Hugo Chavez:

A Servant Not Knowing his Place

by William Blum

How do we know that the CIA was behind the coup that overthrew Hugo
Chavez?

Same way we know that the sun will rise tomorrow morning. That's what
it's always done and there's no reason to think that tomorrow morning will be
any different.

Consider Chavez's crimes:

• Branding the US attacks on Afghanistan as "fighting terrorism with
  terrorism", he demanded an end to "the slaughter of innocents"; holding up
  photographs of children killed in the American bombing attacks, he said their
  deaths had "no justification, just as the attacks in New York did not,
  either." In response, the Bush administration temporarily withdrew its
  ambassador.
  
• Being very friendly with Fidel Castro and selling oil to Cuba at discount
  rates.
  
• His defense minister asking the permanent US military mission in
  Venezuela to vacate its offices in the military headquarters in Caracas,
  saying its presence was an anachronism from the cold war.
  
• Not cooperating to Washington's satisfaction with the US war against the
  Colombian guerrillas.
  
• Denying Venezuelan airspace to US counter-drug flights.
  
• Refusing to provide US intelligence agencies with information on
  Venezuela's large Arab community.
  
• Questioning the sanctity of globalization.
  
• Promoting a regional free-trade bloc and united Latin American petroleum
  operations as a way to break free from US economic dominance.
  
• Visiting Sadaam Hussein in Iraq and Moammar Gaddafy in Libya.
  
• And more in the same vein which the Washington aristocracy is
  unaccustomed to encountering from the servant class.
  

The United States has endeavored to topple numerous governments for a
whole lot less.

The Washington Post reported from Venezuela on April 13:

"Members of the country's diverse opposition had been visiting the U.S.
Embassy here in recent weeks, hoping to enlist U.S. help in toppling Chavez.
The visitors included active and retired members of the military, media
leaders and opposition politicians.

"The opposition has been coming in with an assortment of 'what ifs',"
said a U.S. official familiar with the effort. "What if this happened? What
if that happened? What if you held it up and looked at it sideways? To every
scenario we say no. We know what a coup looks like, and we won't support it."

Right. They won't support a coup. So what happens when a coup occurs
which they want to support? Simple. They don't call it a coup. They call
it a "change of government" and say that Chavez was ousted "as a result of
the message of the Venezuelan people." Veritable grass-roots democracy it
was.

Opposition legislators were also brought to Washington in recent months,
including at least one delegation sponsored by the International Republican
Institute, an integral part of the National Endowment for Democracy, long
used by the CIA for covert operations abroad.

Overthrowing a man such as Hugo Chavez, guilty of such transgressions,
was a duty so "natural" for the CIA that the only reason it might not have
been intimately involved in the operation would be that the Agency had been
secretly disbanded.

William Blum is the author of "Killing Hope: US Military and CIA
Interventions Since World War II" and "Rogue State: A Guide to the World's
Only Superpower"
Portions of the books can be read at:
http://members.aol.com/superogue/homepage.htm
(with a link to Killing Hope).