| Number 385 | September 20, 2007 |
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This Week: Venezuela and Drugs
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Greetings, The rather-lengthy piece this week on the Bush administration's report that Venezuela is a "failure" at curbing drug trafficking gave me a headache. It was originally intended to be a brief piece about the politics of the so-called War on Drugs. However, as I began to research the piece, I was soon reminded of the Alice-in-Wonderland nature of this "war," which, after all, was a leading candidate to replace the Cold War until September 11th happened. So, the piece got longer and, although the facts are interesting enough, what I hope you will take from the piece is the importance of asking questions. I always say that the basic job of the journalist is the asking of questions. The mark of good journalism, in my mind, is the ability to ask the best questions, coupled with the ability to find the best sources of answers to those questions. Much of modern journalism in this country is nothing more than well-written, factually-accurate answers to the wrong questions. I hope the article on Venezuela's "failure" this week will help you to see how important this is, and that there is an alternative. I also hope you'll write to me and tell me if you get my point. I'd like that. It has been more than two weeks since the last Nygaard Notes appeared, which is longer than I like, and there is a reason for that. The reason is that I have purchased a small business, and the process of figuring out how it works, setting up the bookkeeping, and so forth has consumed more of my time and energy than I expected. I apologize. I hope the time until #386 is shorter, and will try my best to make it so. See you then, Nygaard |
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The Star Tribune of Minneapolis published a short interview with Republican Senator Norm Coleman on September 5th that started out with this question, and Norm's answer: Star Tribune to Coleman "You said you aren't hearing much from Minnesotans about Iraq. How do you explain that?" Coleman "It's what I've said for a long time. It is complex. People aren't sure." OK, Minnesotans (and others), if you are "sure," here's what you need: Senator Norm Coleman's Washington phone number: 202-224-5641
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Here is the headline from an Associated Press story of August 23rd on a poll done among Palestinians and released that day: "Palestinian Poll Finds Great Support for Western-backed Government over Hamas." The International Herald Tribune ran their version of the AP article with this Headline: "Palestinian Poll Finds Support for Fatah Government over Hamas." The opening words of the story were these: "Palestinians overwhelmingly prefer the Western-backed government of Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad over the ousted Islamic Hamas' government..." Now, here is paragraph four: "In the new poll, 47 percent said the Fayyad government is performing better than the previous Hamas-led Cabinet led by Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh. In comparison, 24 percent favored Haniyeh's government, while 23 percent said there was no difference between the two governments. Six percent did not answer." Do the arithmetic with me: 24 percent favored Haniyeh, and 23 percent said "no difference." That sounds like 47 percent. So, 47 percent "prefer" Fayyad over the previous Hamas government, and 47 percent either prefer Haniyeh or don't see a difference. This is reported as "great support" and an "overwhelming" preference. Who knows why the AP and the New York Times (owner of the IHT) decided to report these ambiguous poll results as a big "win" for one side? I certainly don't know. But I have to agree with Ali Abunimah, co-founder of the excellent website Electronic Intifada, who noted that the "angle" taken in reporting this survey "must have warmed the hearts of supporters of the illegal, unelected and Israeli-backed Ramallah ‘government' of Salam Fayyad." There were lots of other problems with the poll, as well, which Abunimah explains clearly in his August 27th article "What do Palestinians really think?" For more on this story, see the August 21st story "Bush Could Have Given Fatah That Kiss of Death" The Wall Street Journal reported in July that "For more than a decade, Fatah operated a vast intelligence network in Gaza established under the tutelage of the Central Intelligence Agency." Read the entire article here. |
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The headline was stark in my local paper, the Star Tribune, on September 17th: "Venezuela Again Listed as a Failure." This was a (heavily-edited) wire service story from the McClatchy newspapers and it focused on the Bush administration's release of the 2007 version of a "congressionally-mandated annual report on major illicit drug producing countries." The following four paragraphs give the gist of the article. Starting with the lead paragraph, they read like this: "For the third straight year, the Bush administration on Monday placed Venezuela in the category of nations that have ‘failed demonstrably' to curb drug trafficking. "Myanmar, as Burma is now called, is the only other country that shares this bottom-rung designation. Both are barred from receiving certain kinds of U.S. aid. "While countries such as Afghanistan and Colombia—the world's leading suppliers of opium and cocaine, respectively—are collaborating with the United States, Venezuela has refused to renew a drug-trafficking cooperation agreement and has become a jumping-off point for cocaine headed from South America to Europe and the United States, said Christy McCampbell, the deputy assistant secretary of state for the Bureau for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement." The following paragraph appeared in the original article (from the McClatchy newspapers), but not in the Star Trib reprint: "The White House, in a jab at [Venezuelan President Hugo] Chavez, decided again to waive programs that assist Venezuela's democratic institutions." While McClatchy talks about a "failure" on the part of Venezuela, the real "failure" here is the failure of the McClatchy reporter, Pablo Bachelet, to even attempt to answer the questions raised by this "congressionally-mandated report." Here are a few of the questions that occurred to me as I read this piece of "news," followed by a few answers that I was able to find without hardly trying. Question #1: What does it mean to "fail" to curb drug trafficking? Partial Answer #1: Note that the Bush administration does not classify Afghanistan as a "failure." Afghanistan! Not only did they not classify the world's leading drug-producing nation (more than 90 per cent of the world's illegal output of opium) as a "failure," but the U.S. State Department, upon release of the report, referred to "the significant gains [Afghanistan] has made since 2001" in combating opium poppy cultivation. Well... Since 1994, the United Nations Office for Drug Control and Crime Prevention has conducted an annual opium poppy survey in Afghanistan. The 2002 version tells us this: "An abrupt decline of illicit opium poppy cultivation was recorded in Afghanistan in 2001, following the ban imposed by the Taliban regime in its last year in power." The poppy crop bounced back the following year, but the 2007 crop is still 2.4 times greater this year than in 2002. And, due to the Taliban interruption, opium production in Afghanistan this year looks to be about FORTY FOUR TIMES as large as in 2001 (8,200 tons compared to 185 tons). Somewhere in those numbers the Bush administration sees "significant gains." Forget about 2001 and 2002. The 193,000 hectares of opium poppies that were planted in Afghanistan in 2007 marked an increase of 17% over last year (2006). The amount of Afghan land used for opium is now larger than the corresponding total for coca cultivation in all of Latin America (Colombia, Peru and Bolivia combined). Speaking of heroin and Latin America... According to the U.S. Department of Justice, "Colombian and Dominican criminal groups... control most white heroin distribution in U.S. drug markets." The political news website Capitol Hill Blue reported in 2005 that "heroin from Colombia today comprises 60 percent of the drug seized in the United States." Key point: Afghanistan produces 90 percent of the world's opium, yet the majority of the heroin in the U.S. comes from Colombia. What does this mean? It means that the major activity in which Colombia is engaged is... drug trafficking. Is Colombia considered a "failure" at controlling drug trafficking? No. Venezuela is the failure, says Mr. Bush. Question #2: Can a country have success in anti-drug activities even it chooses to refrain from "collaborating with the United States"? Partial Answer #2: The top six countries by amount of cocaine seized in 2006, in order, were: Colombia; the US; Venezuela; Spain; Ecuador and Mexico. That's according to Latinnews Daily, in a June 26th story on the annual World Drug Report from the UN Office on Drugs and Crime. Latinnews Daily goes on to say: "What is striking about the UN list [of seizure countries] is Venezuela's prominence. The US claims that Venezuela, which does not grow significant amounts of coca, has become a major trafficking centre because the government of President Hugo Chávez does not cooperate with the US. The Venezuelans point to their impressive interception rate and their clear cooperation with anti-drugs agencies from other Latin America countries, notably Colombia and Mexico. The UN data endorses the Venezuelan government's claims." To spell it out, what we see here is that Venezuela ranks third in cocaine seizures, but it "does not cooperate with the US." The result? The country is a "failure." Before I get to Question #3, consider these two points: Point 1. Countries that have "failed demonstrably to curb drug trafficking" are supposed to be "barred from receiving certain kinds of U.S. aid." Point 2. McClatchy News says that "The White House [has] decided again to waive programs that assist Venezuela's democratic institutions." (That poorly-worded sentence means that US "aid" to Venezuela will be allowed to continue despite the "failure" designation. The "again" refers to the fact that this is the third year in a row that such a waiver has been ordered.) OK, here's Question #3: How are the above two points explained? Partial Answer #3: Former CIA case officer Philip Agee, in an important article called "How United States Intervention Against Venezuela Works," published in 2005 by the Internet news site venezuelanalysis.com, put it this way: "In Venezuela the administration of George W. Bush is intervening in the political process with a combination of activities very similar to those the U.S. carried out in Nicaragua in the 1980s, but without a terrorist war on the scale of the Contras, and—at least [as of] mid-2005—without an economic embargo. These activities, with a 2005 budget approaching $10 million, masquerade as ‘civic education,' ‘support for the electoral process,' and ‘strengthening the democratic system.' In reality, all these programs, carried out almost silently, support the opposition against President Chávez and his coalition." The "waiver" on the prohibition of U.S. aid, in other words, is ordered so as not to interfere with the ongoing secret subversion by the U.S. of the democratically-elected government of Venezuela, which is officially called "assisting Venezuela's democratic institutions." (While Agee may be the most authoritative source, given his experience inside the CIA, there are plenty of other sources of information on the ongoing "secret subversion" of the Venezuelan government, and I list a few of them elsewhere in this issue of the Notes.) So, looking again at the headlines this week, what we see is, in fact, a "failure" on the part of Venezuela. However, it is not the failure that was reported by the Bush administration and faithfully passed on by McClatchy and other corporate media outlets. The "failure" is the failure by Venezuela to follow the orders of the Great Power to the North. Or, as the news reports put it, to "collaborate with the United States." And that, in the eyes of the leaders of The World's Only Superpower, is the greatest failure of all. |
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While the world's attention is focused on the region we call the "Middle East," the terrifying and dangerous business of policing the world by the United States goes on all over the planet. This week I focus on Venezuela, and for those who wish to learn a little more about the ongoing destabilization activities being carried out by U.S. agents and allies in that country, here are a few good sources of information, only a mouse-click away: Journalist Eva Golinger is doing some of the best work around. See her article from last week, "USAID in Bolivia and Venezuela: The Silent Subversion" on the Venezuelanalysis.com website. An enlightening interview with Golinger from October of 2006 appears in Green Left Online; read it here. Philip Agee's series can be found on the Venezuelanalysis site, as well. Anyone who is interested in the secret doings of the U.S. since World War II should really read Agee's classic 1975 book " Inside the Company: CIA Diary." A really fine list of recent articles, with summaries and links, can be found at the Global Policy Forum And ZNet has a special "Venezuela Watch" page on their site.
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