Friday, March 16, 2007

Another Ludicrous Week

Or Big Chief Buffalo Nickel



Above: “May the Force be With You”

So much for the Democratic primary for now. The primaries take place in about a year.

A PRESIDENTIAL TRIP

It is common practice for American Presidents when they have problems at home to take an international trip. Traditionally, the reception by the dignitaries, the welcome of the crowds, and the media attention combine to boost popularity. So, our President decider (he is The Decider) to visit Latin America. Dan Quayle, another Republican, once visited the area and said, essentially, that it was so wonderful that he wished he had paid more attention to Latin when he was in school

Well, the Decider’s Trip was pretty strange. He was shaded by Hugo Chavez, the President of Venezula (whom the U.S. tried to overthrow) who got hugely more exhuberant crowds and gave much more colorful speeches. The trip illustrated clearly the damage done by this administration.

Bush also spoke some in Spanish. The Spanish-speaking interlocutors seemed very confused. I imagine his Spanish is worse than his English.

At Walter Reed, the conditions for soldiers were exposed so he had to fire the General running it. Unfortunately, that guy had only been there 6 months, not really enough time for an upper-level administrator to move from reactive to proactive mode. He was replaced by one who had been there two years and who was aware of the conditions. He was replaced also.

Of course, things are a bit of a mockery here as well. His attorney General is under attack for firing prosecutors on political grounds. Gonzlaes, who we featured recently, lied to Congress about it. Bush “sort of” defended him. He will be gone, but it is doubtful Bush can find anyone he likes that this Congress would approve as his replacement. Pace, General in Chief, said gays were immoral and that they had better shut up about it.

Below are 4 articles covering a few things in a bit more depth:

1. The translation of a full-length speech by Chavez as our media only presents snippets that make him sound weird. His sentiments are held by most of Latin America.

2. An early analysis of the trip. See whether you think the forecast turned out and decide what it implies for the future.

3. How the Church(es) view the conflict.

4. From Tomgram: A warning about the war with Iran and how it has been ignored. It will be a greater disaster than Iraq. How Semour Hersch is ignored.

********************************************************************

1) Hugo Chavez to George W. Bush: Gringo Go Home

2) *Bush Trip to Counter Chavez is Destined to Fail*

*by Roger Burbach; March 10, 2007

3) *Hugo Chavez’s Holy War*

*by Nikolas Kozloff; March 11, 2007

4) Tomgram: The Seymour Hersh Mystery

********************************************************************

Democracy Now! http://www.democracynow.org

Hugo Chavez to George W. Bush: Gringo Go Home

Monday, March 12th, 2007

http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=07/03/12/1425228

As President Bush tours Latin America, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez

spoke before tens of thousands at an anti-imperialist rally in Argentina

of Friday. We broadcast excerpts of Chavez's stinging attack on Bush who

was in Uruguay, just thirty miles away across the River Plate. [includes

rush transcript]

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

President Bush has arrived in Guatemala for the second-to-last stop of

his five-nation tour of Latin America. He is meeting with Guatemalan

President Oscar Berger for talks expected to be dominated by immigration

and free trade issues.

Bush's visit to the region has been marked by mass protests and marches.

In Brazil on Thursday, thirty thousand people took to the streets. The

next day in Uruguay, some six thousand marched in the capital of

Montevideo. In Bogota, police made one hundred twenty arrests when five

thousand protesters marched just one mile from where Bush held talks

with Colombian president Alvaro Uribe. Bush will travel to Mexico later

today for the last leg of his tour.

While many analysts agree the president's trip is part of an effort to

gain back influence in the region, the White House has sought to portray

the tour as part of a humanitarian effort to address issues of poverty.

Last week in Washington, President Bush spoke before the US Hispanic

Chamber of Commerce.

* *President Bush*

President Bush speaking in Washington last week. In addition to the mass

protests to his presence in the region, Bush has been dogged by

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez who is on a counter-tour of Latin

America at the same time. In fact, Chavez has practically shadowed Bush

since the beginning of his trip. When Bush was in Uruguay Friday, Chavez

held a massive rally in neighboring Argentina. When Bush flew to

Colombia, Chavez addressed thousands in Bolivia. While Bush is in

Guatemala, Chavez is again close by in neighboring Nicaragua.

During a mass rally in Buenos Aires on Friday, the Venezuelan president

launched a stinging attack on Bush who was in Uruguay, just thirty miles

away across the River Plate.

* *Hugo Chavez*

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

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

RUSH TRANSCRIPT

*AMY GOODMAN: *President Bush has arrived in Guatemala for the

second-to-last stop of his five-nation tour of Latin America. He is

meeting with Guatemalan President Oscar Berger for talks expected to be

dominated by immigration and free trade.

Bush's visit to the region has been marked by mass protest and marches.

In Brazil Thursday, 30,000 people took to the streets. The next day in

Uruguay, some 6,000 marched in the capital of Montevideo. In Bogota,

police made 120 arrests when 5,000 protesters marched just one mile from

where Bush held talks with the Colombian President Alvaro Uribe. Bush

will travel to Mexico later today for the last leg of his tour.

While many analysts agree the President's trip is part of an effort to

gain back influence in the region, the White House has sought to portray

the tour as part of a humanitarian effort to address issues of poverty.

Last week in Washington, President Bush spoke before the US Hispanic

Chamber of Commerce.

*PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH: *You know, not far from the White

House, there?s a statue of the great liberator Simon Bolivar. He?s

often compared to George Washington -- Jorge W. Like Washington,

he was a general who fought for the right of his people to govern

themselves. Like Washington, he succeeded in defeating a much

stronger colonial power. And like Washington, he belongs to all of

us who love liberty. One Latin American diplomat had put it this

way: ?Neither Washington nor Bolivar was destined to have children

of their own, so that we Americans might call ourselves their

children.?

We are the sons and daughters of this struggle, and it is our

mission to complete the revolution they began on our two

continents. The millions across our hemisphere who every day

suffer the degradations of poverty and hunger have a right to be

impatient. And I'm going to make them this pledge: The goal of

this great country, the goal of a country full of generous people,

is an Americas where the dignity of every person is respected,

where all find room at the table, and where opportunity reaches

into every village and every home. By extending the blessings of

liberty to the least among us, we will fulfill the destiny of this

new world and set a shining example for others. /Que Dios les

bendiga/.

*AMY GOODMAN: *President Bush, speaking in Washington last week. In

addition to the mass protests to his presence in the region, Bush has

been dogged by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, who?s on a counter-tour

of Latin America at the same time. In fact, Chavez has practically

shadowed Bush since the beginning of his trip. When Bush was in Uruguay

on Friday, Chavez held a mass rally in neighboring Argentina. When Bush

flew to Colombia, Chavez addressed thousands in Bolivia. When Bush was

in Guatemala, Chavez is again close by in neighboring Nicaragua.

Today, we?re going to play an excerpt of one of Chavez's speeches, this

at the mass really in Buenos Aires on Friday. The Venezuelan president

launched a stinging attack on Bush, who was in Uruguay, just thirty

miles away across the River Plate.

*PRESIDENT HUGO CHAVEZ: *[translated] On the other side of the

river, that is where that little gentleman of the North must be.

Let's give him a big boo! Gringo, go home!

I am convinced that our friends in Brasilia and in Montevideo are

not going to feel offended, because we would not want to hurt any

of our brethren from Uruguay or Brazil. We recognize their

sovereignty. We recognize that those governments have the

sovereign right to invite the little gentleman of the North, if

they so choose.

But Kirchner and I don't need to plan anything to sabotage this

visit, because we are witnessing the true political cadaver. The

President of the United States is a political cadaver. He doesn't

even smell of sulfur anymore. He doesn't even smell of sulfur or

brimstone, if you will. No longer. What you smell from him now is

the stench of political death. And not long from now, he will turn

to dust and disappear. So we don't need to put forth any effort to

sabotage the visit of the President of the United States to some

countries, sisters countries of Central and South America, of

course. We don't need to do that. It's a simple coincidence, the

visit of Nestor to Venezuela and our visit here to Buenos Aires.

Well, we nevertheless need to thank that little gentleman that's

visiting us, because if he were not here in South America, perhaps

this event would not be so well-attended. We have organized this

event to say no to the presence of the chief of the empire here in

the heroic lands of South America.

The imperial little gentleman that's visiting Latin America today

said about seventy-two or forty-eight hours ago in one of his

speeches, when he was announcing that he was leaving for Latin

America, he compared Simon Bolivar to George Washington. In fact,

he even said the ridiculous thing -- and I can't say it's

hypocrisy, because it is simply ridiculous, the most ridiculous

thing he could say. He said, today we are all children of

Washington and Bolivar. That is, he thinks that he is a son of

Bolivar. What he is is a son of a -- but I can't say that word here.

So he has said -- he has said -- and you should listen to what he

said here -- he said that now is the time to finish the revolution

that Washington and Bolivar commenced . How's that for heresy?

That is heresy and ignorance, because we have to remember -- and I

say this with all due respect to George Washington, who is

historically one of the founding fathers of that country -- but we

must also remember the differences and how different George

Washington and Simon Bolivar were, are and will always be.

George Washington won a war to gain the independence of the North

American economic elite from the English empire, and when

Washington died, or, rather, after his independence and after

having been the president of the United States, after ordering the

massacre of the indigenous peoples of North America, after

defending slavery, he ended up being a very rich owner of slaves

and of a plantation. He was a great landowner. That was George

Washington.

Simon Bolivar, however, was born with a silver spoon, and at eight

years old his parents died and he inherited a large fortune,

together with his brothers, and he inherited haciendas and slaves.

Simon Bolivar, when history led him -- and as Karl Marx said, men

can make history, but only as far as history allows us to do so --

when history took Bolivar and made him the leader of the

independence process in Venezuela, he made that process

revolutionary. Simon Bolivar turned over all of his land. He freed

all of his slaves, and he turned them into soldiers, and he

brought them here. He brought them to Peru and Carabobo, and he

worked together with the troops of San Martin to liberate this

continent. That is Simon Bolivar.

And Simon Bolivar, having been born with that silver spoon in his

mouth, when he died on the Caribbean coast of Colombia, when he

died on December 17 in 1830, he was dressed with a shirt of

someone else, because he had no clothes. Simon Bolivar is the

leader of the revolution of this land. He is the leader of the

social revolution, the people's revolution, the historical

revolution. George Washington has nothing -- nothing -- to do with

this history.

It was in 1823 that James Monroe said, "America for the

Americans." And when I say this tonight, I say it because I want

to remind you, my brothers of Argentina, of Venezuela and of

America, that the presence of the President of the United States

in South America represents all of that. He represents that Monroe

Doctrine of America for the Americans. Well, we will have to tell

him: North America for the North Americans and South America for

the South Americans. This is our America.

The President of the United States, that political cadaver -- and

when I say political cadaver, he would like to see me as a real

cadaver -- I want him to be a political cadaver, and he already is

a political cadaver. The President of the United States has the

lowest level of credibility and acceptance from his own people. He

is the current president of the United States.

It would appear that he doesn't even dare mention my name, because

he was asked in Brasilia today in a press conference -- I saw it,

I watched it at the hotel -- and the journalist asked him, ?It is

said that you are here to stop Chavez's movement in South

America.? And it looked like he almost had a heart attack when he

heard "Chavez," because he actually stuttered a couple of times,

and he actually changed the subject. He didn't answer the

question. He didn't answer the question at all. So he doesn't even

dare.

And I definitely dare to say his name. The President of the United

States of North America, George W. Bush, the little gentleman of

the North, the political cadaver that is visiting South America,

that little gentleman is the president of all the history of the

United States, and in the history of the United States, he has the

lowest level of approval in his own country. And if we add that to

the level of approval that he has in the world, I would think he's

in the red now -- negative numbers.

*AMY GOODMAN: *Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez in Argentina on Friday,

speaking before a mass rally of tens of thousands of people -- an

excerpt of that address. When we come back, response to the Latin

American trip with Greg Grandin, who is author of /Empire?s Workshop/, a

professor in Latin American studies. We'll also speak with Steve Ellner,

just back from Venezuela. Stay with us.

www.democracynow.org

*************************************************************

2)

*ZNet | Latin America*

*Bush Trip to Counter Chavez is Destined to Fail*

*by Roger Burbach; March 10, 2007*

Bush's trip to Latin America is a calculated effort to counter

Hugo Chavez's growing influence in the region and to separate

the "bad left" from the "good left", namely Uruguay and to some

extent Brazil. He hopes to add them to the dwindling bloc of

pro-US nations, including Colombia, Guatemala and Mexico which

he is visiting.

From the beginning the trip is provoking wide spread opposition.

He will be greeted by demonstrators in Montevideo, Uruguay who

are opposed to the special trade agreements being negotiated

with the government of Tabare Vasquez. Even members of his

ruling party, the Broad Front, are active in organizing the

demonstration.

Across the border in Argentina, which Bush will not visit,

massive demonstrations are being organized to coincide with his

stay in Uruguay. And to add insult to injury, Hugo Chavez, is

flying in to take part. While President Nestor Kirchner will not

be participating, lower level government officials are. This

comes on the heels of a series of commercial and economic

accords that Kirchner just signed with Chavez on a trip to

Caracas, including the founding of the Bank of the South, which

is seen as an alternative to US dominated institutions like the

Inter-American Development Bank.

In Colombia and Guatemala, Bush will try to prop up governments

shaken by recent political scandals. And in Mexico, his trip is

designed to assist Felipe Calderon, one of the last presidents

in Latin America to back the orthodox neoliberal free trade

policies of Washington. His narrow election victory last year is

widely perceived as fraudulent.

On the eve of Bush's trip the White House declared that he wants

to "promote peace and prosperity" and that he will dispense $75

million for a new education program for Latin Americans to study

in the United States and $385 million for programs promoting

home ownership. These are token programs at best, and will do

nothing to relieve the poverty and growing income disparity in

Latin America.

New blows to US policy have come in the days leading up to

Bush's trip. Panama has announced it will not sign the free

trade agreement with Washington that was being negotiated. And

in Nicaragua the new government of Daniel Ortega has just set up

a special commission with Venezuela that will oversee the

implementation of 15 economic accords, particularly in the areas

of energy, agriculture, education and health. A special

initiative aimed at alleviating hunger will receive $54 million

and $21 million will go to education and building schools.

Investments are also being planned to modernize Nicaragua's

electric plants, to construct an oil refinery, and to refurbish

Nicaragua's main international port, Puerto Cabezas.

In South America a radical axis of nations intent on

implementing profound social reforms at home and opposing US

intervention in the region appears to be taking shape, comprised

of Venezuela, Bolivia and the recently elected government of

Rafael Correa in Ecuador. Correa has rejected any free trade

agreement with the United States and has announced he is closing

down the US base on South America's Pacific Coast located at

Manta. Ostensibly set up to help monitor narco-trafficking over

the ocean and the nearby Amazon basin, it has become a major

operations center for US intelligence gathering and for

coordinating counterinsurgency efforts against the leftist

guerrillas in neighboring Colombia. Upwards of 475 military

personal are continually rotated between Manta and the US

Southern Command headquarters based in Florida.

The Ecuadorian Minister of Foreign Relations, Maria Fernanda

Espinoza, in announcing the base will be officially closed in

2009, declared: "Ecuador is a sovereign country. We don't need

foreign troops on our soil."

All three countries are raising the banner of socialism. In

Venezuela Hugo Chavez is intent on leading the country to a "new

socialism for the twenty-first century." In Bolivia Evo Morales

governing party is called Movement Towards Socialism, a "party

of a new type" comprised largely of social movements. And in

Ecuador, Rafael Correa in his inaugural address in January

called for an opening to the "new socialism for the twenty-first

century" and declared that Ecuador has to end "the perverse

system that has destroyed our democracy, our economy and our

society."

When Bush returns and finds out that his trip has done little to

alter the growing leftist trend of Latin America, the iron fist

of the new Deputy Secretary of State, John Negroponte, will take

control of US policy. Negroponte as ambassador to Honduras

helped run the contra war in Nicaragua in the 1980's, which

murdered thousands of innocent civilians in Honduras as well as

Nicaragua, and he is known to believe that more aggressive

measures have to be taken against Chavez and the gathering storm

in Latin America. He comes to his new post after serving as

Director of National Intelligence, and prior to that ambassador

in Bagdhad. Given that Condoleezza Rice has little expertise in

Latin America, Negroponte will set policy for the region,

overriding the few remaining moderates in the State Department's

office of Hemispheric Affairs.

With Negroponte we can expect a marked increase in US covert

operations, aimed not only at Chavez in Venezuela, but also at

the other governments and the popular movements in the region

that are leading the charge against the historic US domination

of Latin America and are bent on constructing more equitable

societies.

Roger Burbach is director of the Center for the Study of the

Americas (CENSA) and a Visiting Scholar at the Institute of

International Studies, University of California, Berkeley. He is

co-author with Jim Tarbell of " Imperial Overstretch: George W.

Bush and the Hubris of Empire," His latest book is: " The

Pinochet Affair: State Terrorism and Global Justice."

3)

*ZNet | Venezuela*

*Hugo Chavez’s Holy War*

*by Nikolas Kozloff; March 11, 2007*

When Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez recently took his oath of

office for a second term, he swore it in the name of Jesús

Christ, who he called “the greatest socialist of history.” It’s

hardly an accident that Chavez would hark on Christianity in

addressing his people. For years, Venezuela has been a

religious battleground, with Chavez pursuing a combative

relationship with the Catholic Church.

In Venezuela, Catholics have a potent political voice and make

up about 70% of the country’s population. Ever since taking

office in 1999, Chavez has repeatedly clashed with the clergy.

The President frequently chastised Venezuelan bishops, accusing

them of complicity with corrupt administrations that preceded

his rule.

To a certain extent, a clash was inevitable. Unlike some other

Latin American countries which were characterized by so-called

liberation theology, the Venezuelan Church has never had a

leftist tendency. According to observers, as few as one in 10

priests identify with the left and out of more than 50 bishops

only a handful are sympathetic to Chavez.

*The Venezuelan Church: A Bastion of Conservatism*

Despite the conservative nature of the Church, relations between

the clergy and the Chavez government got off to a reasonably

good start. After he was first elected in 1998, Chavez

proclaimed his devotion to the Church and Catholic social

doctrine. Venezuelan bishops in turn supported the social

programs that Chavez had outlined during his presidential

campaign. Bishops welcomed Chavez’s calls to end corruption, to

foster a more equitable distribution of wealth, transparent

voting, and an end to the ruling class’ special privileges.

Thing went awry, however, in July, 1999 when Chavez personally

met with Monsignor Baltazar Porras at the headquarters of the

Episcopal Conference. Porras, the Archbishop of the Andean city

of Merida and chairman of the Episcopal Conference, met with

Chavez for two hours.

Emerging from the meeting, Porras declared that the Venezuelan

government had opted to cut its traditional subsidies to the

Church by up to 80%. The new rules, Porras said, would oblige

clerical authorities to adjust to “the new realities of the

country, and to figure out how to search for self financing.”

Porras became a vocal critic of the regime; in Caracas he

received the backing of the Papal Nuncio, Monsignor André Dupuy.

Another point of friction was Chavez’s calls for a new

Constitution. Church leaders feared that Chavez’s secret agenda

in calling for the new constitution was the imposition of a

Cuban-style communist regime. Porras declared that Chavez was

fomenting "fear and hate" and dividing Venezuelans in his

campaign to draft a constitution.

*Traveling to Merida*

Recently I was in Caracas to give a talk and decided to take a

night bus to Merida, a city located about seven hundred

kilometers south-west of the capital. I was eager to learn more

about the Church in Venezuela, and how its relations had

deteriorated so dramatically with Chavez.

I drifted off to sleep in the bus. Climbing up and down through

the mountains, the landscape was dotted with cacti. By the next

day, exhausted from the trip, I made my way to a /posada/ or inn

near the Central Square. Five years earlier, I’d stayed in the

same place while pursuing research for my dissertation on the

foreign oil industry in Venezuela.

Merida is a favored tourist destination and feels like a

Venezuelan version of Switzerland with hotels, cyber cafes and

vegetarian restaurants appealing to foreigners. In the main

square of the city, Venezuelan hippies in their twenties play

guitar and sell artisan work. Despite its traditional religious

outlook, Merida also has a university which has had a long

tradition of leftist politics.

A few days after recuperating from my long trip, I headed to the

Cathedral in Merida’s central square. There, I spoke with

Monsignor Alfredo Torres, General Vicar of the local

Archdiocese. A long time fixture of the local church

establishment, Torres went into the seminary when he was fifteen

years old.

When I asked Torres how relations had deteriorated so badly

between Chavez and Porras, the local clergyman explained, “The

militarist, socialistic bent of the government was always a

critical point for the Archbishop.”

*Church-Military Relations Break Down*

By 2000, the role of the military had certainly become a

controversial political issue. During his first year in power,

Chavez, himself a former paratrooper, faced a very unenviable

political environment. Congress and the Supreme Court were in

the hands of the opposition, as were the majority of mayoral

districts and governorships. Meanwhile, oil stood at only $7 a

barrel.

In desperation, Chavez called on the armed forces to carry out

ambitious public works projects---the so-called Plan Bolivar

2000. The plan proved reportedly divisive within the military,

with some soldiers feeling uncomfortable in their new social role.

The Church missed no opportunity to criticize Chavez’s military

policy. Caracas Archbishop Ignacio Velasco remarked publicly

that “something is making the armed forces nervous.” Velasco

recommended that the armed forces should meet to decide whether

soldiers should have the right to express themselves openly.

Furthermore, Velasco remarked sarcastically, the Minister of

Defense, Ismael Hurtado Soucre, always tried to smooth over

problems and make believe that nothing was wrong within the

military ranks. That elicited a sarcastic rejoinder in turn

from Hurtado, who remarked that the Church certainly had its own

share of problems.

*Chavez vs. Castillo Lara*

Chavez did not assuage the Church’s fears when he declared

famously that several bishops and the Vatican’s former

representative in Venezuela, Cardinal Rosalio Castillo Lara, had

allied with the country’s “rancid oligarchy.”

“It would appear,” said Chavez, “that a very small group of

bishops has something personal against the President.”

Even more inflammatory still, Chavez suggested that priests such

as Castillo ought to subject themselves to an exorcism because

“the devil has snuck into their clerical robes."

In a personal riposte, Chavez sought to link Castillo with

earlier corrupt administrations. “Where were you when the

bankers robbed more than $7,000,000,000 under the government of

Rafael Caldera, your personal friend, during the financial

crisis of 1994? Did you say anything when the police massacred

the people on the 27^th of February [during the Caracazo,

massive urban riots in Caracas in 1989]?”

Incensed, Castillo compared Chavez to Italian dictator Benito

Mussolini.

Meanwhile, the Church grew increasingly more concerned about the

Constitution, which failed to guarantee the protection of life

beginning at conception.

*War of Words Escalates: Vargas Tragedy*

In the midst of the escalating battle over the Constitution,

disaster struck when rains hit the state of Vargas, on the coast

near Caracas. I had the occasion to visit the area over this

past summer, and what one is immediately struck by is the

precarious housing built on steep hillsides. When the rains

hit, they created massive landslides that swept away

everything. A catastrophe of epic proportions, the Vargas rains

led to the deaths of between 10 and 20,000 people.

In Vargas, I spoke with people who were still, seven years

later, waiting to be evacuated. Living in dilapidated housing

and mired in poverty, their plight was certainly depressing.

Nevertheless, it should be said that the government carried out

a Herculean job, evacuating 190,000 people. I visited one

recently built housing complex, Ciudad Miranda, which housed

many of the refugees.

At a moment of crisis, the Church insinuated itself into the

Vargas crisis by making critical public statements. In a

reference to Chavez, Archbishop Velasco remarked that the Vargas

tragedy was the “wrath of God,” because “the sin of pride is

serious and nature itself reminds us that we don’t have all the

power or abilities.”

*Chavez’s Papal Gambit*

As prominent Church figures such as Castillo and Velasco became

more combative, Chavez sought to override local opposition by

traveling personally to Rome where he met with Pope John Paul

II. Venezuela has attached much importance to its relationship

to the Vatican and has an Ambassador there.

Chavez took advantage of his Papal interview to confess. “It

was extraordinary for me, a practicing Catholic,” Chavez

remarked, “…to have words with the Pope.”

Chavez, who discussed controversial issues with the Pope such as

abortion, also sought to court the Pontiff by emphasizing common

concerns such as the “savage” neo-liberal economic order, “which

had brought people to misery, especially in the Third World.”

A month after his trip to Rome, the Papal Nuncio in Caracas,

Leonardo Sandri, brought Chavez a verbal message from the Pope

regarding the constitutional process in Venezuela. According to

Sandri, the Sacred See expressed its concerns about guaranteeing

life from its original conception within Venezuela’s new

constitution. Later, Chavez met with Archbishop Velasco, who

also expressed his concerns about the right to life.

*Church-State Relations Break Down in Merida*

Back in Merida, I query Torres about the breakdown in relations.

“Here in the archdiocese,” Torres remarked, “we got into a very

precarious financial situation. We receive money from the

parishes, cultural and academic activities and the well

organized Archdiocese museum. We get financing from private

companies and banks, but the government doesn’t help.”

Torres said that the government had withdrawn funding from the

archdiocese and seminary. He claimed, moreover, that the Church

had experienced some financial turmoil. The Church, he said,

had media enterprises in Merida including print, radio, and TV.

However, he declared that recently /El Vigilante/, a Church

newspaper, had been forced to close for economic reasons.

Meanwhile, the TV and radio station had very few financial

resources to continue their work.

There were other disputes early on which set the course for

future conflict. For example, a quarrel over the Sor Juana Ines

de la Cruz Hospital Foundation, which had been managed by the

Merida clergy since the mid 1990s, turned nasty.

“The Church managed the local hospital,” Torres explained. “The

government provided the money for the staff. The archbishop

sought equipment abroad. But, the government disregarded our

contract after Chavez assumed power.”

*In Merida: Porras vs. Chavez*

According to the government, Porras was corrupt. The Merida

State Governor, Florencio Porras [a long time Chavista, retired

Captain and active participant in Chavez’s aborted 1992 coup

against then President Carlos Andres Perez], declared that

public funding as well as private donations which were supposed

to go towards the maintenance of the hospital had disappeared

and Baltazar Porras was responsible.

Baltazar Porras shot back that there was a “witch hunt” against

him. Chavez was personally apprised of the matter and the

Attorney General proceeded with an investigation into Porras’

bank accounts.

Dramatically, the police as well as the Directorate of

Intelligence and Prevention Services, a special police and

intelligence force [known by its Spanish acronym Disip] moved

into the hospital and confiscated the facility’s records. The

action was coordinated by federal authorities including the

office of the national Comptroller General.

In a further move which antagonized the Church, state

authorities actually took over the management of the Hospital

Foundation. Torres bristles when discussing the incident.

Porras, he says, was accused of being a thief when in actuality

it was the state which had behaved crookedly. The authorities,

he said, confiscated the hospital’s equipment.

Even as the government moved to clamp down on the Church in

Merida, Chavez himself was heating up the rhetoric. The

President accused Porras of being an “adeco [members of the

discredited and corrupt political party Accion Democratica,

which had ruled the country for years prior to Chavez’s

election] with a cassock.” Adding fuel to the fire, Chavez

remarked that the Church was “an accomplice in corruption.”

*Papal Intrigue*

Chavez’s holy war threatened to spill over and destabilize

relations with the Vatican. In late 2000, John Paul II remarked

that “a democracy without values becomes authoritarianism.” The

Pope made his remarks during an accreditation ceremony for the

Venezuelan Ambassador to the Vatican, Ignacio Quintana.

In Venezuela, politicians tried to make sense of the Pope’s

comments. Jose Vicente Rangel, the Minister of External

Relations, declared that he agreed with John Paul’s statement.

“In that sense I am more Popish than the Pope,” Rangel said.

In speaking with the press, Quintana assured journalists that

the Pope “respected” the Bolivarian Revolution. The new

ambassador claimed, furthermore, that high authorities within

the Vatican sympathized with Chavez and the social changes

taking place in Venezuela.

Lurking in the background however, Porras added his own spin to

John Paul’s address. When the Pope said “a democracy without

values,” Porras said, the Pontiff was clearly referring to

Venezuela.

While it’s unclear what the Pope exactly meant, the Vatican

sought to appease conservatives by giving the nod to Ignacio

Velasco. In early 2001 the Archbishop of Caracas was named a

Cardinal by the Pope. As such, he represented a dangerous

potential enemy for Chavez.

In a gesture of congratulations for his new position, Quintana,

the Venezuelan Ambassador to the Vatican, gave the Caracas

Archbishop a pectoral cross made out of gold.

Chavez himself traveled back to the Vatican shortly after the

9-11 attacks to meet with the Pope. In an effort to smooth

relations and emphasize common ground, Chavez remarked, “The

Pope has declared in the last few days something that we have

also said: that we do not support war…The war is against

hunger…The Pope has said that one cannot respond to violence

with more war. I also say the same, for that reason I came to

seek his guidance.”

*Lead up to coup*

In late 2001, Chavez was confronting an angry opposition led by

old guard labor, business and oil executives at the state run

oil company, PdVSA. The Church seemed to be moving towards the

opposition camp. In January, 2002 Andre Dupuy, the Papal

Nuncio, told Chavez that he was worried about a possible

“radicalization” of the internal conflict in Venezuela.

Chavez in turn shot back that Dupuy was interfering in the

country’s political affairs. In another address the same month,

Chavez characterized the Church as a “tumor” on society. A few

days later, perhaps recanting that he had gone too far, Chavez

invited Venezuelan bishops to participate in a dialogue, an

offer the clergy rejected.

From there it was all downhill. The Church joined forces with

the CTV, a large labor union, and Fedecamaras, the business

federation. The outspoken Porras declared that, “governments

that are democratically elected which do not comply with their

promises become illegitimate.”

The President of the Episcopal Conference added that

anti-government strikes and protests, which had intensified,

were not part of a conspiracy but the consequence of Chavez’s

own dogged behavior.

Chavez responded with more hyperbolic rhetoric of his own,

suggesting that archbishop Velasco “pray a little” and “look

into his conscience.” Speaking during his radio and TV show,

/Alo, Presidente!/, Chavez criticized Velasco’s interference in

the political arena. Chavez praised the Pope, while criticizing

what he called “a small group of clergy that doesn’t amount to

more than five people.”

*The Chavez/Porras Interview*

It wasn’t long, however, before the “small group” actively moved

into the camp of those seeking to overturn Chavez’s government.

During the April 2002 coup, prominent Catholics such as Velasco

sided with the opposition against the president. Velasco, who

had earlier met with Chavez during the constitutional

controversy, even offered his residence as a meeting place for

the coup plotters.

What is more, he signed the “Carmona decree” that swept away

Venezuela’s democratic institutions. Senior Catholic bishops

themselves attended the inauguration ceremony for Pedro Carmona,

Venezuela’s Dictator-For-a-Day.

In an ironic twist, Chavez personally called Porras from the

presidential palace, Miraflores, and the Archbishop agreed to

act as the President’s personal custodian and guarantor in the

midst of the coup. On April 12, Chavez was brought to Tiuna

Fort, a military facility in Caracas.

There, at 3:40 PM Chavez was received at the doors by Porras

himself as well as José Luis Azuaje, the Secretary General of

the Episcopal Conference. According to Porras, who was later

interviewed by the Spanish newspaper /El Pais/, the two spoke

for hours in the midst of the tense political situation.

“He [Chavez] was serene,” Porras explained, “very serene, and

spoke to us in an intimate, confessional tone…We wanted to give

him strength and energy to examine the present and to be able to

look towards the future.”

Porras added, “Chavez asked me for forgiveness for the way he

had treated me.” According to the Archbishop, Chavez moreover

expressed sorrow that he had not been able to achieve a more

amicable relationship with the Church.

*Poisonous Relations Return*

After his interview with Porras, Chavez was taken to the remote

island of Orchila. Cardinal Velasco later confirmed that he too

went to Orchila, where he spoke with the Venezuelan President.

According to Velasco, Chavez forgave himself and the two

reportedly even prayed together.

Shortly thereafter Chavez was triumphantly restored to power.

Later, he clutched a crucifix when giving evidence to a

televised parliamentary commission investigating the deaths of

17 marchers who participated in an anti-government demonstration

and later coup attempt.

Meanwhile, the Episcopal Conference drafted a statement

condemning the “tragic occurrences” of April, 2002. Bishops

stated, however, that “in the current moment of uncertainty and

tension it is necessary for the government and society to open a

space for real dialogue.” Porras added that the goodwill of the

president should be demonstrated with concrete deeds.

In an effort to appease the Church, Chavez later requested that

the Church help to mediate in the ongoing conflict with the

political opposition, which heated up later that year during an

oil lock out. Bizarrely, the opposition called on the Church to

exorcise Chavez in an effort to counter possession by demons.

Velasco, who apparently thought the request went too far, ruled

out the possibility but was still critical of the government.

In the midst of the escalating war of words, John Paul II called

for peace and reconciliation.

Whatever goodwill had existed following the coup quickly

dissipated. Chavez later stated that "there are bishops from

the Catholic Church who knew a coup was on the way, and they

used church installations to bring coup plotters together ...

those clerics are immoral and spokesmen for the opposition."

Meanwhile, a government commission recommended that the Attorney

General’s office open an investigation into Cardinal Velasco and

Baltazar Porras for presumed participation in the April coup.

Velasco claimed to have received death threats. When the

Cardinal died about a year after the coup, removing one of the

key opposition figures in the Church, riot police had to

disperse crowds with rubber bullets at the funeral.

As the funeral procession proceeded, Chavez supporters shouted

insults such as “Justice has been done---he was a coup

plotter!”, and “The rats bury their rat!” Reportedly,

pro-government demonstrators also stormed the cathedral where

Velasco lay in state.

*Merida: an Embattled City*

During the tumultuous days after the coup, Porras found himself

besieged even within his home town of Merida. A manifesto soon

appeared in the city, published by the “Revolutionary Justice,

Truth and Dignity Movement.”

In the pamphlet, the group declared that Porras was persona non

grata, a traitor and a political fanatic. The manifesto claimed

that Porras was “a destructive, disruptive, agitating,

subversive element” for society. The group also attacked

Velasco, who was referred to as “Judas.”

In late 2002, Porras was verbally insulted by Chavez followers

in the Merida State Legislature. Porras had been invited to

speak on the hundredth anniversary of the birth of Merida

Cardinal Jose Humberto Quintero. Chavez officials from the

State Legislature held banners and interrupted the proceedings

by shouting.

I have always been struck by the religious tone in the city of

Merida. When I was first there as a graduate student, in 2001,

I observed many shops selling religious artifacts and candles.

Over this past summer, when I returned, I saw the main church

full of people during Sunday mass. Speaking with local

residents in Merida, I learned that the city had been touched by

political change.

The woman who managed the posada where I was staying remarked

that social programs initiated after the coup had made a modest

difference in the lives of /meridenos/. Her children, for

example, were now attending some of the new Bolivarian schools

(she complained, however, that parents had to shell out money of

their own to maintain the school).

Poor people, she said, were now receiving food at the local

government sponsored soup kitchens. Near to the posada on a

side street, I saw a cooperatively run restaurant sponsored by

the government’s /vuelvan caras/ or “turning lives around” program.

To get more information about changes in Merida society, I

headed to a government building on the main square, near the

Cathedral. Peering around inside, I noticed that the offices

were plastered with posters of Chavez, Che Guevara and Simon

Bolivar.

Upstairs, I spoke with Ruben Aguila Cerati, Director of

Electoral Politics for Chavez’s MVR party in the State of

Merida, and a former member of the Venezuelan Communist Party.

Cerati, a colorful, jolly man who had been a guerrilla fighter

himself, explained to me that gender relations had changed

dramatically.

“Today we have 153,000 meridenos registered in the MVR [Chavez’s

political party]. Fifty three percent of these people are

women. In the political assemblies, women are the dominant

force. I can’t say there is no machismo here in Merida, but

women have been liberated.”

*Merida Church and Social Reforms*

Not everyone has embraced the social changes in the city,

however. Back in the main cathedral, Torres spoke of chronic

poverty in Merida’s /barrios/, remarking that “change for the

better has not reached the people, who continue to search for a

means of survival.”

Torres, echoing the criticisms of the opposition, also touched

on the issue of insecurity. “There’s been an increase in

criminal activity,” he said. “Merida used to be a very safe

area.”

“That’s the government’s fault?” I asked.

“The government hasn’t acted to adopt the necessary measures to

stop crime,” he replied. “People are afraid to go out at night.

You didn’t notice this before, there wasn’t so much violence.”

I asked Torres about the controversial role of Cuban doctors who

had come to Venezuela to provide medical assistance for poor

residents.

“We think that…this assistance has not resolved the health

problem amongst the people,” Torres answered. He criticized

conditions in a local hospital, remarking that “the service is

horrible; people need to buy sheets, medicine and other

necessities.”

“Would you prefer that the Cuban doctors leave the country?” I

asked.

“The doctors have helped,” Torres conceded. “However, the

overall health situation hasn’t changed.”

I turned the discussion towards education, a historically

contentious issue between the Church and Chavez authorities.

Torres admitted that the Bolivarian schools had set up new

cafeterias, a positive development. In an echo of what the

Senora had said in the posada, however, he criticized the

government for not providing necessary assistance to local schools.

“A sign of this phenomenon,” Torres exclaimed, “is that if you

want a place in a Catholic school they are all filled up.

Everyone wants to get a spot.”

*Government and Church Spar Over Land*

Another controversial measure pushed by Chavez has been land

reform. I had wanted to tour the countryside but unfortunately

fell sick with an acute case of bronchitis and had to curtail my

trip. I did, however, query Torres about the issue.

The clergyman voiced serious reservations. In the wake of the

land reform, he said, the campesinos had become radicalized and

this had led to a serious confrontation “and an invasion of

farms which brings problems and puts a break on development.”

I wanted to get Torres’ views on land reform as well. Before

conducting my interview with the local priest, I had read an

article in /La Frontera/, a local opposition paper, arguing that

local cattle ranchers had been obliged to hire hit men to defend

themselves, ostensibly against kidnapping.

The Minister of Interior accused the ranchers of inflating the

kidnapping figures in an effort to justify the hiring of hit

men, who had in turn killed campesinos [the secretary of the

campesino federation has said that his colleagues have been

killed by the hit men “as a result of the campesino struggle for

land”].

Torres conceded that violence had escalated in the countryside.

However, he said the government was responsible for encouraging

an overall climate of delinquent behavior which did not help the

situation.

“I think all of this government rhetoric starts to generate

violence,” he said.

Across the square I spoke with Cerati about the rural

situation. He began first by extolling Chavez’s various

“mission” programs which had transformed the countryside.

“The campesinos now know how to read and write,” he exclaimed

enthusiastically. “Here there is no longer any illiteracy: that

is extraordinary.”

The discussion then turned to health matters, and I queried

Cerati about the Cuban doctors. “Campesinos,” he noted, “who

had never seen a doctor now have them right at their side. The

Cuban doctors have incorporated themselves into the peasantry.

The campesinos are not suspicious of communism.”

Unlike Torres, who blamed the government for rural violence,

Cerati pointed the finger at powerful interests. “Campesinos,”

he said, “have been killed and assassinated by these landlords.

This has happened in the south of Lake Maracaibo, in Barinas,

and in Yaracuy. The land belongs to the campesinos, the

revolutionaries.”

“Merida has traditionally been very conservative and dominated

by the Church,” I remarked. “How do you see the situation in

the countryside, is it the Church supporting the landlords, and

the government supporting the campesinos?”

“The clergy has always been right wing,” Cerati answered. “It’s

always represented the oligarchies, the bourgeoisie. But, now

the majority of the lower tier clergy are with the Bolivarian

process. There’s an incredible difference between the clergy

here in the city of Merida and the priests out in the

countryside.”

*Castillo Lara Turns Up the Pressure*

Porras meanwhile backed efforts to recall Chavez as president.

In 2003 he remarked that Chavez had abused his power and his

regime was a profound “social failure.” Chavez shot back that

Porras had become a spokesperson for the opposition and should

take off his cassock because he was not a dignified man of

Christ. “God is with the Bolivarian Revolution,” Chavez said,

“and here there are people with cassocks who oppose the

political changes that we are carrying out.”

In his own retort, Porras responded that in Venezuela peace and

goodwill had deteriorated, while poverty, unemployment,

corruption, violence, homicides and kidnapping had increased.

Porras warned about the rise of cults inspired by 20^th century

fascist leaders, and went so far as to equate Chavismo with

Franco, Nazism, and fascism. Porras’ frontal offensive was

echoed by other Church leaders such as Cardinal Rosalio Castillo

Lara, who called for civil disobedience against the Chavez

government.

With Velasco now gone, high Church officials looked isolated

within the new political environment, characterized by a

fractured opposition and ascendant Chavez. Porras, though,

denied any significant political division within Church ranks.

The archbishop met personally with John Paul II, who was

reportedly very worried about political conflict in Venezuela

and sought a peaceful solution to the polarization.

*Pope Benedict: A New Direction?*

After John Paul II died in April, 2005 Chavez again went to

Rome, this time to meet with the new Pope Benedict XVI.

According to Father Pedro Freites, who heads the Venezuelan

School in Rome and had formerly been the head of Vatican radio

for Latin America and the Caribbean, Castillo Lara did not

represent the Church when he called for civil disobedience in

Venezuela.

However, in an interview with the Venezuelan newspaper /El

Nacional/ he remarked that Benedict was “aware of the situation

in Venezuela and of the serious danger posed to democracy."

Castillo Lara, he added, had ties with all cardinals and had

been the governor of the Vatican State. He had submitted

reports, and the Pope was concerned that a dictatorship might be

imposed in Venezuela. Ratzinger himself, Freites remarked, was

close to Castillo Lara and had also spoken with Porras.

During his meeting with the Venezuelan leader, Benedict handed

Chavez a letter outlining the Church’s concerns. In the note,

the Pope raised fears that religious education was being

squeezed out of some Venezuelan schools. He also touched upon

Venezuela’s public health programs, expressing concern that the

right to life be maintained “from its inception.”

Chavez reportedly sought to overcome his government’s

differences with the Church. At the end of their meeting,

Chavez presented the Pope with a portrait of Simon Bolivar, the

mythical Venezuelan independence leader who Chavez idolizes.

The picture bore an inscription from Bolivar’s will, saying that

he remained, at long last, a Catholic.

Following the meeting, Chavez declared that the crisis between

his government and the Church had its “limits in time, space,

and personalities.” The conflict that had existed, Chavez

continued, had to do with a very small group of people.

Moreover, he was committed to “turn the page” and start over,

owing to his “sense of responsibility” towards Venezuela and the

doctrine of Christ.

*Church Hardliners Isolated*

Indeed, Chavez had just reason to feel relieved. Already, the

Church had seemed to adopt a more conciliatory stance when it

replaced the hard line French conservative Papal nuncio,

Monsignor André Dupuy, with the Italian Giacinto Berlocco.

Reportedly, the new nuncio was instructed to seek a less

confrontational policy towards Chavez.

When Castillo Lara said that Venezuelans should “deny

recognition” to the Chavez government, Berlocco stated that the

Venezuelan Cardinal did not reflect the position of the Catholic

Church in Venezuela. Chavez praised Berlocco for carrying out

what he called “quiet and patient work.”

What’s more, after his visit with the new Pope Chavez also

expressed pleasure with other new Church appointments such as

Cardinal Jorge Urosa Savino, who in his first address called on

the Church to work for unity and understanding in Venezuela, and

Ubaldo Santana, the new president of the Venezuelan Episcopal

Conference.

In the political reshuffle, conservatives had been sidelined.

In the race to pick a new cardinal for Venezuela, Savino, the

bishop of Maracaibo, had edged out his more outspoken

competitor, Porras. According to the Venezuelan newspaper /El

Universal/, some bishops opposed Porras for taking such a

radical anti-Chavez stance which had imperiled relations with

the government.

In early 2006, Castillo Lara once more attacked Chavez but his

influence seemed to be much reduced. Speaking in the west of

the country before thousands of worshippers participating in a

pilgrimage to the Virgin Mary, the Cardinal said the country was

undoubtedly becoming a dictatorship. When Chavez claimed there

was a conspiracy in Rome to damage his government, Archbishop

Urosa quickly grew concerned and condemned Castillo Lara’s

remarks.

*Moving To the Future*

On my recent trip, I traveled with a peace delegation to

Charallave, a town outside of Caracas. Sitting in a Mennonite

church, we spoke with Jorge Martin, president of a local group

of pastors.

“Chavez,” he told us, “has said that Church work should

complement government efforts. We recognize that the church

needs to do social work and that the church has a role in this

area.”

Indeed, even as Chavez has sparred with the Church, Protestants

have become a key pillar of the president’s political support.

Back in Caracas, in fact, our delegation had observed a

Protestant church which prepared government provided food for

the poor. Martin called Pat Robertson’s calls to assassinate

Chavez “unfortunate.” He said that in Venezuela, Protestants of

all denominations had rejected the minister’s comments.

Over the last few years, Chavez has done his utmost to cultivate

the support of Protestants, which make up 29% of the

population. He even declared that he was no longer a Catholic

but a member of the Christian Evangelical Council.

In his speeches, Chavez hardly flees from religious themes and

frequently quotes from the Bible. Bizarrely, he also tells his

supporters in speeches that Christ was an anti-imperialist.

Chavez’s rhetoric, not surprisingly, has alarmed the Catholic

clergy. Freites believes that Chavez’s long-term goal is to

“create a parallel Church…that identifies with the revolutionary

process.”

While such views may be exaggerated, it is impossible to

overlook religious overtones in everyday Venezuelan politics.

During my visit to a government housing project in Ciudad

Miranda outside Caracas, I spotted banners on the street

reading, “With Chavez, Christian Socialism.”

Nikolas Kozloff is the author of /_Hugo Chavez: Oil, Politics,

and the Challenge to the U.S._/

(St. Martin’s, 2006). He is currently working on another book,

South America’s New Direction, about the political realignment

in South America (also to be released by St. Martin’s in 2008).

***************************************************

4)

Tomgram: The Seymour Hersh Mystery

This post can be found at http://www.tomdispatch.com/index.mhtml?pid=174764

A Journalist Writing Bloody Murder?

*And No One Notices*

By Tom Engelhardt

Let me see if I've got this straight. Perhaps two years ago, an

"informal" meeting of "veterans" of the 1980s Iran-Contra scandal --

holding positions in the Bush administration -- was convened by Deputy

National Security Advisor Elliott Abrams

. Discussed were the

"lessons learned" from that labyrinthine, secret, and illegal

arms-for-money-for-arms deal involving the Israelis, the Iranians, the

Saudis, and the Contras of Nicaragua, among others -- and meant to evade

the Boland Amendment, a congressionally passed attempt to outlaw Reagan

administration assistance to the anti-communist Contras. In terms of

getting around Congress, the Iran-Contra vets concluded, the complex

operation had been a success -- and would have worked far better if the

CIA and the military had been kept out of the loop and the whole thing

had been run out of the Vice President's office.

Subsequently, some of those conspirators, once again with the financial

support and help of the Saudis (and probably the Israelis and the

Brits), began running a similar operation, aimed at avoiding

congressional scrutiny or public accountability of any sort, out of Vice

President Cheney's office. They dipped into "black pools of money,"

possibly stolen from the billions of Iraqi oil dollars that have never

been accounted for since the

American occupation began. Some of these funds, as well as Saudi ones,

were evidently funneled through the embattled, Sunni-dominated Lebanese

government of Prime Minister Fouad Siniora to the sort of Sunni /jihadi/

groups ("some sympathetic to al-Qaeda") whose members might normally

fear ending up in Guantanamo and to a group, or groups, associated with

the fundamentalist Muslim Brotherhood.

All of this was being done as part of a "sea change" in the Bush

administration's Middle Eastern policies aimed at rallying friendly

Sunni regimes against Shiite Iran, as well as Hezbollah, Hamas, and the

Syrian government -- and launching secret operations to undermine, roll

back, or destroy all of the above. Despite the fact that the Bush

administration is officially at war with Sunni extremism in Iraq (and in

the more general Global War on Terror), despite its support for the

largely Shiite government, allied to Iran, that it has brought to power

in Iraq, and despite its dislike for the Sunni-Shiite civil war in that

country, some of its top officials may be covertly encouraging a far

greater Sunni-Shiite rift in the region.

Imagine. All this and much more (including news of U.S. military

border-crossings into Iran, new preparations that would allow George W.

Bush to order a massive air attack on that land with only 24-hours

notice, and a brief window this spring when the staggering power of four

U.S. aircraft-carrier battle groups might be available to the President

in the Persian Gulf) was revealed, often in remarkable detail, just over

a week ago in "The Redirection,"

a Seymour Hersh piece in the /New Yorker/. Hersh, the man who first

broke the My Lai story in the Vietnam era, has never been off his game

since. In recent years, from the Abu Ghraib scandal

on, he has

consistently released explosive news about the plans and acts of the

Bush administration.

Imagine, in addition, that Hersh went on /Democracy Now!

/, /Fresh

Air/, /Hardball/ / with Chris

Matthews/, and /CNN Late Edition/

/ with Wolf

Blitzer/ and actually elaborated on these claims and revelations, some

of which, on the face of it, seem like potentially illegal and

impeachable offenses, if they do indeed reach up to the Vice President

or President.

Now imagine the response: Front-page headlines; editorials nationwide

calling for answers, Congressional hearings, or even the appointment of

a special prosecutor to look into some of the claims; a raft of op-ed

page pieces by the nation's leading columnists asking questions,

demanding answers, reminding us of the history of Iran-Contra; bold

reporters from a recently freed media standing up in White House and

Defense Department press briefings to demand more information on Hersh's

various charges; calls in Congress for hearings and investigations into

why the people's representatives were left so totally out of this loop.

Uh?

All I can say is: If any of this happened, I haven't been able to

discover it. As far as I can tell, no one in the mainstream even blinked

on the Iran-Contra angle or the possibility that a vast, secret Middle

Eastern operation is being run, possibly illegally and based on stolen

funds and Saudi money, out of the Vice President's office. You can

certainly find a few pieces

on,

or reports about, "The Redirection" -- all focused only on the possible

build-up to a war with Iran -- and the odd wire-service mention

of it; but nothing major,

nothing Earth-shaking or eye-popping; not, in fact, a single obvious

editorial or op-ed piece in the mainstream; no journalistic questions

publicly asked of the administration; no Congressional cries of horror;

no calls anywhere for investigations or hearings on any of Hersh's

revelations, not even an expression of fear somewhere that we might be

seeing Iran-Contra, the sequel, in our own moment.

This, it seems to me, adds up to a remarkable non-response to claims

that, if true, should gravely concern Congress, the media, and the

nation. Let's grant that Hersh's /New Yorker/ pieces generally arrive

unsourced and filled with anonymuous officials ("a former senior

intelligence official," "a U.S. government consultant with close ties to

Israel"). Nonetheless, Hersh has long mined his sources in the

Intelligence Community and the military to striking effect. Undoubtedly,

the lack of sourcing makes it harder for other reporters to follow-up,

though when it comes to papers like the /Washington Post/ and the /New

York Times/, you would think that they might have Washington sources of

their own to query on Hersh's claims. And, of course, editorial pages,

columnists, op-ed editors, Congressional representatives, and reporters

at administration news briefings don't need to do any footwork at all to

raise these subjects. (Consider, for instance, the White House press

briefing

on

April 10, 2006, where a reporter did indeed ask a question based on an

earlier Hersh /New Yorker/ piece.) As far as I can tell, there haven't

even been denunciations of Hersh's report or suggestions anywhere that

it was inaccurate or off-base. Just the equivalent of a giant,

collective shrug of the media's rather scrawny shoulders.

Since the response to Hersh's remarkable piece has been so tepid in

places where it should count, let me take up just a few of the many

issues his report raises.

*"Meddling" in Iran*

For at least a month now, our press and TV news have been full to the

brim with mile-high headlines and top-of-the-news stories recounting

(and, more rarely, disputing) Bush administration claims of Iranian

"interference" or "meddling" in Iraq (where U.S. military spokesmen

regularly refer to the Iraqi insurgents they are fighting as "anti-Iraq

forces"). Since Hersh published "Plan B"

in the /New Yorker/ in June 2004 in which he claimed that the Israelis

were "running covert operations inside Kurdish areas of Iran and Syria,"

he has been on the other side of this story.

In "The Coming Wars"

in January

of 2005, he first reported that the Bush administration, like the

Israelis, had been "conducting secret reconnaissance missions inside

Iran at least since" the summer of 2004. In April of 2006 in "The Iran

Plans,"

he reported that the Bush administration was eager to put the "nuclear

option" on the table in any future air assault on Iranian nuclear

facilities (and that some in the Pentagon, fiercely opposed, had at

least temporarily thwarted planning for the possible use of nuclear

bunker-busters in Iran). He also reported that American combat units

were "on the ground" in Iran, marking targets for any future air attack,

and quoted an unnamed source as claiming that they were also "working

with minority groups in Iran, including the Azeris, in the north, the

Baluchis, in the southeast, and the Kurds, in the northeast. The troops

?are studying the terrain, and giving away walking-around money to

ethnic tribes, and recruiting scouts from local tribes and shepherds,'

the consultant said. One goal is to get ?eyes on the ground'? The

broader aim, the consultant said, is to ?encourage ethnic tensions' and

undermine the regime."

In "The Redirection," he now claims that, in search of Iranian rollback

and possible regime change, "American military and special-operations

teams have escalated their activities in Iran to gather intelligence

and, according to a Pentagon consultant on terrorism and the former

senior intelligence official, have also crossed the [Iranian] border in

pursuit of Iranian operatives from Iraq." In his /Democracy Now!/ radio

interview, he added: "[W]e have been deeply involved with Azeris and

Baluchis and Iranian Kurds in terror activities inside the country? and,

of course, the Israelis have been involved in a lot of that through

Kurdistan? Iran has been having sort of a series of backdoor fights, the

Iranian government, because? they have a significant minority

population. Not everybody there is a Persian. If you add up the Azeris

and Baluchis and Kurds, you're really 30-some [%], maybe even 40% of the

country."

In addition, he reported that "a special planning group has been

established in the offices of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, charged with

creating a contingency bombing plan for Iran that can be implemented,

upon orders from the President, within twenty-four hours," and that its

"new assignment" was to identify not just nuclear facilities and

possible regime-change targets, but "targets in Iran that may be

involved in supplying or aiding militants in Iraq."

Were there nothing else in Hersh's most recent piece, all of this would

still have been significant news -- if we didn't happen to live on a

one-way imperial planet in which Iranian "interference" in (American)

Iraq is an outrage, but secret U.S. operations in, and military plans to

devastate, Iran are your basic ho-hum issue. Our mainstream news

purveyors don't generally consider the issue of our "interference" in

Iran worthy of a great deal of reporting, nor do our pundits consider it

a topic worthy of speculation or consideration; nor, in a Congress where

leading Democrats have regularly outflanked the Bush administration in

hawkish positions on Iran, is this likely to be much of an issue.

You can read abroad

about rumored

American operations out of Pakistan and Afghanistan aimed at unsettling

Iranian minorities like the Baluchis and about possible operations

to create strife

among Arab minorities in southern Iran near the Iraqi border -- the

Iranians seem to blame the British, whose troops are in southern Iraq,

for some of this (a charge vociferously denied

by the British

embassy in Tehran) -- but it's not a topic of great interest here.

In recent months, in fact, several bombs

have

gone off

in

minority regions of Iran. These explosions have been reported here, but

you would be hard-pressed to find out what the Iranians had to say about

them, and the possibility that any of these might prove part of a U.S.

(or Anglo-American) covert campaign to destabilize the Iranian

fundamentalist regime basically doesn't concern the news mind here, even

though past history says it should. After all, many of our present

Middle Eastern problems can be indirectly traced back to the

Anglo-American ur-moment in the Middle East, the successful

CIA-British-intelligence plot in 1953 to oust

Prime Minister

Mohammad Mossadegh (who had nationalized the Iranian oil industry) and

install the young Shah in power.

After all, in the 1980s, in the anti-Soviet war in Afghanistan, the CIA

(with the eager connivance of the Pakistanis and the Saudis) helped

organize, arm, and fund the Islamic extremists who would someday turn on

us for terror campaigns on a major scale. As Steve Coll

reported in his

superb book /Ghost Wars/, for instance, "Under ISI [Pakistani

intelligence] direction, the /mujahedin/ received training and malleable

explosives to mount car-bomb and even camel-bomb attacks in

Soviet-occupied cities, usually designed to kill Soviet soldiers and

commanders. [CIA Director William] Casey endorsed these despite the

qualms of some CIA career officers."

Similarly , in the

early 1990s, the Iraq National Accord, an organization run by the CIA's

Iraqi exile of choice, Iyad Allawi, evidently planted, under the

Agency's direction, car bombs and explosive devices in Baghdad

(including in a movie theater) in a fruitless attempt to destabilize

Saddam Hussein's regime. The New York Times

reported this on

its front page in June 2004 (to no effect whatsoever), when Allawi was

the Prime Minister of American-occupied Iraq.

Who knows where the funding, training, and equipment for the bombings in

Iran are coming from -- but, at a moment when charges that the Iranians

are sending into Iraq advanced IEDs, or the means to produce them, are

the rage, it seems a germane subject.

In this country, it's a no-brainer that the Iranians have no right

whatsoever to put their people, overtly or covertly, into neighboring

Iraq, a country which, back in the 1980s, invaded Iran and fought a

bitter eight-year war with it, resulting in perhaps a million

casualties; but it's just normal behavior for the Pentagon to have

traveled halfway across the planet to dominate the Iraqi military,

garrison Iraq with a string of vast permanent bases, build the largest

embassy on the planet in Baghdad's Green Zone, and send

special-operations teams (and undoubtedly CIA teams as well) across the

Iranian border, or to insert them in Iran to do "reconnaissance" or even

to foment unrest among its minorities. This is the definition of an

imperial worldview.

*Sleepless Nights*

Let's leave Iran now and briefly take up a couple of other matters

highlighted in "The Redirection" that certainly should have raised the

odd red flag and pushed the odd alarm button here at home far more than

his Iranian news (which did at least get some attention):

1. /Iran-Contra Redux:/ Does

it raise no eyebrows that, under the leadership of Elliot Abrams (who in

the Iran-Contra period pleaded guilty to two counts of unlawfully

withholding information from Congress and was later pardoned), such a

meeting was held? Does no one want to confirm that this happened? Does

no one want to know who attended? Iran-Contra alumni in the Bush

administration at one time or another included former Reagan National

Security Advisor John Poindexter

, Otto Reich

, John Negroponte

(who, Hersh claims,

recently left his post as Director of National Intelligence in order to

avoid the twenty-first century version of Iran-Contra -- "No way. I'm

not going down that road again, with the N.S.C. [National Security

Council] running operations off the books, with no [presidential]

finding."), Roger Noriega ,

and Robert Gates. Did the Vice President or President sit in? Was either

of them informed about the "lessons drawn"? Were the Vice President's

right-hand men, I. Lewis Libby and/or David Addington in any way

involved? Who knows? In the Iran-Contra affair, the Reagan

administration drew together the seediest collection of freelance arms

dealers, intelligence agents, allies, and -- in the case of Ayatollah

Khomeini's Iranian regime -- sworn enemies in what can only be called

"amateur hour" at the White House. Now, it looks like the Bush

administration is heading down a similar path and, given its previous

"amateur hour" reputation in foreign policy, imagine what this is likely

to mean.

2. /Jihadis as Proxies:/ Using /jihadis/ as American proxies

in a

struggle to rollback Iran -- with the help of the Saudis -- should have

rung a few bells somewhere in American memory as another been-there,

done-that moment. In the 1980s -- on the theory that my enemy's enemy is

my friend -- the fundamentalist Catholic CIA Director William Casey came

to believe that Islamic fundamentalists could prove tight and

trustworthy allies in rolling back the Soviet Union. In Afghanistan, as

a result, the CIA, backed by the Saudis royals, who themselves

represented an extremist form of Sunni Islam, regularly favored and

funded the most extreme of the /mujahedeen/ ready to fight the Soviets.

Who can forget the results? Today, according to Hersh, the Saudis are

reassuring key figures in the administration that this time they have

the /jihadis/ to whom funds are flowing under control. No problem. If

you believe that, you'll believe anything.

3. /Congress in the Dark/: Hersh claims that, with the help of Saudi

National Security Adviser Prince Bandar bin Sultan (buddy to the Bushes

and Dick Cheney's close comrade-in-arms), the people running the

black-ops programs out of Cheney's office have managed to run circles

around any possibility of Congressional oversight, leaving the

institution completely "in the dark," which is undoubtedly exactly where

Congress wanted to be for the last six years. Is this still true? The

non-reaction to the Hersh piece isn't exactly encouraging.

To summarize, if Hersh is to be believed -- and as a major journalistic

figure for the last near-40 years he certainly deserves to be taken

seriously -- the Bush administration seems to be repeating the worst

mistakes of the Reagan administration /and/ of the anti-Soviet war in

Afghanistan, which led inexorably to the greatest acts of blowback in

our history. Given what we already know about the Bush administration,

Americans should be up nights worrying about what all this means now as

well as down the line. For Congress, the media, and Americans in

general, this report should have been not just a wake-up call, but a

shout for an all-nighter with NoDoz.

In my childhood, one of the Philadelphia papers regularly ran cartoon

ads for itself in which some poor soul in a perilous situation -- say,

clinging to the ledge of a tall building -- would be screaming for help,

while passersby were so engrossed in the paper that they didn't even

look up. Now, we have the opposite situation. A journalist essentially

writing bloody murder in a giant media and governmental crowd. In this

case, no one in the mainstream evidently cares -? not yet anyway -- to

pay the slightest attention. It seems that there's a crime going on and

no one gives a damn. Think Kitty Genovese

on a giant scale.

/Tom Engelhardt, who runs the Nation Institute's Tomdispatch.com ("a

regular antidote to the mainstream media"), is the co-founder of the

American Empire Project and,

most recently, the author of Mission Unaccomplished: Tomdispatch

Interviews with American Iconoclasts and Dissenters

(Nation Books), the first collection of Tomdispatch interviews./

Copyright 2007 Tom Engelhardt

E-mail to a Friend

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

posted March 13, 2007 at 4:35 pm

-

Click here to read more Tom Dispatch

No comments: