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I thought that Uribe's accusations against Venezuela might be his bid for continued CIA protection, given that some 70 of his political cohorts, including family members, are under investigation or already in jail for drug trafficking, bribery, ties to death squads and other crimes. But it could be the other way around, that he is being paid for his silence, maybe something that Leon Panetta was arranging down in Colombia back during the rumors about Uribe staying in power illegally. I think that one of the CIA's missions is to wipe Bush Jr's trail clean and I have strong suspicions that that trail of crimes goes through Colombia. Of course both could be true. They wanted him out because of what he knows, and cuz they wanted to do this Smiley Face thing with Santos, and he wanted, a) continued protection from prosecution, and b) honors, prestige, dinners at the White House. And it looks like this bloody-handed tit for tat will continue. He will be the U.S. tool on the UN committee, and he will continue to get honors and protection.
It's as if John McCain didn't lose the last election, and Bush/Cheney and even Rumsfeld are still directing U.S. policy in Latin America.
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As for Mr. Smiley, who presided over thousands of political murders, as Uribe's Defense Minister--trade unionists, human rights workers, teachers, community activists, peasant farmers and others, slain by the Colombian military, and the displacement by state terror of 5 MILLION peasant farmers--and who has obviously undergone some USAID (or is it CIA?) training in democracy cosmetics, President Chavez doesn't have a lot of choice but to go along with this charade. The only alternative is the war that the Pentagon has designed which they may inflict on Venezuela and the region anyway. Chavez did this with Uribe--went the extra mile to prevent hostilities. I hope he succeeds with Santos, whom I think is more dangerous than Uribe, but this will depend on strengthening UNASUR and the new unity and cooperation among the leftist leaders of the region. The Pentagon has surrounded Venezuela with war assets and our corporate rulers/war profiteers have been trying for some years to isolate Venezuela--to bribe, bully and kneecap Venezuela's allies and break up its alliances. When the Bush Junta issued their dictate that Latin American leaders must "isolate" Chavez, circa 2006, Nestor Kirchner, then president of Argentina, said, "But he's my brother!" Lula da Silva then made a prominent visit to Chavez for the opening of the Orinoco Bridge two weeks before the Venezuelan presidential election, which Chavez won hands down. Chavez had just made his remark at the UN comparing Bush to the Devil, and when reporters asked Rafael Correa, who was running for president of Ecuador at the time, what he thought about Chavez saying that, he replied that "it is an insult to the Devil."
Chavez has very loyal friends and allies among the leftist leaders of Latin America. They know that the psyops/disinformation campaign that the U.S. has been perpetrating against Chavez--the creation of this bogeyman "dictator"--is wrong. Lula said, a bit later, that "they can invent all kinds of things about Chavez but not on democracy!" This leadership has helped to prevent further coup and assassination attempts against Chavez (another U.S. attempt in 2006), and helped prevent the war that the U.S./Colombia was trying to instigate in 2008 (with the bombing/raid on Ecuador). Chavez himself has been the leading proponent of collective strength. I hope that these alliances hold strongly together, accomplish their goals of political/economic integration and social justice, and turn the tables on the U.S. and isolate Santos and Colombia, if Colombia continues to be the tool of a U.S. military occupation which continues to pose a threat to Venezuela and Ecuador and to every democracy in Latin America--Honduras being the latest example.
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