"The Smart Way to Beat Tyrants Like Chávez," by Donald Rumsfeld, 12/1/07http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/11/30/AR2007113001800.htmlI also think that his "Office of Special Plans" is alive and well in South America. There is strong evidence of the type of manufactured, cherry-picked disinformation we saw re Iraq WMDs and Saddam/9-11 now being used against democratic leftist leaders Hugo Chavez, president of Venezuela, and Rafael Correa, president of Ecuador, and with the same motive--they control the largest oil reserves in the western hemisphere. Chavez and Correa are key leaders of the Bolivarian Revolution which has goals of social justice and regional self-determination. Yet more reasons for the Bush Cartel to loathe them.
There is also evidence of a COORDINATED disinformation campaign in the corporate news monopolies, who have been relentless in their tagging of Chavez as a "dictator" (for which there is no evidence whatsoever--zero, zilch--pure disinformation), and, more recently, that Chavez and Correa are somehow tied to "terrorists." Regarding the latter, I have seen headlines, ledes and text in the corporate press that have flabbergasted me, they are so OPPOSITE of the truth. I'm pretty savvy at reading corporate newscrap articles. Still, I'm shocked by this recent campaign. And it is very worrisome, because the Bush Junta and the corporate press don't tell lies like these for no reason.
The president of Brazil, Lula da Silva, recently called Chavez "the great peacemaker" (in connection with the Colombia/Bush Cartel effort to instigate a war between Colombia and Ecuador/Venezuela this March). He has also said, "You can criticize Hugo Chavez on a lot of things, but not on democracy."
Not reported in the corporate press, cuz, you know, their readers/viewers would really wonder "WTF?" Peacemaker? Democrat?
The facts support Lulu. All the facts. There ARE no facts that say otherwise. The same is true of Correa--peacemaker, democrat. There is an on-going, coordinated campaign of disinformation to make you believe otherwise, to DENY you the facts, to confuse you, and to prep you for "swift action" by the U.S. in support of "friends and allies" in South America, as Rumsfeld puts it, in his Washington Post op-ed. The op-ed itself is disinformation--not only as to the title, and the content about Colombian "free trade" deal--but also about Hugo Chavez's efforts to obtain the release of hostages held by Colombia leftist guerrilla fighters, the FARC. It was this item that most clued me in to Rumsfeld's direct involvement in South America. The date of the article is the very weekend that the first two hostages were to be released, as the result of Chavez's diplomatic efforts and the REQUEST by Bush tool, Alvaro Uribe (fascist president of Colombia, former Medellin Cartel). Rumsfeld says that Chavez's efforts were "not welcome in Colombia," although they had been days before. As the weekend approached, Uribe abruptly withdrew his request, and BOMBED the location of the two hostages, as they were in route to their freedom, driving them on a 20 mile hike back into the jungle, back into captivity. Chavez got them out safely a few weeks later (and eventually got a total of six hostages released), despite this unbelievable treachery by Uribe and his funders ($5.5 BILLION in Bush/U.S. military aid).
Then Colombian bombed Ecuador--using U.S. surveillance and 500 lb. U.S. "smart bombs"--killing the chief FARC hostage negotiator, Raul Reyes, who was camped just inside Ecuador's border--the incident that almost started a regional war, and ended all hostage releases and hopes for peace in Colombia's 40+ year civil war against the poor. Now Uribe is wielding laptops supposedly seized from the bombed camp, and claiming they contain "evidence" that Chavez and Correa are "terrorist-lovers" (--the fodder for the latest, jaw-dropping lies in the corporate press). The real terrorists are Uribe, his political cohorts, and his military and paramilitaries, who have slaughtered thousands of union leaders, small peasant farmers, political leftists, voters, protesters, human rights workers and journalists, for one the worst human rights records on the planet.
This smells of Rumsfeld--treachery, dirty tricks, black ops, disinformation, warmongering, OIL. It has Rumsfeld's characteristics of of the "Big Lie" (repeatedly asserting the exact opposite of the truth), and creating chaos as an opportunity to grab resources.
And it fits well with his political solution here, mentioned in the OP: What Republicans need, for grand theft, is terrorism.