Reply #8: Say goodbye, Charles!

[Judi Lynn]

(snip) 'Champagne Charlie' Shapiro will begone in Spring; US Embassy spin doctors insist he's quitting the bunker for purely personal reasons...


USA Caracas Ambassador
Charles Shapiro

Controversial right-winger US Ambassador to Venezuela, Charles S. Shapiro is to leave his post officially in September although embassy spin doctors at the bunker on Colinas de Valle Arriba are claiming that he will begone in Spring for "purely personal reasons."

Shapiro hasn't exactly made himself popular with the Venezuelan government and has thoroughly compromised his diplomatic status through a whole series of faux-pas at the behest of the anti-Chavez opposition to the extent that he is seen as something of an embarrassment to the rapprochement that Washington D.C. urgently needs in its thirst for strategic oil supplies from traditionally reliable supplier Venezuela.

With the possibility of fresh USA-initiated conflagration breaking out in the Middle East and threats to the stability of the Saudi Royal Family, the Beltway mandarins are beginning to realize that the red-neck hype from Shapiro and his equally anti-Venezuelan henchman Otto Reich is counter-productive, especially set against a Venezuelan domestic political scenario in which, at the end of the day, the National Elections Council (CNE) could well be forced to tell the world that the opposition referendum signature campaign was so filled with fraud that it fails. (snip)

(snip) Caracas Union Radio Network is claiming that Shapiro will be replaced by the United States' current Ambassador to Chile, William Brownfield although information from within the Beltway allows us to believe that the appointment will only be a stop-gap measure as the US State Department grapples with how best to get rid of "problematic" Shapiro before he does more diplomatic damage.
(snip/)

http://www.vheadline.com/readnews.asp?id=14402
(Free registration required)

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Americas
Arrogant US Ambassador to Venezuela Charles S. Shapiro says its not a crime to kill a President,
By AP
Sep 30, 2003, 11:03


(snip) In an Associated Press (AP) dispatch the United States government has said it will open up an investigation into allegations made by Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez Frias relative to conspiracy to assassinate him. Chavez Frias has said that "terrorist groups" in southern Florida have allied with Miami-based anti-Castro radicals.

Amazingly US Ambassador to Venezuela, Charles S. Shapiro says "it is not necessarily a crime ... but we are in the full process of collecting information and we must follow all legal procedures ... if there is anyone to blame, our government knows what to do!"

With typical Washington cover-up rhetoric, Shapiro shakily admits that he has received information that "some Venezuelans have been receiving military training in the United States." He further admits that the information was also published in a Miami newspaper a year ago ... but remains remarkably silent as to why no action was taken by proper authorities Stateside. "We're not going to take action against anybody ... we haven't been able to make any headway!"
(snip/...)

http://www.axisoflogic.com/artman/publish/printer_1905.shtml

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Pedro Carmona, doing his version of the photo of Harry Truman, holding aloft the newspaper which had prematurely claimed Thomas Dewey President of the U.S.

In this case, Carmona appears to be holding the paper declaring himself President of Venezuela.