US Strategic Interests in Latin America: The Militarization of Colombia
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The catalyst for the seven bases and IAs is due to the rise and increasing stability of progressive social movements – both within and outside Colombia – that demonstrate the vulnerability of the United States’ imperial project. To lose ground in Colombia would be to not only lose the capacity to fiscally gain from the nation’s natural resources, cheap labour, and exportable commodities but it would further signal the ability of those ‘from below’ to continue building collective power through a united Latin America – a Bolivarian-like region that could withstand dominant monetary and militaristic imperial pressures. Instead of accepting the organic democratic principals of foreign countries and the majorities therein to create an alternative political model of representation and economic methods of development, the United States has and will continue to consciously work against self-determination.
