– Obama Administration Targets Venezuela for ‘Regime Change’ (American Free Press, March 14, 2014)
• Ousted U.S. consular officials caught conspiring with protest groups
Continuing unrest in Venezuela can be traced to an ongoing plot by the Obama administration to topple the country’s democratically elected government and replace it with a regime run by rich families and corporations allied with Washington.
Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, who succeeded the late Hugo Chavez, a Washington nemesis, recently expelled three United States consular officials, accusing them of conspiring for months with protest groups funded by Washington.
The dark hand of Washington plotters has not gone unnoticed in the region with Brazil, Argentina and Paraguay claiming violence on the streets of Venezuela has been part of an effort to “destabilize the democratic order.” That observation followed Maduro’s public warning the U.S. was plotting to topple his government. A notable feature of the violence aimed at his overthrow has been the absence of the poor in street demonstrations.
For more than a decade, Washington has conspired to return wealthy Venezuelan families to power. The effort began in earnest after Chavez was elected president in 1998, following decades of Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) influence and corruption in Venezuela and neighboring countries, including Chile and Nicaragua.
The decision by Chavez to nationalize his nation’s massive oil reserves, among the world’s largest, angered rich corporations linked to Washington. The fact he also normalized relations with Cuba and Iran and established a free healthcare system made him for many members of Congress the ultimate socialist and a danger to U.S. interests in Latin America. The CIA used disinformation to portray him as a supporter of terrorism and a puppet of Cuba, both of which were untrue.
In 2002, the Bush administration backed a plot to overthrow Chavez, and it followed a predictable pattern, beginning with street demonstrations. The plot was backed by media barons allied to three Venezuelan families that had controlled the country from the 1950s until 1998.
Opposition groups received CIA support and State Department funding. On April 6, 2002, three weeks before the coup, a CIA secret briefing entitled “Conditions ripening for coup attempt” pointed out the coup would target Chavez and ten senior officers for arrest. It said the plotters hoped to provoke military action by exploiting unrest from opposition demonstrations. The coup went ahead and Chavez was arrested but was quickly released following a popular uprising.
It is no coincidence that Leopoldo Lopez, a representative of one of the three families that orchestrated the 2002 coup, has been the organizer of violent street protests in 2013-2014. Groups Lopez has been aligned with have received millions of dollars in aid from the Obama administration.
Before Chavez died in March 2013, there were already efforts underway to portray his elected successor, Maduro, as incompetent and dangerous. Just before Chavez’s death, Harold Trinkunas, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institute, in a memorandum to President Barack Obama predicted a “violent popular reaction” to the Maduro government.
“The risk of a violent outcome may still be low, but it will rise as the true extent of scarcity in Venezuela becomes apparent in the coming months. The threat to the Maduro administration may come from popular unrest, an effort by moderates in the government to oust the radicals and the president or (least likely) a traditional coup,” Trinkunas warned.
U.S. meddling in Venezuela over the past decade has been intense, and some of it has been exposed by WikiLeaks. A cable from Richard Brownfield, U.S. ambassador to Venezuela in 2006, stated the principles underpinning U.S. policy while Chavez was alive: “Penetrating Chavez’s political base . . . dividing Chavismo . . . protecting vital U.S. business [and] isolating Chavez internationally.”
Latin American governments are not the only ones concerned about events in Venezuela. While Obama has been focusing on Ukraine, Moscow’s backyard, Vladimir Putin has been keeping an eye on Venezuela. It is no coincidence a Russian spy ship recently visited Venezuela and Cuba.
Time for the US to pack up and go home. Nobody is fooled by these endless tricks, and nobody is going to respond in a positive way. The US is sinking like a stone, as deeply hated as was the USSR in 1970.
Back in 2002, the election was wone hands down by Hugo Chavez, yet the yanks kidnapped him & held him for two days on a nearby US naval vessel while the puppet opposition tried to claim victory at the election.
Eventually the yanks had to release him following the abject failure of the illegal usurpers to gather support for their non existent victory.
He lasted ten years, four of which were under extreme strain having mysteriosly acquired cancer, which he was adamant was the result of persistent efforts by the US to poison him.
The people spoke.
They will speak again.
Another story that ought to wake folks to the danger of having this government running amok……….
http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2014/3/15/aclu-us-terror-watchlistrisksstigmatizinginnocentamericancitizen.html
To Squodgy: Hugo Chavez got his revenge……he saw what happened to Libya and Iraq when their leaders called for a return to gold for the world reserve currency instead of the paper dollar.
So, he moved very quietly. He organized the South American Trade Alliance which held 12 tiny nations, including Cuba into establishing the world’s first electronic currency, the Sucre. In June, of 2010, he introduced it to his members. Each nation was able to trade with each other using their own currency, leaving the US dollar out. The Sucre translated the value of each currency at the time of transaction, making the need for a world reserve currency obsolete.
The SATA had an annual GDP of less than $500 million, so it flew under the radar, and the US overlooked it.
When Russia and China saw the success the SATA experienced, they set up their own trade agreement in November of 2010, using their own currencies, leaving the dollar out. China went on to recruit other nations, including Turkey, and many emerging African and South American Nations. All of them started trading with each other using their own currencies, leaving the dollar out.
India and Japan joined them in early 2011 after another round of unwarranted sanctions on Iran. Iran has been trading with all other nations for years, and they accept all currencies and gold. They joined with China and Russia.
Iran, regardless of US propaganda, is a rich and fruitful trading partner to much of the world thanks to the Iraq war. So, all these countries trade with them, and are not going to stop on a petulant demand by the US.
New Zealand and Australia dumped the dollar last year, and much of the middle east no longer uses it except Saudi Arabia. If the Saudi kings lose their thrones, the Saudi people will never touch the dollar again……the US keeps the kings in power. Like the people in Iran in the days of the Shah, the resentment against the US is great.
Every time an international trade occurs without the dollar, the dollar loses more significance.
The man who will be remembered as the one who took down the US dollar was Hugo Chavez……….and he is dead, and out of their reach.
As for cancer killing him, Fukushima will kill us all, so it doesn’t really matter much now……..Hugo Chavez accomplished what many others tried and failed.