US escalates war build-up against Latin American revolution

[Judi Lynn]

US escalates war build-up against Latin American revolution
Federico Fuentes, Caracas
25 July 2009

The US State Department and the coup regime in Honduras have publicly stated what many of us already knew: the June 28 military coup was not just directed against Honduran President Manuel Zelaya, but also Venezuela and the unfolding Latin American revolution.

On July 20, US state department spokesperson Phillip Crowley said he hoped Zelaya now understood that in “choosing a model government and a model leader for countries of the region to follow”, the US believes “the current leadership in Venezuela would not be a particular model”.

“If that is the lesson that President Zelaya has learned from this episode, that would be a good lesson.”

The same day, vice foreign minister of the Honduran coup regime, Marta Alvarado, said: “Honduras is playing a very important role in the sense that the continuity or otherwise of the avalanche of the ALBA countries depends on Honduras, and whether the people who are under the pressure of the ALBA countries wake up.”

ALBA, an initiative of the revolutionary Venezuelan and Cuban governments, unites nine Latin American and Caribbean countries into an anti-imperialist bloc that combines solidarity-based trade agreements with a coordinated political intervention into regional politics.

In response to the global economic crisis, the ALBA bloc has denounced the capitalist system. It has proposed radical measures that place the burden for the crisis on the capitalist elites who created it — not the workers and poor.

This revolutionary challenge is a dangerous threat to an empire in decline.

The June 28 coup in Honduras shows that, as the crisis deepens, Washington is increasingly turning to military solutions to “solve” this problem.

With two failed coup attempts so far this century (Venezuela in 2002 and Bolivia in 2008) and one successful one (Haiti in 2004), this strategy is not new. But extending this strategy is becoming more likely — and more dangerous, as military incidents threaten to spill over the borders and become a regional conflict.

Pro-imperialist governments in Latin America are aiding the US in this task.

Colombia, which in March 2008 bombed Ecuadorian territory, has just opened the door to five new US military bases on its territory. This occurred just days after the US began to move out of its base in Ecuador, from which the government of President Rafael Correa expelled it.

This move has been combined with a heightened propaganda campaign against Venezuela, not unlike the one that preceded the Iraq invasion.

More:
http://www.greenleft.org.au/2009/804/41355

[Peace Patriot]

1. "...propaganda campaign against Venezuela...not unlike the one that preceded the Iraq invasion."

"This move (five new US military bases in Colombia) has been combined with a heightened propaganda campaign against Venezuela, not unlike the one that preceded the Iraq invasion." --from the OP

That's what it looks like to me, too. The "Big Lie" campaign against Chavez in particular has escalated since the Bushwhacks left the White House (also against Rafael Correa in Ecuador--another big pot of oil being 'wasted' on education, health care and other help for the vast poor majority and local/regional development--and not lining the pockets of Exxon Mobil and Chevron executives and their war profiteer pals in Washington). I think Oil War II is on. The Obama administration is either setting it up for some Diebolded Bushwhack in 2012 to execute (as Bill Clinton set up the Iraq War for Bush Jr), or they will permit the US to be Gulf-of-Tonkinned into this oil war while claiming they don't want it. The Bushwhacks reconstituted the US 4th Fleet in the Caribbean--which has been harrying Venezuela's oil coast with overflights and spying--last summer--in spite of great objections by leaders like Lula da Silva in Brazil (who said that the 4th Fleet is a threat to Brazil's oil fields; everybody south of the border knows that it's a threat to Venezuela). Meanwhile, the US is not only larding Colombia--whose narco-fascist government and military have one of the worst human rights records on earth--with $6 BILLION in military aid--and building five bases there, they have also been spending billions in US taxpayer money, through the USAID and other budgets (including John McCain's US taxpayer funded "International Republican Institute") to rightwing groups throughout Latin America--including the coupsters in Honduras ($43 million from McCain), and rightwing politicians in Venezuela's and Ecuador's northern oil provinces (both adjacent to Colombia) who openly talk of secession.

In 12/1/07, a year after he retired from the Pentagon, Donald Rumsfeld published an op-ed in the Washington Post, urging "swift action" by the US in support of "friends and allies" in South America. The title of it was, "The Smart Way to Defeat Tyrants Like Chavez." Propagandize on the internet, he urged; use US/ Colombia "free trade" for economic warfare, and get ready for "swift action." I think it's a good guess that these "friends and allies" he wants to "support" are the fascist coupsters in Venezuela and Ecuador who will declare the "independence" of these oil rich provinces (for which a rehearsal was done in Bolivia this last September), foment civil war, and--if they succeed--turn the oil fields back over to US global corporate predator control.

To do this to two very democratic and peaceful countries--Venezuela and Ecuador--requires a lot of psyops, lies, brainwashing and propaganda--to soften up the people here for another oil war. Thus we have a constant stream of stories about Chavez and Correa as "dictators," as "narco-traffickers," as "weapons traffickers," as "corrupt," as allies of the FARC guerrillas, and on and on and on, with not a shred of truth to any of it. What they are is democratic with a small d, advocates of social justice and advocates of the sovereignty of Latin American countries. That is the simple truth--and there are volumes of evidence to back it up. They are neither "dictators" nor corrupt. They have no territorial ambitions. They have harmed no one, invaded no one, jailed no one unfairly, and are running excellent governments by almost any indicators you could name, including huge majorities of their own people approving of them in opinion polls and votes. But ask your average Joe or Jane Doe on the streets of the US today what they think of Chavez, and chances are they will start to say, "dictator," and then a look a confusion will appear on their faces, as their rational minds start to ask why they think that, and they can't really give a reason. It is an impression that is being created by the constant repetition of false stories.

Propaganda campaigns like this--that fly in the face of the facts--are not cheap. Billions of dollars and years of effort have gone into them. And they are not done for no reason--or merely out of our global corporate predators' terror of socialism. And the escalation of this campaign is quite evident, and is very worrisome. This is not just the typical lies that spew forth from our corpo/fascist-run government and the controlled media. This is something else, something very focused, which is coming to a head. Honduras may have been intended to be the trigger. It still could be. Colombia has meanwhile been escalating the threats and the propaganda against the Chavez and Correa governments. The Defense Minister of Colombia--whom I think of as "the little Rumsfeld" (he has Rumsfeld's arrogance and vicious, cold-blooded demeanor)--who is running for president in Colombia's fascist-controlled elections, recently said that Colombia feels free to "pursue the FARC" into Venezuela and Ecuador. That also could be the trigger for Oil War II.