The
War Drums Are Getting Louder
By Stephen Lendman
01 April, 2006
Countercurrents.org
The
way things are today, why on earth would the "big fool lunatics
in charge" in Washington ever want another war or maybe two of
them. Already they're "waist deep in the Big Muddy" in two
out-of-control debacles in the Middle East and Central Asia, and the
country is leaching multi-billions we don't have to pay for them. Despite
this hopeless chaos, it looks almost certain we're now headed for a
new one against another Middle East 4-letter country beginning with
the letter "I", and may try to "double our displeasure"
by including a "fracas in Caracas." I just learned about an
"Operation Bilbao" which appears to be blueprint to overthrow
the Chavez government and likely includes in it targeted assassinations
starting with the guy in charge.
Do these neocrazies in Washington
really think they can pull all this off - wars on four fronts. Don't
these guys have anyone around with a sense of history? Forget about
morality and such. These folks have none of that. But even kids in high
school learn that Hitler was doomed when he decided to wage war on two
fronts. And we all know what happened to Napoleon and a few other less
notables. It's what happens when your "eyes get bigger than your
stomach", and the indigestion that results is called "demise
by overreach." It's no different now than a couple of generations
ago or a couple of centuries either.
AGAIN, IT'S FOR THE
OIL STUPID, AND THE THIRD AND FOURTH TARGETS ARE IRAN AND VENEZUELA
Call it the curse of having
too much oil or maybe any. If only they just grew stuff we eat there
instead of pumping the stuff our "gas guzzlers" do. Iran and
Venezuela have so much of the "black gold" their countries
are practically floating on it. But in a world where a predatory USA
can't even breathe without it, that makes them public enemies one and
two - unless they agree to hand it all over to us. In "Godfather"
language, that's called "making an offer they can't refuse."
That's the way it works in a world where "only what we say goes
and we make all the rules." Any nation unwilling to follow our
orders and obey them becomes a target for regime change by whatever
means it takes - including by illegal aggression using industrial strength
nuclear weapons the US now plans to throw around like hand grenades.
I've written some in other
articles about Iran and said then and now I believe things are "hotting
up" as my UK friends would say. They're No. one in the target queue,
and it could be (nuclear) bombs away at any time. But here I only want
to discuss Venezuela because after Iran I have almost no doubt Venezuela
is next. The US may even try to make it a twosome in their infinite
lunacy. These reckless, lawless fools are often wrong but never in doubt.
When you rule the world or want to, you even believe you have the right
to blow it up.
To understand what's in the
wind, all you have to do is clean out your ears, open your eyes and
pay attention. The US war drums are beating a duet, and they're getting
louder. Listen up, here's the message on the Venezuelan front. On March
28, the Virginia Pilot of Norfolk, VA (that's where the biggest US naval
force is based and where I once lived for a year) reported that the
US Navy is sending an aircraft carrier strike group composed of four
ships and 60 aircraft to Caribbean and South American waters for a "major"
training exercise. All four ships are capable of launching cruise missiles
that might and could be armed with nuclear warheads. By my reckoning,
that's a provocative and hostile act.
Now combine that with the
growing hostile rhetoric coming out of Washington directed at Hugo Chavez.
I wrote in a previous article that Latin American expert James Petras
wrote (now some months ago) that the US has a strategy to overthrow
President Chavez by military force and at the same time destroy the
Cuban revolution in a "two step" process - "first overthrow
the Chavez government in Venezuela, cut off the energy supply and trade
links (to Cuba) and then proceed toward economic strangulation and military
attack." He also believed then the US would employ a "triangular
strategy" to overthrow Chavez - "a military invasion from
Colombia, US intervention (by air and sea attacks plus special forces
to assassinate key officials) and an internal uprising by infiltrated
terrorists and military traitors, supported by key media, financial
and petrol elites."
That's an ominous scenario
to consider, but now add to it the kind of Washington rhetoric that
makes it all sound possible. Here's some of the language from 2005 to
the present, and it's getting meaner. Various US officials including
CIA Chief Porter Goss, Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick, Defense
Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and a growing number of others have called
President Chavez a "threat to democracy" and an "elected
dictatorship", and they said it without even a touch of irony.
They accused him of doing "away with the rule of law, (packing)
the courts (and) carrying out anti-democratic activities" like
a dictator.
It gets worse. The just updated
National Security Strategy, published so we can all read it, specifically
singles out Hugo Chavez as "a demogogue awash in oil money (who
is) undermining democracy and seeking to destabilize the region."
The complicit US corporate media echo this venom as often as the Washington
lunatics ask them to. And there's lots more of it including a recent
US Army report that calls Hugo Chavez "the largest threat since
the Soviet Union and Communism", and Don Rumsfeld compares him
to Hitler.
And in case you missed it,
I'll repeat what John Pilger (one of my great heros) wrote on March
30 on VHeadline.com titled: "British Channel 4 paints President
Chavez a Dictator -- Hugo to go?" I watched that ugly and appalling
piece of rot on March 27, painful as it was to do it. In his article
Pilger says "This was a piece seemingly written by the US State
Department....." It sure sounded like it, and I've heard enough
of it through the years to agree. Here's a choice line from it Pilger
quotes: "He (Chavez) is in danger of joining a rogue's gallery
of dictators and despots --Washington's latest Latin nightmare."
There's so much more of the worst kinds of gross lies and deception
in the Channel 4 report, but you get the idea. Read the Pilger article
if you haven't yet. Unlike myself, a simple amateur, he's a pro's pro,
an honest one, and as good as they come.
All of what I cite above
are the clearest signals yet something is up and will happen - the only
question is when and precisely what. I only hope but do believe Hugo
Chavez is listening and hunkering down for "the inevitable."
IN AN ORWELLIAN WORLD
THE ONLY TRUTHS ARE THE LIES WE SAY ARE TRUTHS
It makes no difference to
the Washington crowd that Hugo Chavez was democratically elected twice,
is loved by the overwhelming majority of his people and has already
survived three attempts by the US to oust him. Coming up for sure is
number four. Chavez surely knows this and also believes (as do I) that
this time the US plan is to kill him. In US perverted logic, they believe
- no more Hugo Chavez, no more Bolivarian revolution. Well, President
Chavez may have a thing or two to say about the first premise, and the
Venezuelan people may have a thought or two about the second, at least
the 80% of them who cherish it and will likely fight to keep it.
Readers should understand
and never forget that Hugo Chavez gave the people of Venezuela a participatory
democracy and an array of essential social programs for everyone, especially
the 80% or more poor or desperately poor who never before had them.
That's why the majority of Venezuelans love him, will likely fight to
protect and keep him, and will never easily surrender the essential
services they now have. That's also why the US hates him and will try
to remove him. He represents the greatest of all threats to us - a good
example, one that may spread to other nations, and we can never tolerate
that. It's bad for business. By US rules it's corporations first, second,
third, and to hell with the people. We're doing the same thing here
in the US so why would we ever care about those dark-skinned Venezuelans
- except the rich ones, of course. With them the only color that counts
is green.
For the ordinary people everywhere,
the virulent undercurrent of racism always surfaces as a key factor
in the target countries we choose. Since the beginning of the republic,
race hate has been so much a part of our white leaders' DNA that even
caucasian Arab people aren't white enough. And the only post-WW II war
we've fought that's an exception was the illegal aggression against
and breakup of Yugoslavia. In that case, strategic factors outweighed
race. The exception, as they say, proves the rule.
THE US ROAD TO TYRANNY
LEADS THROUGH AFGHANISTAN, IRAQ, IRAN AND VENEZUELA
I've written several times
before that the George Bush junta today is taking the US from a republic
to tyranny, and we're already perilously close. This is a man who believes
he's "above the law" and the "Constitution is just a
goddamed piece of paper." I say this in deadly seriousness, this
is not a test, it's real and it's coming unless we find a way and soon
to stop it. Is anyone paying attention? All my senses detect it enough
to make my skin crawl, and I'm desperately trying to sound the alarm
to all I can reach including Hugo Chavez who I respect, admire and can
only wish we had someone like him here. We need a lot of Hugo Chavezes
and a few more Paul Reveres to echo the alarm, but this time it's not
a case of "one if by land and two if by sea." It's coming
at us from all directions, and it may be armed with a nuclear warhead
abroad and the end of our republic and sacred constitutional rights
here with martial law and tyranny replacing them. It's that serious.
Is anyone listening?
Stephen Lendman
lives in Chicago and can be reached at [email protected].
Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.