The Old Iran-Contra Death Squad Gang is Desperate to Discredit Chavez

The Old Iran-Contra Death Squad Gang is Desperate to Discredit Chavez
By John Pilger
Guardian Unlimited
August 17, 2007

Democracy and hope in Latin America have been revived by Venezuela's leader. But the forces allied against him are formidable.

I walked with Roberto Navarrete into the national stadium in Santiago, Chile. With the southern winter's wind skating down from the Andes, it was empty and ghostly. Little had changed, he said: the chicken wire, the broken seats, the tunnel to the changing rooms from which the screams echoed. We stopped at a large number 28. "This is where I was, facing the scoreboard. This is where I was called to be tortured."

Thousands of "the detained and the disappeared" were imprisoned in the stadium following the Washington-backed coup by General Pinochet against the democracy of Salvador Allende on September 11 1973. For the majority people of Latin America, the abandonados, the infamy and historical lesson of the first "9/11" have never been forgotten. "In the Allende years, we had a hope the human spirit would triumph," said Roberto. "But in Latin America those believing they are born to rule behave with such brutality to defend their rights, their property, their hold over society that they approach true fascism. People who are well-dressed, whose houses are full of food, bang pots in the streets in protest as though they don't have anything. This is what we had in Chile 36 years ago. This is what we see in Venezuela today. It is as if Chávez is Allende. It is so evocative for me."

(snip)

The disinformation that helped destroy Allende and give rise to Pinochet's horrors worked the same in Nicaragua, where the Sandinistas had the temerity to implement modest, popular reforms. In both countries, the CIA funded the leading opposition media, although they need not have bothered. In Nicaragua, the fake martyrdom of La Prensa became a cause for North America's leading liberal journalists, who seriously debated whether a poverty-stricken country of 3 million peasants posed a "threat" to the United States. Ronald Reagan agreed and declared a state of emergency to combat the monster at the gates. In Britain, whose Thatcher government "absolutely endorsed" US policy, the standard censorship by omission applied. In examining 500 articles that dealt with Nicaragua in the early 1980s, the historian Mark Curtis found an almost universal suppression of the achievements of the Sandinista government - "remarkable by any standards" - in favour of the falsehood of "the threat of a communist takeover".

http://www.rethinkvenezuela.com/news/08-17-07gu.html

A most excellent read. Here's a K & R before the Chavez bashers show up. At least they'll keep an important story kicked. :applause:

for it to be distributed here, where we need the information the most!

and we can finally get a real trial for the killers of Ben Linder, the La Penca bombing killing reporter Linda Frasier.

Governments like that of Venezuela are a real threat to those who committed numerous killings in Latin America.
They have the resources to investigate and bring the murderers to justice.

L. Coyote Sun Jul-22-07 10:13 AM
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=1398351&mesg_id=1401619
7. They murdered Linda Frasier and three others in the La Penca bombing

Edited on Sun Jul-22-07 10:16 AM by L. Coyote
The La Penca bombing was a terrorist attack that occurred in Nicaragua in 1984, during the early days of the Civil War.

The bombing was carried out .... using a suitcase bomb planted to kill revolutionary Edén Pastora ....

The bombing led to an investigation by the Christic Institute ............

The current administration absolutely CANNOT allow a successful socialist democracy to flourish. To do so would make us think that capitalist despotism isn't the only answer.

Oh, well. You can crush people's bodies, but not their ideas. You have to scare people so they don't want to open their minds.

I'm glad our Gov't is a professional bogeyman. After all, there isn't anything else more productive they could be doing, could there?

it may be possible for citizens of Latin America to stay home and build their democracies.

was to invade Iraq. It not only focuses everyone on the middle-east, but it increases the value of Venezuelan oil.

but the only reason Chavez hasn't had a call from the US Military and Blackwater Inc. is because we aren't done knocking people off in the Mideast. Once they're done there, expect the armies to flow south.

These people are like spiders. "Let the people have a few years to build things back up for us...we'll just take it all away from them again, when we're ready. They will regret straying from the fold."

:shrug:

We should take him to Vegas someday :evilgrin:

lol

I'd love to meet the guy.

and had a wicked sense of humor. :)

He was the one who clued Chavez into the freak-out of the BFEE and allowed Chavez 48 hours to prepare against the US State Department's coup d'etat. After that, I think Chavez just got real vigilant.

:(

other reasons Cheney/Bush hate him. OPEC doesn't like him much either. It was Venezuela (although I don't think Chavez had anything to do with it at the time) that broke the oil embargo of the '70s. Chavez DID negotiate a deal with Clinton setting a floor and a ceiling on the price of a barrel of oil. The Saudis (basically the ARE OPEC) didn't like that much either.

Currently, I am supporting a BUYcott of Citgo fuel. It's 100% Venezuelan and they didn't try to kill us on 9/11/01. I urge others to do the same.

:)

for Latin America to break free from US dominance. Hopefully self-determination down there finally takes root and flourishes.

Chomsky proves how far the corporate elite in America will go to destroy and demonize democracies which serve the people rather than the rich at the top. In America there is not even a party that represents the workers at all they have been so successful at demonizing labour and leftist movements.

The anti-Chavez propaganda is so pervasive and unremitting that even a lot of Democrats doubt his integrity. And no wonder when even Hillary Clinton bad-mouths the man.

Chomsky believes that the Democrats essentially agree with the foreign policy of the elite. So maybe the Democrats aren't wimps. Maybe they have no intention of obeying the will of the people. "Gee we are trying so hard. Look at us try so hard while we give Bush everything absolutely everything he wants."

Chomsky says the will of the American people means nothing to either party. If it did you would have decent health care and no wars. He classifies America as a "failed state" because of its total failure to protect the country -- rather -- puts the country in harm's way by its foreign policy which makes the rest of the world hate you.

On top of that politicians in both parties ignore the will of the people. He has a revealing list of polls showing what the majority of Americans want -- what 80% or 90% of Americans want and these polls are not published in the MSM can only be dug out by researchers. The best example is universal health care.

The MSM has a barrage of propaganda gearing up now to combat SICKO and they will try to give the impression that Americans are divided and would prefer only slight modifications to the terrible system that they have.

They control the information so I would question EVERYTHING negative that is put out for home consumption about Hugo. Remember the tale of the babies in incubators that were supposedly tossed out onto the floor to die when Bush I needed to attack Iraq!

Pilger sure can tell a story! :hi:

I still think Chavez is a problematic figure.

blatantly stolen elections in Mexico, the use of of preventative detention, the use of murder, the use of the government to shut down publications.

They are right next door.

Have you expressed your opposition to the tyrannical administration in Mexico?

I hope so.

By comparison, Chavez is a saint.

This is the best reply ever to people who do not like Chavez. I know he's not a saint, but he's still a democratically elected leader with a 60-70% approval rating. I guess if you don't like him, you shouldn't vote for him :D

You guys support a potential dictator and then when called on it, you back off and say that you're minding your own business. Well, sorry, it doesn't work that way. You should be held accountable for the people you prop up onto pedastals because everyone is watching us (liberal Democrats) for moral leadership.

Is that good enough for you? The corporate media hopes so. :)

And no one is actually looking to "liberals" in the United States for a moral compass. The world believes we re-elected Junior.

1982-1986 - John Hull's ranch in Northern Costa Rica serves as the main supply base for the contras on the Southern Front of Nicaragua.
October 1984 - Hull receives $10,000 a month from the Reagan-Bush Administration's National Security Council…
September 1984 - and deposits the money into a Miami bank account.
1984 - Hull takes out a $375,000 loan from the Overseas Private Investment Corporation for a supposed manufacturing project. Hull deposits the money into his private account in Indiana and the project is never started. He later defaults on the loan.
April 9, 1984 - Plane piloted by a Nicaraguan crashes while taking off from the airstrip on Hull's ranch, purportedly because it was overloaded with military supplies.
April 25, 1984 - Hull's ranch is raided and he is detained by security officers investigating allegations of Southern Front contra activities in Costa Rica.

............

October 1985 - At a San Jose, Costa Rica press conference, Tony Avirgan (who was injured in the bombing) and Martha Honey present the findings from their investigation of the La Penca bombing, identifying Hull as one of the bombing's planners.

Iran/Contra I know nada about. Thanks, L.

and "La Penca" for the most useful info. This was huge news back in the late 1980s.

people what is really being done in Latin America in their name and by their government. Once they realize that Latin American foreign policy has been set by American businesses abroad, using a perverted interpretation of the Monroe Doctrine to achieve their ends, maybe they might open their minds to what leaders like Allende before and Chavez now are trying to accompish. In this case the business interests involved are the oil and coffee industries.

I just got back from Alaska and was impressed that there were no clear cuts in their forests, you know those ugly patches of "temporary meadows" we see in the lower 48. It turns out the Alaskans at great risk to their livelihood kicked out the lumber companies and are managing their own forests and other natural assets in an ecological manner. The proceeds from their natural assets are put in a trust fund to be distributed to all Alaskans at certain times of the year. The Venezuelans are trying to do the same thing, kick out the American and global oil interests to manage their assets for themselves and for the benefit of their people.

Global oil interests do nothing for we the people in the United States. It's up to us to stop believing all the anti-Chavez propaganda spread by them and to look at what is really going on. We lose nothing with Chavez's gains. The global oil barons lose but it doesn't concern us and they can't achieve their aims if we don't support them and their propaganda.

So Amy Goodman's reports or Greg Palasts only run on small indy cable channels and John Pilger can't get his films distributed at all.

I'm going to put up a petition to air the new one in the US because WE NEED THAT INFORMATION. :grr:

about a dozen years or so ago when I first started paying close attention to what was happening in Latin America.

Other than online sources or some very serious books, there is so little truth in American history books/schools when it relates to Latin America.

;shrug:

As long as you report the facts, you're safe from being accused a liar. The kick is that you can choose not to report some facts, while reporting others to paint a misleading picture. It can be every bit as effective as "the big lie" method of propaganda, such as used in the USSR and Nazi Germany.

We never hear that it's because we've messed with them for hundreds of years.

We hear that progressives are dictators and that corporate whores are duly elected benefactors.

It's enough to make your heard

Make sure the world knows.

I was in Nicaragua just after Bush gave $100 million in illegal aid to the Contras, and the priest leading the Stations of the Cross procession was already talking about it, praying for an end to illegal aid to the mercenary army killing Nicaraguans. Everyone knew immediately, but Iran-Contra did not break in the USA until much later.

In Central America, we saw that they did not delay the space shuttle Challenger launch on that "too cold" morning for political reasons, to give Bush cover to convey the illegal funding. The press needed to be focused on the first school teacher in space. In the USA, noone seems to get the connections between these events to this day.

k&r!

:)

done! :)

:)

the neocons wanting Iraq to be just like it. When I saw the coincidence on the dates and related it to my own feelings that the BFEE made the 9/11/01 attacks happen on purpose, your post gave me one more little reason to believe in MIHOP.

have "migrated" to Iraq. Practice makes perfect. :grr:

:P

Glad we see eye to eye on his end of it!

I pointed out that you are guilty of the charge you make against him,not that I agree with your charge.I trust you can tell the difference.

But that was nice try...sort of...a little...ok,it sucked.

Use of that analogy dictates that both ends of the equation are guilty, via standard usage.

i.e. the kettle was black, but it was hypocritical for the pot to criticizingly call the kettle black since the pot was black itself.

Cliches aren't my strong point.I leave that to the politicians.

Don't be stingy!

lol

used "La Prensa" in Nicaragua in the same way Nixon used "El Mercurio" in Chile, during the time he was setting up the violent coup on Allende, and the years of suffering, torture, astonishingly barbaric murders of the Nixon-approved Pinochet dictatorship!

Had to run right off to grab the first thing I saw on it, with a note to self to look for the rest of the story which needs to be heard, later on. Here's the very first thing I saw, to confirm, for learning's sake what is written in your Pilger article:

The Sandinistas set about reversing Somoza's devastation of the country and began a programme of land reform, social justice, and redistribution of wealth and income. Just as in Chile however, this was seen as totally unacceptable by the United States. President Carter signed a top secret finding authorising the CIA to provide political support to opponents of the Sandinistas. The CIA ran anti-government propaganda in the Nicaraguan newspaper La Prensa, while pirate radio stations operating from Honduras and Costa Rica attacked the Sandinistas as "Marxist" and "atheists" bent on suppressing religion in the overwhelmingly Catholic country.

Paramilitary bands, aided by the CIA front organisation American Institute for Free Labor Development (AIFLD), began armed attacks in the north, singling out volunteers in the health and literacy programmes to murder. In January 1981 Ronald Reagan took office under a Republican platform which asserted that "it deplores the Marxist Sandinista take-over of Nicaragua" and he greatly expanded the CIA's guerrilla warfare and sabotage campaigns. In November 1981 Reagan authorised a covert plan for $19 million to help the Argentina dictatorship train a guerrilla force operating from camps in Honduras to attack Nicaragua.
(snip/...)

http://www.doublestandards.org/wakeup1.html

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Here's what Reagan did to manipulate pubic perception with the Honduran public concerning the leftist Nicaraguan government:

~snip~
The CIA paid Chamorro a salary of $2,000 per month plus expenses for his work, which included bribing Honduran journalists and broadcasters to write and speak favorably about the contras and to attack the Nicaraguan government and call for its overthrow. "Approximately 15 Honduran journalists and broadcasters were on the CIA's payroll, and our influence was thereby extended to every major Honduran newspaper and radio and television station," Chamorro said.

In 1983, the Reagan Administration began a series of major military maneuvers in Honduras, coordinated with contra units and the Salvadoran military. The maneuvers were carefully staged to create the impression that they were preludes to a US invasion of Nicaragua. In reality, as Miles observed, "The maneuvers were not a preparation or cover for the war: they were the embodiment of the war. . . Fears that the Administration may be threatening to invade have been an integral part of the plan at the psychological level. . . The first goal . . . was to squeeze the economy by forcing a massive diversion of resources into defense.... Next came psychological operations to feed on the conflict: leaflets distributed throughout the country urged Nicaraguan youths to escape the "totalitarian Marxist draft; radio stations of the Nicaraguan Democratic Force (FDN) in Honduras urged revolt against 'the communists who spend our national treasure on bullets instead of food."
(snip/...)

http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Public_Relations/TorLob_Nicaragua_TSIGFY.html

Gee. I wonder why this all seems so strangely FAMILIAR!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Now, El Mercurio, used by Nixon, to destroy Salvador Allende:

The El Mercurio File
Secret Documents Shine New Light on How the CIA Used a Newspaper to Foment a Coup

BY PETER KORNBLUH

September 11, a day of infamy in the U.S., is also a dark day in the history of Chile. This 9/11 marks the thirtieth anniversary of the coup that brought General Augusto Pinochet to power. Although former U.S. officials such as Henry Kissinger have insisted that Washington had no involvement in the military takeover, and was trying only to preserve democracy in Chile, CIA and White House records, analyzed here for the first time, show how the CIA used Chilean media to undermine the democratically elected government of Socialist Salvador Allende, an operation that "played a significant role in setting the stage for the military coup of 11 September 1973." From these documents emerges the story of the agency's main propaganda project — authorized at the highest level of the U.S. government — which relied upon Chile's leading newspaper, El Mercurio, and its well-connected owner, Agustín Edwards. In Chile, the aged Edwards remains an influential media power, and here in the U.S., covert action has again been unleashed and executive-branch secrecy is on the rise. The story behind 9/11/73 continues to echo.
snip)

Since 1975, when a special congressional committee chaired by Idaho Senator Frank Church issued its report, Covert Action in Chile: 1963-1973, it has been no secret that the CIA provided significant funding to El Mercurio, put reporters and editors on its payroll, and used the paper, in the committee's words, as "the most important channel for anti-Allende propaganda." But with the declassification of thousands of CIA and White House records at the end of the Clinton administration, the history of the "El Mercurio Project" emerges in far greater detail. Among the key revelations in the documents:

• Even before Allende was inaugurated as president of Chile, Edwards came to Washington and discussed with the CIA the "timing for possible military action" to prevent Allende from taking office.
  
• President Nixon directly authorized massive funding to the newspaper. The White House approved close to $2 million dollars - a significant sum when turned into Chilean currency on the black market.
  
• Secret CIA cables from mid-1973 identified El Mercurio as among the "most militant parts of the opposition" pushing for military intervention to overthrow Allende.
  
• In the aftermath of the coup, the CIA continued to covertly finance media operations in order to influence Chilean public opinion in favor of the new military regime, despite General Pinochet's brutal repression.

The documents provide the most comprehensive record to date of one of the CIA's most famous covert propaganda projects, one that in retrospect played a far greater role than previously understood in the run-up to Pinochet's dictatorship. And they shed new light on the willingness of Chile's leading newspaper — a paper often compared in prestige and importance within Chile to The New York Times in America — to collaborate in fomenting the coup.
(snip/...)

http://cjrarchives.org/issues/2003/5/chile-kornbluh.asp

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
We've seen earlier models of the same plan. It would take a complete imbecile to miss the absolute comparison to what we've been seeing happen to Venezuela through the underhanded manipulation from the stolen White House.

:kick: