Monday, August 09, 2004

CIA to help overthrow Chávez?

El Mundo de Madrid (Spain) is reporting that the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) is set to put a contingency plan in motion in the (likely) event that President Hugo Chavez Frias wins next weekend's Recall Referendum.

The Madrid newspaper says that the White House strategy is to avoid a regional expansion of the President Hugo Chavez Frias 'Bolivarian Revolution' which is seen by Washington D.C. as a direct step into the kind of socialism espoused by many European nations and envisaged in the United States if John Kerry wrests control of the White House from the Bush 2 administration this coming fall.
  VHeadline article

First of all, it's what the CIA does. So that part of the story is totally believable. But the idea that John Kerry as president would be a step toward socialism of any kind is a real scream. We already have all the socialism we're going to get. Maybe what they're envisioning is something short of fascism.

El Mundo says the CIA plan appears to concede a Chavez Frias victory next weekend "for good or bad" and that Langley spooks are already working on a strategy to "neutralize" Chavez Frias by fair means or foul.

CIA under secretary for southern hemispherical affairs, William Spencer, has been drafted to Santiago de Chile to analyze the "Venezuelan situation" with CIA country directors from Colombia, Ecuador, Brasil and Peru. Spencer is reportedly convinced that Chavez Frias intends (no matter how fanciful) to create two centers of "revolutionary focus" in South America in preparation to overthrow Colombian President Alvaro Uribe Velez and Bolivia's Head of State, Carlos Mesa.

Spencer espouses the theory that Chavez Frias will then forge onwards using a domino effect to include the overthrow of Peru's Alejandro Toledo, using multiple corruption scandals there as a pretext for invasion. Washington apparently sees Chavez Frias' progress as a "corrosive action" in a continuing Bolivarian Revolution which will expand easily into countries such as Ecuador where indigenous political are already reacting strongly to Washington's ideas of neo-liberalism.


And maybe if they're successful, authentic democracy will spread north to the United States one day.

I can hope, can't I?

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