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disorder in its tracks. The rightwing fascists in Venezuela and U.S. corporate predators would love to see the Colombian mayhem spread to Venezuela. As we have seen in Iraq, these modern corporate fascists thrive on chaos. It is immensely profitable to them. They can sell arms to all sides, bilk U.S. taxpayers of trillions of dollars, put their goons around whatever cash cows they have in the region, and let the different factions of peons slaughter each other.
Whatever good impulse may ever have been present in the U.S. "war on drugs"--and there is plenty of reason to believe that it was a corporate/war profiteer scam from the beginning--it is now in the hands of George Bush, and John "death squad" Negroponte, and associated nefarious parties, and the result is the biggest scandal in South America: the close ties of the top echelons of the Uribe government, in Colombia, with out-of-control rightwing death squads and drug traffickers. This is Bush's M.O. Rumsfeld announced it to us, when he remarked, on the looting of Baghdad, that this was "freedom." Freedom = the freedom to loot. Bushism in nutshell.
Looting, violence, gangsterism, failed civil government, failed infrastructure, desperation--deliberately created in Iraq, during Katrina, and in Colombia, and now chipping away at the edges of Venezuela (also Bolivia--another peoples' government). "Divide and conquer." Turn communities into self-protective gangs. Destroy decent government. Paralyze civil authority. Then take advantage of these conditions, to steal big time--entire oil fields, or the "pot of gold" of the U.S. treasury. The Bushites and South American fascists lust after the vast natural riches of the Andes region--oil, gas, minerals, forests. The leftist governments of Venezuela, Bolivia and Ecuador are the obstacle to those riches. And chaos is the plan.
Venezuela has proven fiercely resistant to interference. They now have strong allies, in Bolivia and Ecuador, also Argentina and Nicaragua--and some consensus with other Latin American leftist governments (Chile, Brazil, Uruguay) at least on the principle of non-interference. So the interference has to take a guise--such as Colombia's rightwing paramilitaries, no doubt advised by or accompanied by, U.S.-funded mercenaries like Blackwater, and U.S./Bush covert military, "pursuing" the "war on drugs" (i.e., the war on peasants and leftists) across the border, and stirring up Venezuelan and Bolivian defense groups, with the aim not of stopping drug trafficking (for the pursuers ARE drug traffickers), nor of stopping violent leftist guerrillas (the rightwing fascists and Bushites thrive on leftist guerrillas)--no, the ones they kill are the innocent ones, mere villagers, teachers, union organizers, leftists, peasants, bystanders, in order to create hatred and division, and to destabilize the legitimate government.
We have seen this coming for a long time. Some of us have been wondering where the next attack on Venezuelan democracy would come from--after the failed coup, after the failed oil professionals' strike, after the failed recall election funded by U.S. tax dollars, and the failed efforts of USAID/NED to use that and other elections for more coup attempts, after Bush's failed "divide and conquer" trip to South America, and no doubt after a number of failed assassination attempts (which the Colombian scandals have revealed). What would they try next? Chaos! It worked in Iraq (no-bid contracts to Halliburton). It worked during Katrina (first no-bid contract to Halliburton). It has worked in Colombia (boffo elimination of leftists, and acquisition of U.S. tax dollars and drug profits by the rightwing). Will it work in Venezuela and the other Andean democracies?
I don't think so. I think they've grown too savvy. But that doesn't mean the Bushites won't try. (And, frankly, I don't trust the Democratic leadership either. Criminy, they had James Carville down in Venezuela, working for their fascists during the last election!)
In an interview of Hugo Chavez that I read, he made a distinction between a strong government and an authoritarian government. This is what he meant: the strength to repel bloody fascist schemes (such as this, and such as RCTV was involved in), while running a scrupulously lawful government amidst one of the liveliest political cultures in the western hemisphere. It's quite a tightrope. But being aware of the ways you can fall off it (--Chavez is a voracious reader and political raconteur) is half the battle. The other half is serving your people well and having strong bonds of mutual help and friendship with your allies. Chavez has much in common with our own FDR in all these respects. And the new leftist leadership throughout South America is much stronger and more savvy than ever before. I think they will survive and do well--while the U.S., which keeps making one bloody mistake after another, will be dragged down into Corporate servitude, which will take decades to overcome, unless we, too, insist upon transparent vote counting, become better organized at the grass roots level, and achieve real representation in our government.
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