There’s an interesting tidbit that’s all over the South American press, in newspapers in Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay, Venezuela, Bolivia and Cuba, and now popping up on the still-free Internet news:
George W. Bush has bought 98,840 acres in Paraguay, near the Bolivian/Brazilian border.
He’s going to be close neighbors with Rev. Sun Myung Moon, Daddy Bush’s big pal and contributor, who has bought 1,482,600 acres in the same area.
Paraguay’s drug czar calls this area an “enormously strategic point in both the narcotics and arms trades.” (Nice to have a fellow billionaire and would-be dictator close by if you need to borrow a cup of blow. And that on-call mercenary army makes one feel so secure.)
Oh yes, and that land sits atop an enormous fresh-water aquifer.
Last summer, the Paraguayan Senate voted to “grant U.S. troops immunity from national and International Criminal Court jurisdiction.”
Shortly thereafter, 500 heavily armed U.S. troops, planes, choppers, and land vehicles arrived at Mariscal Estigarribia air base, a huge complex built during the reign of dictator Alfredo Stroessner in 1982.
In late 2005, Rumsfeld secretly visited this base. Argentine journalists report that the airfield can handle B-52 bombers and Galaxy C-5 cargo planes.
With its huge radar system, vast hangars and capacity to house up to 16,000 troops, the air base is larger than the international airport at the Paraguayan capital, Asunción.
Looks to some like Bush is planning to head way South of the Border to escape prosecution for high crimes and treason when his presidential immunity runs out.
The Nazis had a fine old tradition of doing the same. The Boys From Brazil has nothing on this weirdness.
Hollis Wood is a Santa Fe artist and musician who is active in progressive and environmental causes.
