The Bush family buys into...PARAGUAY? (Update)

This report claims that George Bush Sr. has purchased a 98,842-acre farm in northern Paraguay, between Brazil and Bolivia.

A source privately tells me that the elder Bush appears to have made the purchase through an organization called Fundación Patria, a group based in the Dominican Republic which claims as its goal the improvement of life for impoverished students in the third world. The same correspondent says that the ranch will be administered by W's former abassador to Paraguay, Timothy Towell.

I cannot verify this information at this time, so apply a strong note of caution to all of the above.

Jenna Bush -- of all people! -- is in Paraguay at this writing "to take part in a UNICEF program for young professionals volunteers." Just as one cannot easily visualize Poppy as a Paraguayan farmer, one does not easily visualize his air-head grandchild as someone who takes a genuine interest in charity. My source tells me that Jenna has been tasked to scout out Poppy's new purchase.

Presuming that this information has a basis in fact, what could be the aim? If we allow ourselves to speculate, all sorts of "Dr. No" scenarios suggest themselves:

Do the Bushes hope to create a new Colonia Dignidad? Will the ranch serve to train an irregular army, as occurred on so many American-owned private "ranches" in Honduras during the contra war? Does the region hide mineral wealth? Could the Bushes be -- O, unthinkable thought! -- in the drug trade?

Perhaps the Bush family is simply plotting an escape, given the possibility of real reform in D.C.

Or perhaps they hope to rule from this region, once nuclear war destroys much of the rest of the world.

UPDATE: As doc elsewhere reminds us, this area is home to the world's largest aquifer, which will play an important role in the water-starved world to come. And as this piece points out, Bolivia's vast gas fields are nearby.

Right-wing blogs have long reported an Al Qaeda "presence" near the area now allegedly under Bush ownership. (Rancho Poppy is supposedly in northern Paraguay, while the "tri-border" area associated with Osama's lads is in the south.) See here and here and here, as well as this 2002 CNN piece. Although the reports of suspicious Middle Easterners travelling to Paraguay seem persuasive enough, some cynics believe that the "Islamic terror goes south" meme is disinfo.

You'll also want to read this 2005 piece on the heavy U.S. military presence in Paraguay -- a very bizarre allocation of resources, given the need for personnel in Iraq and Afghanistan:

A statement issued from the U.S. embassy in Paraguay explained that the military exercises in question involve humanitarian and medical assistance to poor communities as well as military training. The embassy maintained that the U.S. has “absolutely no intention of establishing a military base anywhere in Paraguay” and “has no intention to station soldiers for a lengthy period in Paraguay.” (3)

The Pentagon used this same rhetoric when describing its actions in Manta, Ecuador, now the home of an $80 million U.S. military base.

Finally, of course, we must note the Bush family's undeniable relationship with the Reverend Sun Myung Moon, who also owns vast holdings in Paraguay. Something's going on here, people...