture, as we proceed in parallel with an analysis by Rafael Bautista, the head of a decolonization study group in La Paz, Bolivia. He's one of the best and brightest in South America who's very much alert to the fact that whatever happens in Brazil in the next few months will drive the future not only of South America but the whole Global South.
Exceptionalistan's project for Brazil is no less than the imposition of a remixed Monroe doctrine. The main target of a planned neoliberal restoration is to cut off South America from the BRICS -- as in, essentially, the Russia-China strategic partnership.
It all comes back to the same, defining 21st century war; NATO against the BRICS; the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO); and ultimately the Russia-China strategic partnership. Smashing the "B" in BRICS carries with it the bonus of smashing Mercosur (the South American common market); Unasur (the political Union of South American Nations); ALBA (the Bolivarian Alliance); and South American integration as a whole, compounded with integration with key emerging Global South players such as Iran.
The ongoing destabilization of "Syraq" fits the Empire of Chaos; when there's no regional integration, the only other possibility is balkanization. And yet Russia graphically demonstrated to Beltway planners they cannot win a war in Syria while Iran demonstrated after the nuclear deal that it won't become a Washington vassal. So the Empire of Chaos might as well secure its own backyard.
A new geopolitical framework had to be part of the package. That's where the concept of "North America" fits in, backed by the Council on Foreign Relations and devised mostly by former Iraq surge superstar David Petraeus and former World Bank honcho Bob Zoellick, now with Goldman Sachs. Call it a mini who's who of Exceptionalistan.
You won't see it enounced in public, but the Petraeus/Zoellick concept of "North America" presupposes regime changing and gobbling up Venezuela. The Caribbean is seen as a Mare Nostrum, an American lake. "North America" is in fact a strategic offensive.
It implies controlling the massive oil and water wealth of the Orinoco and the Amazonas, something that would forever guarantee Exceptionalistan's preeminence south of the border.
The Caribbean is already a done deal; after all Washington controls CAFTA. South America is a tougher nut to crack, roughly polarized by what's left of ALBA and the US-driven Pacific Alliance. With Brazil falling to a neoliberal restoration, it's over as a promoter of regional integration. Mercosur would eventually be absorbed into the Pacific Alliance -- especially with a man like Serra as Brazil's top diplomat. So, politically, South America must be annulled at all costs.
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