We will resist foreign influence in our hemisphere. We thereby seek not only to provide for our own security, but also to create a climate for democracy and self-determination throughout the Americas.

The current Administration has turned its back on Latin America, with predictable results. Rather than supporting our democratic allies in the region, the President has prioritized engagement with our enemies in the region. Venezuela represents an increasing threat to U.S. security, a threat which has grown much worse on the current President’s watch. In the last three years, Venezuela has become a narco-terrorist state, turning it into an Iranian outpost in the Western hemisphere. The current regime issues Venezuelan passports or visas to thousands of Middle Eastern terrorists offering safe haven to Hezbollah trainers, operatives, recruiters and fundraisers.

Alternatively, we will stand with the true democracies of the region against both Marxist subversion and the drug lords, helping them to become prosperous alternatives to the collapsing model of Venezuela and Cuba.

We affirm our friendship with the People of Cuba and look toward their reunion with the rest of our hemispheric family. The anachronistic regime in Havana which rules them is a mummified relic of the age of totalitarianism, a state-sponsor of terrorism. We reject any dynastic succession of power within the Castro family and affirm the principles codified in U.S. law as conditions for the lifting of trade, travel, and financial sanctions: the legalization of political parties, an independent media, and free and fair internationally-supervised elections. We renew our commitment to Cuba’s courageous pro-democracy movement as the protagonists of Cuba’s inevitable liberation and democratic future. We call for a dedicated platform for the transmission of Radio and TV Marti and for the promotion of Internet access and circumvention technology as tools to strengthen the pro-democracy movement. We support the work of the Commission for Assistance to a Free Cuba and affirm the principles of the Cuban Adjustment Act of 1966, recognizing the rights of Cubans fleeing Communism.

The war on drugs and the war on terror have become a single enterprise. We salute our allies in this fight, especially the people of Mexico and Colombia. We propose a unified effort on crime and terrorism to coordinate intelligence and enforcement among our regional allies, as well as military-to-military training and intelligence sharing with Mexico, whose people are bearing the brunt of the drug cartels’ savage assault.

Our Canadian neighbors can count on our close cooperation and respect. As soon as possible, we will reverse the current Administration’s blocking of the Keystone XL Pipeline so that both our countries can profit from this vital venture and there will no need for hemispheric oil to be shipped to China.

The Bay of Pigs Invasion was an unsuccessful action by a CIA-trained force of Cuban exiles to invade southern Cuba, with support and encouragement from the US government, in an attempt to overthrow the Cuban government of Fidel Castro. The invasion was launched in April 1961, less than three months after John F. Kennedy assumed the presidency in the United States. The Cuban armed forces, trained and equipped by Eastern Bloc nations, defeated the invading combatants within three days.

Aircrews killed in action totaled 6 from the Cuban air force, 10 Cuban exiles and 4 American airmen.[21] Paratrooper Herman Koch Gene was killed in action, and the American airmen shot down were Thomas W. Ray, Leo F. Baker, Riley W. Shamburger and Wade C. Gray.[24] In 1979, the body of Thomas 'Pete' Ray was repatriated from Cuba.[52] In the 1990s, the CIA admitted to his links to the agency, and awarded him the Intelligence Star.[53] 114 Cuban exiles from Brigade 2506 were killed in action.[D]

The final toll in Cuban armed forces during the conflict was 176 killed in action. Other Cuban forces casualties were between 500 and 4,000 (killed, wounded or missing).[C] The airfield attacks on 15 April left 7 Cubans dead and 53 wounded.

Operation Northwoods was a series of false-flag proposals that originated in 1962 within the United States government, and which the Kennedy administration rejected. [2] The proposals called for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), or other operatives, to commit acts of terrorism in U.S. cities and elsewhere. These acts of terrorism were to be blamed on Cuba in order to create public support for a war against that nation, which had recently become communist under Fidel Castro.[3] One part of Operation Northwoods was to "develop a Communist Cuban terror campaign in the Miami area, in other Florida cities and even in Washington."

The invasion is often recognized as making Castro even more popular, adding nationalistic sentiments to the support for his economic policies. Following the 15 April air attacks on Cuban airfields, he declared the revolution "Marxist-Leninist".[25] After the invasion, he pursued closer relations with the Soviet Union, partly for protection, that helped pave the way for the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis. Castro was then increasingly wary of further US intervention, and more open to Soviet suggestions of placing nuclear weapons on Cuba to ensure its security.

The Cuban missile crisis—known as the October crisis in Cuba and the Caribbean crisis (Russian: Kарибский кризис) in the USSR—was a 13-day confrontation between the Soviet Union and Cuba on one side and the United States on the other; the crisis occurred in October 1962, during the Cold War. In August 1962, after some unsuccessful operations by the US to overthrow the Cuban regime (Bay of Pigs, Operation Mongoose), the Cuban and Soviet governments secretly began to build bases in Cuba for a number of medium-range and intermediate-range ballistic nuclear missiles (MRBMs and IRBMs) with the ability to strike most of the continental United States.

Vasili Alexandrovich Arkhipov (Russian: Василий Александрович Архипов) (30 January 1926 – 1999) was a Soviet naval officer. During the Cuban Missile Crisis he prevented the launch of a nuclear torpedo and therefore a possible nuclear war. His story is to this day unknown to the wider public, although some believe that, as Thomas Blanton (then director of the National Security Archive) expressed it in 2002, "a guy called Vasili Arkhipov saved the world."

On October 27, 1962, during the Cuban Missile Crisis, a group of eleven United States Navy destroyers and the aircraft carrier USS Randolph trapped the nuclear-armed Soviet Foxtrot-class submarine B-59 near Cuba and started dropping practice depth charges, explosives intended to force the submarine to come to the surface for identification. The captain of the submarine, Valentin Grigorievitch Savitsky, believing that a war might already have started, wanted to launch a nuclear-tipped torpedo.[4]

Three officers on board the submarine – Savitsky, the political officer Ivan Semonovich Maslennikov, and the second-in-command Arkhipov – were authorized to launch the torpedo if agreeing unanimously in favor of doing so. An argument broke out among the three, in which only Arkhipov was against the launch,[5] eventually persuading Savitsky to surface the submarine and await orders from Moscow. The nuclear warfare which presumably would have ensued was thus averted.

The failed coup in Venezuela was closely tied to senior officials in the US government, The Observer has established. They have long histories in the 'dirty wars' of the 1980s, and links to death squads working in Central America at that time.

Washington's involvement in the turbulent events that briefly removed left-wing leader Hugo Chavez from power last weekend resurrects fears about US ambitions in the hemisphere. Chávez has been a persistent and vocal critic of the United States, recently criticising the military action in Libya.

The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, a notoriously conservative organization, has stated that Venezuela has world’s largest oil reserves, even exceeding those of OPEC’s top producer, Saudi Arabia.

Oil production in Venezuela is under the control of the state-owned Petróleos de Venezuela, S.A. company, or PDVSA.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez ordered the central bank to repatriate $11 billion of gold reserves held in developed nations’ institutions such as the Bank of England as prices for the metal rise to a record.

Venezuela, which holds 211 tons of its 365 tons of gold reserves in U.S., European, Canadian and Swiss banks, will progressively return the bars to its central bank’s vault, Chavez said yesterday. JPMorgan Chase & Co., Barclays Plc, and Standard Chartered Plc also hold Venezuelan gold, he said.

“We’ve held 99 tons of gold at the Bank of England since 1980. I agree with bringing that home,” Chavez said yesterday on state television. “It’s a healthy decision.”

Sorry if that was a long one, but it takes a while to tie these things together!

I AM ALL I AM wrote: Yep, totally agree with all your post, it's just an extension of the policy that they began in Latin America with coca production in countries like Bolivia.