This comes from a Venezuelan source. We’ve got our eye on Caracas.
Caracas, January 19, 2007 (venezuelanalysis.com)— During a briefing before the United States House of Representatives Committee on Intelligence, current CIA chief General Michael V. Hayden revealed President George W. Bush had requested his agency “pay more attention” to the activities of President Hugo Chávez and his government in Venezuela.
General Hayden’s commentaries were directed to the House Committee on Intelligence after outgoing Director of National Intelligence, John Negroponte had addressed the congressional group. Negroponte, now sub-secretary of State under Condoleezza Rice, indicated to the committee that the United States was in a “good position in terms of intelligence” regarding Venezuela and Cuba, implying that the recently-created special CIA Mission Manager on Venezuela and Cuba, overseen by veteran intelligence officer Norman A. Bailey since November 2006, was active and functioning effectively.
Bailey, a Cold War operative and Reaganite, was an intelligence officer and specialist in Latin America for over two decades. The new CIA Mission in Venezuela and Cuba, officially created in August 2006 by Negroponte’s National Directorate of Intelligence, is designed to enhance U.S. intelligence operations, information gathering and analysis in the two countries. An August 16, 2006 press release by Negroponte’s office declared the new CIA mission was “critical today, as policymakers have increasingly focused on the challenges that Cuba and Venezuela pose to American foreign policy.”
During the January 18, 2007 intelligence briefing in the House of Representatives, Republican congressman Darrell Issa requested that Negroponte and CIA Director Hayden speak about how the United States is handling the “Chávez phenomenon” and whether or not the intelligence specialists could guarantee that Venezuela will not become a “serious threat in our own hemisphere.” Intelligence czar Negroponte responded that Venezuela “is probably the second country in the hemisphere where we have concentrated the majority of our intelligence and analysis efforts.” According to Negroponte’s comments, Cuba maintains its position as the “top” intelligence priority of the United States Government in this region.
Negroponte further remarked that US policymakers should be “worried about Mr. Chávez,” considering that “he has literally spent millions and millions of dollars to support his extremist ideas in various parts of the world…despite the fact that there is an enormous amount of poverty in his own country.”
Our hostility to Latin American populism surpasses boredom. To our government, anything other than outright subserviance passes for extremist ideas.
And people think Chavez is paranoid. I’d say right now he probably has more friends in “various parts of the world” than we do — and it isn’t because of his money.
I note that the CIA officer graduated from Oberlin with my father and specializes in economic sabotage.
We most must have to take out Chavez, he actually gives oil profits back the people, not the CEOs of exxon. what a bad example….he must be stopped.
Chavez is insufficiently democratic for my tastes, but there is no doubt that the impoverished masses are better off and the wealthy parasites are worse off. Neither is to the extent that Chavez promised, but it’s a start, and I can’t complain with that.
What people like Negroponte fear is that if people like Chavez are allowed to continue, Americans will someday awaken to the fact that the rich exist only because we permit them to, not because we need them.
How Democratic can one afford to be when you know an outside country’s intelligence service is funding the bulk of your opposition?
We rig the game, and then cry foul when they don’t play by normal rules. What else can Chavez, or Castro for that matter, do?
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Hmm… interesting insight in misinformation campaign.
A U.S. Intelligence Hoax on Venezuela?
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence.".
via google …
US PsyOps: Iranian nuclear weapons for Venezuela? ◊ by Arcturus
Wed Apr 19th, 2006 at 06:36:03 PM PST
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."What has he done that is undemocratic? He has been elected three times. He has maintained Venezuela as a multiparty democracy. He doesn’t censor any networks despite their overwhelming corporate bias and actually incitement to a coup. If you are going to say he is undemocratic provide a reason. Otherwise your just going on some vague feeling and probably right wing spin.
I understand that a moderate to liberal can say that about Castro. Castro lives in a one party state with no freedom of the press or any bill of rights really, but the spin against Chavez is often just spin and bandwagoning.
1)I don’t think we should go along with the spin that Venezuela is the same as Cuba. Venezuela is a multipary democracy with feedom of the press, speech, religion, and association.
2)When you consider the facts of number 1 you can see how insane the foriegn policy establishment of this country is.
3)Is there an explanation for why the US has chosen a hostile position against little Venezuela?
During the Bush administration five Latin American countries have chosen decidedly Leftist leaders, and Mexico would have gone that way had it not been for some questionable intervention by the same election team that “managed” the results from our elections in Florida and Ohio. Yet, the blindness of the administration is amazing!
The movement is fueled in large part by a nationalism and the strong feeling of the indigenous peoples that we have pillaged their natural resources for our own benefit. Whether it is Venezuela’s oil or Bolivia’s gas, we have allowed our companies to work against our own national interests. (Our attempts to blackmail LA into backing the “coalition of the stupid” didn’t help.)
What’s so amazing is that there is still a foundation of goodwill in LA for North Americans, upon which we could rebuild if a new administration were to make the effort.
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Castro ‘gravely ill’ says Chavez
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."We’ve got ‘our eye’ on Caracas? We’ve never taken it off. We’ve already been behind one attempted coup and got caught with our pants down. All we did was become sneakier. We’re like a spoiled child who never learns the lesson.
Iran may not be the next country we attack, it looks like Cuba is topping that list if Castro is as ill as Chavez just suggested.