Venezuela: Chavez's names ally as defense minister
http://news.yahoo.com/venezuela-chavezs-names-ally-defense-minister-011832331.html;_ylt=Aomh.TBrwVf8bqrEa_gTtve3IxIF;_ylu=X3oDMTRibW51b3YzBG1pdANUb3BTdG9yeSAgV29ybGRTRiBMYXRpbkFtZXJpY2FTU0YEcGtnAzQxNTI0OTA4LTdhNTctMzcxZS05YjBlLWVjZmQzYjE2YTIyMARwb3MDMQRzZWMDdG9wX3N0b3J5BHZlcgM5NTk0OTdhMC0zOGNkLTExZTEtYmVmMy01ZjE5ZmIyODg4NDU-;_ylg=X3oDMTI3Z2FpbDN0BGludGwDdXMEbGFuZwNlbi11cwRwc3RhaWQDBHBzdGNhdAN3b3JsZHxsYXRpbiBhbWVyaWNhBHB0A3NlY3Rpb25zBHRlc3QD;_ylv=3..CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — President Hugo Chavez has named a powerful general questioned by Venezuela's opposition and Washington as his new defense minister.
Gen. Henry Rangel Silva will take over the ministry from Gen. Carlos Mata Figueroa. Rangel was head of the Strategic Operational Command of the Armed Forces.
He angered Venezuela's opposition when he suggested in 2010 that the armed forces would not accept an electoral loss by Chavez.
In 2008, the U.S. Treasury Department put Rangel and three other members of Chavez's inner circle on the Foreign Narcotics Kingpins list. It said they supplied the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia with arms and aided drug-traffickers.
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The imperialists have been gunning for Chavez and his government for ten years! They've spent billions of dollars on "Big Lie" propaganda, threats, plots of every kind, war planning, coup planning, USAID/CIA funding of rightwing causes and "training" of rightwing operatives, "sanctions" (recently), US "war on drugs" war profiteer shit-fits (condemning Chavez for "not cooperating"
, welfare for the Miami mafia and its propagandists, building and beefing up military bases all around Venezuela including dragging the U.S. 4th Fleet out of mothballs, efforts to break up Chavez's alliances with Brazil, Argentina, Bolivia and other countries, the rightwing coup in Honduras (aimed at Chavez), the strongarming of El Salvador to keep it out of ALBA (aimed at Chavez), Pentagon spying, dropping 500 lb U.S. "smart bombs" on the FARC camp on Ecuador's border (aimed at drawing Venezuela into a war), the "miracle laptop" campaign (a very expensive operation including corrupting Interpol), the '$800,000 cash in the suitcase" caper out of Miami (aimed at both Venezuela's and Argentina's presidents and their alliance), and on and on and on.
There are many ways of manipulating voters and buying elections short of outright 'TRADE SECRET' voting machine election theft, as they do here. It would be utterly naive to think that a Chavez election loss was not bought and paid for here.
This is not to say that there is no real opposition in Venezuela and no legitimate criticism of the Chavez government. Of course there are. But the CIA is very good at putting front people into political campaigns whose real aims are expanding U.S. "free trade for the rich" and/or gaining control of important resources such as Venezuela's oil reserves (the biggest reserves on earth--twice Saudi Arabia's--according to the USGS), and, in the case of Venezuela, the lead country in the leftist democracy movement that has swept South America and parts of Central America. The U.S. is playing geo-political war games for economic/political control of entire regions. The region in question--the Pentagon's "circle the wagons" region--is Central America/the Caribbean, in the immediate future, including Venezuela's oil coast and northern oil provinces and Colombia, as the southern rim of the region that the Pentagon thinks that it can control. Long term, the Pentagon's "Southern Command" aims to dominate the entire southern half of the hemisphere for operations across the global south including Africa and Asia, but have run into difficulty with Ecuador throwing the Pentagon out and Bolivia and Venezuela throwing the U.S. ambassadors and the DEA out, and South America in general opposing and resisting Pentagon/U.S. "war on drugs" expansion, with growing opposition to it in Central America as well.
The U.S. war machine wants to break this resistance and break the back of the progressive Leftist movement throughout Latin America, because the chief goals of this movement are sovereignty and independence, "south-south" cooperation to bolster sovereignty and independence, social justice and use of the region's resources to benefit the people who live there. Target No. One in this U.S. Corporate/War Profiteer campaign is Hugo Chavez.
Then there is Exxon Mobil whose execs must go to bed at night after performing "Skull and Bones" ceremonies over Hugo Chavez voodoo dolls. They seethe with hatred of Chavez. They and others like them are no doubt pouring private resources, on top of the billions of dollars in U.S. taxpayer money, into defeating Chavez, one way or another. You don't think they have operatives in the "opposition" who got Venezuela's oil profits poured into their own pockets when Exxon Mobil was in charge? Exxon Mobil just lost their huge ($12 billion) lawsuit against the Chavez government. Means, motive and opportunity. They are gunning for Chavez. They want ALL the oil and ALL the profits (except for the coin they drop in the "opposition"'s pockets" and won't settle for a "level playing field" (such as the Chavez government has created).
It's been a WORLDWIDE campaign to defeat Chavez and the Chavistas. It includes every Corporate 'news' organization on the planet, and numerous transglobal corporations with an interest in slave labor and stealing other peoples' resources and their toady governments. The Bushwhack plan for total war failed. The Clinton/Panetta plan for undermining democracy and achieving the same ends with "color revolutions" may not fail. And it is quite reasonable to presume that, if the Chavez government loses the next election, it will not have been an honest election. Venezuela may have an honest vote counting system--one of the best in the world--but Ronald Reagan got elected here when we still had relatively honest vote-counting--one of the most treasonous and destructive presidents we have ever seen. Filthy money and massive propaganda CAN and do subvert honest vote-counting systems. They have been the primary means of subverting democracy until Diebold came along.
I don't think Chavez will lose the next election. He's been too good a president and has most certainly brought a "New Deal" to Venezuelans. But to ignore the massive U.S.-led global powers bent on defeating his government is beyond sticking your head in the sand. It seems like deliberate blindness. It will be an empty triumph if it happens. Who will it empower? The worst elements in Venezuelan society--the greedbags and exploiters (and worse, fascists who kill, torture and imprison leftists--as we have seen in U.S.-dominated Colombia and Honduras). There may well be some honest "opposition" in Venezuela. They will not be in control, believe me, as the U.S.-backed fascists dismantle Venezuela's "New Deal" and hand Venezuela's oil back over to Exxon Mobil.
