News of the Restless

Oh noes, indeed. What is it lately with all these otherwise decent independent news sites going over to the stinky? In the case of the latest from WW4 Report, it seems that a number of Tibetan prayer flags have landed on the eyes of the editors, blinding them to the obvious. They've gotten real snotty with their readers who take exception to them for uncritically publishing Nik Kozloff's "revolutionary" hit piece on Chavecito.

In all the back-and-forth between the WW4R snotballs and those who rightly take them to task, I found this...

From Russ Hallberg, somewhere in cyberspace (who slugs his e-mail "don't repudiate chavez"):

Hugo Chavez should be criticized for his support of China's occupation of Tibet. However, Tibetan nationalists and the Dali Lama are backed by the CIA. It is unlikely a "free" Tibet would be anything more than a puppet for Western interests. Tibetan nationalism is a psyops to solicit the support of the US left for CIA agendas.

World War 4 Report replies: You know, that's pretty paranoid, dude. But we're heartened that at least you think Chávez should be criticized (if not "repudiated").

...which made me wonder: Is it really paranoid to suspect such a thing, considering the CIA has had its tentacles around just about every anti-communist "freedom fighter" in the world since the end of World War II--many of them downright unsavory? In other words, could Russ Hallberg be onto something?

Well, Tim Boucher has found out that in fact, Russ Hallberg is not paranoid; he's right. The CIA is backing the Dalai Lama. Why not? He's a very useful tool to brandish against the "red menace". And the fact that many well-meaning westerners are unaware of it is testimony to the blinding powers of organized religion and theocracy. All we see is poor oppressed Tibet, under the thumb of Chinese imperialism, struggling bravely to free itself in the name of religious freedom--and, supposedly, "democracy". Who could be opposed to such a struggle--particularly we of the anti-imperialist left? And who wouldn't feel like a shit to dare slaughter such a cherished sacred cow as the peace-loving, freedom-seeking image of the Dalai Lama?

What we don't see, because we don't want to and because someone has ensured that we won't want to, is that Tibet, just like Russia, Ukraine and the WW4R editors' other pet hate, Belarus, has no tradition of free democratic rulership. That's right. None. The people of Tibet were serfs long before China annexed their country. The only difference is that previously, they were serfs to their "spiritual" leaders. The Dalai Lama is not elected by the masses, or even selected by an oligarchy (at least, not that anyone would cop to the fact); he's allegedly reincarnated from every previous Dalai Lama that ever there was.

In fact, the monks who seek out the reincarnated one are an oligarchy, and a very rarified one at that, but their traditional high status renders them unquestionable. And their unquestioned "holiness" loses its lustre when you see how rich the monasteries are, and how poor by comparison is the average Tibetan--impoverished, as Boucher says, by the monks themselves.

But don't take my word for it; the Green Left Weekly has the details:

The Tibetan "government'" in Lhasa was composed of lamas selected for their religious piety. At the head of this theocracy was the Dalai Lama. The concepts democracy, human rights or universal education were unknown.

The Dalai Lama and the majority of the elite agreed to give away Tibet's de facto independence in 1950 once they were assured by Beijing their exploitative system would be maintained. Nine years later, only when they felt their privileges were threatened, did they revolt. Suddenly the words "democracy" and "human rights" entered the vocabulary of the government-in-exile, operating out of Dharamsala in India ever since.

Dharamsala and the Dalai Lama's commitment to democracy seems weak. An Office of Tibet document claims "soon after His Holiness the Dalai Lama's arrival in India, he re-established the Tibetan Government in exile, based on modern democratic principles". Yet it took more than 30 years for an Assembly of Tibetan People's Deputies to be directly elected from among the 130,000 exiles. Of 46 assembly members, only 30 are elected. The other 16 are appointed by religious authorities or directly by the Dalai Lama.

All assembly decisions must be approved by the Dalai Lama, whose sole claim to the status of head of state is that he has been selected by the gods. The separation of church and state is yet to be recognised by the Dalai Lama as a "modern democratic principle".

Imagine that--the Dalai Lama willingly handed Tibet over to Mao, and didn't protest until he perceived his own authority to be under threat. So much for the myth of the brave freedom struggle. Tibet may as well be a Czarist monarchy. After all, the Czars and other royals used to claim a divine privilege, too.

One doesn't have to be a Maoist to see that (and I'm most emphatically not; I've read Son of the Revolution, and I suggest you do too.) One has only to be willing to look past the sacredness and see the cow--dung and all. A sacred cow drops as much dung as any beast of pasture or barn. Treat the Dalai Lama to the same critical eye that you would Chairman Mao himself, and then you won't go through the mental conflicts about Tibet that I have (and that a lot of other leftists are also finding themselves in).

Personally, I've always been secretly puzzled by the widespread and unquestioned fetish for Tibetan Buddhism. As a Wiccan and a longtime New Ager, I find that trend disturbing. Aside from all the names I can't for the life of me pronounce, there are all those hells--through which the souls of all the dead must pass, no matter how much good they did in their lives. Why would a religion of compassion be so ridden with hellfire and demons? And what's so compassionate about such an authoritarian rule here on Earth? If I wanted that, I'd just convert to fundamentalist Christianity. The only difference I can see, other than the language and the lack of saffron robes, is that the fundie-Christers don't lay claim to reincarnation.

I've also long felt guilty for not owning any of those best-selling Buddhist books on compassion, pacifism, etc.--particularly the ones written by the Dalai Lama. But I think I can lay that guilt to rest now and realize that I'm not suffering from myopia; I'm rightly skeptical of sacred cows, ALL of them, including Buddhist gurus. Sacred cow, like revenge, is a dish best eaten cold, and I've just slaughtered a big one here.

Would that the WW4R editors could do the same, instead of falling straight into the CIA's best-laid trap--the ahistorical fetish for Tibet.

Posted by Sabina Becker at 01:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

...because kiddies, you're gonna be laughing at all this about six months from now. David Blair of the arch-conservative UK Telegraph is putting all his wishful thinking out there right now for you to mistake for Serious Political Analysis.

At home, however, Mr Chavez is in trouble. State elections are due in November and Venezuela's opposition, which now includes former followers of South America's standard-bearer for socialism, is expected to perform well.

"Expected" by the State Dept. and the blinkered likes of David Blair, perhaps. But to anyone who's seriously paying attention, this opposition is a joke. The turncoats Blair is lauding here, who are expecting to siphon off the "pro-Chavez, BUT" vote, didn't do so well in the last referendum; it was won by abstention, not a resounding majority of anti-Chavistas. Given that there have been so many votes in Venezuela since Chavez came to power, that's kind of understandable. Voter fatigue can so easily set in--especially since voters have to get up early and queue up for hours before they can drop their ballots in the box. Still, one can't deny that there has been a democratic process--in fact a democratic surfeit.

But Blair hasn't been paying attention, so of course he can't be expected to know that.

What has he been paying attention to? Well, seriously silly stuff like this amateur psychoanalysis from one of the turncoats:

General Raul Salazar, once a close friend who served as the president's first defence minister, said that Mr Chavez suffers "many hells or infernos inside him".

"Perhaps he feels a real social resentment because of the poverty of his upbringing. That becomes a nightmare for any human being," added Gen Salazar, who campaigned against Mr Chavez in the referendum.

"Political leaders go through three stages. First they are governors, then they are statesmen and then they think they become God and they decide they don't need anyone's advice. I hope to God that he doesn't get to the third stage, but he's probably close."

Funny, but that last paragraph sounds to me like Dubya. He started out as governor of Texas, then he became (illicitly) a "statesman" (or at least a wooden figurehead on the prow of a ship), and now he thinks he's God. And I'm sure he has his share of "hells or infernos inside him", too--but he is not, thank heaven, the president of Venezuela, who, contrary to the general's comic-opera Freudianism, retains his good humor and firmly planted feet even in the face of all the private hells and infernos raging around him, and trying (without success) to win votes away from him.

Then there's this character, who is less funny, but still plays a role in the farce:

General Raul Baduel, who served as defence minister and rescued Mr Chavez from an American-backed coup in 2002, said: "The person who's in charge of the destiny of our nation has become focused on one aim: to perpetuate himself in power even when this damages the country. Actually, damaging the country favours his aim, because each day we depend more upon the government."

I've already disclosed who paid the general to say things like that, so I shan't repeat it here. But there's no evidence that he's actually damaging the country, and in fact, he's delivered what the people expect of him and then some. Far from the "one-man show" hypothesis being touted by Blair and his sources, we who are paying attention get realities like this one from the independent IPS news service, showing how Venezuelans are becoming self-sufficient through co-operative farming--facilitated by the man at the top who is expropriating wasted large estates and turning them over to collectives who will, if things keep up at this rate, eventually make Venezuela self-sufficient in food. As it used to be before the oil industry came to predominate--and with them, foreign interests, who are the real ones that reduced Venezuela to dependency and who thrive on its continuation in a state of ruin.

Funny how the former General completely discounts all that. But I guess it's understandable when one is newly in the business of marketing oneself as a messiah.

Funnily, in spite of the "damaging" quotes he gets from the coattail-riders turned turncoats, Blair has to admit the obvious when there's no way of denying it:

Transforming an avowedly consumerist country like Venezuela into a socialist haven is probably impossible.

But Mr Chavez has genuinely succeeded in helping the poor. Of Caracas's five million people, about half inhabit slums, known as "barrios".

Before Mr Chavez took office in 1999, Venezuela had always been ruled by the white descendants of Spanish settlers. They monopolised wealth and power, creating one of the world's most unequal, divided societies.

Mr Chavez sought to redress the balance. He built clinics in the "barrios", staffed by Cuban doctors, giving the slum-dwellers free health care for the first time. State-owned shops sell cheap food and public banks lend the oil money to the poor.

Mr Chavez, who is a twice-elected leader, not a dictator, has won a genuine popular following. For the first time in Venezuela's history, the impoverished majority feel they have a leader who is on their side.

Yes, and they still do. Their feelings for him haven't changed, except to intensify, because they know what a struggle he's been in. They've been in it with him, and many of them have been in it even longer than he has. The reason they vote for him is not because he's a messiah (he has never claimed or tried to be), but because he's the guy who is finally doing something--something the people have asked him to do. When he was first elected in late 1998, he ran and won on a platform that included a rewrite of the old Venezuelan constitution. The new one--written by an elected assembly, not himself--won a popular ratification. The people voted not only on who would write it, but on the final document itself. Which is exactly what they asked for.

They also asked for, and got, land reform, public healthcare, public schools, public infrastructure, and an end to the creeping privatization of the state oil firm, PDVSA. They asked for, and got, affordable food, lands to farm, and a greater say in the running of the country.

And they keep on asking, because they know he's gonna keep on delivering. Which is why they, in turn, will keep on returning him to office--or, if they can't have him, they will vote for those who haven't turned against him. And they know who those people are, and no amount of NED money will convince them otherwise.

And neither will any top-loaded ignorance coming out of Britain.

Posted by Sabina Becker at 11:34 AM | Permalink

How wrong can one man get in three paragraphs? How low can the Wall Street Journal sink? Kiddies, you're about to find out...Dr. Becker has her dissecting gloves on.

It's not been a good month for Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chávez. He had to do an about-face and call on the Marxist guerrilla group FARC to stop trying to overthrow the government of neighboring Colombia, lay down its arms and release its 700 hostages. But that head fake came only after evidence surfaced that Mr. Chávez had actually offered FARC leaders $300 million to support their terrorist operations and had even given them their own nameplate on an office in Venezuela's Pentagon.

Now Mr. Chávez has trouble on the domestic front. Marisabel Rodríguez, the former first lady of Venezuela whom Mr. Chávez divorced in 2004, announced she will run for mayor of one of Venezuela's most important cities in November local elections. She will run as an opposition candidate because she wants to "change the face and way of doing politics in this city and this country," she told reporters.

The candidacy of Ms. Rodríguez, a public relations executive, will no doubt revive stories about the couple's messy divorce. She is apparently a past master at psychological warfare against her ex-husband. "Marisabel doesn't hesitate to talk about Chávez on TV while holding their daughter, and that is the kind of tactic the opposition likes because to fight a media figure like Chávez you need to shock people in some way," says Arturo Serrano, a political scientist, told Britain's Guardian newspaper.

Idiocies in italics.

Memo to Rush Limbaugh's ghostwriter: Gawd, you suck. Let us enumerate the ways...

1. The "dictator" was elected. Repeatedly. What the hell kind of dictatorship is that?

2. Chavecito did not "have to do an about-face", because he has never been pro-FARC. If anything, it's the other way around: the FARC are pro-Chavez. His position on the Colombian guerrillas has remained the same since he was first posted to the Colombian border regions in his military days. He's not happy about their violence spilling over into Venezuela, any more than he likes the fact that wealthy Venezuelan land-owners are using Colombian paramilitaries as mercenaries and to help plot coups against him. He also has proof that the Colombian army has invaded Venezuela, illegally, on numerous occasions. Why would he be in favor of a group that brings so much trouble into Venezuela?

3. The $300 million bullshit is long debunked. Get with the program. The entire laptop story is a fake, and I have proof.

4. A "nameplate on an office in Venezuela's Pentagon"? What corner of your colon did you pull that one from? There's nothing of the sort at Fuerte Tiuna. But there did use to be a US military office in there, which is very sniffy; does Venezuela have an office in the actual Pentagon?

5. Who divorced whom? And when? According to Bart Jones's book, it was Madame Nhu Marisabel who walked out, less than two months after the coup in April 2002. (She buggered off in June.) I don't know who filed the papers, but the point is probably moot.

6. Marisabel doesn't want to "change the way politics works" in Venezuela, unless you mean she wants to go back to the way it was. Which is to say, corrupt, slow, and generally dumber than dog snot. A change of face never meant anything under Puntofijismo. All it meant was the same shit from another asshole. Guess who is really changing the way politics works in Venezuela? Hint: He's big and sassy and wears a red shirt. And the way he's changing things will certainly clash with Marisabel's bid to return to the old status quo.

7. And anyway, what change could she make as a mayor? That's hardly running at the federal level, where the big-time action is. If she had to go up against him for president, she'd lose so badly that it wouldn't even be worth laughing at.

8. Chavez is a "media figure"? No, he's a PRESIDENT. She is the media figure. And if the comments I've seen on Aporrea are any indication, she is not exactly a wildly popular one. Her "psychological warfare" is deeply reviled, and her use of her own daughter as a pawn is also illegal under the Venezuelan child-protection law; it's considered an invasion of privacy.

Perhaps you might want to learn Spanish, Mr. Fund. Only, if you did, you'd be redder than Chavecito's shirt with humiliation to learn the awful truth.

And speaking of humiliation and awful truths, I still remember a juicy tale from your own past. Glass houses, Mr. Fund.

Posted by Sabina Becker at 08:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Congratulations are in order for Evo Morales. This month, he and his indigenous/socialist fusion revolution made it into National Geographic--and, unlike Chavecito, he didn't get his ass slammed. This even though the same author wrote both pieces. (I know! How strange! Even stranger, Chavecito isn't mentioned in there at all, and neither is Fidel Castro--even though they're Evo's #1 and 2 allies, respectively!)

Anyhow, there's only one pic, showing Evo as he normally dresses: baseball-type jacket, button-down shirt, black jeans, sneakers--and a whackload of confetti overtop of it all. Boring. But I guess they just didn't want to supply y'all with Evo-cheesecake. For which onerous task there is Yours Most Sincerely, showing how Evo got to be cautiously termed "a man of some charm" by the Geographic's writer:

Okay, so his cute legs aren't in it (damn AP photogs!), but we can see the charm, can't we?

(Bonus: More Evo on the Geographic's website, here. And yes, he puts his charm on display for the photographer who wrote about him, too.)

Posted by Sabina Becker at 10:41 PM | Permalink

And boy, am I ever laughing my ass off over this.

The Attorney General, Luisa Ortega Diaz, informed that the Public Ministry has opened an investigation against the mayor of Chacao, Leopoldo Lopez, for allegedly attacking an agent of the National Guard at the International Airport at Maiquetia.

The incident allegedly took place in the early morning hours on last Wednesday, in the hours after Lopez returned to Venezuela from New York.

Translation mine. Link added.

And in other bad news for Pretty Leo, we have this item from Venezuelanalysis, which shows that he's no match for...A BLACK MAN!

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez's candidate for mayor of Caracas, Aristobulo Isturiz, is the front-runner ahead of the November election, according to the first poll of city voters.

Isturiz, a former education minister who now hosts a show on state television, had the backing of 39 percent in the June 6-19 poll by Caracas-based Hinterlaces. Leopoldo Lopez, a Harvard-educated opposition leader who met with Barack Obama on June 21 in Miami, trailed with 30.1 percent.

The show in question is Dando y Dando, on VTV. Aporrea occasionally shows clips of it, and it's always an enlightening treat for me. Too bad it's not subtitled and more widely distributed on the Internets. Then you'd see why Aristobulo Isturiz is such a terrific candidate, and why Prettyboy has no chance against him...even assuming his disqualification doesn't hold up (which it will).

Posted by Sabina Becker at 09:13 PM | Permalink

This one just speaks for itself:

U.S. Ambassador James Cason's singing isn't music to the ears of one Paraguayan senator.

Cason released a CD two weeks ago of himself singing Paraguayan folk songs in the local Guarani indigenous language.

Cason tells the newspaper ABC Color he recorded the CD titled "The Field of Promises" because his wife says he has a beautiful voice.

But opposition Sen. Domingo Laino begs to differ and has asked Paraguay's Congress to denounce the diplomat.

Laino told Uno Radio on Thursday that the ambassador "sings horribly and his pronunciation of Guarani words is stammering. It is an offense to the Paraguayan people."

Cason's term as ambassador ends in August.

Which will undoubtedly be a great relief to Guarani ears. Just as no longer having to listen to John Ashcroft's croonings was a great relief to my US friends.

Posted by Sabina Becker at 03:29 PM | Permalink

Once more, a fascist makes all kinds of bogus claims, including that his human rights were violated. Aporrea has the details of the lie--and the video to refute the liar:

On Thursday, Mario Silva, host of the VTV show "La Hojilla", showed some video footage taken at Maiquetia Airport that refutes the accusations made by the mayor of Chacao, Leopoldo Lopez, who recently claimed he had been held illegally and been physically attacked by five or six members of the DISIP (Venezuelan federal police) in the airport.

The events occurred last Wednesday, when Lopez returned from a trip to the United States where he went, among other reasons, to denounce his political disqualification for receiving illicit donations when he worked at the state oil company PDVSA and received money from the company on behalf of the party Primero Justicia, which was then a "civil society" organization. Lopez also claimed he met with presidential candidate Barack Obama.

The video shows the arrival of Lopez at the airport. In it, there is also a person, possibly a DISIP agent in civilian clothes, who takes some photocopies of Lopez's passport, but at no time assaults him physically. Totally to the contrary, it is Lopez who launches himself at the other man, intending to attack him.

Lopez, for his part, also provoked other officials at the airport by trying to photograph them with his cellphone, and enters a restricted area in pursuit of one of the officials, who do not respond aggressively.

The video also shows Lopez leaving the airport, getting into a truck, and departing. The mayor later claimed that the officials had torn his shirt pocket, but the video shows it intact to the very end.

Afterwards, Lopez returned to the airport at Maiquetia with a team from the opposition TV channel Globovision to make his denunciation, showing the ripped shirt pocket and with a photocopy of his passport, which supposedly had been taken away from him by DISIP agents.

Translation mine. Video (in Spanish) at the bottom of the page.

You can see that Prettyboy (in a light blue shirt, white pants and dark belt) is very aggressive throughout it, particularly from the midway point of the roughly 20-minute first clip, when he starts chasing after the airport functionaries brandishing his cellphone and trying to take their pictures in order to provoke them into a fight. He also starts trying to shove them around. The security men, as you can see, refuse to bite; they just turn away from him and fend him off without throwing a punch. One of them is wearing a striped polo shirt; another, a dark suit. At no point does Lopez get attacked himself, nor is his shirt pocket ever damaged--UNTIL he drags in Globovision to "document" his tall tale of an attack that never happened, in the second clip, in which we suddenly see the pocket hanging by a thread. But in the first video, he's completely unrumpled. Which means that sometime between the first set of videos and the time he dragged in the Flojovision flunkies, he must have done the damage himself, or maybe he had his pal (with the knapsack in the airport video) do the job for him.

Aporrea also notes that Lopez recently claimed to have visited with Barack Obama, and had his picture taken with him. The pic in question, though, is very dubious, since both men seem to have the same skin tone in it. This even though Lopez is clearly a white man, whereas Obama definitely isn't.

One thing that is consistent about all these pics and videos, though, is the glassy, fanatical look of Leo's eyes. Scary little señorito refuses to blink. He reels off his spiel (just the usual blahblah about tyranny and how "we are not afraid"), all without pausing for breath. He's downright hyper. Is he on drugs, is he a religious cultist, or just a paranoid schizophrenic? Maybe any or all of the above; maybe none. One thing's for sure: As Mario Silva notes, he's a clown, but a dangerous one. He never loses an opportunity to make crapaganda, and the disociado minority, the Venezuelan ex-ruling class, never fails to believe him--even when he's caught in a lie, as here.

And of course, the lamestream English-speaking media will probably repeat his lies uncritically, too. He's their darling, after all--a young, superficially very good-looking white guy who "dares" to "stand up" to the non-white "dictator/tyrant/demagogue" Chavez (although, strangely, he's never had the 'nads to confront him directly on anything--probably because the Evil Big Red One would mop the floor with him without so much as raising his voice.) You'll note that they make a big issue out of the "blacklist" of candidates who have been found in violation of the law, Lopez among them--but they won't do any digging into what Lopez did that got him disqualified from running for office again.

And of course, they won't take a critical look at the airport video, either.

Posted by Sabina Becker at 03:15 PM | Permalink

Looks like the Colombia problem is heating up on more fronts than one. Here's what's going on in Correa-land:

Colombian rebels in northern Ecuador are an old problem that previous governments failed to confront, Ecuador's defense minister told The Associated Press, announcing additions to a growing arsenal aimed at securing the Andean nation's borders.

Defense Minister Javier Ponce said in an interview that the government is buying six Israeli-made unmanned aerial vehicles and new radar so it can get a better handle on its borders, especially the troubled frontier with Colombia.

The acquisitions are in addition to 24 Super Tucano warplanes announced in May.

He said he does not consider Colombia a national security threat, though the leftist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia that dominates the northern border zone — and the illegal drug trade that fuels its insurgency — are a danger.

"We are not able to impede the establishment of guerrilla camps or drug labs, but to the degree that we have been dismantling a series of labs and camps we are establishing a certain capacity to prevent this from getting out of control," Ponce told the AP on Tuesday evening.

Incidentally, Colombia and Ecuador are still not talking to each other over the illegal bombing of a FARC camp on Ecuadorian turf this past March 1. But hey, at least Manta will soon be a thing of the past, at least as far as gringo incursion forces go.

And here's a cool factoid: Minister Ponce is also a poet! A few satirical verses excoriating El Narco would therefore be in order, yes?

Posted by Sabina Becker at 12:29 PM | Permalink

Oh, surely not because it's only El Narco and not Chavecito calling for this rather unusual measure...

Colombia's president on Thursday called for a referendum to decide if new presidential elections should be held in the wake of a court decision that is questioning the legitimacy of his 2006 re-election.

President Alvaro Uribe said he will ask the country's congress to approve the referendum.

Uribe's demand came after the Supreme Court called Thursday for the re-evaluation of the congressional act that changed the constitution to allow Uribe to run for a second term. The Supreme Court questioned the act after a former representative was found guilty of having changed her vote in 2004 to support the president's bid for re-election.

Yidis Medina, who was sentenced to 47 months, claimed senior members of the government offered her supporters jobs in exchange for her key vote. Uribe's administration has denied the charges.

But of course, he IS looking to change the constitution and run. Even his own defence minister, the most likely successor, is being blocked by El Narco, who wants to hang onto power, it seems, for life.

The ghost of Pablo Escobar must be rolling around the bowels of hell, laughing his ass off.

Posted by Sabina Becker at 12:00 PM | Permalink

What a shame. Lord Blah-Blah has to serve out his full sentence:

Conrad Black's conviction on fraud and obstruction of justice charges has been upheld by a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals.

The court said today that defence lawyers' arguments weren't strong enough to topple Black's conviction.

Black has been at a minimum-security prison in Florida since March serving a 6 1/2-year sentence.

Minimum security, such a light sentence--and he still appealed it? What a self-important wanker.

Posted by Sabina Becker at 08:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Ha ha, Boris Johnson cracks me up. First that undead haystack cancels the London public transit system's cheap-fuel deal with Venezuela, out of some idiotic desire to punish the poor with fare hikes. Now, get a load of what he keeps on his desk--or used to:

Police have forced London Mayor Boris Johnson to hand over a cigar case belonging to Iraq's former deputy prime minister Tariq Aziz.

The ex-MP, who obtained the red leather case from Mr Aziz's bombed-out home while visiting Iraq as a journalist in 2003, said the situation was "stupid".

He said: "The police have no choice but to investigate this ludicrous affair."

Under the Iraq (UN Sanctions) Order 2003, anyone possessing Iraqi cultural property must give it to the police.

Granted, it's not much of a "cultural property", seeing as it's not exactly a first edition cuneiform scroll of the Code of Hammurabi or anything like that. But it's not rightfully his, either, and keeping such a grotesque trophy on his desk speaks of extremely poor judgment on his part.

Not, I hasten to add, that his sentiments regarding the president of Venezuela say anything better.

Posted by Sabina Becker at 12:05 AM | Permalink

Remember how I said the newly elected leftist president of Paraguay was by no stretch of the imagination a moderate, and even posted proof?

Well, guess what the Dissociated Press's own hilariously named Christopher Toothaker wrote. And if you guessed "complete bullshit", pat yourself on the back--you are absolutely correct!

Paraguayan President-elect Fernando Lugo was all smiles as he and Venezuela's Hugo Chavez embraced, talked of a revolution for the poor and pledged to build a united Latin America.

But as the former Roman Catholic priest ended a three-nation tour Thursday that also included visits to Venezuela's leftist allies in Bolivia and Ecuador, political analysts predicted he will take a less radical approach to governing.

"He sees himself on the side of the progressive forces that want to change the relationship between Latin American countries and the United States," said Fred Rossen, an analyst at the New York-based North American Congress on Latin America.

But he still faces a formidable conservative opposition at home and is considered much more moderate in his approach to the United States.

Lugo's election in April pushed Paraguay toward the left and ended the 61-year reign of the conservative Colorado Party. But the party still holds a congressional majority and control of the judiciary.

"Even if he wanted to, he's not in a position to make very radical changes," said Michael Shifter, an analyst at the Washington-based Inter-American Dialogue. "He must contend with a very entrenched Colorado Party, so I think his room for maneuvering is extremely limited."

Ah, there's another hilariously-named bullshitter who keeps cropping up in this sort of "analysis"--Michael Shifter. Remind Mr. BoRev to tell you about him sometime. Or the guy at Oil Wars, who has also been watching this clown. He seems to be a smelly source of choice with the AP. Which comes as no surprise when you consider that Bart Jones, who used to write for them (but has since moved on to better things, including a cracking good bio of Chavecito) has revealed that the AP is so anti-Chavez that one of its bureau buffoons down there actually wore a button with a "let's kick out the loony" message referring to Big Red You Know Who.

And in the meantime, bear in mind what Auntie 'Bina says about the AP, and how Justin Delacour recently, rightly, excoriated them for their inaccuracies, prompting a rare correction. Not only are they a money-grubbing bunch of blogger-bullies, they're also frequently, hysterically, hilariously wrong. So much so that you might as well consult your Magic 8 Ball as them if you really wanna know what's going on. The odds of you getting a correct answer, frankly, favor the Magic 8 Ball.

(And if you think I'm gonna pay them for the privilege of slicing and dicing their writings while quoting from them as liberally as I please, you can stuff that thought right back up the orifice you pulled it out of. Auntie 'Bina is a firm believer in a FREE press, not an extortionate one. Even if it IS a co-op, as the NYT says the AP is.)

Posted by Sabina Becker at 12:28 AM | Permalink

From Deutsche Welle, the German satellite TV channel, an interesting passage buried well down in the piece:

The Return Directive raises hackles not only because of possible human rights infringements, but because the remittances sent home by illegal workers to their poor countries of origin -- for example Ecuador and Bolivia -- are an important source of income there.

Last year, immigrants in Europe, the US and Japan sent money back to their families in Latin America and the Caribbean amounting to just under 43 billion euros ($66 billion), the EU Observer online newspaper said.

It is more than the region receives from foreign direct investment or development assistance combined.

"...more than the region receives from foreign direct investment or development assistance combined."

Sit back and let that sink in for a bit.

Okay?

Okay.

Imagine that. Undocumented immigrants are a bigger part of the Bolivian and Ecuadorian economies, and those of several other LatAm and Caribbean countries, than foreign direct investment and development assistance combined. Meaning, those working stiffs, however unpapered, are a once hidden vertebra in the backbone of their respective nations' economies.

That means what exactly, Auntie 'Bina?

That means, possum-pie, that the much-vaunted neo-liberal policies of "foreign aid" and "direct foreign investment" aren't helping those impoverished countries half as much as the plain old sweat of their own expatriates' brows. It means that Ecuadorians, Bolivians, etc., etc., can do more for Ecuador, Bolivia, etc., etc., than USAID, the World Bank, the IMF, or any other assclown who insists that foreign investment is what those countries really need to get their economies into working order, and their people into work, period. It means that hose people have FOUND work, all right, but not as a result of aid or investment; they found it by leaving the countries that "aid" and "investment" have stripped bare, and going to where the jobs are: Europe, North America, and Japan primarily. There, they make a meagre living--and are grotesquely exploited in many cases--but also manage to make enough to send home and provide vital foreign income that boosts the economy of Ecuador, Bolivia, etc., etc.

That's what it means, but that's not all it means.

It also means that the great plan of the generous "aid" and "investment" designed by stuffed suits from rich countries to rob the poor--is FAILING. Failing because those damn uppity undocumented economic migrants are foiling it. Foiling it by doing nothing more than working hard, sending a portion of their earnings home, and dodging La Migra. Foiling it, in other words, by doing what people in dire need, and who cannot afford the long, expensive wait to be "legal", will do to make sure that their near and dear ones don't starve to death.

And do you know what else that means, possum-pie?

It means that neo-liberal economics, and neo-con politics, are one big fat miserable failure. And that the best way to help countries in poverty...is to help their people help themselves, rather than punishing them for doing just that.

Of course, it's now blindingly apparent that helping poor countries was never the idea in the first place. Does Auntie 'Bina have to spell out what it really was, or have you got the general drift of it by now?

Posted by Sabina Becker at 11:31 PM | Permalink

About it not only being Evo and Chavecito? Get a load of El Ecuadorable and what he'd do if Europe keeps on shitting on Latin American economic migrants:

Ecuador threatened to halt Andean trade talks with the European Union on Saturday after its leaders endorsed tougher detention rules for illegal immigrants.

Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa said the rule allowing EU countries to detain illegal immigrants for 18 months violates the human rights of migrant workers.

"We could even suspend those negotiations. What do we have to talk about with a union of countries that criminalizes immigrants?" Correa said during his weekly radio address. "It will be very hard to talk business and ignore human rights."

Oh, and here he is on video, saying that in Spanish:

Strictly superfluous, of course, unless, like me, you just like watching and hearing him say things rife with cojones. In which case, small blame to you.

Posted by Sabina Becker at 03:48 PM | Permalink

...one of these:

Oh, you think I'm being too harsh? Here:

Suck on his energy "policy" ad. Because it most definitely will suck on you.

Especially the picture of Chavecito hugging Ahmadinejad, accompanied by the words "a cartel for which America's well-being is not exactly a priority". Um, who the fuck said it HAD to be? It's not as if these two ARE a cartel, or like they haven't got countries of their own to run. Why they have to put the interests of some gas-guzzlin' gringo ahead of the well-being of their respective countries has always been--well, not a mystery to me. Actually, I just always found it stank of Teh Stoopid.

As does Mr. McCrazy, truth be told. Even if everything he mentions were implemented to the hilt, it still wouldn't address the fact that his country's intire infrastructure is built around CONSUMING fuel, not CONSERVING it. They have lots of highways, highways comin' out the wazoo, but their public transit systems are woefully behind, and never more so when it comes to inter-city service. (Yeah, Ronnie, scrapping trains was a great idea. No wonder the Japanese, who never had a domestic oil supply and were always dependent on imports, are laughing up their kimono sleeves at y'all today. While riding the bullet train from Tokyo to Kyoto, natch.)

It might behoove McCrazy to remember that his country's numero uno oil supplier is neither Iran nor Venezuela. It's not Saudi Arabia, either. Guess where it is.

Give up?

It's CANADA, eh! Yes, really. My gawd, that's where I live. I better bunker down lest they declare war on us next for not being tame enough to US policy...

And yet. And yet.

And yet, I don't hear McCrazy calling OUR oilmen a "cartel" (although I certainly wouldn't put it past them to be one), nor have I seen him flashing any of their corpulent old white mugs in his ads.

But then again, silly me--they're capitalists, and all have been ever since the NEP was killed by Lyin' Brian. Not Islamists like Ahmadinejad, or socialists like Chavecito. No wonder they're totally under this spoiled flyboy's radar. He can't make any cheap political points off them, but boy, can they ever make big buckeroonies at the expense of anyone dumb enough to vote for this oligarch. No wonder I have such a low opinion of Repugs in general.

And no wonder I find this one in particular to be, well...you know.

Posted by Sabina Becker at 02:58 PM | Permalink

"The past week was a good one if you were a courtier. We were instructed by the high priests on television over the past few days to mourn a Sunday morning talk show host, who made $5 million a year and who gave a platform to the powerful and the famous so they could spin, equivocate and lie to the nation. We were repeatedly told by these television courtiers, people like Tom Brokaw and Wolf Blitzer, that this talk show host was one of our nation's greatest journalists, as if sitting in a studio, putting on makeup and chatting with Dick Cheney or George W. Bush have much to do with journalism.

--Chris Hedges, "The Hedonists of Power"

Posted by Sabina Becker at 02:11 PM | Permalink

Here, let Editor and Publisher clue you in:

In her Sunday column this week, Washington Post ombudsman Deborah Howell responds to charges of improper money-making from special-interest groups against two of the newspaper's stars, David Broder and Bob Woodward. The allegations were carried in the current issue of Harper's by Ken Silverstein, the magazine's Washington editor.

Both Broder and Woodward recently took buyouts from the paper but remain as contract workers.

The Post Stylebook's ethics and standards section says only: "We freelance for no one and accept no speaking engagements without permission from department heads." Howell observes: "Broder and Woodward did not check with editors on the appearances Silverstein mentioned."

Link added.

My, how the mighty have fallen.

Bob Woodward, the man who (with Carl Bernstein) broke the story of Watergate, is now in thorough disrepute. Somehow, I don't think this is what Deep Throat meant when he told those two intrepid reporters to "follow the money"! And David Broder, who used to write well but has been turning into a bloviating archconservative in his old age, has earned more than just some richly deserved disgust by people looking for accurate reporting, not grandiose gasbaggery. Well, now we know why both of them have gone bad--it's the money, honey.

Here's the WaHoPo's ombud on the details:

...Broder made a number of speeches to business groups, including the Western Conference of Prepaid Medical Service Plans, a group of nonprofit health plans; the National Association of Manufacturers, which met at a Florida resort; a Northern Virginia Association of Realtors fundraiser; and the American Council for Capital Formation, a nonprofit group promoting smaller government and lower taxes.

[...]

Broder said the groups paid his expenses. He received two speech fees -- about $7,000 from the Northern Virginia Association of Realtors, and, in 2006, he accepted $12,000 from the Minnesota League of Cities. Mary Beth Coya, the Realtors' senior vice president for public and governmental affairs, said the event was not a fundraiser but was attended by elected officials "to promote our government affairs programs."

Broder and his wife, Ann, also took free passage on the 2007 Seabourn Cruise Line's 13-night "Rio and the Amazon" cruise in exchange for three speeches about presidents he has covered.

[...]

Woodward said all his speaking fees -- which range from $15,000 to $60,000 -- go to a foundation he started in the 1990s with his wife, journalist Elsa Walsh. The Woodward Walsh Foundation has about $2.3 million, he said. He gave me its latest 2008 IRS filing, which will be made public, showing total gifts of $107,874, compared with $17,500 in 2007. Its largest donation in the past year was $51,000 to his daughter's Sidwell Friends School. Among other recipients were Investigative Reporters and Editors, Martha's Table and D.C. College Access.

But I guess it ain't whorin' if it's all going to your own private charitable foundation, eh? Talk about a hooker with a heart of gold.

You can read more about the whole whorish kerfuffle at Harper's.

Posted by Sabina Becker at 09:59 PM | Permalink

...it's all of Mercosur rejecting that draconian, disgusting European "Return Statute"--you know, the one that deprives undocumented immigrants of all legal rights, including recourse to an attorney before the country they're in decides to boot them out--after a prison stay of up to a year and a half?

On Friday, the Common Market of the South (Mercosur) and its associated countries expressed their "firm repudiation" of the discrimination supported by the European Union's directive of return for irregular immigrants, approved this past week by the Europarliament. The law decrees incarceration of 18 months for the undocumented.

"The governments of the participant and associate states of Mercosur deplore the approval on the part of the European Parlilament of the "return directive", announced a communication from the Argentine Chancery, which heads the South American union at this time.

Argentine diplomatic sources say that the EU's measure will be debated at the Summit of Heads of State of Mercosur, which will take place on July 1 in the Argentine city of Tucumán.

Mercosur consists of Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay, with Venezuela in the process of becoming a full member. Associate countries are Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru.

In their declaration, the ten South American nations reaffirm their "firm support for the promotion and irrestricted respect of human rights for migrants and their families, independent of their immigrant status, nationality, ethnic origin, gender or age."

They also emphasized "the necessity of recognizing the co-responsibility between the countries of origin, transit and destination of the migrants," according to the statement by the Argentine Chancery.

Translation mine.

Xinhua news agency reports that this law is supposed to be against labor exploitation. If that's true, why does it not punish cheap-ass employers who exploit the helpless status of the undocumented--and render the undocumented more helpless still? How many expensive new prisons will they have to build just to accommodate all these people without pedigree puppy-papers? And how much will it cost to enforce this law in terms of Gestapo police officers alone? And who will be footing the bill for all this? (I suggest the EU hit up the cheap-ass employers, who should be the ones in the jails. It will take a lot less manpower and money to jail them.)

BTW, Evo has spoken out against this nasty law very eloquently, and Chavecito says no oil for any country caught robbing migrants of their legal recourse. Them's my homies.

Machetera also notes that in all, 14 LatAm/Caribbean nations have now spoken out against this fascistic law. Of course, they're all predominantly non-white, so we know just how much notice the neo-conned EU will take of them.

Posted by Sabina Becker at 09:26 PM | Permalink

A fun animated short history of South America, Simon Bolivar, and his modern counterparts. Several familiar cartoony faces in there...

Posted by Sabina Becker at 10:33 PM | Permalink

And gets a hug-ito from Chavecito at a religious ceremony at Caricuao in his honor:

And if the speech he gave in Ecuador here is any indication, he will work well with the rest for integration:

BTW, El Ecuadorable and Evo are in there too. Watch for them.

Posted by Sabina Becker at 12:52 AM | Permalink

He's done two things that are very decent, all things considered.

First, he's put a freeze on food prices so that poorer Mexicans can quit dying of NAFTA-induced starvation (or at least, slow it down a bit.) If he's smart, he'll decree a price rollback and make it permanent. And if he's REALLY smart, he'll tear up NAFTA. (Oh 'Bina, you really are a dreamer, aren't you.)

He's also advocated that Europe lift its sanctions against Cuba. Meaning Cubans can also quit starving for lack of Euros. Yay!

Now, if only he'd admit that his "election" was a sham, and cede to AMLO like he should have done in the first place, things could really get rockin'.

Posted by Sabina Becker at 10:37 PM | Permalink

Nothing's going right for the president of Colombia, it seems. First he's flopping miserably in his efforts to wipe out the FARC (who are much more likely to listen to his arch-rival Chavecito than they are to give a rat's ass what he says). Now he's flopping miserably on another front as well:

Colombian peasants devoted 27 percent more land to growing coca last year, the United Nations reported Wednesday, calling the increase "a surprise and a shock" given intense efforts to eradicate cocaine's raw ingredient.

Estimated cocaine production, however, increased only slightly in Colombia and other Andean nations — to about 994 metric tons in 2007 from 984 metric tons the year before, according to the U.N. — as cultivation shifted to smaller, less-productive plots in more remote locations.

The net increase in coca farmland came despite "record" U.S.-backed eradication efforts that disrupted the growing cycle, said Gen. Oscar Naranjo, the chief of Colombia's police.

Tsk, tsk, tsk. Alvaro, really! All that Yanqui dinero and all that help from the Empire, and now this?

Methinks you need an impeachment, not another term.

Posted by Sabina Becker at 09:13 PM | Permalink

I seem to recall that he stepped down. He's now signing all his Granma articles as Comrade Fidel, rather than Comandante, too.

So why, then, are "experts" trying to analyze the latest video of him to assess his "viability"? Are they really so stuck as to how to turn Cuba into a capitalist hellhole? Do they seriously think it's all about Fidel, and only Fidel, when in fact it's all about CUBA?

BTW, they do have elections there, too. They just don't have right-wing parties. Which, if you ask me, is no loss. It already looks like they're holding their own without a charismatic leader in charge. Which begs the question: Why does the CIA still give a shit, and why are they still trying to kill him at this late stage of the game?

Posted by Sabina Becker at 08:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

...so I've taken it on myself to translate YVKE Mundial's report (via Aporrea) on the murder of an RCTV anchorman:

The Minister of Interior Relations and Justice, Ramon Rodriguez Chacin, informed on Tuesday that last weekend's homicide of Javier Garcia "is presumed to be a crime of passion by all we have verified in the case".

The minister called for one minute daily to be devoted to this and other special cases, and said he did not want to give more information so as not to impede the capture of the suspected killer.

The body of the RCTV nightly news anchor, 37 years old, was found in his apartment last Sunday, in the Alto Alegre building, which is located in the suburb of Colinas de Bello Monte.

The director of the Baruta police, Wilfredo Borras, informed that on Sunday, around 7:00 pm, one of Garcia's brothers entered his apartment and forced the door of his bedroom, which had been locked. There he found the corpse, fully dressed. "He wore dark brown pants and a long-sleeved shirt. All that was missing was his socks and shoes," the director said. The body was "in the middle of the bed, lying face-up, with arms extended backwards." The body had two stab wounds in the thigh and three in the chest.

Borras said that Garcia could have been the victim of a robbery. But the death has been used by the private media, principally Globovision and RCTV, to claim that Garcia had been a victim of insecurity, one of the principal themes the opposition uses to attack the government of Hugo Chavez. YVKE Mundial received some 250 commentaries on the two items published over Garcia's death; the great majority of the commentaries came from admirers of the journalist, who were convinced that the young man had died as a result of "insecurity" and demanded that the government crack down hard.

According to Mario Silva, host of the VTV program "La Hojilla", there were no signs of a struggle in Garcia's apartment, nor that the door had been forced. On Monday, the Inspector General's office informed that they were interviewing a witness, who may have seen a suspicious person trying to carry a suitcase out of the apartment building where the journalist had lived.

Okay. Big breath.

I'd like more details on this, and I'm sure I'll get them from Aporrea and YVKE Mundial--but so far, no English-language outlet has given them. They have, however, dutifully reported the spin that is sure to be most pleasing to you-know-who in you-know-where.

Posted by Sabina Becker at 10:21 PM | Permalink

Because kiddies, this case is gonna get real ugly:

A Venezuelan television anchorman was found slain in his apartment, his body riddled with stab wounds, authorities said Monday.

Javier Garcia worked for Radio Caracas Television, or RCTV, which has been fiercely critical of President Hugo Chavez.

Police said a relative found Garcia's body, with five stab wounds, in his bed on Sunday.

[...]

Gladys Zapiain, manager of institutional relations for RCTV, told the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists, or CPJ, it was too early to determine if Garcia's death was linked to his work at the TV station.

But of course, it's never too early for the AP or RCTV (which is, strangely, still broadcasting!) to spin this as a "how can we link it to Chavez" story!

Posted by Sabina Becker at 11:24 PM | Permalink

This has all the makings of a farce.

A couple jailed on suspicion of having a same-sex wedding was freed Monday after a doctor determined that the groom is a hermaphrodite. Prosecutor Jose Planas ordered the couple jailed after their civil wedding Friday, when the priest scheduled to perform the religious ceremony the following day said he received a call saying the groom, Jesus Alejandro Martinez, was actually a woman.

Same-sex marriages are illegal in Paraguay, and news of the arrest became the talk of the nation.

Planas had threatened Martinez with five years in prison for falsification of documents, and said he could charge the bride, Blanca Estigarribia, with complicity.

But the couple was released Monday. A doctor who inspected Martinez in jail ruled that he is a hermaphrodite, with atrophied female genitals and well-developed male genitals, according to the couple's lawyer, Jorge Cantero.

"Conclusion: He is a man," Cantero said.

[...]

Martinez, who has some feminine traits, said he suspected an ex-girlfriend made the accusation to the priest.

"I always felt like a man, with no feminine inclination," he said.

Martinez said the couple would continue to live along the border near the Argentine city of Clorinda - "where everybody knows us and loves us."

Of course, this whole thing could have been rendered a non-issue by making same-sex marriages legal and arresting that phone-freak for harassment. Poking the state's nose into people's pants before letting them marry is just plain rude.

Posted by Sabina Becker at 09:31 PM | Permalink

Elian Gonzalez, whose distant relations tried to keep him in Miami (over the protests of not only Elian's father, but Elian himself) is now a Young Communist.

I wonder if that wacky cult that sprang up around him is still operational, or if it has died of shame.

Posted by Sabina Becker at 05:44 PM | Permalink

From Aporrea, another jaw-dropper:

Rafael Correa added his voice to that of Hugo Chavez and called on the FARC to lay down their arms.

"What future is there for guerrillas combatting a democratic government, who have no popular support in the 21st century?" asked the Ecuadorian president.

His words sound as tough as those of his Venezuelan counterpart, who insisted last Sunday that the guerrillas must end their war in Colombia. The two presidents have acted as mediators in securing the release of hostages this year and, according to the supposed computers of Raul Reyes, had contacts and alliances with the Colombian guerrillas.

Without mentioning Colombian president Alvaro Uribe directly, or the denunciations his government has directed against Quito, Correa took a few minutes during a televised interview to send a message. He spoke haltingly, pronouncing with a special emphasis on each word. "Please, enough already, lay down your arms, let's have a political and diplomatic dialogue to find peace. We've said so 500 times," he said.

To avoid Uribe's capitalizing on his words, as he did this past week with those of Chavez, the Ecuadorian president made very clear that he is not taking the side of the Colombian government. "This conflict is spilling over into all the neighboring countries and it's destabilizing the whole region. There are also Ecuadorians among the hostages," he emphasized.

He offered himself again as a mediator, and his country's territory, to restart negotiations for humanitarian exchange. "We have all the right and the obligation to intervene in humanitarian actions such as the liberation of hostages, without asking permission of absolutely anyone," he assured, in defiance of Bogota. He ordered his minister of Interior and Exterior Security, Gustavo Larrea, to seek new contacts with the guerrillas to reopen the dialogue for the hostages. "But we still don't have that contact," he declared.

But while rumors arise about new initiatives by the governments of Ecuador and Venezuela, Uribe has his own strategy. Yesterday he reiterated that members of the FARC proposed to the government that they would demobilize and hand over their civilian hostages, among them Ingrid Betancourt, in exchange for the promise that they would not be extradited.

Correa repeatedly emphasized that the situation with the neighboring country remains tense. "We don't have any eagerness to re-establish relations. We were the victims of an attack. We have every right to attach conditions," he said. He accepted, as a "goodwill gesture", that he would return to maintaining a link insofar as negotiations go, but no more than that.

For its part, the Colombian government refused to approve any of the demands from Quito to re-establish complete diplomatic relations.

Like Chavez, Correa also refuses to label the FARC a terrorist group. However, that declaration was not enough for the FARC to take to heart the declarations of the Venezuelan president, and surely the same will happen with those of his Ecuadorian counterpart.

"The declarations of Chavez make no sense and were taken out of context by media terrorists in the service of the US empire and the oligarchies of Colombia and Venezuela," declared the Colombian news website Anncol, which has close ties to the guerrillas.

Translation mine.

It remains to be seen what the FARC make of these declarations, but this is one of those "another one bites the dust" moments for me. Another "terrorist ties" myth has been busted, this time by El Ecuadorable.

So, with that in mind, it's time to cue up the Queen song:

Posted by Sabina Becker at 12:22 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Pepe Escobar interviews the Latin America expert and author:

He's bang-on about everything except one point: He insists Venezuela has become a "transshipment point" for Colombian cocaine since Chavez stopped collaborating with the DEA. Actually, Venezuela became such a point long before Chavez was elected--it goes back as far as the drug wars of the 1980s, whereas Chavez was elected in '99. Venezuelan seizures of drug shipments are way up since Chavez booted the DEA, and one can only conclude that the DEA was actually complicit with Colombia and its right-wing paramilitaries in menacing Venezuela.

Which means Chavez was really onto something when he said that the FARC (who have used cocaine trafficking as a source of income) have become a convenient excuse for Washington to crank up the war machine. Take away one more excuse, and that cranking becomes a lot harder to do.

Posted by Sabina Becker at 05:41 PM | Permalink