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<font size=3>Target Venezuela!<br>
U.S. is now seeking to have Venezuela declared "a state sponsor of
terrorism."<br><br>
<a href="http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=8322" eudora="autourl">
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=8322<br><br>
</a>By Tom Burghardt<br><br>
<a href="http://www.globalresearch.ca">Global Research</a>, March 13,
2008<br>
<a href="http://antifascist-calling.blogspot.com">Antifascist
Calling...</a> <br><br>
Just days after president Hugo Chávez affirmed at the Rio Group summit
that "our government only wants peace," the U.S. is now seeking
to have Venezuela declared "a state sponsor of
terrorism."<br><br>
</font><font size=3 color="#003399"><b>
<a href="http://www.mcclatchydc.com/world/story/29944.html">McClatchy
News</a></b></font><font size=3> reported Monday,<br><br>
</font>
<dl>
<dd>The Bush administration has launched a preliminary legal inquiry that
could land Venezuela on the U.S. list of nations that support terrorism,
following reports of close Venezuelan links with Colombian rebels, a
senior government official has confirmed.</i> (Pablo Bachelet, "U.S.
May Add Venezuela to List of Terrorist States," McClatchy Washington
Bureau</i>, Monday, March 10, 2008)<br><br>
</dl>In other words, the U.S. State Department is using Uribe's
"dodgy dossier" as a pretext for sanctions and embargoes
against the Bolivarian republic. If implemented, such restrictions would
severely limit the ability of U.S. firms to do business with Caracas
while making it nearly impossible for Venezuela to export oil to the
United States or import vital spare parts necessary to keep the economy
going.<br><br>
Under onerous rules now being considered, the Treasury Department's
Office of Asset Control could potentially freeze Venezuelan financial
assets in U.S. banks. Such aggressive action by the Bush administration
would
"<a href="http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB8/ch26-01.htm">
<font size=3 color="#003399">make the economy
scream</a></b></font>," the infamous order given by Richard M. Nixon
to the CIA in the run-up to the violent putsch that overthrew Chile's
democratically-elected socialist president, Salvador Allende, on
September 11, 1973.<br><br>
The McClatchy</i> report continues, <br><br>
<dl>
<dd>The legal review comes after Colombia captured four computers
belonging to a guerrilla leader in a March 1 raid into Ecuador. The
documents suggest the Venezuelan government was in the process of
providing $300 million to the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or
FARC.<br><br>
</i>
</dl>As investigative journalist
<a href="http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/3254">
<font size=3 color="#003399">Greg Palast</a></b></font> reported after
actually reviewing</i> the documents, there is no mention whatsoever that
the Venezuelan government was "in the process of providing $300
million to ... FARC."<br><br>
Commenting on the crisis, U.S.-Venezuelan attorney
<a href="http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/3259">
<font size=3 color="#003399">Eva Golinger</a></b></font> wrote
Tuesday,<br><br>
<dl>
<dd>Over the past year, the U.S. State Department has classified
Venezuela as a nation "not collaborating" with either the
"war on drugs" or the "war against terrorism". The
Pentagon and the intelligence communities released reports earlier this
year citing Venezuela as a "major threat to U.S. national
security" and have proposed beefing up military presence in the
region. The White House and Congress have increased USAID and National
Endowment Funding to opposition groups in Venezuela in an effort to
rebuild ailing conservatives that favor a U.S. agenda. International
media portray Chávez as "public enemy #1" and the leader of a
Latin American "axis of evil" that is threatening regional
stability.</i> ("The Peacemaker," Venezuela Analysis</i>,
Tuesday, March 11, 2008)<br><br>
<br>
</dl>With this in mind, Bill Conroy at
<a href="http://www.narconews.com/Issue51/article3031.html">
<font size=3 color="#003399">The Narco News Bulletin</a></i></b></font>
is reporting that CIA and Pentagon corporate cut-outs have exported at
least 11 aircraft to Venezuela since 2003, four of which have
subsequently been linked to cocaine planes seized by Mexican and Central
American authorities. Conroy's extensive investigation into the
mysterious aircraft and even dodgier companies have led him to conclude
that the planes are linked "to an elaborate covert intelligence
operation." Conroy reports:<br><br>
<dl>
<dd>The covert program, law enforcement sources contend, likely involves
the CIA and components of Defense Department intelligence agencies, and
is focused, in part, on penetrating, or even propping up,
narco-trafficking groups in Venezuela. That country's outspoken leader,
Hugo Chávez, is regularly demonized by U.S. policymakers for, among other
things, supposedly allowing his country to become a haven for
narco-traffickers.</i> ("U.S. Cocaine-Plane Invasion Spooks Latin
America," The Narco News Bulletin</i>, March 11, 2008)<br><br>
<br>
</dl>The Narco News</i> investigation dovetails with one that
Florida-based journalist
<a href="http://www.madcowprod.com/"><font size=3 color="#003399">Daniel
Hopsicker</a></b></font> has been reporting for nearly two years when the
first plane was seized on the Yucatan peninsula by Mexican authorities in
April 2006, carrying some 5.5. tons of cocaine.<br><br>
Conroy and Hopsicker have both reported that the operation, code-named
<a href="http://www.narconews.com/Issue48/article2941.html">
<font size=3 color="#003399">Mayan Express</a></b></font>, appears to
prioritize intelligence goals over law enforcement. Multi-ton loads of
cocaine may have been allowed to flow freely into the United States as
Washington's "drug warriors" looked the other way, a classic
sign of a sanctioned intelligence operation.<br><br>
Two of the aircraft identified in their reports, a Gulfstream II jet
(tail number N987SA), which crashed in Mexico last September with a
payload of some four tons of cocaine, and a Beech 200 (N391SA) seized in
Nicaragua "with the false tail number N168D," have been linked
to the CIA's "extraordinary rendition" program, according to
<a href="http://www.dft.gov.uk/foi/responses/2006/jun/additionaleurocontrol/">
<font size=3 color="#003399">Council of Europe</a></b></font>
investigators.<br><br>
In a prior interview with Conroy, attorney Mark Conrad, "a former
high-level supervisory U.S. Customs agent who has an extensive background
in the intelligence world," told Narco News</i>,<br><br>
<dl>
<dd>"Even though it looks as if you are unraveling odd connections
you may be only seeing a small part of what is going on -- or you may be
seeing what you are expected to see, missing something else.<br><br>
<dd>"My guess -- and that is all that it is -- is that this has
something to do with operations in Venezuela -- either to finance ops, or
to divert attention from Agency ops in Venezuela to destabilize
Chávez</b>. ... It is not in the U.S. interests for Chávez to create
another Cuba on some of the largest oil field reserves in the
world." [emphasis added]<br><br>
</i>
</dl>Before the December 2007 constitutional referendum which the Chávez
government lost, Golinger reported that Venezuelan counterintelligence
obtained a CIA memorandum from the U.S. Embassy which revealed extensive
CIA/Pentagon plans to destabilize the country. Code-named "Operation
Pliers," the memo was dated November 20, 2007.
<a href="http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/2914">
<font size=3 color="#003399">Golinger</a></b></font> wrote,<br><br>
<dl>
<dd>Operation Tenaza has the objective of encouraging an armed
insurrection in Venezuela against the government of President Chávez that
will justify an intervention of US forces, stationed on the military
bases nearby in Curacao and Colombia. The Operation mentions two
countries in code: as Blue and Green. These refer to Curacao and
Colombia</b>, where the US has operative, active and equipped bases that
have been reinforced over the past year and a half in anticipation of a
conflict with Venezuela. [emphasis added]<br><br>
<dd>The document confirms that psychological operations are the CIA's
best and most effective weapon to date against Venezuela, and it will
continue its efforts to influence international public opinion regarding
President Chávez and the situation in the country.<br><br>
<dd>Operation Tenaza is a very alarming plan that aims to destabilize
Venezuela and overthrow (again) its legitimate and democratic (and very
popularly supported) president. The plan will fail, primarily because it
has been discovered, but it must be denounced around the world as an
unacceptable violation of Venezuela's sovereignty.</i> ("CIA
'Operation Pliers' Uncovered in Venezuela," Venezuela Analysis</i>,
November 28, 2007)<br><br>
</dl>While "Operation Pliers" may have failed back in December,
the CIA has been ratcheting up tensions ever since, as the March 1
U.S.-Colombian attack on Ecuador clearly demonstrates. Since its failed
April 2002 coup against the socialist government, the United States,
working through a multitude of fronts--from the CIA, the American Center
for International Labor Solidarity, the International Republican
Institute to the National Endowment for Democracy--have poured millions
of dollars into Venezuela, funding a broad campaign of subversion and
violence.<br><br>
Utilizing assets such as Súmate, Acción Democrática, Comando Nacional de
la Resistencia and media outlets such as Globovisión, RCTV and the
Interamerican Press Society, Washington and their far-right allies are
planning a "Pinochet option" to topple the
democratically-elected government of Hugo Chávez.<br><br>
Despite on-going attacks by Colombian far-right narco-trafficking
paramilitary gangs such as the Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia (AUC) and
Águilas Negras (Black Eagles) in the Venezuelan state of Tachira,
analysts believe that the U.S.-funded Plan Colombia is being used by the
Bush and Uribe regimes as part of a military "pincer" movement
against Venezuela.<br><br>
Tachira's governor, Blanco la Cruz, told the Australian socialist
journal,
<a href="http://www.greenleft.org.au/back/2006/684/684p12b.htm">
<font size=3 color="#003399">Green Left Weekly</a></b></font>
that,<br><br>
<dl>
<dd>"The zones that suffer this problem most intensely are [the
area] south of Lake Maracaibo in Zulia, Alto Apure, and, obviously,
Tachira. In these states, the paramilitaries, helped by the Colombian
government, have taken control of various areas, buying up farms with the
money from extortion, kidnapping and, principally,
drug-dealing."</i> (Jim McIlroy & Coral Wynter, "Venezuela:
Guns, Drugs and Thugs: The threat from Plan Colombia, Number 684,
September 20, 2006)<br><br>
</dl>If the United States determines that Venezuela "has ... crossed
the threshold of state sponsor of terror," according to an
"unnamed official" cited by McClatchy News</i>, full-blown U.S.
sanctions would usher in a state of savage economic warfare as a prelude
to a U.S. invasion and occupation of Venezuela and its strategic
petroleum resources.<br><br>
Additional documentation of U.S. destabilization operations against
Venezuela can be found at
<a href="http://www.venezuelafoia.info/english.html">
<font size=3 color="#003399">Venezuelafoia.info</a><br>
<hr>
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© Copyright Tom Burghardt,
<a href="http://antifascist-calling.blogspot.com">Antifascist
Calling...</a>, 2008 <br><br>
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