intercepted CIA memo on attacking democracy in Venezuela

If you have only heard bad things about Hugo Chavez in the media, you might not have heard that his election, re-election, and triumph in a US-backed recall by wide margins were certified by international monitors, and that network whose broadcast license he refused to renew actively helped the US backed coup against Chavez and bragged about it on the air while the coup was going on. He also refused the IMF economic program that would have cut social spending and left Venezuela with only 1% of their oil income, the rest going to oil companies and the debt run up by past corrupt governments.

http://professorsmartass.blogspot.com/2007/01/90-sec-video-corporate-media-vs.html|A 90 SECOND VIDEO OF COUP>

http://professorsmartass.blogspot.com/2007/01/90-sec-video-corporate-media-vs.html|>


And if you believe the criticism of him in the media, consider what our ally, the kingdom of Saudi Arabia, is doing right now: sentencing a gang rape victim to 200 lashes for being in the company of men. There is no election of the Saudi family, recall, or referendum on their power, but the CIA isn't trying to remove them because big oil thinks they've already got the best deal they can get there.

Now there is another vote in Venezuela on amending their constitution, and even the CIA concedes 57% of Venezuelans support Chavez.

That is not stopping them from planning the kind of economic disruption and military take over that led to the coup in Chile in 1973 and decades of torture, mass executions, and economic policies that enriched a handful of the already wealthy and eroded the middle class.

The only problem with doing this in Venezuela is Chavez is FROM the military, and most of the military sided with him when a coup was attempted before because they were sick of being the bad guys and oppressing their own people.

Attacking Chavez is not only morally wrong, but economically foolish. Like Iran, the best weapon Venezuela has to retaliate is economic--they can simply accelerate the move away from trading oil in dollars, drying up the money and credit Bush needs to continue his wars.

If we were really concerned about reducing terrorism and having a stable supply of oil, we would work with leaders like Chavez and work to destabilize big oil instead.

KEY EXCERPTS:

The memo sent by an embassy official, Michael Middleton Steere, was addressed to the Director of Central Intelligence, Michael Hayden. The memo was entitled 'Advancing to the Last Phase of Operation Pincer' and updates the activity by a CIA unit with the acronym 'HUMINT' (Human Intelligence) which is engaged in clandestine action to destabilize the forth-coming referendum and coordinate the civil military overthrow of the elected Chavez government. The Embassy-CIA's polls concede that 57 per cent of the voters approved of the constitutional amendments proposed by Chavez but also predicted a 60 per cent abstention.

The US operatives emphasized their capacity to recruit former Chavez supporters among the social democrats (PODEMOS) and the former Minister of Defense Baduel, claiming to have reduced the 'yes' vote by 6 per cent from its original margin. Nevertheless the Embassy operatives concede that they have reached their ceiling, recognizing they cannot defeat the amendments via the electoral route.

The memo then recommends that Operation Pincer (OP) be operationalized. OP involves a two-pronged strategy of impeding the referendum, rejecting the outcome at the same time as calling for a 'no' vote. The run up to the referendum includes running phony polls, attacking electoral officials and running propaganda through the private media accusing the government of fraud and calling for a 'no' vote. Contradictions, the report emphasizes, are of no matter.

The CIA-Embassy reports internal division and recriminations among the opponents of the amendments including several defections from their 'umbrella group'. The key and most dangerous threats to democracy raised by the Embassy memo point to their success in mobilizing the private university students (backed by top administrators) to attack key government buildings including the Presidential Palace, Supreme Court and the National Electoral Council. The Embassy is especially full of praise for the ex-Maoist 'Red Flag' group for its violent street fighting activity. Ironically, small Trotskyist sects and their trade unionists join the ex-Maoists in opposing the constitutional amendments. The Embassy, while discarding their 'Marxist rhetoric', perceives their opposition as fitting in with their overall strategy.

The ultimate objective of 'Operation Pincer' is to seize a territorial or institutional base with the 'massive support' of the defeated electoral minority within three or four days (presumably after the elections though this is not clear. JP) backed by an uprising by oppositionist military officers principally in the National Guard. The Embassy operative concede that the military plotters have run into serous problems as key intelligence operatives were detected, stores of arms were decommissioned and several plotters are under tight surveillance.

Apart from the deep involvement of the US, the primary organization of the Venezuelan business elite (FEDECAMARAS), as well as all the major private television, radio and newspaper outlets have been engaged in a campaign of fear and intimidation campaign. Food producers, wholesale and retail distributors have created artificial shortages of basic food items and have provoked large scale capital flight to sow chaos in the hopes of reaping a 'no' vote.


http://counterpunch.com/petras11272007.html|FULL TEXT>

vote this up on social bookmarking site of your choice:

http://news.propeller.com/story/2007/11/29/intercepted-cia-memo-on-attacking-democracy-in-venezuela/"> http://digg.com/world_news/intercepted_CIA_memo_on_attacking_democracy_in_Venezuela"> http://reddit.com/info/61q93/comments/"> http://buzzflash.net/story.php?id=32552">

Objekt nenalezen!
Požadované URL nebylo na tomto serveru nalezeno. Zdá se, že odkaz na odkazující stránce je chybný nebo zastaralý. Informujte, prosím, autora této stránky o chybě.

Pokud si myslíte, že toto je chyba serveru, kontaktujte, prosím, webmastera.

excuse my language, but HAVEN'T WE SEEN ENOUGH OF THIS SHIT!?!!?


the only good thing we can look forward to is that so many south american nations have rejected busholvism and chavez has the support of many of his compatriotis in the region. lula de silva, morales, etc. any right wing coup or appearance of that will not be supported in the region. I don't think anyone has sent negroponte and all the other iran-contra war criminals a memo that south america is not for sale anymore and the people are not going to put up with that shit this time around. hopefully reports of this memo make it on venezuelan airwaves so the people can see how badly uncle george wants to return their country to poverty and enslavement and vote "SI!" to chavez.

Here, all the plotters from the last coup would be in prison. Only the a handful at the very top were arrested there.

The CIA is just a cover for the Bush agenda. The agenda of Samuel Bush. And Prescott Bush. And George HW Bush. And George W Bush.

And that is "off the table" as well. All eyes, as always, turn to Madame Speaker.

The Nazis may have fallen in Germany. They just continued on, unnoticed, in America.

Sieg Heil!

http://www.misterharris.com/technicalities.html

We have only had a Pledge of Allegiance for half of the time we have been a nation. It was written by a socialist and originally had a nazi-like salute.

1892, September: Written as "I pledge allegiance to my Flag and the Republic for which it stands, one nation indivisible, with liberty and justice for all."

Before World War II, the Pledge would begin with the right hand over the heart during the phrase "I pledge allegiance". The arm was then extended toward the Flag at the phrase "to the Flag", and it remained outstretched during the rest of the pledge, with the palm facing upward, as if to lift the flag.

1892, October: Benjamin Harrison proclaims it to be used in schools adding the word "to" before "the Republic".

1954: "Under God' was added.

2007: The midpoint of the United States having 115 years without a Pledge of Allegiance and 115 years with one (53 years with "under God").

Chavez should round up all those little bastards and throw them in prison until the election is over then PUT THEM ON TRIAL FOR TREASON!

punks throwing bottles at the police in the latest "freedom march" :eyes: were treated extremely fairly.

the little bastards. And they better NOT come up here!

to national security. As the saying goes: What's good for goose...

Chavez would'nt do it though; it's not his style. ;( }(

he threatened Columbia with invasion?

Hugo knows that the way to solve these problems is to put a little sunlight on them and let the world court of public opinion see things for what they are.

He's smart, and works to win the hearts and minds of the people (the way it should be done), both in Ven. and abroad ;-)

That is the best proof of his character; the way he has dealt with his political opposition after they tried to coup the system.
He don't get the fair treatment from the world press that these facts should cause, if the press was as fair and balanced as it claims to be.
Here's the full film about the coup by the way.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5832390545689805144&q=the+revolution+will+not+be+televised

He is also teaching the world that you can deal with you enemies or suspected enemies, even when they threaten your existence, fairly.
The more I think about it the more I realize that Hugo is really is a threat to Bushista power. The threat of a good example.

Looks like the global corporatist Empire behind the facade of our own 'Vichy America' is now trying to franchise its scheme of setting up phony governments throughout the Empire's territories.

Throughout various territories of the corporatist Empire they can get away with simply setting up an obvious stooge government (like the Nazi empire did with the old fashioned 'Vichy France'), but in other parts of the world where web-media lights shine more light the corporatist Empire has to go to all the trouble of setting up a very sophisticated 'vichy' scam --- sometimes even setting up pre-arranged phony opposition parties, with contrived 'power sharing' parties --- as the Empire recently orchestrated in Pakistan.

However, the global corporatist Empire never goes to the extreme of setting up, in countries other than the US, all the mechanisms of a complete 'Three Card Monte' scheme of 'Vichy government' like the US itself, which includes two completely controlled phony national political parties, which actually shift back and forth to confuse the rubes, and a complete national MSM scam which reports this 'vichy' political facade as being a democratic government over long periods of time.

It will be interesting to see if the global corporatist Empire, because of the focus of web-media on Venezuela, has to go as far as it did in Pakistan in building a fairly complete model of 'believable' multi-party, phony conflict, or whether the Empire can still get away in Venezuela with a more traditional and simplistic, blunt 'regime change' and ousting of Chavez without structuring the full charade of a surviving two-party image.

Like say, a scanned image of it?