Chavez: Murder Plot Against Foe Foiled

[Say_What]

<clips>

AP) Venezuelan authorities have foiled a plot for a sniper attack on the opposition's leading presidential candidate ahead of this Sunday's election, President Hugo Chavez said Thursday.

Chavez said a group of "fascist" radicals had been plotting to use a rifle with a telescopic sight to shoot at Manuel Rosales during a speech in order to blame it on Chavez's government in an attempt to derail the vote.

"It was to say that Chavez sent them to kill him, and generate chaos," Chavez said during a news conference. Chavez said authorities had seized the weapon from an armored car.

"Fortunately, our intelligence services have improved enormously and we have neutralized many plans by crazy people," Chavez said, without giving details.


http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/11/30/world/main2219727.shtml


Venezuelan President, and candidate for reelection, Hugo Chavez, speaks during a news conference at the Miraflores Palace in Caracas, Venezuela, Thursday, Nov. 30, 2006. Venezuela will hold presidential elections on Dec. 3, 2006. (AP Photo)

[reichstag911]

1. Sounds like a typical...

...CIA false flag op to me.

[Megahurtz]

2. Sounds about right.

I wonder if it was a BFEE plot? :tinfoilhat:

[Poll_Blind]

3. Yep. When one hears something like this an evaluation takes place...

...internally in the reader: Do I believe that Chavez is more likely to lie than the CIA is to actually sponsor and perform this action?

  I believe that the CIA, especially Bush's CIA, would be very likely to try something like this. We have historically carried out coups and sponsored revolutions and revolutionary groups in countries outside of the Americas. However, we saturate the Americas, especially South America, with our agents to retain control. As our power and influence wanes as a nation, the level of desperation and desperate actions increase.

PB

[Say_What]

4. Anything to bring him down.. is the US motto...

Tio Sam always has unlimited amounts of Dinero to take down those who refuse to kow tow to the USSA, and the MSM is doing it's part to try to discredit Chavez at every turn. :puke:

Interestingly, the number of countries joining OPEC is on the increase. Angola just joined and no sooner did Correa get elected in Ecuador and he announced that Ecuador would petition OPEC for membership and that Venezuela would refine its crude. Tio Sam has got to have a major headache.


Venezuelan President, and candidate for reelection, Hugo Chavez, is greeted by reporters upon his arrival to a news conference at the Miraflores Palace in Caracas, Venezuela, Thursday, Nov. 30, 2006. Venezuela will hold presidential elections on Dec. 3, 2006. (AP Photo/Andres Leighton)


n this photo released by Chavez's campaign press office, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez greets his supporters during a reelection campaign rally in Western Trujillo, Venezuela, Wednesday, Nov. 29, 2006. Venezuelans will go to the polls on Dec. 3, for a Presidential elections. (AP Photo/Chavez's campaign office press/HO)

[reichstag911]

5. Regarding your bottom picture,...

...I wonder if there are any like that of GW, out among the American people and not comfortably ensconced in his little security bubble. Bueller? Bueller? Anyone?

[Doctor_J]

15. Yeah, right

They have to close off entire cities when Smirk comes calling.

[Judi Lynn]

12. I saw the news on Ecuador, too. Very interesting, and getting more so.

Great photos!

[Vidar]

6. So Chavez' police save an opponent from assassination.

When will he quit acting like a dictator? :sarcasm:

[Mudoria]

7. If true

:eyes:

[Judi Lynn]

9. Good one, Vidar!

[KingFlorez]

10. I was thinking the same thing

[spillthebeans]

8. And it smells of sulfur still today nt

[Judi Lynn]

11. We're seeing a pattern here!

Since everyone knew Manuel Rosales has absolutely NO chance of being elected against a beloved President, he is worth far more as a spectacular sacrifice.

You also remember the right-wing decided to simply "boycott" the last national election, knowing they would NOT be making any gains whatsoever, thereby securing the attention of uninformed right-wing idiots around the world! They sacrificed their last election, knowing they'd be going down the tube then, too.

All that's left, unfortunately, since right-wing scum forces really want Chavez dead, is another assassination attempt on Chavez. We can only hope he will be one step ahead of the assassin's bullet.

Their respect for democracy falls a little short.

[anotherdrew]

13. of course their intelligence services have improved, they've dumped all the right-wing jackoffs

getting rid of right-wingers and neo-fascists is the BEST way to improve the efficiency of any government service

[Doctor_J]

14. I wonder if Cheney's domestic army would have thwarted such an

attempt on Kerry. Judging how the antrax bombers have been pursued, I somehow doubt it.

[Judi Lynn]

16. Now that thought would stop one in one's tracks! I doubt it, too. Absolutely. n/t

[Doctor_J]

17. I dunno, it's pretty far out there, but Rove has managed to make the

government so partisan that I wonder if even the SS applicants are screened to make sure they lean the right way.

[Peace Patriot]

18. I was wondering how they were going to trigger this coup attempt--

and I didn't think of THAT--their assassinating their own Rosales!

Here's the thread on the other elements of the plot: US tax dollars paying a DC-based PR firm to concoct false polls showing the election to be close (all reputable polls give Chavez with a 20% to 30% lead), when Chavez wins, fill the streets with rightwing thugs and faux protesters, who instigate riots, and bring the military in to stage the coup.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x460259

But it all seemed a bit fanciful to me--and crazy like the Chavez opposition tends to be--in view of Chavez's support, and the savvy of most Venezuelans, also their courage. BUT...if Rosales were assassinated, that could truly destabilize the country, with these other elements in place. Of course, everybody knows Chavez doesn't NEED to off Rosales--why would he do it? It's absurd. And, if you know know much about Chavez, you know that he not inclined that way, to violence and illegitimate power anyway.

So this was the last plank of the plot--such a terrible incident--to be BLAMED on Chavez.

[ret5hd]

19. James Carville has worked against Chavez in the past...

from 2003:

http://www.casavenezuela.org/05persp/articles/economia_stupid.html

Venezuela's embattled private sector is banking on the colorful U.S.
political consultant James Carville to help oust leftist President Hugo
Chavez. The hire may herald an effort by the anti-Chavistas to focus more on
the issues than on personality. According to several individuals with
knowledge of the matter, a group of business executives contracted with Mr.
Carville this year to craft a strategy that will unify a fractious and
frustrated Chavez opposition and resonate with voters in a possiblerecall
referendum. The executives are hoping that Mr. Carville -- the folksy,
59-year-old Democratic Party consultant from Louisiana known as the Ragin'
Cajun -- will push a variation of his "It's the economy, stupid" theme that
helped propel Bill Clinton to victory in 1992.

But analysts say Mr. Carville and his clients face a formidable challenge.
Mr. Chavez has strengthened his hand since surviving a military coup in
April 2002 and defeating a recent two-month national strike led by oil
executives, labor leaders and business organizations. Despite a deepening
economic recession, the business elite here and its middle-class allies are finding it hard to persuade core Chavez supporters in urban slums and the countryside that the president isn't delivering on his populist promises. They have another hurdle to jump in blaming all the country's economic problems on Mr. Chavez after their own ill-starred strike accelerated the economy's slide.

"These business owners are arrogant. They can bring Carville or anyone else,
but they don't stop to understand what everyday life is like for the
people," says Patricia Marquez, an anthropologist and academic director of
the Institute for Higher Administrative Studies, a graduate school of
management here in the capital.

[Peace Patriot]

20. Yup, Carville went there to help the people who, the year before, had

staged a violent military coup against Chavez, who then conspired with Bushites and oil giants to perpetrate an oil professionals' strike that nearly destroyed the country, and who then organized a wasteful and futile recall election that Chavez handily won. All of this was done with OUR money, poured into the country through NED, USAID and Sumate (the local rightwing group that accepted foreign money illegally for political campaigns), and who knows who else--some of it into Carville's overstuffed pockets.

A real democrat, that Carville.