7 January, 2009
On February 9, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said, “I do believe that the president of Venezuela is really, really destroying his own country economically, politically” (sic). Rice also claimed that the Venezuelan Catholic church was “under fire” from the Venezuelan government and that U.S. government officials had met with Venezuelan church authorities. In response, Venezuela’s Foreign Minister Nicolas Maduro said, “No U.S. official has the morality to qualify Venezuelan democracy or the democratic leadership of President Chavez and life in our society.” Maduro might have added that as well as being morally deficient, Rice is also without credibility because she is demonstrably dishonest.
Some Varieties of Rice
As the National Security Advisor to G. W Bush, Rice was key in the administration’s disinformation campaign aimed at gaining public support for launching an illegal and immoral war on Iraq. She invented and hyped stories about “weapons of mass destruction” and “connections to Al Qaeda” at a time where the administration’s own intelligence sources report that there were no WMDs and no connection to al Qaeda.
In late 2001, Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi was captured in Pakistan. He told his interrogators that al Qaeda operatives were training in Iraq in manufacturing chemical agents and poisonous gases. Oddly al-Libi could not name any al Qaeda members who had received such training. Nor could he name any chemical or biological material used, or where the training supposedly occurred. Consequently, in February of 2002, military intelligence warned the Bush administration, in a Defense Intelligence Agency Report (DITSUM No. 044-02) that al-Libi was “intentionally misleading the debriefers.” DIA added, “[al-Libi] was not in a position to know if any training had taken place.” Authors speculated that al-Libi “might have been subjected to harsh treatment [by American officials].” Nevertheless, seven months later, on September 22, 2002, Rice said (on the PBS program News Hour), “We know too that several of the detainees, in particular some high-ranking detainess, have said that Iraq provided some training to al Qaeda in chemical weapons development.”
Who Needs Facts When a Lie Will Do?
According to a Senate Intelligence Report, a CIA report of September 23, 2002 stated that Iraq had no past or present contact with Osama Bin Laden and that Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein considered Bin Laden an enemy. This information came from a high-level member of Saddam Hussein’s inner circle[1] NEVERTHELESS, two days later, on September 25, 2002, Rice said, “We clearly know that there were in the past and have been contacts (sic) between senior Iraqi officials and members of al Qaeda going back for actually quite a long time ... So, yes, there are contacts between Iraq and al Qaeda.”
Recall the infamous “sixteen words” of Bush’s State of the Union speech, January 28, 2003. Bush said, “The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.” In reality, two government-commissioned investigations into the allegations of Iraqi uranium purchases (from Niger) had already belied this statement. One was by General Carlton Telford, Jr., head of the U.S. European Command, the other by former Ambassador Joseph Wilson IV. In March 2002, a CIA official told reporters for Knight-Ridder that the Niger allegations could not be confirmed. In September of 2002, CIA Director George Tenet told members of Congress that the CIA had doubts about the credibility of the report.
On October 2, 2002, the CIA sent two memos to the White House expressing strong doubts about the uranium from Africa claim. The CIA deleted any reference to Iraq’s uranium shopping from Bush’s October 2002 speech in Cincinnati. NEVERTHELESS, Rice told reporters in July of 2003, “If the CIA, the director of central intelligence, had said, ‘Take this out of the speech’, it would have been gone, without question.”
I Don’t Know Nothing About No WMDs
In February of 2001, the CIA delivered a report to the White House that said, “We do not have any direct evidence that Iraq has used the period since Desert Fox to reconstitute its weapons of mass destruction programs.”
On July 21, 2001 on CNN, Rice was speaking of the sanctions against Iraq. She wished to portray them as successful and said, “We are able to keep arms from him (Saddam Hussein). His military forces have not been rebuilt.”
In January of 2002, CIA director George Tenet gave his annual review of global weapons technology. He made NO MENTION of a nuclear threat from Iraq. YET on September 8, 2002 Rice made her infamous comment, “there will always be some uncertainty about how quickly (Hussein) can acquire nuclear weapons, but we don’t want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud.” In October of 2002, the Intelligence and Research Department (INR) of the State Department published a classified report that stated, “The activities we have detected do not add up to a compelling case that Iraq is currently pursuing what INR would consider to be an integrated and comprehensive approach to acquiring nuclear weapons.” Yet on May 15, 2005 Rice stated, “Saddam’s alleged weapons of mass destruction turned out to be based on flawed intelligence. This war came to us, no the other way around” (sic).
At Least She Acts White
Given Rice’s history of rank dishonesty it should come as no surprise that she fabricates as she sees fit. She is seldom challenged by the sycophantic stenographers to power who pose as “journalists.” Yet when she recently made her comments about the Venezuelan Catholic church being under fire, Catholic authorities were quick to repudiate her comments.
Venezuelan Archbishop Roberto Luckert, a frequent Chavez critic, stated, “This lady was way out of line when she said such things that are not true. This is a lie.” Luckert added that the CEV (Conference of Venezuelan Bishops) had met recently and “it has not talked about the fact that the U.S. Ambassador to Venezuela (William Brownfield) or any other U.S. official is concerned about us. I think this lady was very clumsy to speak otherwise.”
Plan Venezuela – Restoring Dictatorship, and the Ministry of Love?
Given the history of American support for dictatorship, Venezuelans might find it disconcerting to have an American official express concern for the state of democracy there. General Juan Vicente Gomez was president of Venezuela for most of the period of 1908-1935. He granted concessions to foreign oil companies and did so at an accelerated pace after oil was discovered in Lake Maracaibo in 1918. Former Venezuelan President Romulo Betancourt wrote that Gomez was “the instrument of foreign control of the Venezuelan economy, the ally and servant of powerful outside interests.” As such, Gomez allowed U.S. oil companies to write Venezuela’s oil legislation to their liking, at one point giving a mere 5% royalty to the state on extracted oil. Corruptions was rampant as speculators and oil company representatives offered handsome bribes to Gomez for oil concessions. (I wonder what the new Iraqi oil law will do?)
Gomez used arbitrary arrests, prison, torture and political murder to maintain his control. Efficient secret police and army organizations relied on unrestricted use of force to ruthlessly crush opponents. All political parties and elections were prohibited. Gomez became the nation’s wealthiest citizen while most Venezuelans continued to live in poverty.
With burgeoning oil operations in the Maracaibo Lake region, the U.S. valued Gomez as a stabilizing force. In the words of author Judith Ewell, “American governments turned a blind eye to the brutalities of the Gomez regime and agreed with national and foreign elites who justified Gomez as necessary.”[2] Michael L. Krenn, author of “U.S. Policy toward Economic Nationalism in Latin America 1917-1929” (Scholarly Resources 1990) quotes a “U.S. diplomat” in Venezuela as arguing that “the Indian peon” should be given “a simple and paternalistic form of government, not formal democracy.” This American official praised Gomez, who had “wisely decided that a benevolent despotism was preferable to an anarchical democracy.”
In 1952, after a democratic interlude, a military coup overthrew the elected government of Romulo Gallegos. The junta appointed General Marcos Perez Jimenez as president. Upon his death in 2001, The Independent (UK) offered an obituary noting, Perez ruled alone, “brooking no opposition nor even criticism from despised civilian politicians, many of whom were assassinated or died in prison.” Perez Jimenez outlawed political activity, crushed the labor movement, and censored the press. During his reign, the CIA and FBI were invited to carry out surveillance of Venezuelan citizens in order to root out “subversives.”[3]
In TIME, February 28, 1955, Perez Jimenez is quoted as saying, “People may call it a dictatorial regime, but my country is not ready for the kind of democracy that brings abuses of liberty.” The South Florida Herald states that Perez Jimenez embezzled $250 million from the state treasury. (Sunday September 24, 2001).
Far from offering public rebuke to their faithful tyrant, in 1954 the Eisenhower administration gave Perez a Legion of Merit medal, the nation’s highest award for “exceptionally meritorious conduct in the performance of outstanding services and achievements.” This “exceptionally meritorious conduct” included generous concessions to U.S. oil companies. According to Judith Ewell, Perez also further opened Venezuela to U.S. imports. The resulting trade deficit favored the United States because the oil money received by Venezuela was circulated back to the United States for consumer goods. There is little doubt as to why Washington never complained about the harsh dictatorship of Perez Jimenez. Profits to Standard Oil, boosted by a low wage/no strikes policy of the dictatorship, were $3.79 billion in the period from 1950-1957.
Democracy with a Side of Rice
When there was a true dictatorship in Venezuela, when her generals served greed and American corporations, American governments always concurred that Venezuelans weren’t ready for democracy, and there was nary a whimper about “human rights violations.” This attitude is seen in the words of former U.S. Minister Franklin W. Wolf, “the people of Venezuela are not yet ready nor adequately prepared for democracy.”[4] Today, however, when there is democratic, constitutional rule in Venezuela, a free and open press and political opposition, official Washington speaks of “threats to democracy” in Venezuela.
Rice was Bush’s National Security Advisor during the anti-constitutional military/civilian coup in Venezuela on April 11, 2002. Leaders in the Venezuelan military, private media, and members of the business community affected a coup d’etat, arresting the legally elected president Hugo Chavez, his cabinet, and members of the Venezuelan legislature. The coup plotters placed Chamber of Commerce head Pedro Carmona in power. Carmona decreed the abolition of the constitution, dissolved the National Assembly, the Supreme Court, the Public Defender’s office, and the Attorney General’s office. Carmona also suspended all governors and mayors elected during the Chavez presidency. The fiats were known as the “Carmona laws.”
The Bush administration gave full diplomatic recognition to the Carmona “government” with no regard for constitutional government or democracy. U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Otto Reich had met with the coup plotters at the White House. Declassified documents reveal that the CIA had first-hand knowledge of the coup and employed “Special Operations Group” personnel to help organize it. Reich, pressured other governments of the hemisphere to follow suit, but only El Salvador complied. But why not? Carmona only discarded a constitution that was the product of lengthy public discussion and debate in the popularly assembly, then ratified by public referendum, winning approval of 71% of voters in 1999.
The Carmona coup was short-lived. Subordinate Army officers did not agree with the abolition of the constitution and all civil institutions because they believed that that would destroy democracy. This sentiment was shared by the one million or so Chavez supporters who surrounded the Miraflores Palace (the presidential residence) to demand the return of their president. Carmona surrendered and left the palace. Chavez returned that same night, receiving a tumultuous welcome.
Some Coups are More Equal than Others
As Chavez returned, Rice, speaking of Chavez, opined, “He really needs to respect constitutional processes.” Read that again. Rice made the comment shortly after the Bush administration had supported a coup that had ABOLISHED that same constitution. Bush administration support for illegality, dictatorship and coups might have been the period of the apogee of neocon triumphalism, when any effrontery could be uttered without restraint or concern about a response from the State Department stenographers posing as journalists OR reality-based thinkers.
After the coup leaders backed down, Venezuela’s opposition attempted a boss’s lockout, “paro patronal,” misnamed a “strike” in America’s corporate media. A primary objective of the paro patronal was to bring oil production to a standstill in order to cripple the economy. Their hope was to create a political crisis that would drive Chavez out of office.
Directors of the national oil company Petroleos de Venezuela (PDVSA), oligarchs, not Chavistas, involved themselves in the paro. Some oil tanker captains also joined. As a result, PDVSA was virtually shut down and petroleum exports were severely diminished: production fell from 2.65 million barrels a day to 250,000 barrels. Overall, the lockout caused $14 billion in losses and a quarterly decline of 28% in gross domestic product at the beginning of 2003. In response, the government sacked existing directors and brought retired PDVSA personnel back. Lower-ranking technicians were promoted to fill the vacated positions. Additionally, technicians from Brazil’s PETROBRAS lent their services. The new personnel were able to restore PDVSA to fully-functioning capacity.
In reviewing the recent history of Venezuela, it appears that it is OUR guys, the Venezuelan opposition, who have tried to destroy their own country politically, economically. These anti-democrats were stopped by a politically conscious people determined to save their own country. As for the state of Venezuelan democracy, a recent opinion poll conducted by the Chilean NGO Latinobarometro shows that a majority of Venezuelans are happy with their democracy. In the 2006 poll, 57% gave that opinion, as opposed to 32% in 1998. Across the rest of the continent, average public support for their elected governments was only 38%. With respect to the economy, according to figures from the private Central Bank of Venezuela (BCV), Venezuela’s GDP growth in 2004 and 2005 was 18.3% and 10.3% respectively. The 2006 figure was 10.2%, an incredibly positive performance given the two-month long oil lockout.
Maybe They Should Debate?
When Rice states that she does not want to get into a “rhetorical contest” with Chavez, it is easy to see why. She is much more at ease with pet poodles of the corporate media: “My FOX guys, I love every single one of them!” she recently chortled after a TV interview. She would naturally flee an unflattering encounter which would shed light on her ignorant and disgraceful remarks.
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Jeffrey A. Crafts lives in McAllen, Texas
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[2] Judith Ewell, Venezuela and the U.S.: From Monroe’s Doctrine to Petroleum’s Empire, University of Georgia Press, 1996)
[3] Time, August 23, 1963
[4] Ewell
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