H@rd Truths by GHK Lall – Americans to the rescue

Feb 24, 2024 Features / Columnists, The GHK Lall Column

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Kaieteur News – All the signs are that the Argyle Agreement is headed for the dustbin of local history.  The Americans are coming, and it looks more and more as if they are here to stay.  Not covertly and quietly.  But openly, and with a swish of in-the-face oomph. The men with many ribbons on their chests and medals dangling around their necks have been trekking to Guyana.  I say a warm welcome to them.  If anybody has a problem, my response should not require too much to interpret.  If not the Yanks, then who?  I like the idea of $42 billion for defense purposes (peaceful, of course), but that is not going to do too much for us in the firepower department.  A respected and feared one.

The latest catching the Guyanese public’s eye is this movement towards an air shield.  I am sure that the Venezuelan watchers have not missed a beat, with cables descending on Caracas.  Call it what suits: an air shield or air cover, and it is needed.  I prefer air cordon with a message written across the friendly local skies in the interior: Venezuelans keep out, stay out, and dropout.  Guyana gets the extra benefits of having a handle on drug running, gold smuggling, and arms movement.  No more excuses.  What is there not to like about any of this, especially when an American air canopy has incomparable utility?

For the purists who fret about the law of unintended consequences, and transforming this peaceful part of the world into a potential proving ground, I ask them to get real.  Cheddi Jagan paid some hard dues with that, so why not the same coming from this source and going in the other direction?  Here is a blinding reality check: we are nothing on our own.  Even our CARICOM buddies bailed on us, despite the belated rearguard verbal conciliatory gestures.  Here is another point expressed on more than one occasion before.  The old Guyana is gone; perhaps never was, as conceived by some patriotic dopes.  The new Guyana, quite bluntly, is an extension of the Red, White, and Blue overshadowing the Golden Arrowhead.  The practical and realistic have already recognized the ones calling the shots here.  It never was President Ali, and though he pretends not to be, former president Jagdeo is even more trapped and wrapped and strapped to a chair by the oil colonizers.  I invite fellow Guyanese, clear-headed and clean-sighted observers simply study the moves and words of these two wunderkind Guyanese leaders, and it is as plain as day about who are puppets and who are the puppeteers.  What America wants; America will get.

While there is quibbling and hedging about a military base somewhere on land, the equivalent is about to be established aloft.  The warships and port of call, and so forth will follow, and are all going to be a part of the program, the intensified American presence here.  Culturally, there would be no shock, as they are a great number of Guyanese who are more American than I am. I nominate Bharrat Jagdeo for poster leader number 1. Politically, that has already been decided: whoever has his head screwed in right relative to Exxon and other American interests, will be allowed to see the light, given the right of way.

The airborne US cover over Guyana mean a ‘no fly zone’ for Venezuela.  The people from the North extended a peace pipe to Maduro and he scuttled it before the smoke even got going.  I think that what Guyanese are going to have is a defense pact without an official pact having to be signed.  No messy Senate wrangling.  A base without an address.  A treaty without ink.  One that is readable and available, anyhow.  As the Americans blaze an aggressive trail, the Brits and the Canuks are sure to be close behind.  The northerners and Europeans want and need Guyana’s fossil fuel flows.  It is cheap and it is close, and the dratted Saudi Arabians have drifted irreversibly into the China camp.  Meanwhile, Vladimir Putin isn’t buying nor selling any of his stocks.  By ease of elimination, Guyana is now the head prefect keeping things running smoothly.

Even if there was no Venezuela menace hanging over this country’s head, Guyana would have gotten a big, bold, and beautiful American presence.  Everybody should know what I mean.  So, let us all stop playing these games about hemispheric precedence and pioneering regional uneasiness.  Look at what those bannas in the islands did to secure themselves through binding ties to our hostile neighbor.  It is every man on his own, and may the nimbler of mind and hoof win the day.  This is where Guyana finds itself.  When word spread that the Lotto has been won, look at how many parasites and predators came with a rush to storm the stockade.  For all these reasons and underlying contexts, therefore, let us cease pretending at some semblance of independence, neutrality, and masters of our own destiny.  When the oil came up on the horizon, Guyana went down below it.  Lovely state of affairs, isn’t?

(The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions and beliefs of this newspaper and its affiliates.)

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• Americans, billion, firepower, GHK Lall, H@rd Truths

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