China, the Monroe Doctrine, and the American Empire: A Proxy Struggle in Ecuador

 https://thegrayzone.com/2024/08/29/secret-chats-decade-us-meddling-ecuador/

There's evidence of US meddling in the politics of Ecuador. Personally I did not find any of these revelations to be shocking. While the explicit evidence wasn't always there, these types of machinations are well known to those who have been paying attention. Wikileaks also played a role in bringing some of these things to light and by some reckonings, they're not all scandalous but are simply descriptive of how governments work with and relate to one another. It's often something other than what people think.

Ecuador like most countries in Latin America feels the heavy hand of the American Empire and while some leaders like Rafael Correa try to slip out of its grasp, the US has many tools in its arsenal.

And for the record it needs to be understood that virtually all imperial polities have some fluidity. All satrapies and client states are wont to pursue their own interests and periodically exercise degrees of autonomy. The central power has to pick and choose its battles and weigh just when to bring down the hammer. For example, it was commonly assumed the Warsaw Pact nations marched in lock-step with the Soviet Union. While true on one level, in many respects this is completely false. This reality is not a contradiction. The nations could only go so far before they feared retribution and an intervention but it's surprising to discover just how far the nations would resist Moscow and at times work against its policies and interests. The same is true of the Roman and British Empires - and the American as well.

Celebrated by outlets such as Time magazine, Diana Salazar, the attorney general of Ecuador is doing the empire's work - and will at some point receive a reward. She is part of the Noboa administration which came to power in late 2023. Noboa is a classic imperial proxy. Deeply connected to the US Establishment, his father is a corrupt billionaire. Noboa is the candidate of Wall Street and Salazar is helping him to purge the Left-leaning elements from the Correa era (2007-2017) and what's left of the 'Pink Tide' that emerged during the tenure of George W Bush.

Correa himself has been politically destroyed - the US does not want to see him return to power. There are real fears of a new Left-surge. Maduro of Venezuela has held on to power - the US most recently seizing his plane in the Dominican Republic and there are yet more rumblings on another assassination plot. Lula returned to power in Brazil but he's an old man and has in many respects triangulated his politics. Not a favourite in Washington, he is no longer a threat. And while Ortega in Nicaragua has also pivoted right, he has also turned into an authoritarian. Long despised by the US, Washington remains determined to see him removed.

What is perhaps more surprising is that the new regime in Quito is also pursuing Correa's former vice-president Lenin Moreno, who as Correa's successor (2017-2021) did in fact turn away from Correa's policies and toward a more pro-Washington and pro-Wall Street position. There's some debate over his case and how it's being pursued and the article touches on that. It seems to be more a case of politics and wiping the plate clean as it might be said. Some might say the prosecution will silence him and keep him out of politics, but such measures can backfire when people are pushed into a corner and have nothing left to lose. Patently corrupt and a card carrying member of the pseudo-left, it would seem that Moreno has few friends. He betrayed the Correa-left and the Right despises him.

It's abundantly clear that once the floodgates of corruption were opened, the drugs cartels found an easy pathway and within short order the country and its politics have become inseparable from trans-national organized crime. A wild west market scenario played into this as did the role of austerity - certain to generate an underground economy, a black market, and to empower criminal elements.

The question here is the overlap - the fact that you have politicians and political appointees that seem to be both tools of the Americans and organized crime. Is this coincidence? Are they functioning as double-agents? Or is there indeed overlap between Wall Street interests, the corporatocracy, Western intelligence, and some of these criminal elements. We've seen it before in episodes like the Vatican Bank scandal.

Given that US interests are also being murdered, it's safe to argue that not everyone is on board with Washington. And you can be certain the US Government will use this fact to whitewash and spin any accusations of US corruption and complicity in criminal action.

For those paying attention the idea that opposition candidates would receive funding from the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) is nothing new. The organisation often functions as an arm of US intelligence and is involved in exactly the kind of democratic meddling the US accuses Russia and China of. In fact, the NED and USAID exceed anything Moscow or Beijing would even try to do within the United States. The hypocrisy cannot be overstated but this is explained away by the casuistry of American Exceptionalism.

Also factor in the article reveals an ongoing FBI investigation at work within Ecuador. This too can lead to corruption, promises, and manipulation. The stakes are high and if it wasn't confusing enough, history repeatedly demonstrates that the FBI and CIA are not always on the same page and often the FBI ends up on the trail of US intelligence assets. Time and again this affects how the story is spun and told by Western media outlets - if they even bother to pay attention.

Chaotic, corrupt, and broken best describes Ecuador's politics. It seems unlikely that Noboa (a member of Ecuador's richest family) will be able to rectify the situation. Washington for its part doesn't care as long as Correa is out. Wall Street prefers stability but if the chaos can be managed and the palm oil, bananas, and petroleum keep getting loaded on to export ships - then all is well. And if Ecuador cuts out trade deals with the likes of Venezuela, Bolivia, and maybe even China - even better. And this latter element is really the key to this whole story - the cipher that unlocks the enigma.

Much to Washington's chagrin, most of Ecuador's oil is bound for China. I think a great deal of this upheaval is connected to a plan to change that, just as lithium plays a huge role in Bolivia's place in imperial geostrategic planning. Under Correa, Quito turned to Beijing as a means of breaking with Washington and Ecuador is considered by some to have been transformed into a Chinese satrapy. It is in Washington's interest to tear apart the Ecuadorian system and rebuild it - a means of wresting it away from Beijing. Once this is understood and if you know your history, the idea that Western intelligence would use criminal elements and corruption to destabilize the country is no surprise. Most frame Ecuador's chaos in terms of organized crime and the threat of becoming a narco-state. The issue here is Chinese domination and Washington's determination to reverse the situation. This is the Monroe Doctrine at work and the United States would rather see a narco-state (which it can manage) then a Chinese proxy that it cannot. That's the story - but you have to look beyond all the smoke and mirrors to find it.

Even The Grayzone article misses this and this is also not surprising. The outlet has produced some good journalism but also exhibits some rather glaring failures and cases of myopic assessment. There are the facts that can be known but it's important to transcend them and look at the big picture - and history. This provides the answer regardless of the particulars of the moment, the twists and turns, the betrayals, arrests, prosecutions, and assassinations. This is about China in the Western Hemisphere and the US Empire's attempt to destroy their economic beachhead.