Venezuela, the Latest ‘National Security Threat’

[Judi Lynn]

March 11, 2015

Looking for Enemies

Venezuela, the Latest ‘National Security Threat’

by DAVE LINDORFF


Seriously? Venezuela is a “national security threat”?

That is what President Obama has reportedly declared today in a new executive order.

And how exactly is poor Venezuela, a nation of 29 million, with a small military upon which it spends just 1% of GDP, one of the lowest rates in the world (the US spends 4.5% of GDP on its own bloated military), a threat to the US?

Well, according to the new executive order, some of Venezuela’s leading officials have “criminalized political dissent” and are corrupt. That’s about it. There’s nothing in there about Venezuela threatening military action against the US, or promoting terrorism, or threatening Americans.

But hold on. I remember reading in documents obtained through Freedom of Information petitions by the Partnership for Civil Justice from the FBI, Justice Department and Department of Homeland Security, that back in the fall of 2011, during the Occupy movement that swept the nation, the US national security apparatus, including the NSA and the 72 so-called Fusion Centers that had been set up to link federal, state and local intelligence organizations in all major US cities devoted most of its domestic intelligence and police resources to spying on, infiltrating, and ultimately crushing a purely peaceful wave of political protest against the rampant corruption of the political class and the banking industry.

More:
http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/03/11/venezuela-the-latest-national-security-threat/

[Judi Lynn]

1. Indespensible ending to the article:

History has shown us again and again that repressive and anti-democratic tactics used abroad inevitably find their way home, where they are then turned against the people of the home country. We’ve seen this happening with the militarization of US police, who now operate in most US communities as if they were occupying troops in a foreign country, carrying military weapons, shooting to kill, breaking into homes in night raids and using brutal force to make the most minor of arrests, treating ordinary citizens as criminals who have no right to speak or to challenge how they or a family member or friend are being treated. We’ve seen it in the massive expansion of domestic spying, and we’ve seen it in the corruption of the courts, where judges in national security trials now deny defendants even the right to present a real defense to a jury, and where higher courts give the government permission to violate almost every Constitutionally guaranteed right in the name of “combatting terrorism” or defending “national security” interests.

And by the way, where does Obama get off claiming that Venezuela’s politicians are corrupt? Corruption is now so prevalent in Washington that it isn’t even hidden. It’s the new normal.

[geek tragedy]

4. Did you take that author's advice and vote for Ron Paul?

http://thiscantbehappening.net/node/979

Better than Obama: Why the Establishment is Terrified of Ron Paul
Tue, 12/27/2011 - 09:13
by:
Dave Lindorff

Not sure why you think posting Ron Paul supporters is a good idea.

[RufusTFirefly]

5. What's the deal? Do you get off on distorting the truth?

Here's an excerpt from the very article you cited:

Libertarianism is at its core an ugly anti-social philosophy of selfishness carried to the extreme. It is the antithesis of all that has been good in human social evolution -- the creation of philosophies of caring and of societies in which suffering and want are addressed and, where possible, ameliorated.

Does that sound like a Libertarian to you?

With all due respect, I hope you don't have any mirrors in your house.

[Judi Lynn]

8. Your post is more appreciated than you can know. So helpful. Thank you. n/t

[RufusTFirefly]

9. You're welcome!

Thanks for all your posts!

[geek tragedy]

10. I'm not the one peddling distortions here.

The author is a lunatic who said he preferred Ron Paul over Barack Obama.

Better than Obama: Why the Establishment is Terrified of Ron Paul
Tue, 12/27/2011 - 09:13
by: Dave Lindorff

...

That said, sometimes it all comes down to a couple of big issues, and in the unlikely chance that the election next November were to end up being the choice between Barack Obama and Ron Paul (and assuming no emergence of a viable Third Party progressive candidate like Rocky Anderson and his Justice Party), while I might have a hard time pulling the lever for Paul unless he can really make it clear he has no truck with White Supremecists and their ilk, it would be easier than pulling a lever for Obama.

Why? Because with President Obama we would get more war, increased military spending, and at the rate he’s been going stripping away our Constitutional rights, there wouldn’t be any of those after another four years. We would also be electing someone who we now know lies through his teeth, who takes money from some of the biggest corporate thieves in human history, and who has appointed some of those very criminals to most or all of the key economic policy positions in his administration.

With Ron Paul as president, at least we’d be done with all the wars, the people of the rest of the world would be finally free of US military interference, including attacks by US drones. The long-suffering Constitution and its Bill of Rights would mean something again. We might even get a Supreme Court justice or two who actually believed that Congress should declare any future wars before we could fight them, and that citizens who were arrested had an absolute right to a speedy trial by a jury of peers. And we’d be electing someone who appears, especially for a politician, to be that rare thing: an honest man who says what he means and means what he says -- and who doesn’t seem to be owned by the banksters.

Progressives would have a hell of a fight on our hands in a Ron Paul presidency, defending Social Security and Medicare, promoting economic equality, fighting climate change and pollution, defending abortion rights and maybe fighting a resurgence of Jim Crow in some parts of the country, but at least they wouldn’t have to worry about being spied upon, beaten and arrested and then perhaps shipped off to Guantanamo for doing it.

Lindorff thinks that Jim Crow is preferable to Barack Obama.

And that Obama would take away all civil rights from everybody?

You know who thinks like that?

The crazies. The militia types.

Dave Lindorff would risk returning Jim Crow to the United States to alleviate his paranoid fantasies about being shipped off to Guantanamo.

Because he's a shitty human being and a lunatic. A left wing Cliven Bundy.

So, if you want to be associated with people who think Ron Paul is a better option than the Democratic Party, and think the return of Jim Crow is a minor downside, go right ahead but don't complain about people drawing their own conclusions.

If you think people who consider Barack Obama to be a 'dictator' are credible voices on his administration, that says plenty.

[RufusTFirefly]

7. Indeed! +1! Thanks for posting, Judi! n/t

[Alkene]

2. Oil.

The Venezuelan government having control over 'our' oil is a national security threat.

[Lodestar]

12. Yes, I think that's the driver of all of this. Plus we are not willing to accept an "independent"

country south of the border. We are still living in the past and want to keep them under our thumbs. Chavez was a renegade because he dared to challenge it.

[geek tragedy]

3. Ron Paul supporter Lindorff is still a psychotic, Obama-hating liar.

I repeat, anyone who believes this:

the US national security apparatus, including the NSA and the 72 so-called Fusion Centers that had been set up to link federal, state and local intelligence organizations in all major US cities devoted most of its domestic intelligence and police resources to spying on, infiltrating, and ultimately crushing a purely peaceful wave of political protest against the rampant corruption of the political class and the banking industry.

is crazier than Ted Cruz multiplied by Tom Cotton to the Michelle Bachmann exponential power.

Not content with that pack of lies, he continues to lie his filthy ass off with this paragraph:

Now it just openly works to overthrow elected governments, as it did in Ukraine last year. Now it openly works to stoke chaos and unrest, as again it is doing now in Ukraine, brazenly undermining the Minsk cease-fire negotiated between the nations of Europe and Russia and the two sides battling in eastern Ukraine by unilaterally offering weapons and military advisors to Kiev’s military and encouraging Kiev’s fascist leaders to continue battling the separatist rebels in the Donbass region

If you love Ron Paul

http://thiscantbehappening.net/node/979

while hating Barack Obama, Dave Lindorff is your guy.

Not sure why any Democrat would be posting stuff from this extremist lunatic.

[Zorro]

14. ...why any Democrat would be posting stuff from this extremist lunatic?

2 possible reasons.

1. Poster isn't a Democrat.

2. Extremist lunatics are appealing to extremist lunatics.

[RufusTFirefly]

6. K & R! n/t

[Judi Lynn]

11. The Coup Americans Don't Know About and Washington's Plan to Destroy Venezuela's Democracy

Talking with Alfredo Lopez:

The Coup Americans Don't Know About and Washington's Plan to Destroy Venezuela's Democracy

Fri, 03/13/2015 - 16:50
by: Dave Lindorff

In an interview Wednesday on the Progressive Radio Network's program "This Can't Be Happening!", TCBH! colleagues Dave Lindorff and Alfredo Lopez talk about the recent coup plot broken up by Venezuelan police, consider President Obama's outlandish and absurd claim that Venezuela, one of the leading suppliers or oil to the US, poses a "unique and extraordinary threat" to US national security, and also discuss Alfredo's contention that the telecom industry has become a counterattack on the Federal Communications Commission's recent decision in favor of net neutrality.

Lopez, a long-time Latino activist and founder of the progressive web hosting service MayFirst/PeopleLInk, reports on how for years, Venezuela has been essentially under attack by US funded right-wingers and oligarchs trying to oust the popular elected government, first of Hugo Chavez, and now his successor Nicolás Maduro. This has included a coup, recently broken up by Venezuelan police, which allegedly had the backing of the US, like the nearly successful one in 2002, when Chavez was actually captured and held hostage by coup leaders until freed by a mass mobilization of the country's poor and its military enlisted ranks.

Lopez notes that the Bolivarian socialist experiment launched by the late President Chavez has been essentially working in a constant state of "impending coup," a US funds and advice have poured into the country from outfits like USAID and the Congressionally funded National Endowment for Democracy (NED) -- subversive organizations that have funded violent protests and riots aimed at destabilizing the existing government, as was successfully done in Ukraine last year.

Lindorff and Lopez talk about what lies behind the absurd claim, made in an executive order Tuesday by President Obama, that Venezuela, a functioning Latin American democracy, poses a threat to US national security. Is this a prelude to military action, as feared by Venezuelan government officials, or just part of a longer-term plan to destabilize and ultimately unseat Venezuela's socialist-minded central government.

More:
http://thiscantbehappening.net/node/2688

[Lodestar]

13. And I think Americans won't buy in if our government is seen as directly attacking a Democratically

Last edited Sat Mar 14, 2015, 04:40 AM - Edit history (1)

elected and historically 'friendly' nation to our south. Covert activity is the only way, and we have become global experts
at covertly creating coups, upheaval and destabilization. I think many Americans DO know in at least a general way that our government has been actively working on Venezuela for a long time (certainly since Bush if not before).

Why declare it a threat? Perhaps it is law/protocol that a country and/or individuals within a country must be officially declared a
threat in order to justify sanctions. I would like those alleged "threats" to be spelled out if that is indeed the foreign
policy we are adopting toward Venezuela, or any other country for that matter.

On edit, yes the 'threat' declarations were in fact a legal step toward sanctions -

The official, who was not allowed to discuss policy publicly and spoke on the condition of anonymity, also said that in order to carry out sanctions of this type, the law required the president to declare the nation whose officials are sanctioned to be a national security threat. The official cautioned that the declaration was meant to meet the legal requirement and did not represent “a recategorization of the actual circumstances in Venezuela.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/10/world/americas/obama-freezes-assets-of-seven-venezuelan-officials.html?_r=0