Venezuela is the one spot in the world where there is optimism

[subsuelo]

...
EG: Benji, why did you leave the military?

Benji: After my first tour in Iraq I was disillusioned and after my second deployment it was obvious. We referred to our ourselves as occupiers. When I got back from the second tour I was convinced that I wouldn’t go back. I volunteered to be an Urban Combat Instructor. I trained several urban combat batallions and one of my teams ended up in Haditha, massacring hundreds of innocent Iraquis in a 3-day exercise. That’s on my conscience. And it’s really sad, people in the marine corp are doing cocaine before morning exercises. After a year, I decided I didn’t want to go back to Irak. I had no idea there was a resistance movement. When you get out, you want to put it all behind you. You don’t want to think about it, you don’t want to remember it, you just want to live a small, quiet life.

Benji: I moved to Oregon and met people from Veterans for Peace. I learned that you don’t have to go back, you can resist. I joined Courage to Resist and I began to broaden my work and speak out against the wars in Afganistan and Iraq.

EG: Why did you come to Venezuela?

Benji: South America is in a position to resist the economic collapse in the US. We also have plans to set up a safety net for friends and people in the US in case the US does turn into a bigger police state domestically. If there is a larger war coming on the planet the people have to choose sides and this is the side I want to be on.

Josh: Venezuela is the one spot in the world where there is optimism. This country is moving in a good direction. In Venezuela there is a lot of really great work going on.

EG: What would you say to the Venezuelan people about the US military buildup in Colombia?

Josh: Be prepared. Neighborhood and popular militias are the most effective way to deter the US – it’s working in Irak, and Afganistan. People with rifles can hold out forever. You’re not going to be able to defeat the US military with tanks and airplanes because they have more than all countries in the world combined. Live up to the creed, socialismo o muerte! Capitalism is in a major state of decline and it’s going to lash out. We have to fight it however we can, it’s the only way to exist. If Venezuela was attacked, and there was an Abraham Lincoln Brigade to defend Venezuela, I would come here in a heartbeat.

Benji: To me it’s obvious the US is gunning for Latin America. Latin America is one big resource for the US, that’s all they see, they see the people as a nuisance. The only thing the US is good at is invading other countries, that’s the only export the US still has, invasion.

Josh: It’s the war that never ends.


PROFILES

• Josh Simpson, 27 years old, was a Sargeant in the US Army Counterintelligence Division. He was in charge of interrogations and source operations in Mosul, Iraq from 2004-2005. His actions resulted indirectly in the deaths of hundreds of Iraquis. Today, Josh is the president of the Fort Lewis Chapter of Iraq Veterans Against the War and is co-founder of Coffee Strong, a GI Coffee Shop that seeks to mobilize soldiers against the war. Josh earned his Bachelor’s Degree in Political Economy from Evergreen University in 2008 and is pursuing a Master’s Degree in Teaching at the same institution. He speaks across the US against the war and US imperialism and is very active in blocking military shipments from leaving the US as a form of direct action war resistance.

• Benji Lewis, 24 years old, is an ex Marine Infantry soldier who did two tours in Iraq, both to Fallujah from 2004-2005. His M-16 mortars killed over 500 people in Fallujah during a three month period. Today, Benji is an outspoken anti-war, anti-Empire activist in Oregon. He is a member of Iraq Veterans Against the War and Courage to Resist. He speaks throughout the US against the war and organizes soldiers to resist deployment to Iraq and Afganistan. Benji is studying English Literature and Philosophy at Lynn-Benton Community College in Corvallis, Oregon and plans to learn Spanish.

This interview was conducted during their first visit to Venezuela as part of an anti-war, pro-peace delegation from the Portland Latin America Solidarity Coalition.

http://www.chavezcode.com/2009/09/venezuela-is-one-spot-in-world-where.html">Eva Golinger -full interviews

[Bacchus39]

1. all the Chavistas here should go

since its obvious they don't care for Obama or the US.

[Peace Patriot]

2. Huh? nt

[subsuelo]

4. and the absurd comment of the day award goes to... Bacchus39!

Congratulations.

[Bacchus39]

7. I managed to beat post#3 on the imaginary war for absurdity. wow!!!

thanks

[drdtroit]

10. ?

[Billy Burnett]

8. Dumb, meet dumber.

Yer with us or agin us.

How's that working out for you?

[Peace Patriot]

3. I agree with these former soldiers that the Pentagon has an oil war plan for South America,

probably designed by Donald Rumsfeld, and I'm pretty sure that war assets are being put in place--including the seven new US military bases in Colombia, the securing of the US military base in Honduras by the rightwing coup, the re-constitution of the US 4th Fleet in the Caribbean last summer (mothballed since WW II), and probably the installation of former Defense Minister Santos as president of Colombia. Santos is the 'Donald Rumsfeld' of South America--he is chafing at the bit to invade Venezuela and Ecuador, kill all the leftists and turn their oil over to Exxon Mobil.

And I wouldn't be surprised if Exxon Mobil was helping the war plan out. In circa 2007, President Chavez of Venezuela re-negotiated Venezuela's oil contracts with the multinationals to get a better deal for Venezuela and its social programs. Previous rightwing governments had basically been giving the oil away, and skimming off some for themselves and Venezuela's rich oil elite--in a 10/90 split of the profits, favoring the multinationals. The Chavez government re-negotiated the contracts several times, with the last one resulting in a 60/40 split, favoring Venezuela. Exxon Mobil walked out of the talks--although other companies (British BP, Norway's Statoil, France's Total remained), went into courts in England and the US and tried to freeze $12 billion of Venezuela's international cash reserves (about a fourth of its wealth). Exxon Mobil got thrown out of court. And I think they hate Chavez with a visceral, Cheney-Rumsfeld type of hatred for sticking up for Venezuela and for daring to use oil profits to benefit the poor.

That's the situation. Our greediest, most murderous, most lawless corporations and their operatives in our government have a plan to take Venezuela's and Ecuador's oil by force, probably, as Rumsfeld suggested, in his op-ed in the Washington Post of 12/1/07, by the local fascist politicians in Venezuela's and Ecuador's northern provinces (where the oil is located), declaring their "independence," in a secessionist move, parading as "freedom fighters," and requesting US/Colombian military support. Thus the US will gain entry into these countries. Rumsfeld urges "swift action" by the US in support of "friends and allies" in South America. I think this is what he meant. This scenario was rehearsed in Bolivia, this last September, when the Bushwhacks were still in office, with the white separatist insurrection, funded and organized right out of the US embassy. It failed largely due to the united action of Chile, Brazil and Argentina, through the new South American "common market," UNASUR, in backing up Morales when he threw the US ambassador out of the country.

There was another rehearsal of war systems earlier in the year, with the US/Colombia bombing/raid on Ecuador, in which they slaughtered 25 sleeping people without benefit trial (a FARC hostage and peace negotiator's camp just inside Ecuador's border). This very nearly started a war between the US/Colombia and Ecuador/Venezuela, but again, cooler heads prevailed--among them, Chavez (whom Brazil's president, Lula da Silva, called "the great peacemaker"). This was prior to formalization of UNASUR, so it was taken to the Rio Group (in both cases, to avoid the OAS and the Bushwhacks' obstructionism), and Colombia's current president, Alvaro Uribe, was raked over the coals, and compelled to apologize and promise that Colombia would never do such a thing again. However, his then Defense Minister, Santos, soon afterward threatened to do exactly the same thing to Venezuela. (Colombia can easily use the FARC guerrillas as an excuse to invade their neighboring countries, Ecuador and Venezuela. It's all set up as another potential trigger for the war.) Santos has since retired his office and is running for president of Colombia (--where, if you raise your head in a leftist cause, you can get it shot off by rightwing paramilitary death squads closely tied to the Colombian military).

The evidence for a war plan is pretty overwhelming. The questions are: 1) How do Obama and Clinton fit into this picture, of a war plan that Rumsfeld left on the desk, that seems to be moving forward on its own volition? (Do they agree with it? Will they shut it down, or try to?) 2) Will the people of the US tolerate another oil war? And, 3) Will the South Americans be able to head it off, or, if it comes to that, win it?

I won't go into my thoughts on Nos. 1 and 2 right now. And I am inclined to answer "yes" to No. 3. The South Americans have never been more united and cooperative, and they have a very positive vision of the future to pull them together and inspire them. I think they will be able to head it off. And if the US instigates a war in the region, and they can't head it off, I think the good guys will win it. And I don't mean us. We are not the "good guys" in Latin America and we never have been. And our Corporate Rulers clearly have no conscience whatsoever about slaughtering hundreds of thousands of innocent people to steal their oil. And that is just the problem. These Corporate Rulers are bankrupt in more ways than one, and desperate. They have nothing inspiring to offer. They've looted us blind. They don't even offer the US prosperity any more. And all they offer South Americans is enslavement, torture, death and squalid corruption, and most South Americans know it. South Americans--for all their troubles--are a peaceful people. They don't want war. And they have shown themselves to be very clever and very adroit at avoiding it several times over the last few years. I think that's the path that will end up victorious--the peaceful path toward social justice and South American (and possibly Central America) economic and political integration, forming a powerful trade block, with all the resources and all the creative, democratic energies that we once had--and the 21st century will be theirs, not ours.

Cheney and Rumsfeld and their cabal wrote the "Project For A New American Century," based on war and greed. They meant the US, not all of the Americas. They could not have written the "Project for a New South American Century," based on peacefulness and social justice. They were the operatives of our bankrupt Corporate Rulers, and what they got us was...bankrupt, both morally and financially. That's where this war plan is going--toward our complete degradation, and unfixable bankruptcy in every respect. Hitler, too, thought his war machine was unbeatable. It wasn't.

I want to say something about the tone of these former soldiers' comments. I can understand their anger and their idealism--their desire to find something to defend that is worthy of their youthful ardor and young warrior energy. But we really and truly, as a species, have reached the end of the line, as to our planet's ability to sustain us. War is therefore something that should be avoided at almost any cost. We don't have the "luxury" of war. Our time here is very limited--maybe a couple of decades before the planet is unlivable. Every wily means must be used; every trick; every cleverness; every effort to head this war off, and even if it means temporary humiliation, and backing down on some things, it will be worth it, in the end. This war, which must look so easy to the Pentagon--all this "undefended" oil right in our own "back yard"--will NOT be easy, and will be suicidal for us all. We must stop having resource wars and begin sharing resources and ideas. I said above that it will be South America's century, but, really, if they get drawn into a war with the US, it will be nobody's century. They may well win it, but what will they have won? The South Americans have better democracies than our own, and far more responsive leaders. We have shown that we cannot prevent a corporate resource war on this end. So they must do it. They must prevent it. So I would like to see these young people stop talking of war, and start talking of how to prevent a war, and helping the South Americans, in whatever way they can, to do so. War is hell at any time. They know this. But war now will be the last war. If we do not put all of our energies into saving the planet, it's all over for us. Somehow it must be prevented.

[subsuelo]

5. and, in stark contrast to reply #1

we have one of the most well-informed, insightful posts!

Peace Patriot - sometimes I am of the mind that whatever the U.S. corporate elite want, they get, and it's only a matter of time before their plans come to fruition. In other words, there isn't anything that can prevent them from getting their way. So for example, the anti-Chavez rhetoric spewed by mainstream media is simply buttering us all up for the inevitable - war, invasion, ousting... who knows what else. Psy-ops is so powerful these days. We have good decent people in the U.S. actually getting all worked up because a president talked to school kids today. I mean, just think about that. It's so utterly absurd that you realize the sheer power of these right-wing propaganda campaigns. We have smart, decent Americans going around saying totally ridiculous things, chanting slogans and fiercely believing in the absurdities they're being told to promote! And even an entire 'opposition' party (supposedly the Democrats) stands by, powerless to stop it. Each day it seems right-wing corporate propaganda is setting records in achieving new levels of brainwashing of the public mind. The *only* way to shut it down, is to, well, shut it down. But, no, we won't be having any of that here. Oh, no, that's just trampling on freedom of speech! That's communist style smashing of cherished American freedoms! We here in the U.S. love our propaganda and our nationalist myths. So much so that we'll all go down fighting against our own best interests...

[Peace Patriot]

9. Well, that has been our experience so far--that whatever our Corporate Rulers want, they get.

My point is that they are morally and financially and intellectually bankrupt. They are out of ideas, as well as everything else. And all they can do now is further squeeze the people of the U.S.--and whatever other peoples' they can get their vulture talons into--and there ain't nothin' left in this lemon, the U.S. economy, and others are resisting them, especially in South America, because they have been squeezed down to nothing before, and they know what this is about. We mustn't use past as prologue. South America, if anything, should teach us that. It doesn't necessarily work that way.

I have been thinking about this for a long time--as I'm sure you have as well--and one of the things that struck me about the Bush Junta was its economic insanity. I concluded, at one point, that they are simply thieves, on a massive scale. They have no other plan than that. They don't believe anything they say or preach. They are complete cyphers, who will say anything at all, to cover their thievery. They are not, in other words, comparable to Hitler or Napoleon. They have no "grand scheme." They are not building up to something--as with Hitler first creating a monstrous manufacturing base in Germany, then conquering neighbors for resources and cheap labor, then conquering the world. They seemed to be doing the opposite--destroying our manufacturing base; destroying our economy; destroying us as an instrument of grand schemes. And what would be the motive for that? Theft. Personal enrichment.

Of course, there was a continuum from Clinton to Bush on the outsourcing of our manufacturing capability, and to some extent on deregulation, but the Bushwhacks took everything to the extreme--outsourcing of manufacturing and jobs, massive deregulation of banks and financial institutions, massive deficit spending, massively corrupt "no bid" contracts, massive squandering of everything in sight--lives (thousands of our young people dead, tens of thousands injured, hundreds of thousands of others killed), our good will in the world, democracy, the rule of law, the patience and good citizenship of our own people, the squandering of oil (for the war), of our technological expertise--just about all we've got left--squandered on killing and spying--environmental deregulation--the work of forty years and both parties--eviscerated, on a dying planet--our educational system, once the wonder of the world, de-funded to pay for war and to line the pockets of the rich--an unprecedented, humungous looting of the country that has left us all gasping.

Hitler's creation of a mighty manufacturing base wasn't enough against democratically inspired people. But to expect to achieve world domination without it is incomprehensible. I couldn't figure out what they were doing. Looting the country that they intended to use to straddle the world? Nor did they ever even try very seriously to sell their lies to the people whom they would depend upon to create their Reich. In fact, their propaganda failed. On the eve of the Iraq invasion, nearly 60% of the American people opposed that war (Feb '03, all polls). Their propaganda was merely gauze--a thin narrative for the corpo/fascist media to spin out, covering their complete illegitimacy. You see any crowds of millions sieg heiling to Bush? They could barely assemble a crowd of blue-haired old ladies, carted in on buses, for him. The Bush Junta did not even have the legitimacy (if one could call it that) of masses of 'good Germans' approving of his mad policies. They had to manufacture votes, via Diebold & brethren, in 2004, to maintain the illusion of support. There was nothing there that the majority could believe in, even in a delusional state (Hitler's mesmerized massive crowds). There was never any intention to convince anyone--rather, the intention was to suspend reality long enough to loot everyone blind. I still pretty much believe this--even though there are now signs and portents of a Bushwhack return.

But what is there left to loot?

The US military, to be sure. That could be squeezed some more. And that may be what the Pentagon's South American plan is all about--one last hijacking of the US military to try to corner more of the world's oil.

But, you know what? That was Hitler's mistake--invading Russia. Overreaching. And I think that's what has happened with our Corporate Rulers. They are no match for a democratically inspired people--whether our own people, if they should ever get inspired, or the people of Latin America, who clearly are inspired. Maybe if they had invaded Venezuela in 2003, and not Iraq, it might be different. But they have stretched the patience of the world--here, in this country, in Latin America, and everywhere else--to the breaking point. They have no more good will to squander, no more fat treasury to loot, no more "golden goose" to kill, no more Financial 9/11's they can pull, no more bailouts to be had, and damn few "friends and allies" (just the worst fascist fuckwads they can find--Uribe, Santos in Colombia, that other obscenity, Garcia in Peru, the sheiks of Araby). Yes, they can cause a lot of grief. No, they cannot win. Their time is over. We are looking at the end of Corporate Rule.

I don't think we are looking the beginning of anything, but rather at the end, the Final Looting--begun maybe way back in the Korean War, and brought to full fruition under Bush/Cheney. And this cannot go on. You cannot endlessly loot a country. And you cannot keep invading others, at least in the current world, before the world begins to seriously fight back. Oil War II-South America, if they take things that far, will mean the quick demise of the global corporate predators and war profiteers who have been running things here. But they are on the skids even without such a wild misjudgment. Like the Catholic Church at the end of the Middle Ages--which ruled as the pervasive influence over Europe for ten centuries, so pervasive that it was the very 'air people breathed,' the unquestioned 'ticket to heaven'--our Corporate Rulers will be overturned, I think sooner rather than later. They have already gone too far.

And I only hope that the revolution against them here follows the peaceful, democratic path of the revolution against them in Latin America. Restoring transparent vote counting here (as they have there) would be a good start.

----------------------

(Note: You worry about the American idiots spouting idiocies that are not in their own interest. I don't credit these "tea baggers." I think it's a corpo/fascist media show. Yeah, there are some stupid Americans. And if you put a camera on this stupid minority, they can start to seem much bigger and more important than they are. The corpo/fascist media did the same thing in the leadup to the Iraq War, completely ignoring the huge majority that was against it. I don't call them the "corpo/fascist" media for nothing. They really ARE corpo/fascists--trumpeters of fascism in the interest of global corporate predators. They're doing this everywhere they have gotten monopolies over news and opinion. They do it in Venezuela! It's even worse there than here. But it means nothing as to what most people believe and what is in the interests of most people. I think most Americans are kind of depressed about this--one of the corpo/fascist media's intentions--to disempower and demoralize the majority. But guess what? Venezuelans elected a good government anyway. It can be done--once we restore transparent vote counting.)

[BolivarianHero]

12. Thank you for saying far better than I ever could...

Hugo Chavez and the Bolivarian Movement offer a new vision and positive energy for the people of Latin America; I have a friend from Grenada who's centrist, hostile to organized labour, and sides with the right on questions of student politics here at Carleton, and yet he sees what American and multinational imperialism have to his part of the world and the regions that surround it and is proud of the fact that his first homeland had joined the Bolivarian fold. ALBA and Bolivarianism transcend ideology in some case. In addition to the leftists and indigenous radicals that are typically associated with the Movement, here are centrist, liberal, and social democratic leaders (along with even the odd reactionary, depending on what opinion one holds of Daniel Ortega and the pathetic descent to misogyny and ultramontanism that has defined the Sandinista movement in recent years) from Central and South America who have joined hands with Chavez and with the Venezuelan people in their quest to build a more just Latin America and a more just world.

It is this path that I celebrate and that I promote every moment I wear my Hugo Chavez T-shirt and every time I discuss this movement.

[Vidar]

6. K&R. Latin America is actuall making the world a better place.

[Judi Lynn]

11. These men probably yearn for a more life-supporting environment. Glad they found it. n/t