Bush 2 administration officials again seeking to stimulate a regime change

[plurality]

http://www.vheadline.com/readnews.asp?id=14775

WORLD EXCLUSIVE: Bush 2 administration officials again seeking to stimulate a regime change in Venezuela -- question is no longer IF, but WHEN!

VHeadline.com editor & publisher Roy S. Carson writes: Sources in Washington D.C. have revealed that Bush 2 administration officials are again seeking to "stimulate" a regime change in Venezuela after a USA-backed coup d'etat against democratically-elected President Hugo Chavez Frias failed when US puppet dictator Pedro Carmona Estanga moved to dissolve parliament, the judiciary and the constitution in one fell swoop.

Our sources (which must remain confidential, but have been verified) say that Venezuelan nationals, recruited on the promise of fast-track US citizenship and benefits, have been trained in the arts of USA terror tactics at the US Army School of Americas-SOA (renamed 3 years ago as the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation-WHISC) at Fort Benning (Georgia) were relocated to training camps at Iquitos in the northern jungles of Peru under the direction of US Southern Command (Latin America & Caribbean) regional HQ at Fort Buchanan (San Juan, Puerto Rico).

SOA/WHISC commanders are said to be "smarting" over their failure to impose a US-backed military/civilian dictatorship in Venezuela in April 2002 when democratically-elected President Hugo Chavez Frias was swiftly returned to power after US-puppet dictator Pedro Carmona Estanga dissolved parliament, the judiciary and Venezuela's constitution in one fell swoop. Carmona Estanga was not able to control the massive surge against him as millions of Venezuelans took to the streets repudiating his imposition and demanding the return of reformist Chavez Frias.

more...

[acmavm]

1. Does anyone but me think that this is what the people in this country

should be doing? Taking to the streets and demanding the democratically elected president should be in office?

[plurality]

2. you're not alone.

I was wondering where was everybody with the pitchforks and torches after the coup d'etat in 2000.

[Voltaire99]

3. Dems chose to go gentle into that good night

If you want a nation to protest the theft of an election, then there are better ways of inspiring such than voting repeatedly for the Thief-in-Chief's programs.

[plurality]

4. That's the problem when only the top 25% give a shit.

They're too comfortable to care when democracy is destroyed. As long as they still have their SUVs and golf courses.

[Mari333]

17. When I was a kid my dad used to say

"If the people in the US knew the whole truth about what the US govt was up to, they would be down in DC with torches and pitchforks, tar and feathers"..then he said
"As long as Joe and Mary have their TV and some bread, they wont"
This was in the 50s when he said that. It never ceases to amaze me how people sit out a dictatorship. Perhaps its because the US is only a couple hundred years old, and people dont realize how easy peasy it is for one to walk right in to the WH and steal it, etc.
It happened, its happening, and the populace doesnt see the forest for the trees.

[plurality]

18. it almost happened in the '60s

because the corruption and bullshit was actually affecting the middle class as they were having to send their children off to die in a war they knew to be bullshit.

Revolutionary change never occurs until the middle class becomes disaffected. And that's not going to happen until you see former soccer moms having to sell themselves to keep a roof over their heads, midlevel execs having to shoplift their next meal, and riot police beating down White America for asking where it all went. It might not be far off, with things going the way they are now.

[calimary]

20. I've been wondering the same thing.

But that would take backbone. Many in our party are just now rediscovering theirs. And denial is just so much easier...

[plurality]

21. we just have to make sure we don't get fooled again.

[Zhade]

12. Yes.

The problem is, we're all waiting for someone else to take the first step.

[Malva Zebrina]

5. I am getting sooooooo tired

[Kitsune]

6. I'm sorry, but how is this even partially legal?

Am I missing something?

[plurality]

7. everythings legal when you got nuke-u-lar weapons!

That's why it's so important that noone else have them.

[MisterC2003]

8. Legal?

Like stealing U.S. Presidential elections? Like drugs for arms? Like breaking into opposition party headquarters? Like hacking their computers?

Since when do the Republicans give a fuck about what's legal?

[T Bone]

11. to paraphrase Kissinger, a republican, the illegal can be done immediately

but the unconstitutional takes a little longer. Although under this regime the unconstitutional has been fast-tracked for sure.

[mn9driver]

9. I don't have any direct evidence that this story is wrong, but

it smells a little hysterical. US Navy on Aruba? I wish! The Netherlands might have some objection, don't you think? Positioning insurgents in Peru doesn't make much sense either; Colombia is much more under our thumb and it's right next door.

Reich working with opposition leaders in Washington with lots of neocon Administration support? Dirty tricks? Heck yes, that's been going on for three years now. Wanna know why?

Venezuela has oil.

[Judi Lynn]

10. Related material from a different source

(snip).....Professor of International Studies Carlos Romero at the Central University, Venezuela’s leading university, told IPS that the history of Latin America "demonstrates that the United States acts according to the circumstances, and in a scenario of confrontation, a U.S. military intervention cannot simply be ruled out."

But Venezuelan Foreign Minister Roy Chaderton said the confrontation was not likely to escalate, because Caracas and Washington "share innumerable common interests that must be protected and developed, above and beyond the fundamentalist passions of those who admonish us for no reason."

Ranking high among those shared interests are the nearly 1.4 million barrels a day of oil that Caracas exports to the United States—nearly half of Venezuela’s oil sales, which are the lifeblood of the local economy.

Nevertheless, for the first time since Pres. Chavez, a former lieutenant-colonel, took office in 1999, unconfirmed reports have come out that the military high command in Venezuela is studying the scenario of a U.S. invasion.

"The issue of a possible invasion of Venezuela by the United States is not a concern. But that does not mean we are not going to evaluate it," army division General Melvin Lopez, secretary of the National Defense Council, and an officer considered politically close to Pres. Chavez, told the public TV station. "We study and monitor all possible scenarios. We never lose sight of Venezuela’s strategic importance, based on the fact that it has the hemisphere’s biggest oil reserves, and on the country’s mineral and water reserves and its privileged position facing the Caribbean sea."

In Mr. Romero’s view, Washington’s relations with Caracas have entered a fourth stage—confrontation. (snip)

The analyst also pointed to the November elections in the United States, noting that Bush’s bid for re-election means he "must attend to the anti-Castro voter, to whom he promised he would help bring about a quick democratic transition in Cuba, which is now seen as part of a fulcrum with Caracas." (snip)

http://www.finalcall.com/artman/publish/article_1275.shtml

Thanks for posting that article, plurality.

[plurality]

13. no prob. i'm all about throwing some light on the shadow dwellers.

[colonel odis]

14. during the earlier coup nbc had that frank luntz pollster

guy on the scene. what the f-ck for, your guess is as good as mine. he was doing his hardball pieces from down in venezuela that friday.

venezuela has oil. they're not behaving with it the way we'd like them to. so we're fixing to put in a govt we approve of. same sh*t we've been doing since ww2

[plurality]

15. the thing is Venezuela is actually more important to the US than the ME

Everyone thinks that we're so up on controlling the ME because we need their oil. But that's not really the case. We get less than 10% of our oil from the Middle East, but we need to control it because they could produce their oil for around $2 a barrel while everywhere else on Earth it's around $12-14 to produce. So if it were independantly controled they could put the rest of the world's oil producers out of business.

The thing about Venezuela is that they provide us with about 40% of our oil. So if they stopped selling or did something like switching to the euro, we could be equally if not more fucked.

[Wells]

24. "The Revolution will not be Televised"

The recent documentary film about the attempted coup is excellent. I recommend it. Independent Irish film makers were inside the palace before, during and after the coup. Actual film of coup leaders official disbandment of constitutional authorites, and, palace guard counter-offensive as the palace was surrounded by citizen supporters. Woohoo!

Film included march scenes that initiated the coup and sniper fire upon Chavez supporters. Black-clad soldiers doing riot control showed new General Motors vans, equipped for military use and riot gear; the same kind that protesters see during Bush and Cheney campaign stops. Hmmm. US support had to include this equipment and training.

I've been reading, Kevin Phillips, "American Dynasty", Aristocracy, Fortune and the Politics of Deceit in the House of Bush". The Bush Dynasty has been involved in Oil and Autos, weapons of mass destruction and war, finance and intrigue, since WW1, 4 generations. They've gotten away with it because the entire USA Big Business establishment considers War as "business as usual".

[Mari333]

16. Ohhhhh so they are moving troops by 1/3 outta Europe

and then we go steal Venezualas oil too? Is that what this is all about. God help us.

[plurality]

19. afternoon kick

[suegeo]

22. Viva Vin Weber

Everytime one of these stories pops up about a possible coup, I try to post the Minnesota link to the American Coup plotters

http://www.citypages.com/databank/23/1119/article10388.asp

Weber is a wingnut, and now works for a former (?) CIA front organization, the NED.

From the above article:
Weber, a power player in GOP political circles who retired from Congress in 1993, has served as chairman of the board for the obscure but influential National Endowment for Democracy since January 2001. The NED, a private nonprofit agency, was founded in the early Eighties with the express goal of fostering democratic ideals abroad. Although it is funded almost exclusively with taxpayer dollars (to the tune of $33 million annually), the NED is supposed to operate independently of any government agency. Theoretically, this allows the NED to carry out its mission in countries where official U.S. involvement is unwelcome, such as Manuel Noriega's Panama.


Herr Dictator Bush mentioned the NED in his last state of the union address.

Anyway, now I gotta shower, just the mere mention of Vin Weber leaves me feeling very grimey.

[arikara]

23. kick

n/t

[yellowcanine]

25. Not to worry - they will screw it up

Never underestimate the Bush2 administration's ability to screw up an "operation" like this. There is just no way they have the proper intelligence assets or the ability to analyze the intelligence properly if they did have them to pull off something this complicated. The Bushbots in charge of policy in that part of the world (think Otto Reich) are ideologues who have their minds made up of what the reality of that situation is - no facts are going to convince them otherwise. Unfortunately, people most certainly will get hurt/killed if they persist in these dangerous little games, however.