Friday, April 28, 2006
More Chavez
So the government of Cairo crushed dissent this week, a reminder of the pervasiveness of crooked governments around the world. President Mubarak was a contemporary of Ronald Reagan. He may call himself a president, but I can’t remember the last time we saw an honest election in Egypt. International observers are not welcome in Egypt, and this guy’s been in power longer than most of our soldiers have been alive.
I might point out similar efforts to suppress dissent in Belarus. I feel obligated, sometimes, to mention the numerous examples of despotisms around the world when the US rattles its sabre at one or the other for political reasons. Hugo Chavez stuffing the courts in Venezuela with supporters is nothing compared to what dictators like Hosni Mubarak have been doing for a generation.
Poor Chavez. The guy plays with the laws in Venezuela to allow himself to be eligible for another term, or to appoint supporters to the bench, and all of a suddenly he’s mentioned is the same breath as Iran. Egypt, ever since it recognized Israel, has been a frequent ally of the United States in the Middle East. We host the despots of China in frequent meetings essentially devoid of those pesky human rights issues. We were willing to cozy up to Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan when the War on Terror demanded it.
But woes betide the foolish nation that opposes US economic issues. Saudi Arabia learned long ago that the US was utterly unconcerned with corruption and despotism as long as the victims are your own people. Start opposing US policy in South America, however, and the hate propaganda will begin.
I especially enjoy the arguments from columnists in The Atlantic and the New Republic who argue that Chavez, in instituting social programs, is just tossing money into “unsustainable” programs. Just wasting his country’s resources.
This is a statement that reveals the ugly corporatist heart of the “centrist” critics. Programs to help the poor are a “waste.” Even arguing that literacy programs and social medicine amount to investing in human capital fall on deaf ears.
Perhaps, if the government of the United States was more benevolent, we might approach Chavez and offer financial aid in exchange for control over the direction in which the aid is invested: i.e., into more “sustainable” areas like infrastructure.
I doubt US investors will bother to do anything more than demonize a man who has thrown a wrench in investor’s attempts to control Central and South American markets. I also cynically wonder how hard it would be for international investors to buy off Chavez. He may be a truly populist leader, but power has a way of corrupting even the most idealistic leaders. If Chavez wants to emulate Fidel Castro and maintain a deathgrip on political power by suppressing dissent how much of a moral backbone can he have to resist the lure of billions of dollars in investments?
And if Chavez really is some idealistic leader of Venezuela how could he turn down genuine offers to invest in his country with few strings attached?
I suspect there will be no genuine offers. Easy enough for corporatists to send capital to Vietnam or Saudi Arabia or China. In the meantime their Pravda press can lob rhetorical missiles at Chavez.
Which raises an ugly question: is it really easier for imperialist elements of our society to wage war on a recalcitrant leader than to woo him or even bribe him? Or is this saber rattling a bluff to set up negotiations?
I doubt the latter. Cuba really was invaded by a proxy mercenary army, as was Nicaragua twenty years later. US military interventions in this hemisphere are as frequent as the rising and setting of the sun. In fact, there have been 16 of them in the last fifty years.
I suspect the risk (for the investors) is, and always has been, that capital sunk into a country might be nationalized by a government. But loans can’t be “seized.” Which raises another question: exactly what terms are US investors expecting when they agree to invest in a country?
It is hard to take the accusations of imperialists seriously when they write polemics about human rights. Nor is it easy to take them seriously when they discuss freedom of the press or of the courts. It is rare to hear the Wall Street Journal stoop so low as to criticize the freedom of the judiciary in a foreign nation. I have yet to see them criticize the rotten governments of Vietnam and Indonesia, two nations in which investors have been deeply involved for years. The volume of the criticism, in any case, has been inaudible compared to that directed against Chavez.
It is difficult to fault Chavez for threatening to shut down media outlets in Venezuela for producing “treasonous” content. The CIA has funneled massive amounts of money into foreign press outlets in order to help destabilize the regime: the CIA spent more money in Chile during the Vietnam War financing anti-Allende propaganda than both US presidential candidates combined in the 1964 election. The CIA has regularly funded anti-government media outlets throughout Central and South America. Chavez would be a fool not to suspect the same activity in Venezuela today, and to guard against it.
His manipulation of the courts is harder to excuse. Nor should any excuse be made. But such abuses of democracy are commonplace in the world, even in our own country. Chavez has a ways to go before he deserves to be compared to the ugliest dictators in the world. Our selective perception of this phenomenon serves only the international companies who stand to profit from a pliant government in Venezuela.
This kind of pliant government is what the US was looking for in Iraq. Saddam Hussein was the kind of dictator we couldn’t work with. Forget about WMDs: that crap was kool aid for the masses, like voodoo economics and The War on Terror.
The War on Terror that never was, as I and many others have said in the past. The State Department released a report recently. Guess what? Iraq is now a safe haven and a conduit for terrorists, following in the footsteps of Afghanistan, where we have very few troops, where poppy production is up to pre-war levels and where the government in Kabul controls a fraction of the country.
I might point out similar efforts to suppress dissent in Belarus. I feel obligated, sometimes, to mention the numerous examples of despotisms around the world when the US rattles its sabre at one or the other for political reasons. Hugo Chavez stuffing the courts in Venezuela with supporters is nothing compared to what dictators like Hosni Mubarak have been doing for a generation.
Poor Chavez. The guy plays with the laws in Venezuela to allow himself to be eligible for another term, or to appoint supporters to the bench, and all of a suddenly he’s mentioned is the same breath as Iran. Egypt, ever since it recognized Israel, has been a frequent ally of the United States in the Middle East. We host the despots of China in frequent meetings essentially devoid of those pesky human rights issues. We were willing to cozy up to Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan when the War on Terror demanded it.
But woes betide the foolish nation that opposes US economic issues. Saudi Arabia learned long ago that the US was utterly unconcerned with corruption and despotism as long as the victims are your own people. Start opposing US policy in South America, however, and the hate propaganda will begin.
I especially enjoy the arguments from columnists in The Atlantic and the New Republic who argue that Chavez, in instituting social programs, is just tossing money into “unsustainable” programs. Just wasting his country’s resources.
This is a statement that reveals the ugly corporatist heart of the “centrist” critics. Programs to help the poor are a “waste.” Even arguing that literacy programs and social medicine amount to investing in human capital fall on deaf ears.
Perhaps, if the government of the United States was more benevolent, we might approach Chavez and offer financial aid in exchange for control over the direction in which the aid is invested: i.e., into more “sustainable” areas like infrastructure.
I doubt US investors will bother to do anything more than demonize a man who has thrown a wrench in investor’s attempts to control Central and South American markets. I also cynically wonder how hard it would be for international investors to buy off Chavez. He may be a truly populist leader, but power has a way of corrupting even the most idealistic leaders. If Chavez wants to emulate Fidel Castro and maintain a deathgrip on political power by suppressing dissent how much of a moral backbone can he have to resist the lure of billions of dollars in investments?
And if Chavez really is some idealistic leader of Venezuela how could he turn down genuine offers to invest in his country with few strings attached?
I suspect there will be no genuine offers. Easy enough for corporatists to send capital to Vietnam or Saudi Arabia or China. In the meantime their Pravda press can lob rhetorical missiles at Chavez.
Which raises an ugly question: is it really easier for imperialist elements of our society to wage war on a recalcitrant leader than to woo him or even bribe him? Or is this saber rattling a bluff to set up negotiations?
I doubt the latter. Cuba really was invaded by a proxy mercenary army, as was Nicaragua twenty years later. US military interventions in this hemisphere are as frequent as the rising and setting of the sun. In fact, there have been 16 of them in the last fifty years.
I suspect the risk (for the investors) is, and always has been, that capital sunk into a country might be nationalized by a government. But loans can’t be “seized.” Which raises another question: exactly what terms are US investors expecting when they agree to invest in a country?
It is hard to take the accusations of imperialists seriously when they write polemics about human rights. Nor is it easy to take them seriously when they discuss freedom of the press or of the courts. It is rare to hear the Wall Street Journal stoop so low as to criticize the freedom of the judiciary in a foreign nation. I have yet to see them criticize the rotten governments of Vietnam and Indonesia, two nations in which investors have been deeply involved for years. The volume of the criticism, in any case, has been inaudible compared to that directed against Chavez.
It is difficult to fault Chavez for threatening to shut down media outlets in Venezuela for producing “treasonous” content. The CIA has funneled massive amounts of money into foreign press outlets in order to help destabilize the regime: the CIA spent more money in Chile during the Vietnam War financing anti-Allende propaganda than both US presidential candidates combined in the 1964 election. The CIA has regularly funded anti-government media outlets throughout Central and South America. Chavez would be a fool not to suspect the same activity in Venezuela today, and to guard against it.
His manipulation of the courts is harder to excuse. Nor should any excuse be made. But such abuses of democracy are commonplace in the world, even in our own country. Chavez has a ways to go before he deserves to be compared to the ugliest dictators in the world. Our selective perception of this phenomenon serves only the international companies who stand to profit from a pliant government in Venezuela.
This kind of pliant government is what the US was looking for in Iraq. Saddam Hussein was the kind of dictator we couldn’t work with. Forget about WMDs: that crap was kool aid for the masses, like voodoo economics and The War on Terror.
The War on Terror that never was, as I and many others have said in the past. The State Department released a report recently. Guess what? Iraq is now a safe haven and a conduit for terrorists, following in the footsteps of Afghanistan, where we have very few troops, where poppy production is up to pre-war levels and where the government in Kabul controls a fraction of the country.
# posted by BitterHarvest @ 6:06 PM 
