U.S. General: Belize is important to U.S. security

The two day meeting of U.S. and Central American military brass ended today in Belize City and before the assorted generals and colonels jetted back to their respective bases the press was given a brief update. For General John Craddock, head of the U.S. Southern Command, Belize and Central America play an important role—in both their internal security and that of the United States of America.

Gen. John Craddock, Commander, U.S. Southern Command
“For a lot of reasons, Belize is in a strategically critically important location. If you look at this region, it is a transit zone. A transit zone for what? For transnational threats, it’s traffickers of drugs, of ammunition, of money, of people. From that perspective, they move through this region and Belize is strategically located here and that’s important to the United States because it’s part of our security as well as the security for the nations here in the region. So we value the fact that we have a good relationship with the Belizean Defence Force, we have a good relations between the two nations. We want to continue to develop those relations, encourage as much as we can to grow and be mutually supportive. Whether or not that leads to increased U.S. presence, only the future will tell.”

Stewart Krohn
“General you are no doubt aware of the Guatemalan claim to Belize’s territory. At conferences like this you work closely with all governments and militaries of the region, does the U.S. military have a position or is the U.S. military playing an active role to discourage any military conflict between Belize and Guatemala?”

Gen. John Craddock
“The differences between countries or differences that arise over time for various reasons we respect that, the fact that they are sovereign nations and that they will at times have different perspectives on what’s right and what’s wrong from those perspectives. We don’t want to take sides; we won’t take sides. We know that reasonable people will address these issues in a responsible fashion and that they will be worked out accordingly. We want there to be security and stability in the region, we look at it from a collective perspective and we would hope that that would be the end state.”

Getting in bed with the devil.

Just wanted to throw this out there remember back in 1991 a dictator decided to take back some of his claimed territory and he invaded one day. does anyone remember this ???

Attempted to invade to be a lil' more precise. We evacuated Cayo to Corozal but nothing happened.

How comes we are so important now to the US? (oil)

SIN

Important NOW, you need to do I bit more research on what important is. The US in many ways has helped many Latin American states and continues to do so. It is not just something that has come about because of "oil". Look back before Belize was Belize and you will see that Honduras and the US have been friends for a long time. What gets me is that everyone sees "OIL" as the main reason to bash the US and its consumption. While China sits on huge fields and has equaled the US consumption in the last few years. They continue to grow.
But that’s besides the point the US consumes allot of energy but then again allot of Belizeans are in the US and so many want to get here. While some may not, those that I have known would give a kidney to get here why? The US is just that US and you and I are US no matter what state we live in.
If you’re just looking for help then let the British Back in to protect and train. Make the world England right?

John,

Nobody asked for help.

FYI: More people are "fleeing" the US now than ever before due to your great leader and his success in turning the majority of the remaining nations against him and the USA.

The US always has an alterior motive(s).

SIN

Recent History: United Fruit, Sandinistas, Contras, Ollie North (in dear old Belize), Bay of Pigs (launched from Guatemala) and lots more but I've got to run catch the plane to the caye. I'm actually partial to Gurkhas.

If the Belize dollar goes belly up due to corruption and greed...then who will most likely bail the GOB out? I think the GOB has their sights set on getting all of the Belize "oil" money before anyone else does. It will be interesting to see if the price of fuel in Belize will go down over the next few years due to the new oil find.

Usual extreme reply Clover. So I guess building the largest US Embassy in Latin America, here in Belize, was decided on a whim. Thanks anyway, you and your fellow tax earners are paying for it. Feels good being a cog?

I know the US would not like to get involved - in anything. Well hell, look at Sudan - people who need help -vs- Iraq (sovereign nation) people who didn't want help, but someone helped themselves to the entire region.

Taiwan has and will continue to help GOB financially, they have bailed us out before - not the US.

One to grow on folks.

SIN

That's twice I've missed out.