| Number 395 | December 29, 2007 |
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This Week: Venezuela, Part II
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Greetings, This week is Part II of the Venezuela series, and I realize that, just like in Part I last week, it is somewhat lacking in information about Venezuela itself. So far I've been concentrating on the history and context of U.S. relations with countries that are nations that are perceived as "threats" by our government. My hope is that this series will allow Nygaard Notes readers to better understand the Alice-in-Wonderland news we get about Venezuela. And the key to doing that is the same as it is for understanding any news story: History and Context. In Part III of the Venezuela series—which will appear after next week's issue, the 2007 Nygaard Notes Year in Review—I'll fill in some of the blanks. I'll be talking about what is actually going on in Venezuela, touching on economics, domestic policy, international initiatives. I think you'll see why the Venezuelan vision of 21st Century Socialism poses such a threat to elite interests in the United States. After that I'll publish "Notes for Further Reading" for those who want some good sources for following the ongoing developments in this part of the United States' "backyard." Stay tuned. See you next year! Nygaard |
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Here's the lead paragraph from a June 2006 story in USA Today, dateline Caracas Venezuela: "Warned against such actions, U.S. Ambassador William Brownfield flew here recently to do something he knew would infuriate his host government: throw a baseball into the waiting mitt of a local boy." He was warned against throwing baseballs? How barbaric! On a related note, here's Condoleezza Rice, testifying about U.S. relations with Venezuela before the House Foreign Affairs Committee in January 2007: "Our Ambassador has had some trouble there because he has gone out and worked with kids, and had baseball games and the like. And it is not very well liked by the government, but it is liked by the Venezuelan people. We are going to continue to try to do those things." See? The Venezuelan government doesn't like baseball! How barbaric! Apparently the Ambassador's "trouble" has nothing to do with the role of the U.S. embassy in coordinating the program of political intervention in Venezuela that has been underway for years. The story of that intervention hasn't been in USA Today as of yet. |
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Last week I quoted a 1948 document from the National Security Council (NSC) that created the "Office of Special Projects" within the CIA to carry out secret, or "covert," activities. The document explained what was being talked about, as follows: "‘Covert operations' are understood" to be activities "which are so planned and executed that any U.S. Government responsibility for them is not evident to unauthorized persons and that if uncovered the U.S. Government can plausibly disclaim any responsibility for them." These secret operations, said the NSC , may include such things as "propaganda, economic warfare; preventive direct action, including sabotage, anti-sabotage, demolition, evacuation measures; subversion against hostile states, including assistance to underground resistance movements, guerrillas and refugee liberation groups, and support of indigenous anti-communist elements in threatened countries of the free world." These sorts of activities were justified, during the so-called Cold War, by the existence of the Soviet Union, "an implacable enemy whose avowed objective is world domination." Facing such an enemy, planners at the time stated, meant that "hitherto acceptable norms of human conduct do not apply," which is why it was OK for the U.S. to be just as ruthless and merciless as the enemy. Then, in 1989, the "implacable enemy" ceased to exist. Did that mean that some of the "norms of human conduct" might once again "apply" to U.S. behavior? That very question was answered in another document I quoted last week—the article by the Director of the CIA's Center for the Study of Intelligence, James A. Barry, called "Guideposts from Just War Theory: Managing Covert Political Action." The relevant section was entitled "Covert Action and the New World Order," and in it Barry, writing in 1992, said: "Since the dismantling of the Berlin Wall, the abortive coup in the Soviet Union, and the dissolution of the Soviet empire, the confluence of ideological, nationalist and realist thought that formed a compelling rationale for covert action in the early Cold War period has lost more validity. In a dangerous world, however, presidents probably will not eschew this particular element of foreign policy, even in a ‘new world order.' The Persian Gulf War shows that aggression by hostile states remains a threat to U.S. interests, and other challenges such as terrorism, narcotics trafficking and the potential for proliferation of weapons of mass destruction are likely to motivate the U.S. to consider covert responses. What frame of reference, then, should replace the Cold War philosophy that has shaped covert action policy since the founding of the CIA?" [emphasis added by Nygaard] The frame of reference, says Barry, is the "Just War Theory," which leads him to cite St. Thomas Aquinas, who wrote that "There is nothing to hinder one act having two effects, of which one only is the intention of the agent, while the other is beside his intention. But moral acts receive their species from what is intended, not from what is beside the intention, as that is accidental." (For more on "Just War Theory" see the "Notes for Further Reading" that will appear at the end of this series, whenever that is.) Barry extrapolates from the saint's words to claim that "Under this principle, then, a belligerent may, if there is good reason, be justified in permitting incidental evil effects." Such as, presumably, the "fundamentally repugnant" types of things that are associated with CIA covert operations. Or dropping bombs on crowded neighborhoods where "terrorist suspects" may or may not be hiding among the innocents, as in Iraq and Afghanistan. Which brings us to modern-day Venezuela. First we'll look at how it is seen by political leaders in the United States, then we'll look at the way it appears in the U.S. media. |
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Last week I reported on the case of Chile in the 1960sa and 1970s, and the multi-year campaign to prevent the election of the socialist president, Salvador Allende. At the end I mentioned how, after Allende was elected in 1970, the U.S. intensified their already-existing destabilization campaign, increasing the pressure on Chile through bribery, covert funding and training of anti-democratic forces, propaganda, and support for renegade military forces, all of which culminated in the coup d'etat of 1973. What was the official thinking that justified such an extensive and anti-democratic campaign? According to James Barry, in the 1992 CIA report I cited above, "The Intelligence Community... held a more nuanced view" about the threat of Chile than the reflexive "anti-Communist" paranoia expressed by some in the Nixon administration. He quotes a 1970 CIA assessment of the threat posed by Chile in 1970, in which the CIA's Directorate of Intelligence said: ‘Regarding threats to U.S. interests, we conclude that: 1. The U.S. has no vital national interests in Chile. There would, however, be tangible economic losses; 2. The world balance of power would not be significantly altered by an Allende government; 3. An Allende victory would ... create considerable political and psychological costs..." Indeed, said the Agency, "An Allende victory would represent a definite psychological setback to the U.S. and a definite psychological advance for the Marxist idea..." The CIA also explained that, "[Although] We do not see ... any likely threat to the peace of the region ..." it is still true that "Hemispheric cohesion would be threatened by the challenge that an Allende government would pose..." What was the U.S. response to this assessment that—beyond the threat of a good example to other poor countries—Allende was really no threat to the U.S. or to the "peace of the region"? As we now know, the U.S. responded by intensifying the attack. The Official Case Against Chavez, 2007 As with Chile in 1970, it is reasonable to assume that there are differences of opinion within the U.S. administration on the nature of the "problem" in Venezuela. But the public statements by the intelligence community leadership and the State Department leadership have been quite similar. First, let's look at some comments made by John Negroponte on June 9, 2006. At the time, Negroponte was the Director of National Intelligence in the U.S., and he was being interviewed by the Florida-based Spanish-language network Telemundo. The interviewer asked, "What topics... from Latin America—or countries—call more of your attention, concern you more and for what reasons, in respect to [U.S.] national security?" To which Negroponte replied that one was Colombia, because "that is where there is the most conflict," but that "the other would be the threat of Venezuela, or populism and of this type of leftist populism for the democratic movement, it is a type of…but it is a political threat more than security more or less." That was the intelligence chief. Now let's listen to the Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice. Last winter the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Foreign Affairs held a "Briefing on Iraq and Hearing on the International Relations Budget for Fiscal Year 2008" that featured testimony by the Secretary. Some revealing statements were made. Florida Republican representative Connie Mack—who referred, incorrectly, to "Venezuela's self-proclaimed communist President Hugo Chavez"—said to Ms. Rice, "I am very concerned about the growing challenge, I guess you would say, in Venezuela with Hugo Chavez and what he is doing to intimidate and manipulate his country moving away from democracy, and toward a dictatorship." To which Secretary Rice replied, "I believe there is an assault on democracy in Venezuela, and I believe that there are significant human rights issues in Venezuela. The United States has been one of the strongest supporters of non-governmental organizations that are trying to operate there." Rice added that "we are going to continue to press the case; we are going to continue to fund organizations that are trying to resist." [Ed note: We'll return to this in Part III.] Mack then commented that "Venezuela with Chavez at the helm is on a glidepath towards a dictatorship disguised as a democracy. Madam Secretary, it's time to realize Chavez must be taken seriously. We must refocus our efforts in Latin America and defeat this gathering storm." Rice agreed: "I do believe that the President of Venezuela is really destroying his own country, economically, politically..." Recall that a massive covert intervention against Chile was carried out, culminating in "regime change" in that nation, simply because of the "political and psychological costs" of a socialist president in that country. Now we see that the Director of National Intelligence says that a socialist president in Venezuela is "a political threat," and the Secretary of State says that "there is an assault on democracy in Venezuela." Ominous words. |
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Earlier in this issue of the Notes I quoted the CIA from a 1992 planning document, where they listed three "challenges" to the U.S. in the post-Cold War era that "are likely to motivate the U.S. to [continue to] consider covert responses" to world events. The list included: 1. Terrorism; 2. Narcotics trafficking, and; 3. "The potential for proliferation of weapons of mass destruction." Predictably, Venezuela has been linked in the U.S. media to all three of these "challenges." TERRORISM: I mentioned last week that the U.S. media has linked Venezuela (minus any evidence) to terrorism. The headline in my local paper read "Venezuelan Partnership With Iran Questioned: U.S. Officials Worry Iran May Be Exporting Terrorists into the South American Country, Giving it a Base Closer to U.S. Shores." Just this past month (November 2nd) the right-wing Washington Times had the headline "‘Terrorist' in the Neighborhood; Venezuela's Chavez Called Danger to U.S." This article discussed a half-hour "documentary" called "Crisis in the Americas: A Documentary on Dictator Hugo Chavez" that was recently released by the hawkish Washington DC group the American Security Council Foundation. DRUGS: In the Congressional testimony mentioned elsewhere in this issue, Secretary of State Rice raised the specter of "narcotics trafficking," saying "For the past two years, the President has determined that Venezuela ‘failed demonstrably' to take actions in fulfillment of international counter-narcotics agreements and to stem the growing flow of drugs through the country." (I discussed this issue in NN #385: "Venezuela and the ‘Failure' to Follow Orders.") Sure enough, a few months later we started seeing headlines like the one on this lengthy front-page Washington Post article of October 28th 2007: "Venezuela Increasingly A Conduit For Cocaine." It turns out that it is a "conduit" for cocaine from U.S. ally Colombia, and the demand originates in the United States, but the propaganda effect in terms of Venezuela is clear, and fits well with the official agenda. No one says that Venezuela has WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION, but that hasn't stopped the U.S. media from running provocative headlines sowing seeds of suspicion about this third "challenge" that may need to be invoked to justify U.S. intervention. Back on April 16th the Associated Press ran the headline "With a Laugh, Chavez Raises Idea of Nuclear Plant near Border with Colombia" He was literally joking, and why this was news in the United States is a mystery. On June 29th the UPI news service had the headline, "Chavez Says Venezuela Might Go Nuclear." And the corporate newspaper Investor's Business Daily last month (November 16th) ran the stark headline: "A Nuclear Chavez?" They concluded—again, no evidence needed— that "When Chavez brings up nuclear energy, what he's really interested in is nuclear weapons." Commenting that Chavez is "growing more volatile than Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad," IBD concludes by saying that "The West can soothe itself that he'll be overthrown somehow..." Terror, drugs, WMD—we can expect more innuendo in the U.S. press about Chavez's links to all three in the coming months. Whether this type of reporting is the result of the U.S. media's over-reliance on official sources—which engage in propaganda constantly—or whether the stories are themselves propaganda directly placed in the media by U.S. agents, there's no way to know. But it's clear that all of this journalistic demonizing fits quite neatly with the desires of the architects of U.S. foreign policy. Recall the 1954 Doolittle Report that I quoted last week, in which policy planners spoke of the need to take off the gloves when fighting the "implacable enemy." The Report said that "It may become necessary that the American people be made acquainted with, understand and support this fundamentally repugnant philosophy" of undermining democracy by any means necessary. And that's where the media comes in. |
