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<h1><b>The War Without a War</b></h1><font size=3>By
<a href="http://www.zcommunications.org/zspace/TedSnider">Ted
Snider</a><br>
<a href="http://www.zcommunications.org/the-war-without-a-war-by-ted-snider" eudora="autourl">
http://www.zcommunications.org/the-war-without-a-war-by-ted-snider<br><br>
</a>Tuesday, March 30, 2010<br><br>
There are no U.S. troops in Venezuela, but, make no mistake, the war is
on. There is more than one way to change a regime. Recent history has
shown the United States that the most obvious one, the one employed or
permitted in Honduras, will not work in Venezuela. That has already been
tried. When the U.S. backed coup took Chavez out in 2002, the people
simply put the popular leader back in.<br><br>
So the U.S. seems to be turning to a subtler method that has worked for
them before. The campaign has three prongs: media, government and
diplomacy, and indirect military pressure. The target of the campaign is
the September 26th National Assembly elections that will pit Chavez’
supporters against the U.S. backed right wing opposition. If the plan
works, the opposition will take over the national assembly and perhaps
even move to impeach Chavez. <br><br>
The first prong of the attack is being carried out by the media. There is
a large media campaign which is spreading lies and creating the
impression that Chavez’ popularity is failing and that there is
dissention in his government and in the army. It is spreading a picture
of a nation in crisis under Chavez’ leadership. Despite the media
misrepresentation, reliable polls still peg Chavez’ support as hovering
around the usual 60%. Seemingly recognizing the strategy, Chavez has
tried to call the opposition media’s bluff by challenging them, if they
really believe his popularity is failing, to prove it by invoking a
recall referendum. Recall referendums in Venezuela allow the people to
recall elected officials if 20% of the electorate signs it (funny
constitutional clause for a supposedly undemocratic dictatorship). Along
with disseminating a picture of a government out of control, the
international media also kicks in by increasing the volume on the
discrediting calls that Venezuela is undemocratic and that Chavez is a
dictator.<br><br>
Meanwhile, alongside assassinations of union and more than 250 peasant
leaders by right wing paramilitaries, violent antigovernment
demonstrations are breaking out in the streets. The media is giving wide
coverage to these small demonstrations, again creating the impression of
wide spread dissent and failing support for Chavez. But while these
demonstrations make the news, the international media is ignoring the
massive, and much larger, pro Chavez demonstrations, creating a very
misleading picture of popular opinion in Venezuela.<br><br>
The media effort is supported by a political and diplomatic front.
According to Frederico Fuentes, the right wing opposition in Venezuela is
backed by the U.S. Mark Weisbrot says that while U.S. money pours into
Venezuela, the government refuses to disclose whose getting it. And U.S.,
and even Canadian, diplomats and officials throw their contribution into
the campaign. Hilary Clinton started it off on her recent trip to Brazil,
firing insults at Venezuela, while the Brazilians diplomatically and
wittily defended Venezuela from the American salvoes. <br><br>
The third prong is the application of military pressure on those who
might slow down Chavez’ Bolivarian revolution out of fear of U.S.
reprisal. And the pressure is substantial. Obama has reactivated the
navy’s Fourth Fleet, disbanded over half a century ago. It is now
patrolling off the shores of South America. And on land, the U.S.
presence has swelled with seven new bases in bordering Columbia and four
in her neighbour, Panama. Thousands of troops now in nearby Haiti add to
the presence staring Venezuela down.<br><br>
Can this subtler approach to regime change work? A similar misinformation
campaign did work in 2007just barely--when Chavez suffered his first
defeat of any kind in a referendum on constitutional reform. But the
attempt to bring down a government in this way is really an old plan,
going back to the play book of the Eisenhower CIA. The pattern is eerily
familiar and, therefore, ominous.<br><br>
The first CIA coups were Iran in 1953 and Guatemala in 1954. In Iran, as
in Venezuela, the media played an important role. <i>The New York
Times</i> regularly branded popularly elected nationalist and democrat
Mohammad Mosaddeq a dictator: just like Chavez. Other media outlets did
the same and worse. The CIA created a false flood of anti Mosaddeq
protests and ignited riots, allowing the local press, embellishing their
stories with lies and accusations, to create the impression that the
country was sliding into chaos. Again, all just like Venezuela. The coup
in Guatemala a year later also involved a fake CIA radio station
broadcasting fake reports to create the impression of popular unrest and
military rebellion against the government. Here too the U.S. press and
elected officials dishonestly vilified the popularly democratically
elected Jacobo Arbenz. And here, too, as in Venezuela, there was the ever
present military threat.<br><br>
So a pattern emerges in Venezuela that history warns could be
threatening. It all suggests the attempt to interfere in Venezuelan
politics in a forceless, but no less subtly forceful way. <br><br>
<br><br>
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