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Washington’s New Imperial Strategy in Venezuela By Chris Carlson Venezuelanalysis May 13, 2007 First used in Serbia in 2000, Washington has now perfected a new imperial strategy to maintain its supremacy around the globe. Whereas military invasions and installing dictatorships have traditionally been the way to control foreign populations and keep them out of the way of business, the U.S. government has now developed a new strategy that is not so messy or brutal, and much sleeker; so sleek, in fact, that it’s almost invisible. It was so invisible in Serbia that no one seemed to notice in 2000 when a regime was toppled, the country was opened to massive privatization, and huge public-sector industries, businesses, and natural resources fell into the hands of U.S. and multinational corporations. Likewise, few have noticed as countries in the former Soviet-bloc have recently been victims of the same strategy, with the exact same results.
Nations that do not give in to the demands of the empire and the expansion of global capitalism are targeted by an undercover, well-designed plan to change the political situation in the country, and open it up to corporate investors. U.S.-supported groups inside the country overthrow the president, making it seem like there is no outside intervention. And now, Washington has turned toward its new biggest threat: Latin America, and more specifically, Venezuela. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- But what is even more worrying for Washington and their corporate sponsors is how this trend is spreading through Latin America. The Chavez government has built close ties to many of his neighbors, and many are following in his footsteps. Countries like Bolivia and Ecuador are taking greater control of their gas and oil reserves, leaving less room for the huge corporations that hoped to one day own them.And so, just as they did in Serbia, Georgia, Ukraine and others, Washington has deployed its forces in Venezuela with the intention of getting rid of the Chavez menace. After trying many things over the years, including a short-lived coup, electoral manipulation, and mass protests, Washington has not been able to topple the popular leader. But they haven’t given up. To the contrary, they’ve actually just continued to increase their level of involvement.-------------------------------------------------------------------- The destabilization attempts are taking form in a concrete way in the coming weeks in the form of huge anti-government protests in Caracas to reject the government’s actions against the private TV channel RCTV. Opposition groups have organized around the government decision, claiming that it steps on their “freedom of expression,” and have organized a series of large protests in the capital leading up to a massive march on May 27th, the day RCTV’s broadcast license expires. http://www.globalpolicy.org/empire/intervention/venezuela/2007/0513venezstrat.htmOil Showdown Looms with Venezuela's Chavez By Simon Romero and Clifford Krauss International Herald Tribune April 10, 2007 ----------------------------------------------As Chávez asserts much greater control over Venezuela's oil industry, his national oil company, Petróleos de Venezuela, is showing signs of stress. Management has become increasingly politicized, and money for maintenance and development is being diverted to pay for a surge in public spending. During the last several decades, control of global oil reserves has steadily passed from private companies to national oil companies like Petróleos de Venezuela. According to a new Rice University study, 77 percent of the world's 1.148 trillion barrels of proven reserves is in the hands of the national companies; 14 of the top 20 oil-producing companies are state-controlled.
The implications are potentially stark for the United States, which imports 60 percent of its oil. State companies tend to be far less efficient and innovative, and far more politicized. No place captures the shift in power to nationalist governments like Venezuela. "We are on a collision course with Chávez over oil," said Michael Economides, an oil consultant in Houston who wrote an influential essay comparing Chávez's populist appeal in Latin America with the pan-Arabism of Muammar el-Qaddafi of Libya two decades ago. "Chávez poses a much bigger threat to America's energy security than Saddam Hussein ever did."]
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Last week, Rafael Ramírez, Venezuela's energy minister, sent a chilling signal to the oil companies, saying Venezuela might sell refineries in Texas and Louisiana that process crude from Exxon's Venezuelan oil fields. Analysts say Venezuela could be setting the stage to produce much less oil in ventures with American oil companies for export to the United States...................................... But Chávez is chipping away at those ties by forming ventures with state oil companies from China, Iran, India and Brazil. Venezuelan exports of oil and refined products to the United States fell 8.2 percent to a 12-year low in 2006 of about 1.3 million barrels a day, according to the Energy Information Administration. No one sees an immediate crisis at Petróleos de Venezuela. But its windfall of high oil prices masks the complexity and rising costs of producing heavy oil. Meanwhile, the company acknowledged last month that spending on "social development" almost doubled in 2006, to $13.3 billion, while its spending on exploration badly trailed its global peers. And Petróleos de Venezuela's work force has soared 29 percent since 2001, even as production declined. Independent analysts are alarmed by an increase in explosions and refining accidents during the last two years, which authorities brush off as sabotage. Ramírez, the energy minister, declined repeated requests for an interview. With heavily subsidized domestic oil consumption surging, the government spends an estimated $9 billion to keep gasoline prices under 20 cents a gallon. Moreover, Chávez uses Petróleos de Venezuela to finance other nationalizations, like a $739 million purchase of an electric utility in Caracas. http://www.globalpolicy.org/empire/challenges/general/2007/0410oilshowdown.htmThe New Pacific Wall By Conn Hallinan Foreign Policy In Focus May 30, 2007 Some 230 miles north of Perth, at Geraldton on Australia's west coast, the Bush administration is building a base. When completed, it will control two geostationary satellites that feed intelligence to U.S. military forces in Asia and the Middle East. Most Americans know nothing about Geraldton, just as they know nothing about other Australian sites such as the U.S. submarine communications base at North Cape or the U.S. missile-tracking center at Pine Gap. But there is growing concern Down Under that Prime Minster John Howard's conservative government is weaving a network of alliances and U.S. bases that may one day put Australians in harm's way. According to Australian Defense Force Academy Visiting Fellow Philip Dorling, once the Geraldton base is up and running, it will be almost impossible for Australia to be fully neutral or stand back from any war in which the United States was involved. Indeed, that may already be the case. http://www.globalpolicy.org/empire/intervention/2007/0530pacificwall.htmThe American Empire: 1992 to present from the book Killing Hope by William Blum 2004 edition http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Blum/American_Empire_KH2004.htmlFollowing its bombing of Iraq in 1991, the United States wound up with military bases in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, Oman and the United Arab Emirates. Following its bombing of Yugoslavia in 1999, the United States wound up with military bases in Kosovo, Albania, Bulgaria, Macedonia, Hungary, Bosnia and Croatia. Following its bombing of Afghanistan in 2001-2, the United States wound up with military bases in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Georgia, Yemen and Djibouti. Following its bombing and invasion of Iraq in 2003, the United States wound up with Iraq. This is not very subtle foreign policy. Certainly not covert. The men who run the American Empire are not easily embarrassed. And that is the way the empire grows-a base in every neighborhood, ready to be mobilized to put down any threat to imperial rule, real or imagined. Fifty-eight years after world War II ended, the United States still has major bases in Germany and Japan; fifty ears after the end of the Korean War, tens of thousands of American armed forces continue to be stationed in South Korea. "America will have a continuing interest and presence in Central Asia of a kind that we could not have dreamed of before," US Secretary of State Colin Powell declared in February 2002. Later that year, the US Defense Department announced: "The United States Military is currently deployed to more locations then it has been throughout history." A Timeline of CIA Atrocities By Steve Kangas The following timeline describes just a few of the hundreds of atrocities and crimes committed by the CIA. (1) CIA operations follow the same recurring script. First, American business interests abroad are threatened by a popular or democratically elected leader. The people support their leader because he intends to conduct land reform, strengthen unions, redistribute wealth, nationalize foreign-owned industry, and regulate business to protect workers, consumers and the environment. So, on behalf of American business, and often with their help, the CIA mobilizes the opposition. First it identifies right-wing groups within the country (usually the military), and offers them a deal: "We'll put you in power if you maintain a favorable business climate for us." The Agency then hires, trains and works with them to overthrow the existing government (usually a democracy). It uses every trick in the book: propaganda, stuffed ballot boxes, purchased elections, extortion, blackmail, sexual intrigue, false stories about opponents in the local media, infiltration and disruption of opposing political parties, kidnapping, beating, torture, intimidation, economic sabotage, death squads and even assassination. These efforts culminate in a military coup, which installs a right-wing dictator. The CIA trains the dictator’s security apparatus to crack down on the traditional enemies of big business, using interrogation, torture and murder. The victims are said to be "communists," but almost always they are just peasants, liberals, moderates, labor union leaders, political opponents and advocates of free speech and democracy. Widespread human rights abuses follow. This scenario has been repeated so many times that the CIA actually teaches it in a special school, the notorious "School of the Americas." (It opened in Panama but later moved to Fort Benning, Georgia.) Critics have nicknamed it the "School of the Dictators" and "School of the Assassins." Here, the CIA trains Latin American military officers how to conduct coups, including the use of interrogation, torture and murder. The Association for Responsible Dissent estimates that by 1987, 6 million people had died as a result of CIA covert operations. (2) Former State Department official William Blum correctly calls this an "American Holocaust." http://www.huppi.com/kangaroo/CIAtimeline.htmlStealth Imperialism excerpted from the book Blowback The Costs and Consequences of American Empire by Chalmers Johnson Henry Holt, 2000 p85 The Pentagon's most recent route around accountability is: "privatization" of its training activities. As investigative journalist Ken Silverstein has written, "With little public knowledge or debate, the government has been dispatching private companies-most of them with tight links to the Pentagon and staffed by retired armed forces personnel-to provide military and police training to America's foreign allies." The companies involved are generally associated with the Department of Defense's Special Operations Command, which has replaced the ClA's Directorate of Operations as the main American sponsor of covert action in other countries. Nonetheless, these are privately contracted mercenaries who, by their nature, are not directly responsible to the military chain of command. In many cases, these private companies have been formed by retired special forces personnel seeking to market their military training to foreign governments, regardless of the policies of the Defense Department. One reason privatization appeals to the Pentagon is that whatever these companies do becomes "proprietary information." The Pentagon does not even have to classify it; and as private property, information on the activities of such companies is exempt from the Freedom of Information Act. Given the extreme legalism of American political culture, this is sufficient to shield such companies from public scrutiny, although it would probably not protect them from the new international criminal court. Private companies are at present training the armies of Croatia and Saudi Arabia and are active in Honduras, Peru, and many other Latin American countries. Such firms also purchase weaponry from former Soviet states for distribution to groups that the U.S. government may want to arm without being accused of doing so, such as guerrillas fighting for Bosnia and in Kosovo. ... By several orders of magnitude the United States maintains the world's largest military establishment and is the world's biggest arms exporter. According to 1995 figures released by the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency (whose very name is an Orwellian misnomer and which, in 1998, was absorbed by the State Department), the world spent $864 billion on military forces. Of this amount, the United States accounted for $278 billion, or 32 percent, some 3.7 times more than the then second-ranked country, Russia. The most dramatic cuts in military spending since 1987, the all-time peak year, when $1.36 trillion worth of arms passed from manufacturers to buyers, have come from Russia and other states of the former Soviet Union. The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) reports that in 1997 the U.S. share of global deliveries of major conventional weapons, worth about $740 billion, had grown to 43 percent whereas Russia's share was 14 percent. http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Blowback_CJohnson/Stealth_BCJ.html |
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