Venezuela Vows To Help Castro Repel U.S. 'Lord Of War'

Venezuela vows to help Castro repel US 'lord of war'

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main...3/ixworld.html

By Francis Harris in Washington
(Filed: 23/08/2005)

President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela has launched a blistering tirade against the United States, describing President George W Bush as the "lord of war".

Mr Chavez also pledged to send troops to the aid of President Fidel Castro if Washington ever dared to order an invasion of Cuba.

He sat beside Dr Castro following a summit meeting in western Cuba, as the two men used a six-hour live broadcast on Sunday night to set out their plans for the region and to condemn Washington's foreign policy.

Mr Chavez, apparently responding to accusations by Donald Rumsfeld, the US defence secretary, that he was funding anti-democratic movements in Latin America, hit back, saying: "The grand destroyer of the world and the greatest threat … is represented by US imperialism.

"The truth is that they [the Bush administration] are the great destabilisers in the region." He defended his close ties with Dr Castro, whose latest crackdown led to the arrest of scores of opponents for discussing a post-authoritarian Cuba, and hailed almost half a century of communist rule on the island.

"People have asked me how I can support Fidel if he's a dictator. But Cuba doesn't have a dictatorship… It's a revolutionary democracy," he said. "We will do everything possible to avoid imperialist aggression, but if it occurs to some madman, he will find some young men … defending the independence and sovereignty of this land."

In the meantime, Cuba and Venezuela have found numerous non-military schemes to confound the Americans. The two leaders recently launched Telesur, a regional satellite station which Rght-wing US critics have branded "Latin America's al-Jazeera".

Cuba has been given substantial quantities of cheap oil by Caracas and, in return, has dispatched a fifth of its doctors to Venezuela's poorer neighbourhoods. Mr Chavez will travel on today to Jamaica, where he will sign a deal providing cheap oil to the island.

US officials believe that Venezuela is seeking to buy influence in the region. Mr Rumsfeld and others have also accused the Venezuelans of funding anti-democratic and populist movements in fragile democracies such as Bolivia.

Otto Reich, a former senior foreign policy official in the Bush administration, has accused Mr Chavez of aiding Left-wing guerrillas in Colombia and of offering support to Iran over its nuclear programme.

Mr Chavez came to power through the ballot box in 1998 and was re-elected in 2000. A year ago, he won a referendum endorsing his rule.

He spent two years in jail in the early 1990s after being arrested for leading a 1992 coup attempt.

Since taking office, he has styled himself a Robin Hood-like figure - taking money from the rich and handing it to the poor. Many of his initiatives are aimed at improving the lives of impoverished slum dwellers. But critics say the use of communist-style command economics has actually worsened the condition of the poor, and that selling cheap oil is robbing Venezuela of badly needed wealth.

Mr Chavez has also embarked on an arms-buying spree, purchasing 50 MiG29 fighters and 40 attack helicopters from Russia.

• The US Coast Guard was searching yesterday for more than 30 people thought to have been on a boat that sank as they tried to flee Cuba.

Is this what dubya meant by "catapulting the propaganda"...gosh, they must be really desperate.

1)Telegraph is owned by hollinger,(sun-times), novak's boss just indicted? coincidence?

Prosecutor Fitzgerald indicts Novak's former big boss at the Chicago Sun Times

August 20, 2005 -- Another Patrick Fitzgerald shot across the bow of the neo-cons. U.S. Attorney for Chicago (and special prosecutor in the Valerie Plame/BJ & A White House leak) Patrick Fitzgerald has indicted former Chicago Sun-Times publisher David Radler for the theft of $32 million from the Sun-Times parent company, Hollinger Corporation. Radler is also a past owner of Canada's Ottawa Citizen and Vancouver Sun.

Sign of things to come? Prosecutor Fitzgerald indicts Novak's former big boss at the Chicago Sun Times

Owned until 2003 by Conrad Black, Hollinger also includes the Jerusalem Post and London Daily Telegraph, two papers that have been propaganda arms of the neocon movement and at the forefront of attacks on anti-Iraq war politicians. Although Fitzgerald did not indict Black, it is believed the prosecutor will have Radler testify against his former business partner. Former Hollinger board member and arch-neocon Richard Perle was, in addition to Radler and Black, cited in a 2004 Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) report on fraudulent financial activity at Hollinger.

http://www.yourbbsucks.com/forum/showthread.php?t=4116

2)Otto Reich, disinformationist serving up white propaganda?

analysis: The neocons are trying to seperate "regular joe" americans from the "commies, marxists, liberals, eco-terrorists, etc"...by doing so, they are able to target specific political groups without fearing that "regular joes" will come to their defense.

COINTEL ops included surveillance, infiltration, and even establishing front groups. All of these tactics were supposed to deter "threats", yet they were used for the exact opposite.

One of the tactics was to establish front groups and then lure unsuspecting "radicals" and set them up. Is this how they find patsies?

3)When we look at some other sources, we see key parts of the address were left out.

"We want peace ... We will do everything humanly possible to avoid an imperialist aggression. But if it occurs to some madman, he will find these young men (Venezuelan soldiers) and us in command defending the independence and sovereignty of this land," Chavez said.

Chavez and Castro praised US Senator Arlen Specter for urging Rumsfeld to lower his rhetoric.

The Senate Judiciary Committee chairman and Pennsylvania Republican, who met Castro and Chavez separately last week, wrote to Rumsfeld on Friday asking for a "moratorium on adverse comments on Venezuela" to win back Venezuelan support in fighting the narcotics trade.

Chavez suspended cooperation with the US Drug Enforcement Administration on 7 August, saying DEA agents where spying on Venezuela. Washington retaliated by revoking US visas of three Venezuelan military officers it suspects of involvement in drug trafficking.

"We are not conspiring, nor do we want to destabilise any government or any region," Castro said on Saturday at a meeting he hosted with Chavez and five Caribbean prime ministers to discuss a plan for Venezuelan oil supplies on generous terms.

http://today.reuters.com/news/newsAr...ELA-USA-DC.XML

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exer...963BE489E2.htm

Havana Medical School Sees First Grads

Earlier in the day, Castro said the group of politicians had come together Saturday for the school, and that ``we're not conspiring, or wanting to destabilize any government or region.'' His comments were an apparent reference to comments this week by U.S. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld on a trip to Latin America.

The medical school was created after Hurricanes George and Mitch devastated several Caribbean and Central American nations, provoking serious health and sanitation issues.

Dozens of Americans, many of them minorities from urban neighborhoods, are among those currently attending the medical school. Fifteen new students from the United States also recently arrived to Cuba to start studies this year.

Only one American was among those graduating Saturday.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlates...223435,00.html

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Reich was born in Cuba to a Cuban mother and an Austrian-Jewish father, Walter Reich, whose parents died in the Holocaust and who had fled to Cuba in 1938. His father was trying to reach the United States but so loved the scenery of Havana, where his ship was docked, that he remained there, married, and sold furniture. At age 15, Otto Reich, raised in his mother's Catholic faith and then attending an elite private school, left with his family to the US as refugees when Fidel Castro came to power.

In 1966, Reich received a B.A. in International Studies from the University of North Carolina From 1967 to 1969, he served in the US Army at the Panama Canal Zone.

After receiving an M.A. in Latin American Studies from Georgetown University in 1973, Reich worked as a staff assistant in the U.S. House of Representatives, a representative of the Florida Department of Commerce, community development coordinator for Miami, and Washington director of the Council of the Americas.

From 1981 to 1983, Reich was assistant administrator of the US Agency for International Development (USAID) in charge of US economic assistance to Latin America and the Caribbean. In 1991 and 1992, at the request of President George H. W. Bush, Reich served as alternate US representative to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights in Geneva.
[edit]

Office of Public Diplomacy

From 1983 to 1986, Reich established and managed the inter-agency Office of Public Diplomacy for Latin America and the Caribbean (OPD). It reported in theory to the State Department, but congressional investigations later determined it reported directly to Reagan's National Security Council aide Colonel Oliver North in the White House. The OPD collaborated with Central Intelligence Agency propaganda experts and Army psychological operations specialists to disseminate what it called "white propaganda" designed to influence public opinion and spur Congress to continue to fund the Reagan's administration's military campaign against Nicaragua's Sandinista government. By covertly disseminating intelligence leaks to journalists, it sought to trump up a Nicaraguan "threat," and to promote the US-backed Contra guerrillas fighting Nicaragua's government as "freedom fighters."

The OPD was declared illegal after a 1987 investigation by the US Comptroller General, who found the OPD engaged in "prohibited, covert propaganda activities, beyond the range of acceptable agency public information activities". [1] Reich was never charged with breaking Congress's ban on aid to the Contras, though other Reagan administration officials were.

From 1986 to 1989, Reich served as ambassador to Venezuela. His appointment was contested both by Democrats in Washington and Venezuelan political leaders, but objections were overridden as Venezuela sought access to the US oil market. While stationed in Caracas, Reich was said to have been instrumental in the release of Orlando Bosch, a Cuban exile, from jail where he was serving a 10-year sentence for blowing up Cubana de Aviación Flight 455 on October 6, 1976 while en route from Barbados to Havana, killing 73 people. After Bosch was released, he went to Miami, entering on February 16, 1988 without a visa. [2] [3]

From 1989 to 2001, Reich worked as a corporate lobbyist for clients such as Bacardi, British American Tobacco, and Lockheed Martin, which sought to sell F-16 fighter aircraft to Chile. He also helped draft the Helms-Burton Act which tightened the embargo of Cuba.
[edit]

2002 Venezuelan coup

Reich is thought to have been closely involved in the Venezuelan coup attempt of 2002 against Hugo Chávez. After the aborted putsch, it emerged that Reich had met regularly with the coup plotters at the White House, including Pedro Carmona, who was briefly installed for two days before Chávez was restored. It subsequently emerged that Bush administration official Elliott Abrams, who is said to have supervised the planning of the operation, and Reich were not only aware the coup was about to take place, but had sanctioned it and discussed it in some detail, right down to its timing and chances of success, which were deemed to be excellent. On the day Carmona was installed, Reich summoned ambassadors from Latin America and the Caribbean to his office and told them that the removal of Chávez was not a rupture of democratic rule, as he had resigned and was "responsible for his fate". [4] [5]

The involvement of Reich is seen as suggestive, especially when viewed in context with Reich's background as an American representative in Latin America. Administration officials and anonymous sources acknowledged meeting with some of the planners of the coup in the several weeks prior to April 11, but have strongly denied encouraging the coup itself, saying that they insisted on constitutional means. [6] Others have suggested that this involvement was meant to disguise U.S. administration involvement, and is actually further evidence that the U.S. was "stage managing" the coup. [7]

According to a report in The New York Times, Reich warned Congressional aides that there was more at stake in Venezuela than the success or failure of Chávez. He accused Chávez of meddling with the historically independent state oil company, providing haven to Colombian guerrillas and bailing out Cuba with preferential rates on oil. He also said the administration had received reports that "foreign paramilitary forces"-- which they suspected to be Cubans -? were involved in the bloody suppression of anti-Chávez demonstrators, in which at least fourteen people were killed.[8]

The United States, which had acknowledged the de facto government, did not condemn the coup until Chávez had been restored to power. U.S. government statements

In 2002, not long after he was appointed as Special Envoy, Reich was also nominated to serve on the board of the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation, better known as the School of the Americas. He also serves as vice-chairman of Worldwide Responsible Apparel Production (WRAP), a clothing industry front founded in June 2000 to undermine the growing anti-sweatshop movement.

From 1998 to 2001, Reich was co-host of CNN International?s ?Choque de Opiniones,? a Spanish-language version of CNN?s ?Crossfire.? He appears regularly on US and Latin American media.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otto_Reich
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These are supposed threats to US "freedom", take a look at the list.


http://www.rense.com/1.imagesC/fbi_fl1.jpg

http://www.rense.com/1.imagesC/fbi_fl2.jpg

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Good post Ehnyah, thanks. I especially like the little leaflet. I note that John Bolton would fall under the heading of a "defender of the US Constitution against ... the UN" - someone better give the JTTF a call!

Also, is it actually a crime for militias to train? I mean, I think (some) of those militia guys have some whacked out political ideas - but I didn't realise it was actually a crime to train up - in fact I thought the NRA would would be supportive of such actions? (More training, more guns, more bullets, more profits).