Stranger in Paraguay

In the latter parts of last year, many a blog (including this one) fastened onto a strange tale. The Bush family, it was said, had purchased a 90-something-thousand acre section of Paraguay, right next to the Reverend Moon's even more massive holdings. (The Moon purchase has been verified by multiple sources.)

Moon isn't the only controversial figure drawn to the area. Over the years, many haunting reports have placed Khaled Sheikh Mohammed and other Al Qaeda worthies in the region.

Problems with the story soon cropped up. Reports conflicted as to just which part of the country was under Bush control. The White House flat-out denied the claim. And the earliest news reports carrying the accusation appear to have been from Cuban news sources.

Now, a Kos blogger named residentcynic resurrects the story.

Bush bought land in Paraguay in 2006, a roughly 98,840 acre parcel in the Paso de Patria area called "Chaco", close to the intersections of Paraguay, Bolivia, and Brazil. Apparently, it's a gorgeous spot. The land is close to the Bolivian wetlands, is situated near natural gas reserves, and sits atop one of the largest aquifers in the world, the Guarani indigenous water region. Part of the property has been designated an ecological reserve. And wow, they think of everything, it's close to the US Mariscal Estigarribia Military Base...

Why Paraguay? Aside from the area's impressive natural resources, there is the fact that a new lam in that country grants immunity to U.S. military personnel (including, presumably, the Commander in Chief) should they happen to be on the lam from any pesky international court handing out war crimes indictments.

The situation reminds one of Otto Skorzeny's notorious post-war sojourn in Argentina to hang with Evita. (According to Glenn Infield's book Skorzeny, ol' Scarface did more than hang with her. But that's another tale for another time.)

So: Is the story real? Has report congealed into fact?

Alas, residentcynics's links go to two late-2006 news pieces which reference the originator of the claim, Prensa Latina. Which is Cuba's news service. That kind of sourcing does not necessarily mean that the tale is false, but most Americans will require more.

As I wrote earlier:

If the entire Bush-in-Paraguay meme was concocted by one of Fidel Castro's spooks -- well, it's certainly no worse than the whoppers concocted by our own spooks. What troubles me is the sheer strangeness of the accusation.

Suppose, for example, the Cubans had planted a story that Bush had personally sold short one of the firms whose interests were harmed on 911. The political value of that kind of disinformation would be obvious. But...Paraguay? Most Americans simply don't give a damn about anything that happens in Paraguay. Why improvise on that theme?

In response to these words, reader (and D.U. luminary) HamdenRice offered this suggestion:

While most Americans have never heard of Paraguay, the news junkie and educated classes would immediately associate that country with fleeing Nazis. The purpose of spreading this meme would be to create exactly the effect the story did in fact have in the blogosphere, namely, the vague feeling that the Bush family -- having screwed up the country, committed war crimes, lost a two front war, and finally provoked revulsion and revolt among the citizenry -- was planning its getaway, just like the Nazis with whom the Bush lineage seems to be so closely linked.

Maybe. Maybe not.

Some stories, on first hearing, just feel like disinfo. Some stories, on first hearing, just feel like the truth. This one...to me...just feels like....

Ah, hell. At this point, I'm not sure what my gut says. What's your read?