The US’ All-Out Espionage Against Brazil. To what end? Nil Nikandrov - http://www.strategic-culture.org

Thomas Shannon emphatically drove a wedge between Brazilian-Venezuelan relations, impressing on Brazilians that the “populist ideology of Chavez” would sooner or later destabilise Brazil, and that it would be more beneficial for the country to have a more politically moderate regime nearby. In fact, it was an appeal not to prevent the radical puppet opposition financed by US intelligence agencies that was always hostile to Brazil coming to power in Venezuela. This anti-Venezuela policy of the US Embassy in Brazil is being maintained, only now instead of Hugo Chavez, it is President Nicolás Maduro who is under attack.



Information published on the BAEMundo portal shows that Shannon, as Assistant Secretary of State in 2009, sent a letter to NSA Director Keith Alexander labelled “secret”, thanking him for his invaluable help with preparations for the Summit of the Americas held in Trinidad and Tobago. The US State Department received more than a hundred documents from the NSA that were obtained from the presidential offices and foreign affairs ministries of countries on the continent through espionage operations. Shannon particularly emphasised that the “NSA documents allowed us to obtain a deep understanding of the plans and intentions of other forum members and ensured that our diplomats were well prepared to offer expert assistance to President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton”. The information helped Washington plan its course of action with regard to such complex issues as the inclusion of Cuba in the Summits of the Americas. Action strategies were also worked out in good time with respect to complicated opponents like Hugo Chavez. Essentially, this was a strategy of “pre-emptive promises”! And as a result, Obama showed himself to be a leader who was ready to enter into a dialogue with Latin America to “build productive and positive relationships” with America’s neighbours in the Western Hemisphere. “Our rivals in the region”, Shannon noted with satisfaction in his letter to the NSA director, “were getting ready to besmirch and shame us. We have succeeded and our rivals have failed”.



It recently became known that Liliana Ayalde, who has almost 30 years’ experience in the international field under her belt, has been appointed as the new US Ambassador to Brazil. It is not difficult to see the particular bias in her career: a close link to USAID with a focus on Latin America and the Caribbean. This organisation works in direct contact with the CIA, the Defence Intelligence Agency and other US intelligence agencies, traditionally providing them “cover” to carry out operations. As a USAID mission director, Ayalde came to light in Nicaragua and other Central American countries and was involved in the implementation of “Plan Columbia”, the most important objective of which was to apply military-strategic pressure on Venezuela and Brazil. From 2008 to 2011, Ayalde was US Ambassador to Paraguay and made a significant contribution to the removal of President Lugo from power. For the last two years, she has been in the US State Department as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Caribbean, Central American, and Cuban Affairs. There is no doubt that Ayalde is going to aggressively introduce her hostile relationship with the government of Raúl Castro into Brazilian government circles, bearing in mind that Dilma Rousseff, along with her predecessor Inácio Lula da Silva, sees Cuba as a key ally in the Caribbean.





Number two in the embassy team and Ayalde’s “understudy” for the next two years is going to be Todd Chapman, who recently returned from a mission in Afghanistan where he ensured “the coordination of development and the economy”. The list of educational institutions that Chapman has graduated from, besides the elite Duke University, includes the National Defense Intelligence College of the US Department of Defense. While studying economies, subjects of interest for intelligence also included: energy, hydrocarbons, international finance and trade. Chapman served in Bolivia from 2004-2006 and from 2007 to 2010 was Chargé d’Affaires in Mozambique. There have also been other assignments, more often than not with elements of improvisation. Chapman has almost always been sent to complex areas, which is how he has ended up in Brazil.



There are dozens of intelligence agency employees working on the staff at the US Embassy and Consulates. One of the servers for the NSA’s system of total surveillance is located in the embassy building. It is used to intercept the communication equipment of the president, the ministries, Brazilian security agencies and the Brazilian parliament. Whatever promises John Kerry may have made during his stay in Brazil in the wake of the “spy scandal”, nothing will change on the fronts of the secret war being waged by US intelligence agencies. The invisible army of all-out espionage will continue to operate.