Friends …in need

With Mad Maduro amassing troops on our Essequibo border and launching a bridge over to Ankoko -where they’ve occupied our half since 1966 – he’s raising the ante on his annexation of two-thirds of our national territory.
While our Government’s been moving on all fronts – diplomatic, economic, judicial, and military – our preparations for deterring the madman by showing him he’s gonna get a bloody nose at a minimum isn’t quite there as at now. So, in cases like these, you need a friend – or friends – who can watch your back…and pack a punch.
Well, it looks like the US is stepping up to the plate for us as that friend in need. Ever since Mad Maduro turned green with envy at Exxon’s gushers of sweet light crude from under our coast – and threatened us with his warships – the Yanks have been daring him to be stupid. Mad Maduro’s mentor, Chavez, had already kicked out Exxon from their PDVSA heavy oil industry, and so our find was God’s justice to Exxon – and a poke in the eye for Mad Maduro!! Hell hath no fury like a dictator who can’t get his way!!
So, for the past few years – especially after West Point’s Big Mike Pompeo bitch-slapped the Granger gang from office, where they’d insisted on squatting after the Guyanese people had voted them out – there’s been a regular procession of US defence and military personnel through Port Georgetown. And it hasn’t been all firm handshakes and moral support!! We’ve purchased a couple of patrol boats from the States, a couple of aircraft from the Indians, an offshore patrol vessel from the Frenchies, and have conducted any number of joint exercises with the Yanks.
But as Mad Maduro started ramping up his military threat, so have the Yanks with their show of force. Following Gen Laura Richardson – Commander of US Southcom last year’s visit, was Major General Evan Pettus’s – also of the U.S. Southern Command – in February. And as we just finished celebrating Indian Arrival Day and the PPP’s Congress, came U.S. Marine Corps Major General Julie Nethercot’s, U.S. Southern Command Strategy, Policy, and Plans Director. Announced the US Embassy: “Maj Gen Nethercot’s visit to Guyana underscores the continued importance and unwavering commitment the United States places on the U.S.-Guyana bilateral defense and security partnership.”
And to make sure the madman in the west got the message, on Thursday, two U.S. Navy F/A-18F Super Hornets from the aircraft carrier USS George Washington, which was off our shores, flew over Georgetown and its environs. It was a display of American might! The Super Hornet has an internal 20mm M61A2 rotary cannon, and carries air-to-air and air-to-surface missiles along with a variety of other weapons.
Take that, mad Maduro!!

…raising our capacity
But in the end – especially in international affairs – we can’t depend only on friends. After all, the maxim is “there are no permanent friends or permanent enemies – just permanent interests”!! As your Eyewitness has been pointing out, 300 billion barrels of Venezuelan crude trumps our 15 billion every day!! So, in the meantime, we gotta use the Americans’ chumminess – while our interests coincide – to boost our own capabilities. Up to now, they’ve promised “Military Support to Security, Stability, Transition and Reconstruction Operations; Military Financing; Military Sales; International Military Education and Training; Medical Support Training and Operations; Humanitarian Assistance, Civic Action and Disaster Relief Programs and Military to Military Exchange/Training Programs”!
That’s quite a mouthful, innit?? We gotta take up their offer and continue building up our GDF – army, air force and navy. Your Eyewitness supports – fervently – calls that have been made for a military base in our Essequibo – to which we should allow our American ally to have access.
And we also gotta develop settlements there!!

…and war tactics
An example of the new forms of warfare is demonstrated by the Ruskies in Ukraine. They’ve been concentrating recently on taking out Ukraine’s power-generating equipment and grid. Blackouts as a war tactic is as demoralizing as bullets!!