Venezuela lawmakers denounce CIA anti-Chavez plot

Senior Venezuelan lawmakers said on Thursday authorities had prevented a CIA-orchestrated plot to kill leftist President Hugo Chavez in an attempt to thwart Dec. 4 legislature elections. Chavez, who was in Uruguay on Thursday for talks to join the Mercosur trade bloc, has often denounced what he called U.S.-backed plans to assassinate him. U.S. officials deny the charges as populist rhetoric meant draw support at home, and the CIA dismissed the new accusation.

National Assembly President Nicolas Maduro, a Chavez ally, said he planned to file charges with the attorney general and military prosecutors "of a plot orchestrated by the CIA against the Venezuelan democracy." CIA spokesman Paul Gimigliano said, "It's nonsense."

Maduro gave no specifics of what the CIA involvement may have been. Pro-Chavez legislators played taped conversations they said were of retired and active army officers conspiring to murder Chavez and other state officials and stir street violence aimed at killing thousands. "They planned to suspend the elections. They planned to attack the head of state, assassinate top officials and carry out massive killings -- all these charges are backed up by conversations between the very participants," Maduro said. Government officials charged sabotage in a weekend blast at an oil pipeline before polls opened for Sunday's legislative election. The pipeline was later repaired.

Opposition leaders, who boycotted Sunday's election and handed pro-Chavez lawmakers control of the National Assembly, have dismissed the election sabotage charges as wild fabrications meant to discredit them. "No one has any plans in the democratic opposition to kill Chavez, to overthrow his government or to mess around with the barracks, in fact it is exactly the opposite," Democratic Action leader Henry Ramos told reporters. The pro-Chavez lawmakers presented no proof of U.S. involvement, only saying "it was obvious" that financing of weapons purchases came from the United States. They promised to reveal more unspecified evidence on Saturday.

http://today.reuters.com/News/CrisesArticle.aspx?storyId=N08296598

why wouldn't they try again? I don't believe ANYTHING the CIA says, period! Unless I see the facts for myself, I take nothing from that agency at face value.

that they can just roll this stuff out in perpetuity and shame the US based on its past actions...

is "this stuff" just "rolled out" in an attempt to shame the u.s. based on past ctions, or is the venezuelan gov't a reliable source of this sort of info?

The US hates him and probably tried to oust him. On the other hand, Chavez will happily now claim "assasination! assasaination!" in much the same way the terror alert level gets elevated to Orange every time Bush is in a serious slump.

...and ongoing. I'm still not convinced that what we've been told about the events of 911 are truthful at any level.

In the real world, assasinating him at this point would only make him a martyr and push the country further to the left. On the other hand, this is the Bush administration, and they don't seem capable of understanding real world cause and effect.

Even so, Chavez is still grandstanding. Every week it's a new plot against him, and he never offers any evidence to back up his assertions. It's a ploy and it works, so he'll keep using it.

he was just in New York in September. why didn't the US kill him then if they are true?

if everyone "knows" the USA is trying to kill him then why not just do it?

Chavez is a mental case.

"Why didn't the Bush fascisti kill Chavez when he was in New York?" Are you kidding???
That would be the LAST place they would kill him. Then the US would be held responsible for a lapse in security, not to mention making Chavez's earlier claims have merit.
You need to lay off that stuff champ! :eyes:

or at least that is what Chavez has said for the 100th time. Perhaps since he has said it enough times, he now actually believes it.

Chavez has already said that if he dies "the US would be held accountable".

I mean you know you really screwed up right? :eyes:

But I don't necessarily mean that in a complimentary way. Smirk has his bogeyman- OBL - as his excuse to act as a dictator, and Chavez uses Smirk as his excuse to be a dictator.

and yells "Hey Washington is trying to whack me!"...it becomes exponentially more difficult for them to do so. Pretty clever for a mental case.

"if everyone "knows" the USA is trying to kill him then why not just do it?"

Pat?!? Is that you?!? (I'm sorry, I know that was a low blow, but you DID about quote him verbatim.)
You answered your own question. Because everyone knows. What's the next question, why do bank robbers wear masks?

I'm not an apologist, I just believe in fair criticism. For all the mud slung his direction I see precious little of that (particularly in the media, I don't intend to single anyone out).

This is a shame because it undermines a position that does perhaps have some merit. I would not like Hugo Chavez if I found decent evidence he was pushing things in an authoritarian direction.
(I should note that I think there is a certain amount of authoritarianism required for a socialist revolution, at least in the beginning.) Because of all the noise though, it is hard to tell what is genuine and I'm left skeptical of most criticism unless I think it is reliable. I can't read a critical news story about him without hearing some eye-rolling distortion that casts the entire rest of the story into doubt for me.

I don't think "He's a nut." posts are fair criticism or any useful contribution to the Chavez threads, and I think you hurt your cause by posting them.

-personman

P.S. I've thought about starting an "Is Chavez a dictator?" (poll?)thread, so everyone can bring what they've got and maybe we could get some honest discourse going (am I naive?). Anyone interested? or do you think it would be too much firewood?

in its internal affairs. What has been happening to Chavez's administration already happened to Salvador Allende in the 1960's, while Republican right-wing alchoholic nutso Nixon conspired to destroy the man and steal his government for the right-wing.

http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB110/



It's been done to death, and they see it as a reliable tool in continuing to dominate Latin America and the Caribbean.

We all know this. It's not something one can deny.

If would definitely fit the pattern.

What's also sad is that in certain other nations any vilification of non US-backed leaders can be rolled out to muster public support for actions against such leaders.

Here is Prensa Latina's account:

Election Sabotage Proved in Venezuela

Caracas, Dec 8 (Prensa Latina) President of the Venezuelan National Assembly Nicolas Maduro denounced a CIA-coordinated, funded plan to destabilize Venezuela on Thursday, which involved retired and on-duty military personnel.

Maduro stressed this was a serious claim as it exposes an attempt to prevent the December 4 elections by attacking institutional, civil and military targets.

"The purpose was to generate chaos in the country," said Venezuela's top legislator.

Deputy Cilia Flores from the Fifth Republic Movement (MVR) released recorded conversations of Army Col. Carlos Gonzalez (R) to carry out destabilizing actions along with unidentified people.

Flores said Gonzalez is wanted by Venezuelan justice for events in April 2002, and added that the former military officer was in the US but returned to Venezuela a few days before the election.

She said Col. Gustavo Diaz and retired officer Suju Rafo were also involved in the conspiracy, and both took part in the failed coup d´etat against Chavez three years ago.

PRENSA LATINA

Hardly an unbiased source.

I hear enough shit from Bush's Black Mamba!

Stating that Prensa Latina is Castro's propoganda arm is bullshit? Every country has a propoganda arm, including the US. This is Castro's. How the fuck is that white house propoganda? Get a grip.

Fox and Friends is on!

Not that it matters one iota in the context of this subthread, but I would be overjoyed to see that terrorist asswipe sent back to Cuba to face whatever it is that Castro has planned for him. I was simply pointing out, for those who might not know, that the source of your information is the Cuban government's international propoganda outlet, and thus the information you posted should be viewed for what it is. But by all means, please continue your attempts to turn this into a flame war.

...ANY media outlet of the U.S. mainstream media. Your attempt to discredit another source of information is, IMHO, laughable.

It's very odd to me that, despite all of the U. S. Government's claims over the past 45 years that Castro is such an evil man, nobody internally has ever mounted a serious effort to overthrow Castro. Why do you think that is, exactly?

And if you recall, Batista, the guy Castro overthrew, was one of the worst rightwing dictators the Caribbean has ever seen.

If you don't like the American media read AFP or the BBC. Their coverage of the US is generally at least as comprehensive as American outlets when it comes to big stories. And yes, when it comes to legitimacy, I'll take either of those two organizations over Castro's press corps any day of the week. The American media is completely irrelevant to this discussion. And comparing two useless sources of information is a waste of time. Jesus, just because American news is crap doesn't mean Castro's news isn't crap.

and thank you for doing that. its difficult to believe anything from most media sources these days. My current guideline is that I tend to accept the ap news that is most 'damning' of the administration and the gop, because such news is so few and far between and begrudgingly given, with more apologism than criticism in the articles. As to Castro's news sources,I'm sure they are no less reliable than Fox News. I might even lean towards the information given in the article, but being that such news is not counter to his government's agenda, I would take it with a grain of salt. But I say that more out of ignorance of the Cuban media than out of knowledge of any forcefeeding done through it. Sadly, I wouldn't be too surprised, now that we are the 44th freest press in the world, if Cuba were among the countries besting us in that regard.

If you're talking about the Freedom House survey, Cuba is second-to-last. It's tied with Burma and Turkmenistan. Last place, as you might have already guessed, is North Korea. I don't trust them, though. They get money from Scafie.

As you admitted yib, if they killed him now it would just make him a martyr.
By repeatedly and openly stating that the CIA wants him dead it makes his
murder that much more difficult. In the past, the CIA has been able to do
it's dirty work in the dark.

It was sought and perfected by the Nixon administration. It's very big with right-wing authoritarian pResidents mucking around in internal affairs of other countries.

your survey source:

USAID signals its own right-wing political orientation in the first sentence of its Cuban program overview, citing the rightist Heritage Foundation’s description of Cuba as the second worst “economically repressed regime” in the world after North Korea. In the next sentence it cites the neoconservative Freedom House—a grantee of NED whose directors and staff have been tightly interlinked since NED’s founding in 1983—stating that Cuba is among the eleven “most repressive regimes” in the world.
(snip/...)

http://www.globalpolicy.org/socecon/develop/oda/2004/0625cubaaid.htm

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

From its own website, a list of its funding:

The Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation
The Carthage Foundation
The Ford Foundation
Grace Foundation, Inc.
The LWH Family Foundation
The Pew Charitable Trusts
The Schloss Family Foundation
The Soros Foundations
Unilever United States Foundation, Inc.
US Information Agency
Whirlpool
The Byrne Foundation
The Eurasia Foundation
The Freedom Forum
Lilly Endowment, Inc.
National Endowment for Democracy
Sarah Scaife Foundation
Smith Richardson Foundation, Inc.
The Tinker Foundation
US Agency for International Development
Charles Stewart Mott Foundation
U.S. Steel

http://www.freedomhouse.org/research/freeworld/2004/countryratings/chile.htm

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

.....Through its Program to Promote Cuban Transition to Democracy, USAID has granted democracy-building assistance to a similar and often overlapping list of grantees, including Freedom House, Center for a Free Cuba, Institute for Democracy in Cuba, Cuban Dissidence Task Force, International Republican Institute, Grupo de Apoyo a la Disidencia, Acción Democrática Cubana, Cuba Free Press, Florida International University's Journalism Training Program, CubaNet, Carta de Cuba, Partners of the Americas, Pan American Development Foundation, ACDI-VOCA/Independent Agricultural Cooperatives, University of Miami's program for Developing Civil Society, Florida International University's NGO Development Program, American Center for International Labor Solidarity, National Policy Association, Cuba On-Line, Sabre Foundation, Rutgers University's Planning for Change program, International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES), and University of Miami's Cuba Transition Planning program.
(snip)

http://americas.irc-online.org/reports/2004/0406castro_body.html

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

....From 1996 to 2001, AID disbursed the $12 million to 22 NGOs, all apparently based in the US, mostly in Miami. By 2002, the number of front-line NGOs had shrunk to 12 — the University of Miami, Center for a Free Cuba, Pan-American Development Foundation, Florida International University, Freedom House, Grupo de Apoyo a la Disidencia, Cuba On-Line, CubaNet, National Policy Association, Accion Democratica Cubana and Carta de Cuba.

In addition, the International Republican Institute received AID money for a sub-grantee, the Directorio Revolucionario Democr tico Cubano, also based in Miami.

These NGOs have a double purpose, one directed to their counterpart groups in Cuba and one directed to the world, mainly through web sites. Whereas, on the one hand, they channel funds and equipment into Cuba, on the other they disseminate to the world the activities of the groups in Cuba. Cubanet in Miami, for example, publishes the writings of the “independent journalists” of the Independent Press Association of Cuba, based in Havana, and channels money to the writers.
(snip)

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article4332.htm

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

...The group's definition of civil liberties includes freedom of expression and association, the right to hold demonstrations, religious freedom, and personal rights such as freedom of education, ownership, and travel. Other factors included in this category include the independence of the judiciary, rule of law, degree of freedom from government terror, and freedom from imprisonment for reasons of belief or conscience. (38)

These definitions--contained within the neoconservative framework which dominates Freedom House--guide the organization's evaluations and analyses. For the Comparative Survey of Freedom, for example, each of these and other points on an "informal checklist" are considered and measured subjectively based on a review of journalistic information about each of the world's countries. The result is a table of ratings which purport to measure states of freedom globally. Both rightwing and leftwing governments have come up with poor ratings on this scale, but leftwing and left-leaning regimes are more consistently graded negatively. On the 1989 survey, for example, South Africa's "freedom rating" was worse than Nicaragua's, but South Korea--where there has been governmentsponsored violence and corruption at levels unheard of in Nicaragua under the Sandinistas--was rated "more free" than Nicaragua by several points. (38) The same held true vis-a-vis Nicaragua for El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala, and Pakistan. (38)

Freedom House has received substantial funding from the U.S. government through the National Endowment for Democracy (NED). This financial assistance is passed through Freedom House to private organizations in foreign countries and is generally used for cultural and media projects. Its NED-funded grantees are located in various countries, including South Africa, the Soviet Union, Paraguay, Poland, and Hungary. Projects supported by Freedom House tend to reflect its neoconservative viewpoint and to bolster U.S. foreign policy positions--at least that was the case under President Reagan. One such project, supported by Freedom House with NED funding, is the anti-Sandinista publications house, Libro Libre, in Costa Rica. Another is the multiregional Exchange project, which collects and distributes articles written primarily by neoconservative supporters of U.S. foreign policy worldwide. (3,18)
(snip/...)

http://rightweb.irc-online.org/groupwatch/freehous.php

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

CONFRONTING CUBA

March 1, 1996
(Online NewsHour, PBS)

...Frank Calzon is the Washington representative for Freedom House, a human rights organization that promotes democracy around the world, and Jose Pertierra is legal counsel for Cambio Cubano, a Cuban-American organization based in Miami that seeks political change in Cuba through peaceful means.
(snip)

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/latin_america/cuba_3-1.html



Frank Calzon and his right-wing exile-loving friend

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

This press release from USAID in May 2002 (http://usinfo.state.gov/), provides a glimpse of the money spent openly. Obviously covert figures are not revealed. Topping the list of grantees are Frank Calzon’s Washington DC based “Freedom House”, and “Center for a Free Cuba,” both of which function as propaganda mills for anti-Cuban rhetoric, by producing white papers, opinion pieces, and acting as press contacts ready with an anti-Cuban quip for whatever Cuban topic arises.
(snip/...)

http://www.nowaroncuba.org/Organization/Press/US_Ops_against_Cuba.htm

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

OVERT US GOVERNMENT FUNDING, for Cuban "dissidents" 2004

(1) Center for a Free Cuba $5,049,709
(2) Grupo de Apoyo a la Disidencia $4,650,000
(3) Cuba On-Line $4,240,000
(4) Int'l Republican Institute $2,773,825
(5) Freedom House $2,100,000
(6) U of Miami: Cuba Transition Project $2,045,000
(7) CubaNet $1,333,000
(8) FIU Journalism Program $1,164,000
(9) Pan-American Dev. Foundation $1,520,700
(10) Acción Democratica Cubana $1,020,000
(11) Loyola Univ: NGO Development $ 424,771
(12) Georgetown Univ. Scholarships $ 400,000
(13) Plantados: Support for Prisoners $ 400,000
(14) Mississippi Consortium Int'l Dev $ 399,952
(15) Latin American Mission: Dry Milk $ 392,976
(16) Carta de Cuba $ 289,600

Completed projects 5,806,570
TOTAL: $34,010,103

Source: Ana Radelat, "USAID funding for anti-Castro groups tops $34 million, "
CubaNews (Maryland),
November 2004, p. 9

http://www.walterlippmann.com/docs051.html

One of the reasons I love this site is how informed everyone seems to be(not me personally though.)

I wasn't being entirely serious when I suggested that Cuba might be ahead of us, though doing so did serve to demonstrate the ignorance I was going into the subject with, and why I would take such news with a grain of salt. But I also see now that Cuba's place on that list isn't necessarily a reliable rating either, after reading your post.

I had no idea that the Freedom House study was such a tool for the NeoCon agenda. Yet we still couldn't grade ourselves better than 44? I thought we were the country that invented freedom of the press(again, I'm not certain). Now 43 countries do it better by our own standards. Nice.

I've been reading from the site for a year now, just haven't posted very often.

The issue is "CIA anti-Chavez plot", not the recent elections in Venezuela.

1) If the CIA did try to give Chavez "two in the hat", it was because they don't want him re-elected.
2) If Chavez is lying, it is because he thinks it will boost his re-election chances.

so, really the question is, which of the above is true, or are they both true?

here's an interesting article i found while googling the latest news on chavez:

http://www.sltrib.com/opinion/ci_3291586

and he quotes an opposition source, El Universal, and a virulent enemy of Hugo Chavez, Teodoro Petkoff, publisher of an anti-Chavez publication, Tal Cual.

Tal Cual ran this photo on its front page of Hugo Chavez brandishing a gun during a speech:



Hugo Chavez actually held up a rose given to him by someone in his audience:



Tacky, tacky, tacky.
http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/articles.php?artno=1025

I wrote before:
"The pictures placed on the cover of Tal Cual are almost always purposefully tampered for hyperbolic, sometime comic, effect, and that is something that everyone knows. They are not actual photographs, nor do they intend to be. It goes in accordance with Tal Cual's strongly sarcastic and parodic tone, which , as a principle, intentionally makes no attempt to respect the Venezuelan government. "

Here are more Tal Cual covers so that you can see what I'm talking about.

http://www.talcualdigital.com/Portadas/Feb.asp
http://www.talcualdigital.com/Portadas/mar.asp
http://www.talcualdigital.com/Portadas/Abr.asp
http://www.talcualdigital.com/Portadas/Jun.asp#3
http://www.talcualdigital.com/Portadas/Default.asp#2

And in response to that last post on this thread ((http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=103&topic_id=104886#112312
) concerning Tal Cual:

No, not just the slow-witted were fooled. Only someone not familiar with Tal Cual itself could claim to take the covers at face value or seriously, or even consider them dishonest photography (as there is no intent behind it other than exaggeration). And yes, Tal Cual is critical of the Chávez regime. Remember that one of the media's claims to fame is the right to voice dissent.

(to stay in power) after many years of being as popular as he is, landsliding election after election.

Also the US govt does have a habit of declaring elections valid or invalid depending on whether or not the electee is supportive of US policies - irrespective of what international election monitors (ie Carter) say. See for instance Indonesia.


from the article you refer to (aside from it being a RW source):

"But oppositionists claim victory as well, arguing that Venezuela - whose president is known to crave international recognition as a democrat - will join Cuba, China and North Korea as one of the few countries in the world with a monolithic parliament. What good was it to have 79 legislators if we could never pass one single measure in Congress? they ask."

Monolithic Parliament; kind of like how Repubs have a majority in Congress and the Senate. With help from their friends in the Dem party in many cases they do even have 2/3 majority.

I was just wondering if he was using this to boost his public opinion.

And monolithic parliament means single party, as in China or the former Soviet Union. At least here, we do have an opposition party who can block some Republican measures.

"monolithic parliament means single party"

Not to the opposition in Venezuela; in their words:
"What good was it to have 79 legislators..."

The opposition may have helped create a virtually single party government by boycotting these elections.

domestic news services until 30 years or more have passed! That's the way it usually goes.

BTW, I am old enough to remember when and why Prensa Latina was created, it was a counter to the bullshit capitalist propaganda from AP and UPI.

Prensa Latina's first news coup was to report, accurately as it turned out, all of the gory details of the CIA-coup and insurrection that brought down the Congo's anti-imperialist Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba. The AP, UPI, and even the BBC, were very timid in reporting anything that would suggest CIA's involvement in the assassination of Lumumba.

BTW, Frank Carlucci who is now with the Carlyle Group was the CIA's man in the Congo.

Thank goodness some of the records have been declassified for those who don't swallow everything thrown at them.

I googled this snippet:

As the Second Secretary in the US Embassy in the Congo during the time of the reign and consequent assassination of Patrice Lumumba, Carlucci was intimately involved in the US efforts to overthrow Lumumba's government. In the recent cinematic reconstruction of the life and times of the Congo's first elected prime minister, Lumumba by Haitian director, Raoul Peck, Carlucci is depicted as being part of a meeting of US, Belgian, and Congo officials plotting the murder of Lumumba. Claiming that this particular meeting was fabricated by the filmmaker, Carlucci did admit at a Washington premier of the film that US policy towards the Lumumba government was a bit "too strident."

The fact that CIA station chief Lawrence Devlin was under direct instructions from Secretary of State Dulles to seek the immediate removal of Lumumba is part of the historical record. There is even evidence to suggest that the actual hit on Lumumba came from the White House at Eisenhower's suggestion. In fact, there was an assassin hired by the US government, equipped with chemical weapons from Ft. Detrick, to use against Lumumba.

When Lumumba was captured in December 1960 after fleeing from house arrest by a former supporter and later vicious dictator of the Congo, Colonel Joseph Mobutu, the CIA probably helped to arrange for Lumumba's transfer to Katanga province where Katangan and Belgian henchman murdered Lumumba and disposed of his body.
(snip/...)

http://www.counterpunch.org/schorcarlucci.html

http://inside.c-spanarchives.org:8080/cspan/Pictures/Persons/001368/001368-172501-02.jpg

How'd you like to have his memories to keep you company as you grow old? Shudder.

maybe it was Pat Robertson behind it.

or just idle speculation?

Don't you remember Robertson's call to the Bush Administration to assasinate Chavez?

here's a reminder: http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/08/23/robertson.chavez/

At the time i posted in threads on the subject, a thesis of sorts on how Robertson was in fact proclaiming "official doctrine" of the US government. The basis for it was this:



US State Dept. docs : "3rd world a source of raw material to be exploited"

What follows are excerpts from the famous debate between Noam Chomsky and Richard Perle at The Ohio State University in 1988 (http://www.radio4all.net/proginfo.php?id=8409).

In the debate Chomsky cites from now declassified documents from the State Department. Even an academic of high standing such as Noam Chomsky has a hard time getting access to such documents:

"One learns a lot from looking at the documentary record, and one learns a lot from the fact that certain people don't want you to look at it."
- Noam Chomsky

Chomsky makes a distinction between what he calls "official doctrine" - doctrine as created behind closed doors, and "widely proclaimed doctrine" - the policies as told to the public.
He notes that what's actually happening in the world (much of which goes unreported in the mainstream media) - ie US/Western support of various dictators and genocides, and the 'debt-trap' of so-called "Free Trade Agreements" - is in fact consistent with (secret) official doctrine, but inconsistent with publicly announced policies.

"Official doctrine is quite inconsistent with the historical and documentary record. (Official doctrine) conforms to the pattern of evolving events, and is entirely inconsistent with widely proclaimed doctrine."
- Noam Chomsky


Quotes from declassified State Department documents:

On the 3rd World:

"...a source of raw material and markets for the industrialist capitalist powers, to be exploited for their reconstruction"...

On Latin America:

"Prime concern is the protection of our raw materials. We have 50% of the worlds wealth but only 6% of its population, we must maintain this disparity to the extent possible, by force if necessary, putting aside vague and idealistic slogans such as human rights, raising of living standards, democratization, preferring police states if needed over democracies that might be to liberal and to indulgent to communists, the latter has lost any substantial meaning in US political rhetoric, referring simply to anyone who stands in our way."

"The primary threat to the US in Latin America is the trend towards nationalistic regimes that respond to popular demand for improvement in low living standards and production for domestic needs. That's not acceptable because the US is committed to encouraging a climate inductive to private investment, in particular guaranties for opportunity to earn and in the case of foreign capital to repatriate a reasonable return."

"We must therefore oppose what is regularly called ultra nationalism in secret documents, that means efforts to pursue domestic needs. We must foster exports or (...) production in the interests of US investors. It is recognized such programs have very little appeal to the Latin American public. So the conclusion is that we must therefore gain control over the military which can in turn control domestic opposition and overthrow civilian governments if necessary."

===

"There is a declassified State Department paper from 1948 that outlines what the US intended to do with various regions of the world after World War II. The US decided to take the Middle East and Asia. When it came to Africa, the document essentially says that we're not so interested in Africa, so we'll give it to the Europeans to "exploit"-that's the word used-for their reconstruction." - Chomsky
http://www.madre.org/articles/chomsky-0801.html

===

I. Fundamental Principles: Straight Power Concepts

The fundamental aims of Western foreign policy under American leadership, were stated in a now declassified top-secret planning report produced by the US State Department’s policy planning staff, headed at the time (February 1948) by the ‘liberal’ George Kennan: "We have about 50 per cent of the world’s wealth, but only 6.3 per cent of its population... In this situation, we cannot fail to be the object of envy and resentment. Our real task in the coming period is to devise a pattern of relationships which will permit us to maintain this position of disparity without positive detriment to our national security. To do so we will have to dispense with all sentimentality and day-dreaming; and our attention will have to be concentrated everywhere on our immediate national objectives a pattern of relationships which will permit us to maintain’ the ‘position of disparity’ between the West and the rest of the world. We need not deceive ourselves that we can afford the luxury of altruism and world-benefaction... We should cease to talk about vague and... unreal objectives such as human rights, the raising of living standards, and democratization. The day is not far off when we will have to deal in straight power concepts. The less we are then hampered by idealistic slogans, the better.’
http://www.transcend.org/t_database/articles.php?ida=78