Chavez dictator vs. liberator

Chavez saved OPEC

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2013/03/12

Published on Tuesday, March 12, 2013 by The Toronto Star Hugo Chavez Depicted As Tyrant for Challenging Western Oil Domination


by Linda McQuaig

Had Hugo Chavez followed the pattern of many Third World leaders and concentrated on siphoning off his nation’s wealth for personal gain, he would have attracted little attention or animosity in the West.
venezuelan-president-hugo-008_2.jpg
Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez on the election trail. (Photograph: AFP/Getty Images/Leo Ramirez)
Instead, he did virtually the opposite — redirecting vast sums of national wealth to the swollen ranks of Venezuela’s poor, along with free health care and education. No wonder he alienated local elites, who are used to being first in line at the national trough.
Chavez’s relentless championing of the downtrodden set a standard increasingly followed in Latin America. It explains his immense popularity with the masses and the widespread grief over his death last week.
Yet in the West, he was portrayed as a tyrant.

He was accused of muzzling the press, although anyone who’s ever turned on a TV in Caracas knows there’s no shortage of Fox News-style media outlets carrying a frothy mix of celebrities, U.S. sitcoms and anti-Chavez tirades.
He was also accused of being anti-democratic, even though he won elections which former U.S. president Jimmy Carter and his global election monitoring centre have declared “the best in the world.”

Chavez deservedly came under attack in the West — including from Noam Chomsky — for failing to order the release of a judge imprisoned for allowing a corrupt banker to flee Venezuela with millions of dollars.
But it’s striking to note that the West routinely ignores more serious democratic failings on the part of its allies, including torture and execution in full-fledged dictatorships like Saudi Arabia.

What actually appears to have infuriated the western establishment was Chavez’s audacity in challenging — and scoring some victories against — western dominance of the world economy.

One such victory allowed Third World oil-producing nations to gain a bigger share of global oil revenues.
Up until the 1970s, the major western oil companies, known as the Seven Sisters, controlled the world oil market through a cartel established at a secret retreat at Achnacarry Castle in Scotland in 1928. The Achnacarry agreement set out in detail how the companies would maintain their lucrative control of oil markets into the future, setting quotas among themselves, never competing with each other and preventing competitors from getting in on the action.

In the 1970s, oil-producing nations in the Middle East and Venezuela organized and managed to replace the Seven Sisters with their own cartel, OPEC, striking a better deal for themselves and sending oil prices soaring. Some enraged westerners were left wondering, “How did our oil get under their sand?”

But the oil companies, backed by western governments, soon reclaimed their dominance. By the late 1990s, according to Wall Street oil analyst Fadel Gheit, a badly divided OPEC was on its deathbed.

Then miraculously it started to revive. “It was Hugo Chavez,” says Gheit. “He saved OPEC.”

Chronicling Chavez’s role in reuniting OPEC brought me to Caracas in 2004, for a book I was writing on the geopolitics of oil. In an interview that stretched beyond two hours, Chavez recounted his personal shuttle mission to OPEC nations in August 2000, infuriating Washington by defying its ban on foreign leaders visiting Iraqi president Saddam Hussein, and then convening the squabbling nations in Caracas.

Although the oil companies have continued to thrive, OPEC’s revival has ensured a significant share of the world’s oil wealth has gone to Third World producers — including poor nations like Algeria, Nigeria and Venezuela.

U.S. oil analyst Michael Tanzer notes that attempts to organize other Third World producing nations around commodities like coffee and copper have failed, with OPEC serving as the lone inspiring model of how the developing world can unite to challenge Western power.
Chavez championed the rising up of the Third World, and did it with flair and verve — often breaking spontaneously into popular love songs in front of cheering throngs at public gatherings — leaving the dull grey suits in the West all the more resentful.
For those concerned with social justice, Chavez’s passing is a sad milestone. It will surely be a while before we’ll see such a feisty mix of Robin Hood, Che Guevara and Michael Bublé straddling the world stage.
© 2013 Toronto Star

Linda McQuaig is a columnist for the Toronto Star. She first came to national prominence in 1989 for uncovering the Patti Starr Affair, where a community leader was found to have used charitable funds for the purpose of making illegal donations to lobby the government. McQuaig was awarded the National Newspaper Award for her work on this story. The National Post has called her "Canada's Michael Moore". Linda is the author (with Neil Brooks) of Billionaires’ Ball: Gluttony and Hubris in an Age of Epic Inequality, published by Beacon Press.
 
http://www.globalresearch.ca/scientific-assassinations-are-part-of-the-cias-modus-operandi/5326396
[h=2]“Scientific Assassinations” Are Part of the CIA’s Modus Operandi[/h] By Wayne Madsen
Global Research, March 12, 2013
Strategic Culture Foundation

The Guardian newspaper’s self-proclaimed Venezuela expert Rory Carroll has glibly categorized serious charges that Venezuela’s late President Hugo Chavez Frias was assassinated by a United States-produced bio-weapon as being in the same league with «conspiracy theorists who wonder about aliens at Roswell and NASA faking the moon landings». A number of Venezuelan and international officials believe a hostile party covertly introduced an aggressive form of cancer into the 58-year old president.

Carroll also wrote that Chavez, himself, believed that the cancers that befell former leftist leaders of Latin America, including Argentine President Nestor Kirchner, diagnosed with colon cancer and Brazilian President Ignacio Lula da Silva, treated for throat cancer, were part of a CIA plot directed against left-wing leaders. Curiously, Carroll suggests that Uruguay’s former leftist president, Tabare Vazquez, also recovered from cancer.


In fact, Vazquez never had cancer. Furthermore, he is a renowned oncologist trained in France. It was Paraguay’s former president, Fernando Lugo who was ousted in a 2012 CIA-backed right-wing coup, who was diagnosed with lymphoma, cancer of the immune system. Carroll simply proclaims that because all three ex-leaders recovered from cancer, there was nothing to the U.S. cancer assassination weapon story.


Carroll conveniently omitted the cancers that have struck other Latin American leaders, including Argentine President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, afflicted with thyroid cancer, and Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff, struck with lymphoma. After beginning peace talks with the left-wing Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), Colombia’s conservative president Juan Manuel Santos was diagnosed with prostate cancer.


Venezuela’s acting President Nicolas Maduro charged that Chavez was struck in a «scientific attack» by Venezuela’s «historical enemies».The U.S. State Department claimed the notion was absurd». Russian Communist Party leader Gennady Zyuganov speculated that is was far from coincidental that six leftist leaders all contracted cancer at around the same time.


Cuba’s Fidel Castro, himself the target of several CIA biological assassination attempts, told Chavez: «Chávez take care. These people [the Americans] have developed technology. You are very careless. Take care what you eat, what they give you to eat… a little needle and they inject you with I don’t know what».

Castro almost died from a mysterious stomach and intestinal ailment he contracted after attending a parallel «People’s Summit» held concurrent to the July 2006 Cordoba MERCOSUR (Common Market of the South) Summit with Chavez and Nestor Kirchner.

A U.S. Embassy Buenos Aires cable dated July 26, 2006, demonstrated Washington’s displeasure with Castro’s and Chavez’s presence in Cordoba with Kirchner: «What was remarkable about the summit was the degree to which Argentina and Brazil, the two key protagonists in MERCOSUR since its founding, played secondary roles at this summit, while Chavez and Castro dominated».


Of the three People’s Summit participants, Kirchner and Chavez are now dead. Kirchner died from a sudden heart attack and Chavez’s aggressive cancer began in his pelvic region.


Chavez said the probability of so many Latin American leaders developing cancer at the same time was «difficult to explain».


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General Jose Ornella, the head of the Venezuelan Presidential Guard, said it may be fifty years before details of the «hand of the enemy» in Chavez’s death is disclosed in a declassified document.

General Ornella and others may not have to wait another fifty years for the smoking gun documents on America’s cancer weaponry to be divulged. The records have already been declassified and are available, although many records were destroyed by the CIA under director Richard Helms in the early 1970s.


Although the 1972 Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention, ratified by the United States, the Soviet Union, and Great Britain, banned the use and possession of biological weapons, the Army-Central Intelligence Agency’s Special Operations Division at Fort Detrick, Maryland and the CIA’s Technical Services Department continued to maintain and develop stockpiles of cancer-causing biological agents used in special delivery weapons.


The biological agents and their weapons were specifically developed as part of the top secret MKNAOMI project, a joint operation conducted by the CIA and the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute for Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID) at Fort Detrick.


But America’s use of cancer-causing biological warfare agents had its start long before the outset of the Cold War and the first victims of such weapons were Latin Americans. In 1931, Dr. Cornelius P. Rhoads, a white racist and anti-Latin American scientist with the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Investigations in San Juan, subjected 13 Puerto Ricans to experiments by injecting them with cancer-causing biological agents.


The head of the Puerto Rican Nationalist Party, Pedro Albizu Campos, also known as «El Maestro,» obtained a letter from Rhoads to a friend in which Rhoads wrote of Puerto Ricans:


«I can get a damn fine job here and am tempted to take it. It would be ideal except for the Porto [sic] Ricans. They are beyond doubt the dirtiest, laziest, most degenerate and thievish race of men ever inhabiting this sphere. It makes you sick to inhabit the same island with them. They are even lower than Italians.

What the island needs is not public health work but a tidal wave or something to totally exterminate the population. It might then be livable. I have done my best to further the process of extermination by killing off 8 and transplanting cancer into several more. The latter has not resulted in any fatalities so far . . . The matter of consideration for the patients’ welfare plays no role here – in fact all physicians take delight in the abuse and torture of the unfortunate subjects».

Albizu complained to the League of Nations but it came to no avail. In 1950, Albizu was arrested in a crackdown on Puerto Rican nationalist activities on the island and Albizu was subjected to radiation burns and poisoning.

th

NSA Chief Called CIA ‘Out of Control
There is little doubt that Rhoads, who directed the Army’s chemical and biological weapons programs at Fort Detrick, the Dugway Proving Ground and Deseret Test Center in Utah, and the Panama Canal Zone, subjected Albizu to revenge experimentation. Rhoads then went on to the staff of the Atomic Energy Commission, which also subjected American citizens to dangerous radiation tests.

Albizu suffered a stroke in prison in 1956. In 1964, he was pardoned but died shortly after his release from prison in 1965. The Guardian, the U.S. State Department, and the Pentagon can harp on all they want about «absurd» charges and «conspiracy theories» but it is a fact that Puerto Rico’s nationalist leader was assassinated by the United States in brutal medical experiments while he was in prison. And if that is what the United States is willing to do to its own citizens, to what have foreign adversaries of the United States been subjected?


MKNAOMI planned to assassinate Fidel Castro and Congolese Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba with «exotic» biological weapons. The work on such weapons was carried out by the CIA’s Technical Services chief Dr. Sidney Gottlieb. Other affiliated CIA and U.S. Army bio-warfare weapons programs had the code names of DORK and OFTEN/CHICKWIT.


The National Cancer Institute, while looking for a cure for cancer, spun off an intelligence agency «carve out» project under the Viral Cancer Project that researched military applications for cancer-causing biological agents.


The work was centered at Fort Detrick and, after the 1972 Biological Warfare Convention was signed by President Richard Nixon, secret work on «the large scale production of oncogenic and suspected oncogenic viruses» continued with the net result in 1977 being the successful production of 60,000 liters of oncogenic and immunosuppressive viruses.


In 1970, the CIA’s Deputy Director for Plans, Thomas Karamessines, recommended that if the proposed Biological Warfare Convention was ratified, the CIA’s stockpile of bio-warfare agents should be transferred from Detrick to the Huntingdon Research Center of the Becton-Dickinson Company, in Baltimore.

The CIA’s and Pentagon’s secret carve out program at Fort Detrick included in its stockpiles botulinum toxins, which can cause deadly food poisoning. Other research included the aerosol transmission of cancer-causing viruses and production of «species jumping» viruses that would jump from animal species to humans with the intent of causing cancer.
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One of the first cancer weapon victims of the CIA’s bio-assassination program may have been Angola’s first president, Agostinho Neto.
Neto, who was targeted by the CIA in violation of congressional prohibitions, quickly developed cancer in 1979 and died in a Moscow hospital before the age of 57. Another CIA victim may have been former Chilean President Eduardo Frei, who became an outspoken adversary of the CIA-installed dictator General Augusto Pinochet. Frei died in a Santiago hospital on January 22, 1982 after contracting a suspicious infection after routine surgery.

The CIA pioneered in the use of cancer-causing agents that could infect their victims through injection; inhalation; skin contact through contaminated clothing, especially underwear – Chavez’s formation of aggressive in his pelvic region is germane in this respect; and contact with the digestive system through the use of contaminated food, drink, and even toothpaste.


There is such a wealth of documentation on the CIA’s use of cancer weapons against its enemies that the existence of such weapons is not the issue. The only issues are for Venezuela and other victimized countries to determine how the cancer-causing agents were delivered and the identities of the assassins and would-be assassins…
 
It's even in mainstream news now, the current President of Venezuela (former Vice President) believes Chavez was poisoned

"We have this intuition that our commander Chavez was poisoned by dark forces that wanted to be rid of him," said Nicolas Maduro
 
He was elected democratically. He repeatedly won elections through the democratic process he also helped and supported. You hear about "Red" states making it more and more difficult for the poor and disabled to vote in this past election, Chavez did the exact opposite, making it increasingly easier for the poor to cast their votes. Any meaning taken from that might be biased, but the action itself is fact and the repeated results from it, speak for themselves.

Yeah Saddam hussien was also repeatedly "voted in".
 
It's even in mainstream news now, the current President of Venezuela (former Vice President) believes Chavez was poisoned

"We have this intuition that our commander Chavez was poisoned by dark forces that wanted to be rid of him," said Nicolas Maduro

Izan dont fall into the same mind trap Muir is in. You need evidence to back these kinds of claims up. Not conjecture which is all this is. Motive doesnt prove guilt.
 
Izan dont fall into the same mind trap Muir is in. You need evidence to back these kinds of claims up. Not conjecture which is all this is. Motive doesnt prove guilt.

I'm not saying that I believe this for a fact, I just thought it was interesting enough to repost.
 
Venezuelans that live in Florida were celebrating over the news of his death.
That has to speak volumes as to the type of person and leader Chavez was.


Venezuelan Alfredo Nadales from Miami Beach celebrates at the El Arepazo #2 in Doral after hearing the news of Venezuela President Hugo Chavez's death on Tuesday, March 5, 2013. Hector Gabino / El Nuevo Herald

 
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Venezuelans that live in Florida were celebrating over the news of his death.
That has to speak volumes as to the type of person and leader Chavez was.


Venezuelan Alfredo Nadales from Miami Beach celebrates at the El Arepazo #2 in Doral after hearing the news of Venezuela President Hugo Chavez's death on Tuesday, March 5, 2013. Hector Gabino / El Nuevo Herald


They're the landed class and those working with the corporations

If they were in power they would make sure that the majority of venezualans did not have access to proper healthcare, education, housing etc

I hope they choke on their champagne
 
They're the landed class and those working with the corporations

If they were in power they would make sure that the majority of venezualans did not have access to proper healthcare, education, housing etc

I hope they choke on their champagne
Conjecture.
 
Yeah Saddam hussien was also repeatedly "voted in".

Ex-president of the US Jimmy Carter headed an independent team who went down to supervise the venezualan elections to ensure it was all carried out fairly. he called them the 'best in the world'

I've just taken the first artcle i've found about it off the search engine. here it is:

http://www.globalatlanta.com/articl...s-venezuela-scolds-us-on-electoral-processes/


When Hugo Chavez won Venezuela's election in 2006, not everyone was happy about the results.
Still, former President Jimmy Carter said at the Carter Center Sept. 11, the controversial leader won "fairly and squarely."
He steered clear of Mr. Chavez's political views, but Mr. Carter praised the South American country for a touch-screen voting system that both stores votes electronically and via paper ballots, allowing easier verification of the election results.
"As a matter of fact, of the 92 elections that we've monitored, I would say the election process in Venezuela is the best in the world," Mr. Carter said, noting the center's extensive work monitoring elections around the globe.
Responding to a question during the kickoff of the annual Conversations at the Carter Center series, Mr. Carter also pointed out that elections in Latin America as a whole have improved significantly over the past few decades.
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For example, he said Mexico only recently held its first "honest" election, which the Carter Center was allowed to monitor last month.
However, while candidates in Mexico and nearly every other Latin American country depend on public money to finance campaigns, the U.S. has seen an influx of "financial corruption" following court rulings that have eased the flow of private money into candidates' coffers, he said.
"Every other country has public financing of all the elections process," he said. "If you qualify to run for office, you get public financing and outside money does not affect the outcome of the election."
Although public financing remains is an option for U.S. candidates, nominees from both major political parties have opted to raise more funds through private donations.
Mr. Carter called for the U.S. Supreme Court to reverse its 2010 ruling in the landmark case of Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, in which the court agreed it was unconstitutional for the government to restrict anonymous donations to third-party political groups.
"We have one of the worst election processes in the world, and it's almost entirely because of the excessive influx of money," Mr. Carter said.
Campaign finance was among the many topics discussed as the former president answered online questions and engaged with a live audience in Atlanta.
He touched on the center's peace and health efforts, including the fight against Guinea worm, a parasitic disease afflicting parts of Africa.
Through a massive education effort, the Carter Center has helped many countries halt transmission. Mr. Carter said eradication of the last few hundred cases, mostly in Sudan, would be one of his crowning achievements if it takes place as expected in the next few years.
 
I'm not saying that I believe this for a fact, I just thought it was interesting enough to repost.

Izan don't fall into the same mind trap that Billy is in

He won't accept something as truth until he sees a signed confession from the CIA hitmen who poisoned Chavez which he will never get

If he was living in nazi germany and people were being led off to the gas chambers he would say 'conjecture, i don't believe its happening, i want to see the signed confession of hitler before i will accept anything as fact'

The rest of us live in the real world...we know what these people are capable of
 
They're the landed class and those working with the corporations
If they were in power they would make sure that the majority of venezualans did not have access to proper healthcare, education, housing etc
I hope they choke on their champagne

Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.
Are you going to say the same of the Cuban Americans when Fidel finally dies? That will be some party!

I enjoy reading what you say Muir. It's great food for thought. But I try to maintain a healthy sense of skepticism.
Not everything is or can be part of a grand conspiracy.
 
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Izan dont fall into the same mind trap Muir is in. You need evidence to back these kinds of claims up. Not conjecture which is all this is. Motive doesnt prove guilt.

Claims like these have brought about changes in societies throughout history, denying their possibility has brought nothing but ignorance and complacency... even death and disease.

Asbestos - was once considered a good material until the 1960's. Every piece of evidence and study that proved otherwise was routinely covered up until then. Now, it's banned, companies have been sued and fewer people are at risk of dying from exposure.

Watergate - was suspected for a long time until it was uncovered. The results caused Nixon to resign from office.

Operations Northwoods was a military plan to declare a war against Cuba in the 60's by committing acts of terrorism against their own country, the USA. It was eventually rejected and then covered up for 40 years.

The sinking of the Lusitania - a "passenger" ship in the WWI era that was making a trip from the US to England. The Germans had proof it was smuggling arms and ammunition and submitted a statement to US newspapers to avoid passage on the ship as it was a target for German U-Boats. Britain denied German's claim, the ship was sunk, US entered WWI and cargo manifests decades later surfaced that showed the UK government knew full well that it was smuggling military supplies.
 
Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.
Are you going to say the same of the Cuban Americans when Fidel finally dies? That will be some party!

The situation in Cuba was that the US corporate elite and mafia had their claws into it. Castro threw them out with massive popular support.

He landed with a handful of men and fought in the jungles but their guerrila grew because the people supported them. It grew so big that they were able to leave the jungle and take over towns and cities

Yes life has been hard in Cuba since but why do you think that is?

Its because the US has been trying to blockade Cuba and choke her off from trade. That has meant Cuba struggled to get many of the things it needed. The US has been using any means covert or overt to try and sabotage the revolution and assassinate its leader. The constant threat the US has created within cuba and without has created a climate of fear and suspicion

The USSR kept Cuba going but the collapse of the USSR was a set back

Chavez then helped Cuba by supplying it with oil

These countries are trying to trade among themselves so that they can all get what they need but the US corporations want to dominate everything and everyone

If you want to see what happens when the corporate powers are in control then take a look at your economy and at the distribution of wealth in your country.

The federal reserve is currently printing billions of dollars (quantitative easing) so that the US government can buy its own bonds. The whole thing is a ponzi scheme. When that bond bubble bursts you guys are gonna wish you hung onto your AR's because the corporations are going to come down hard on you guys to deal with the inevitable unrest thats going to occur due to the hyperinflation

I'm not anti-US, I'm anti-corporation (who have taken over the US government).

The corporations are currently screwing you and everyother american and Chavez stood up to them. You guys will have to stand up to them as well....when food becomes a certain percentage of your income crunch time will come. You guys are just putting off the inevitable
 
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[video=youtube;rb7XaF1rs1E]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rb7XaF1rs1E[/video]
 
[video=youtube;02SSYm_NapM]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=02SSYm_NapM[/video]
 
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Part 1 in a series about guatemala. The neo-liberal modus operandi is the same each time. they use the same formulas to destroy anyone who stands up for themselves:

[video=youtube;erJJjyWeCVs]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=erJJjyWeCVs[/video]
 
Confessions of an economic hitman (used to work for the CIA) where he explains how they operate:

[video=youtube;aqIHKWd9rSc]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aqIHKWd9rSc[/video]

Apologies of an economic hitman

youtube,Ui0NL3bb21o]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ui0NL3bb21o
 
Claims like these have brought about changes in societies throughout history, denying their possibility has brought nothing but ignorance and complacency... even death and disease.

Asbestos - was once considered a good material until the 1960's. Every piece of evidence and study that proved otherwise was routinely covered up until then. Now, it's banned, companies have been sued and fewer people are at risk of dying from exposure.

Watergate - was suspected for a long time until it was uncovered. The results caused Nixon to resign from office.

Operations Northwoods was a military plan to declare a war against Cuba in the 60's by committing acts of terrorism against their own country, the USA. It was eventually rejected and then covered up for 40 years.

The sinking of the Lusitania - a "passenger" ship in the WWI era that was making a trip from the US to England. The Germans had proof it was smuggling arms and ammunition and submitted a statement to US newspapers to avoid passage on the ship as it was a target for German U-Boats. Britain denied German's claim, the ship was sunk, US entered WWI and cargo manifests decades later surfaced that showed the UK government knew full well that it was smuggling military supplies.

1 pivotal point you are missing here, those things you listed were proven with evidence. NOT conjecture. For every 1 thing proven with evidence as the cases listed the crackpot conspiracy nuts had 1000X more unfounded theories. And before you go there lack of evidence does not equate to proof of it. Coverups you cant prove, do not count as evidence. Sorry.
 
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