What the Pat Robertson affair reveals

[IndianaGreen]

What the Pat Robertson affair reveals
By Patrick Martin
27 August 2005

Robertson’s statement followed weeks of intensifying verbal warfare between the nationalist and populist Venezuelan leader and the US government. There were tit-for-tat diplomatic gestures. The Bush administration claimed that Venezuela was not assisting in anti-drug efforts aimed at stopping the flow of cocaine from Colombia. Chavez in turn accused Drug Enforcement Administration agents of spying on his country and suspended cooperation. The State Department then threatened to remove Venezuela’s certification as an ally in the “war on drugs,” which would lead to sanctions against loans from international agencies and other foreign aid, and it denied entry visas to three Venezuelan military officers.

From August 15 to 17, US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld visited the South American countries of Paraguay and Peru, holding talks on the deteriorating political situation in neighboring Bolivia, where successive US-backed presidents have been brought down by a peasant-based opposition movement, and condemning alleged outside interference by Chavez and Fidel Castro. “There certainly is evidence that both Cuba and Venezuela have been involved in the situation in Bolivia in unhelpful ways,” Rumsfeld told the press.

Chavez responded to this heavy-handed intimidation with more bravado, making his fourth visit to Cuba in the last nine months and appearing side-by-side with Cuban President Castro on his weekly television show. “The grand destroyer of the world, and the greatest threat,” the Venezuelan leader told his audience, “is represented by US imperialism.”

The New York Times summed up the situation in an article August 19, with the headline: “Like Old Times: US Warns Latin Americans Against Leftists.” It observed that Rumsfeld’s visit had the “throwback feel of a mission during the cold war, when American officials saw their main job as bolstering the hemisphere’s governments against leftist insurgencies and Communist infiltration.” The Times quoted “a senior Defense Department official traveling with Mr. Rumsfeld” who said of Chavez, “A guy who seemed like a comic figure a year ago is turning into a real strategic menace...”

The Times did not spell out the obvious corollary of such a characterization: throughout the cold war, American policy in Latin America was to foment military coups to overthrow hostile regimes, kill their leaders and suppress popular opposition. This policy was implemented in Chile, Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, Bolivia, Guatemala and other countries.

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2005/aug2005/robe-a27.shtml

[agincourt]

1. Lost in the Robertson controversy,

Is why he was provoked enough to say it. Are there administration officials planning for war with Venezuela? Is it coming directly from the Whitehouse? It seemed that Robertson was recommending assassination over war, rather than assassination in itself.