Some links from Antiwar.com:
The Observer had a good article on the OBVIOUS link to the Bush administration and the Venezuelan coup. Not just link, but senior staff of the Bush administration directed the coup! It has been mentioned many times before, but it should be emphasized that many of the people behind this in the US government took part in the shadiness during Iran-Contra and the dirty tricks of the Reagan-Bush years. Don’t let them sweep this under the rug. It’s criminal. Bush and everyone involved ought to be tried for war crimes in a military tribunal, and if convicted, sentenced to capital punishment in Texas. As far as I’m concerned the Bush administration has the blood of Venezuelans on its hands. They are nothing but thugs, racketeers, and worst of all, traitors to democracy.
One of them, Elliot Abrams, who gave a nod to the attempted Venezuelan coup, has a conviction for misleading Congress over the infamous Iran-Contra affair. …
Now officials at the Organisation of American States and other diplomatic sources, talking to The Observer, assert that the US administration was not only aware the coup was about to take place, but had sanctioned it, presuming it to be destined for success. …
The visits by Venezuelans plotting a coup, including Carmona himself, began, say sources, ‘several months ago’, and continued until weeks before the putsch last weekend. The visitors were received at the White House by the man President George Bush tasked to be his key policy-maker for Latin America, Otto Reich.
Reich is a right-wing Cuban-American who, under Reagan, ran the Office for Public Diplomacy. It reported in theory to the State Department, but Reich was shown by congressional investigations to report directly to Reagan’s National Security Aide, Colonel Oliver North, in the White House. …
On the day Carmona claimed power, Reich summoned ambassadors from Latin America and the Caribbean to his office. He said the removal of Chavez was not a rupture of democra tic rule, as he had resigned and was ‘responsible for his fate’. He said the US would support the Carmona government.
But the crucial figure around the coup was Abrams, who operates in the White House as senior director of the National Security Council for ‘democracy, human rights and international opera tions’. He was a leading theoretician of the school known as ‘Hemispherism’, which put a priority on combating Marxism in the Americas.
It led to the coup in Chile in 1973, and the sponsorship of regimes and death squads that followed it in Argentina, El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala and elsewhere. During the Contras’ rampage in Nicaragua, he worked directly to North.
Congressional investigations found Abrams had harvested illegal funding for the rebellion. Convicted for withholding information from the inquiry, he was pardoned by George Bush senior.
Here’s a good Chomsky interview on 4/8/02 regarding the situation in the mideast and Israel. You can list to it in Real Audio here.
I haven’t seen anything on this except in The Irish Times article:
The US Embassy in Caracas had no immediate reaction to the allegations.
Meanwhile US President George Bush said today that Mr Chavez should learn from the turmoil that led to his brief ouster last week and take steps to address it.
Eager to make an example of alleged terrorists the Bush administration is designing a ‘new legal doctrine’ where they would be able to try terrorist suspects in a military tribunal without any evidence!
From the NY Times article:
“It could be enough to show that they were part of a group and furthered its aims,” this official said.
“They would be shown,” the official said, “to be a part of a group that did things like killing civilians and noncombatants, attacked targets with no military value or took or killed hostages” — the traditional roster of war crimes. “Also engaging in torture,” the official said.
The US is guilty of killing civilians and noncombatants, attacked targets with no military value or took or killed hostages in Afghanistan. Who will make an example of them?
From NY Times:
The military said the crash, which killed 10 members of the military, appeared to be an accident caused by bad weather. But it is certain to serve as a setback in the government’s efforts to reorganize a splintered armed forces, whose military high commanders withdrew support for President Hugo Chávez during antigovernment protests a little more than a week ago.
These men who were killed were supporters of Chavez. Frankly, I don’t believe in coincidence. By the way, the author of this article, Juan Forero, has been exposed for his corruption and lies on Narconews.com.
Something fishy is going on at Harvard. Half of all grades are A and A-minus, and nearly all Harvard seniors are graduating with honors.
A Harvard education, while expensive and a badge of the elite, doesn’t seem to mean much in reality.
Barry Crimmins has been saying some very funny, quotable things lately.
The biggest question now facing the CIA concerning Venezuela is how to recork champagne.
Message from Venezuela to Bush: This Ain’t Florida, Gringo!
Bush hasn’t failed this badly since the last time he took a breathalizer.
It’s nice to see it didn’t take long for the CIA to make good use of its unchecked power and unlimited budget.
Just because Jenin resembles Dresden in 1945 doesn’t mean we should leap to any conclusions.
Osama bin Laden remains on the loose, as well as the Anthrax murderer(s) but the Court-appointed Bush Administration can take heart in the fact that Canada has been taught a lesson it won’t soon forget.
I am thankful for the work of investigative journalist Wayne Madsen. I thought I’d post some links to some of his articles available on the web.