The Nature of CIA Intervention in Venezuela

[Say_What]

Excellent interview with Philip Agee and his analysis of the USSA's continued meddling in Venezuela to overthrow or unseat Chavez in the upcoming 2006 election.

<clips>

...Despite the recent rash of anti-Chávez editorials in the US media, and threatening statements made by a whole slew of senior US government officials at both the Departments of State and Defense, Agee sees a more cynical US strategy in Venezuela. Building on the work of scholar William I. Robinson on US intervention in Nicaragua throughout the 1980s, and recently published documents detailing CIA and US government activity in Venezuela, Agee suggests that the CIA’s strategy of “democracy promotion” is in full-force in Venezuela.

As with Nicaragua in the 1980s, a series of foundations are providing millions of dollars of funding to opposition forces in Venezuela, meted out by a private consulting firm contracted by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). Assistant Secretary of State, Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs Roger Noriega recently reaffirmed the State Departments commitment to this strategy, telling the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on March 2nd, 2005, “we will support democratic elements in Venezuela so that they can continue to maintain the political space to which they are entitled.” The funding of these “democratic elements” has as its ultimate goal the unification of Venezuela’s splintered opposition (formerly loosely grouped into the Coordinadora Democratica) for the upcoming Presidential elections in 2006. But failing a victory in 2006, cautions Agee, the CIA et al. will remain, their eyes set on the 2012 elections, and the 2018 elections, ad infinitum, “because what’s at stake is the stability of the political system in the United States, and the security of the political class in the United States.”

How do you view recent developments in Venezuela?

When Chávez was first elected and I began following events here, I could see the writing on the wall, as I could see it in Chile in 1970, as I could see it in Nicaragua in 1979-80. There was no doubt in my mind that the United States would try to change the course of events in Venezuela as they had in Chile and in Nicaragua, and before that in various other countries. Unfortunately, I didn’t have the time to really follow events day to day, but I did try to follow them from a distance, and eventually when Eva Golinger started her website it came to my attention and I began reading some of the documents on the website and I could see the application here of the same mechanisms that were used in Nicaragua in the 1980s in the penetration of civil society and the efforts to influence the political process and the electoral process here in Venezuela. In Nicaragua I had in 1979 I think, just after the Sandinistas took over, written an analysis of what I believed would be the US program there and practically everything I wrote about happened, because these techniques, through the CIA, through AID, through the State Department, and since 1984 through the National Endowment for Democracy, all follow a certain pattern. In Nicaragua the program for influencing the outcome of the 1990 elections began about a year and a half before the elections, for uniting the opposition, for creating a civic movement, all these things seem to be happening again in Venezuela. So this is my interest politically in Venezuela, is to see these things happening and to write from time to time about them.

http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/articles.php?artno=1403

[bemildred]

1. Right:

“because what’s at stake is the stability of the political
system in the United States, and the security of the political
class in the United States.”

The empire never forgets. They will keep trying until we throw
them out and rip the reins of power from their hands.

[Say_What]

2. I thought it was a great interview. Pretty insightful for anyone with

an interest in how the USSA really operates and what its real agenda is...

[bemildred]

3. Like Vanunu in Israel, a true enemy of the state.

They have been after him forever. Nobody is hated more than
the apostate, a believer who has renounced his faith and gone
over to the other side.