Remember that it all depended on your definition of is ? Venezuela's Hugo Chavez is pissed at reports that the US will increase its troop strength in Colombia and acquire military bases there. Oh poo, says the President, as quoted by Reuters : "There have been those in the region who have been trying to play this up as part of a traditional anti-Yankee rhetoric. This is not accurate," Obama told Hispanic media reporters.... "We have had a security agreement with Colombia for many years now. We have updated that agreement. We have no intent in establishing a U.S. military base in Colombia," Obama said. "This is continuation of assistance that we had been providing them. We have no intention of sending large numbers of additional troops into Colombia, and we have every interest in seeing Colombia and its neighbors operate peacefully." Fisking the President [albeit unintentionally, I suspect], Reuters then examines the new security agreement with Colomb...

I was reading an article in Foreign Policy in Focus to get an idea of the considerable US Military footprint of 700 bases and just what that means to the world. I think you may appreciate the insights offered in one article called "Yankee's Head Home" and think it is worth a good read because it clearly expresses how we need to withdraw from Latin America and re-open good bilateral relationships with the nations there under a good neighbor policy of non-intervention : Yankees Head Home John Lindsay-Poland March 6, 2008 Editor: Emily Schwartz Greco Foreign Policy In Focus http://www.fpif.org/ Absent in the discussion of the conflict brewing in the Andes over a Colombian military incursion into Ecuador to kill a guerrilla leader is the role of U.S. military in the conflict. It goes well beyond providing satellite intelligence on the location of guerrilla camps: the two countries have opposing responses to Washington’s attempt to militarize the hemisphere. Ecuador’s constitu...