Originally published at: WHAT'S UP DOWN IN PERU (PART TWO)? WELL, TRY RARE EARTH METALS...
Lat Monday (Memorial Day) you’ll recall I blogged about that strange shipment of cocaine from Peru that was seized by Peruvian police. The shipment, a whopping fifty bricks of the stuff and weighing about 58 kilos, was boldly emblazoned with Nazi swastikas. I suggested in Monday’s blog that finding the post-war Nazi International involved in…
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My undergraduate history degree ended up being in Latin American studies (it was that of the US Civil War). When I saw this article and sent it to Joseph, my hair stood on end. I had not thought about the drug trade connection. Still, it did look like the US was about to replace oil with “rare earth metals” as an excuse to intervene militarily on the part of an unpopular Peruvian government. No matter your political stance, trying to prop up a government when 95 percent of the population has a negative view of their congress, and almost that high a negative view of their President is concerning. Historically, it tends not to end well.
Then there is the “Andes Problem” because if the US is successful in temporarily “pacifying” the locals. Their leaders will follow the traditional route of “heading into the mountains.” Some areas are so isolated they have bridges built by village levies going back before the Europeans came (at least 1,000 years), and footpaths are the only way to enter. On steep mountains, it takes three generations for low-land Europeans (or natives) to adapt to living there. Now combine that with a tradition of, if the Native population likes you, they will hide you forever, and if they don’t want you - well, it is so sad how easily people can slip and fall to their deaths.
You have the potential for a Tutenburg Forest in the Andes involving US troops rather than Roman ones. All you need is one or two local “Aruminuses” who have perhaps had military training combined with the introduction of mobile phones and the internet to aid the traditional methods of getting rid of unwanted visitors.
This is very worrying…
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