South America: NATO's Sixth Continent
Since the implementation of Plan Colombia in 2000, the US has enlisted several NATO allies for the counterinsurgency war in the nation, and for broader purposes in the region. British SAS (Special Air Service) personnel have been assigned to the Colombian military for training purposes and Spain also sent military personnel.
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization has members in Europe and North America and partnerships in Asia (Afghanistan, Japan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Mongolia, Pakistan, Singapore, South Korea, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan) and Africa (Algeria, Egypt, Mauritania, Morocco and Tunisia) and with Australia.
The only inhabited continent it hasn't penetrated yet is South America,
In January of 2007 Colombian defense chief Santos traveled to Washington, London and Brussels - in the last-named city "for talks with the European Union" - and then to Munich, Germany "for a meeting of NATO defense ministers." [18] Santos made the tour to garner more military aid from the US and its NATO allies. The European Union was reported to have provided $154 million annually as of that year.
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez warned in September of 2005 that "We discovered through intelligence work a military exercise that NATO has of an invasion against Venezuela, and we are preparing ourselves for that invasion."
He detailed the plan as consisting of a "military exercise...known as Plan Balboa [that] includes rehearsing simultaneous assaults by air, sea and land at a military base in Spain, involving troops from the US and NATO countries." [19] US troops deployed to the Dutch possession of Curacao off Venezuela's northwest coast were also part of the planned operation.
In spring of the following year it was reported that "Military maneuvers in the Caribbean are being carried out by the US, members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), and countries from the hemisphere - excluding Cuba and Venezuela, which are the potential objectives of this demonstration of force" and that immediately afterwords, "Future exercises will involve roughly 4,000 soldiers from the US, Holland, Belgium, Canada and France, who are scheduled to participate in a maneuver being dubbed the Joint Caribbean Lion, to take place between May 23 and June 15 in Curacao and Guadeloupe." [20]
Colombian Counterinsurgency War: Model For South Asia And Central America
For the past several years, the US has also recruited and deployed Colombian military and security forces for the war in Afghanistan, supposedly to replicate the Plan Colombia drug war component in South Asia.
In April of 2007 Washington transferred its ambassador to Colombia, William Wood, to Afghanistan to oversee the application of the Colombian model of counterinsurgency under the guise of combating drug cultivation. Two years later Afghanistan is estimated to account for over 90% of the illegal opium production in the world.
A Bangladeshi analyst observed that "Based on 2003 figures, drug trafficking constitutes the third biggest global commodity in cash terms after oil and the arms trade.
"Afghanistan and Colombia are the largest drug producing economies in the world, which feed a flourishing criminal economy. These countries are heavily militarized and the drug trade is protected.
"Amply documented, the CIA has played a central role in the development of both the Latin American and Asian drug triangles.
"NATO, as an entity, has become an accessory to major narcotics proliferation and criminal activity. Opium is not truly being reduced: in fact all the figures show that it is on the rise. This is happening under the eyes of NATO as confirmed by several media reports." [21]
The intermediate way stations between Afghanistan and Colombia are in Kosovo, not without reason dubbed the Colombia of the Balkans, and increasingly Iraq.
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