Few south of the U.S. border were sorry to see Gen. Laura Richardson turn over her command of the U.S. Southern Command when she retired. She had icily asserted over and over that her number one priority as Commander was to keep Russia and China from getting any access to the rich resources found in Southcom’s theater of responsibility, because the United States needed the soy, lithium, oil, gold, etc., even the fresh water of the region. She was the voice that delivered the message: nations from the Caribbean and Central America down to Patagonia, which accept scientific, technological, industrial assistance for development from China and Russia, are threatening “U.S. national security.”
U.S. media coverage of the Nov. 7 transfer of command ceremony went on about how it displayed two “history-making firsts”: Richardson had been the first woman to lead Southcom, and now Adm. Alvin Holsey would be the first African-American to do so. As if it matters what gender or skin color leads a fanatically-colonialist policy for war!
Admiral Holsey quickly displayed his qualifications for leading the charge for such a policy. He, too, declared in his remarks at the ceremony that blocking Russian and Chinese activities in the region is his priority, and then, macho-like, gave an explicitly bestial touch to this geopolitics:
