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Washington Craps Out in Caracas

3/19/2013

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Imagen
Source: originallifemagazines.com
Imagen
Nicolás Maduro, President of Venezuela. Source: Diario6.pe.
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Colombian political leader Jorge Gaitán. Source: museonacionaldebuenosaires.blogspot.com.
                                                                               Get a new plan, Stan.
                                                                                                  -- Paul Simon --



Definition:  to crap out:  (in craps) a losing throw... Slang. to abandon a project, activity, etc., because of fear, cowardice, exhaustion, loss of enthusiasm, etc.


May 13, 1958.  The earth was still warm.  95% of today´s C.I.A. agents were incontinent infants or yet to be born.  Fidel Castro was seven months away from taking power.

Venezuela made a wake-up call that shook America from the red wood forest to the Gulf Stream waters. A Caracas crowd kicked and spat on the car of visiting Vice President Nixon.  Anybody who was old enough at the time to read Life Magazine will never forget it.

The U.S. woke up, tore the phone out of the wall, yawned, went back to sleep.

1.  On the death early this month of Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, President Obama sent the following message  to Venezuela:
: 
"At this challenging time of President Hugo Chavez’s passing, the United States reaffirms its support for the Venezuelan people and its interest in developing a constructive relationship with the Venezuelan government. As Venezuela begins a new chapter in its history, the United States remains committed to policies that promote democratic principles, the rule of law, and respect for human rights.
"

The coldness of Obama´s statement approaches -273 Celsius, i.e., absolute zero.  His missive did not contain even the de rigueur expression of condolence to Chávez´s family.*
  Sorry, Obama and State Department:  you still don´t have it right.  We have seen your boorish behavior before, and recently, when Obama continued to drone on while the British National Anthem played.  

Obama´s icy declaration was only the most recent faux pas in America´s zero diplomacy toward Venezuela.  Our October 8, 2012 post on Chávez´s election victory observed:

"It can only be described as indecent exposure.

Hillary Clinton´s State Department did not congratulate Hugo Chávez for winning the election but rather congratulated Venezuela for a high turnout and generally peaceful voting ...

The Venezuelan election exposed ... the State Department´s ignorance of the most rudimentary election etiquette.  After a free and fair election, you always congratulate the winner:  period.   Not to do so is more than undiplomatic; it is dangerous -- a stone rolled up on the edge of democracy.

I will say this of the old-school oligarchs I knew:  they all had impeccable manners.  Evidently, the archi-rich  DDUUHH generation of today doesn´t know and could care less.  Their sole instruction from all those private tutors:  take the money and run."


2.  After the standard Obama Waffle, the president picked a delegation to attend the Chávez funeral:
James Derham, who presently serves as Charge d’Affaires at the U.S. Embassy in Caracas, U.S. Rep. Gregory Meeks, New York Democrat, and former U.S. Rep. William Delahunt, Massachusetts Democrat.

Was this hurry-up offense of ad hoc diplomats appropriate?  It depends on how diplomat is defined.  Dr. George Voskopoulos, Senior Research Officer, South East European Research Centre (www.seerc.info), Sheffield University and City College, offered this insight:

"Diplomatic practice is such a demanding profession, that relatively few people can become successful diplomats... Normally they have a good knowledge of the culture of the country that is going to host them (this applies particular to western diplomats) and therefore they are aware of the cultural variables involved in the host country’s decision making policy system. These are the minimum requirements expected of the ideal diplomat who, ideally, must have both moral and intellectual qualities."

I won´t speculate on the Washingtonian trio´s moral qualities.  As for the other minimum requirement, a knowledge of the culture, if you are tired of spit and kicks and want to get a solid belly laugh out of Venezuelans, have your favorite TV reporter corner Obama´s dignitaries and ask them the following two questions:

A.  Manuela Sáenz was
1.  La libertadora del libertador.
2.  The richest woman in Latin America in 1800.
3.  The wife of Simón Bolívar.
4.  None of the above.

B.  Simón Rodrìguez was
1.  President of Venezuela, 1844-1862.
2.  Leader of the failed anti-Chávez military coup in 2002.
3.  Tutor and mentor of Simón Bolívar.
4.  None of the above.

The cameras will tell you everything you need to know, and then some.


3.  Washingtonians are whining about the Venezuelan constitutional stipulation that the upcoming presidential "elections need to be held in 30 days, which is an incredibly short timeframe."  Obviously, the United States is comparing Venezuela´s system to the United States 2-year presidential election cycle.

Four points:

First, to be precise, the official election campaign in Venezuela will run for 10 days, April 2 - April 11.  Each candidate will have 4 minutes to campaign on television and 5 minutes on radio.

The mere mention of such constraints drives Washington D.C. campaign consultants wild; after all, any reduction in campaign duration threatens the megabucks they rake in via government contracts.  Ditto the American media -- they could lose billions. 

Second, what we are seeing In Venezuela right now is a textbook example of what we have noted on numerous occasions.  Neither the C.I.A. nor its Washingtonian political consultants has the foggiest idea of how to run an election campaign.

To the contrary, Hugo Chávez and Rafael Correa, President of Ecuador, understood the first rule of political campaigning:  95% of elections only confirm what is already in place.  In other words, the real campaign takes place long before the official campaign is announced.


Ecuador´s February 17 election provides a classic case study.  President Correa campaigned every day for  years.  Six of his seven opponents waited until the formal 42-day campaign season was announced to start electioneering, and got their heads handed to them in a basket.

The regular Venezuelan presidential election took place on October 7, 2012.  Hugo Chávez defeated his opponent, Washington-backed Henrique Capriles, by 10% (see this blog, post of October 8).  What that means in real life terms:  contrary to what Washingtonians are saying, the election to replace Chávez is not too short.  Capriles had six months to run an informal, real campaign.  He did not do it.

Styleless and guileless:  don´t look now, Henrique, but your C.I.A. minders are showing.

Third, Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro announced there was a C.I.A. plot to murder Capriles and "create chaos in Venezuela."  We noted in our prior post that, although the C.I.A. doesn´t know the first thing about political campaigns,  "C.I.A. opponents had better not rejoice.  The record also shows that when it fails to obtain its ends via democratic peaceful means, the C.I.A. resorts to undemocratic violent ones."


If Capriles (or Maduro) is murdered, his killers will be following a tired but tried and true script.  In 1948,  Colombian political leader Jorge Gaitán was assassinated during his presidential campaign.  His death ignited the Bogotazo in which thousands of enraged citizens rioted and destroyed much of downtown Bogotá.  3,000-5,000 people died.   The political subculture of La Violencia was born, which continues to wreak havoc in Colombia to this very day. 

It seems that last week or so, an exasperated C.I.A. station chief read the results of a poll of Venezuelan voters, threw up his hands  Holy shit!  No way we can win!   What to do?

Hmmm..... 

What clearer case of a crap out could there possibly be than a C.I.A.-ordered political murder and a subsequent Caracasazo in which thousands of Venezuelans perish?  For those who believe the C.I.A. would never concoct such an outrageous scheme, click here:  "638 Ways to Kill Castro."  An exploding mollusc, anyone?

Fourth and finally, nobody who recently has turned on a TV or opened a newspaper could have escaped the blizzard of media reports that Hugo Chávez illegally amassed $2 billion.  We learn that his family led a "frenetic lifestyle" with a "fleet of Hummers" and jewels and trips and ...

Most of those reports cite the same source:  Criminal Justice International Associates.  Well, you had better check out their website.  The chief is Jerry Brewer, "U.S. Government- trained COUNTERTERRORISM EXPERT and practitioner, with extensive service to Latin America and the Middle East as an intelligence community operative."  

Boys and girls of the C.I.A., here we go again ...

It´s Reality Therapy Time:

Ad hominem attacks, such as your Hummer jewel affair, are effective (sometimes) only at the start, not the end, of a political campaign.  Otherwise, they are dismissed as last minute mud balls.  That is true in spades when, due to death or injury, the targeted person cannot defend himself.

The campaign in question is not that of Nicolás Maduro but of Hugo Chávez´s legacy on which Maduro is running.  C.I.A., you had all last year to release your $2 billion Hummer jewelry rip-off tip-off during the Chávez/Capriles election:  where were you?  You weren´t ... afraid, were you?

A classic illustration of a last minute mud ball:  the leak in the final week of the 2000 campaign of George W. Bush´s drunken driving arrest in 1976.  Al Gore´s campaign had the good sense to distance itself from the leak:  "We had absolutely nothing to do with this."   We will see if Capriles does likewise.

In the meantime, please, Dear Reader, do not hold your breath.

Not every candidate can win an election.  But every candidate can lose one.  Maduro is no exception. And so, Stan, or whatever your name is -- here is your new plan:


In order for Capriles to have a chance, he must offer, in a convincing and dramatic way, real solutions to Venezuela´s well-known economic problems.  inflation at 22%, general shortages of 17% (40% in pharmaceutical drugs), unemployment at 8%, and other troubles commonly associated with a devalued currency.   Real, concrete, specific solutions were the signature of my political campaigns; I refused to participate  without them.  No candidate who presented real solutions in an exciting, effective manner lost -- period.

P.S.   Washingtonians, real solutions to not include more freebee megabucks to the oligarchy.

O.K., C.I.A., Pentagon, Barack Obama, State Department, President´s Council of Economic Advisers, Beltway think tanks, Larry Summers, Ben Bernanke, Alan Greenspan, and silly-priced Washington election consultants working day and night to elect Capriles:  it´s time to put on your plastic beanies.

This time, try to spin the propellers in the right direction. 
_______________
*The day after Obama´s cold fish was delivered, an embarrassed State Department old-timer tried to cover the stench:

"In a conference call Wednesday, a senior State Department official clarified that the United States did want to express condolences to Chávez's family and express its sympathy, although apparently not from the president directly.

´We express our sympathies to his family and to the Venezuelan people,´ the official said. ´Frankly, the way I was raised, when somebody dies you always express condolences ... There's a family involved here, we sympathize with that.´"

The senior official refused to identify himself.  Smart man.

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Death by Misadventure:  The C.I.A. in Latin America.

3/6/2013

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Imagen
Source: elcomercio.com
Snap quiz for today.

The political leader in the above photo is:


(1)  Jaime Roldós Aguilera, President of Ecuador, 1979-1981.

(2)  Salvador Allende Gossens, President of Chile, 1970-73.

(3)  Jacobo Árbenz Guzmán, President of Guatemala, 1951-1954.

(4)  Omar Elfain Torrijos Herrera, military and de facto leader of Panama, 1968-1981.

(5)  None of the above.

(6)  All of the above.

The envelope, please.

Literally, the correct answer is (1) Jaime Roldós.  If you are an American, you never heard of him.  Read on.


However, figuratively the correct answer is (6) All of the above.

The affinity among all four leaders:  they were apparently removed from power by violence by the C.I.A.  Árbenz and Allende were ousted by military coups, Roldós and Torrijos died in mysterious airplane crashes within three months of each other.  

Our post of December 21, 2012 ("The Significance of ´Insignificant` Ecuador.  Part 2:  The C.I.A. and Rafael Correa") observed that the C.I.A. and its D.C. consultants are ignorant of even the most rudimentary campaign mechanics.  The agency would have given its eye teeth to defeat President Rafael Correa last month or at least force him into a runoff, but didn´t have the foggiest idea how to do it.  We wrote:

"According to a former British ambassador, the C.I.A. has amassed $87 million to ´swamp´ Correa. 

The Tale of The Tape:

A nationwide Cedatos-Gallup poll released November 30, 2012 shows Correa with 53%, Guillermo Lasso 22%, and each of the other six presidential candidates with 10% or less... 

Pushing a well-established incumbent below 50% is not all that mysterious or difficult for anybody who knows how to conduct a campaign ... 

Let´s look at what the intuitive knowledge is regarding elections:

President Correa once noted that the more candidates who run against him in February, the better it is for him ... that observation is as often-voiced as it is true.  The reason is, any well-established incumbent has a base of voters who will stick with him no matter what.  If that base is only 35%, for example, and seven opponents carve up the remaining 65%, the incumbent wins.

For incumbents seeking to avoid a run-off election, I would add this nuance to the prevailing, intuitive, purely quantitative assessment:  its truth depends on who the opposition candidates are.


Beware of geographically-based Favorite Son* candidates.  Recruiting and funding them is a trick of the trade; they can upset conventional political wisdom.  True, an incumbent´s through-thick-or-thin base does not vanish under an assault by Favorite Sons; however, the base flakes off.  The more city/regional Favorite Sons enter the race, the harder it is for the incumbent to clear the 50% hurdle. 

Why does a Favorite Son do what no other candidate can?  The answer in the form of a dictum:  blood is thicker than ideology.

Now, the simple truth is not a single Favorite Son tossed his hat into the up-coming Ecuadorian presidential election.

You can be sure C.I.A. agents headquartered in Langley, Virginia, and throughout Latin America are wringing their hands on reading those words.  Damn.  NOW he tells us!   Yep, it´s too late.  The deadline for candidates to file in Ecuador is past."


O.K.; did the Ecuadorian election on February 17 verify  the Favorite Son dynamic?

Yep, and in spades.

Only one province voted against Rafael Correa.  Presidential Candidate Lucio Gutiérrez carried Napo with 48% to 25% for Correa.  Well, Gutiérrez grew up in Tena, Napo; he has strong family ties there.  Gutiérrez received only 6.6% of the vote nationwide
. 

Did the C.I.A put Gutiérrez in the race?  I doubt it.  In fact, I would not qualify Gutiérrez as a Favorite Son candidate per se simply because he had previously been elected president; he won in 2002 with 55% of the vote.  Nevertheless, look again, there´s no doubt about it:  last month, the Favorite Son dynamic was alive and well in Napo.

Readers who think I am offering the C.I.A. free campaign advice should consider the following four facts:

(1)  There is no indication whatsoever the C.I.A. reads this blog -- or if it does, understands/uses it.  If the contrary were true, our book The Source of Terrorism:  Middle Class Rebellion would have made an impact by now.  In fact, the landscape of America´s anti-terrorism strategy would have been revolutionized to the point of being barely recognizable.  (For starters, years ago the C.I.A. would have kissed its waterboards good-bye).

(2)  Everybody, pro-Rafael Correa and pro-Hugo Chávez forces included, is free to use the Favorite Son tactic to shake and stir a strong opponent´s base vote.
  For that matter, yes, the C.I.A. can read this blog, but so can security forces of China and Iran, Britain and other NATO members, Brazil, South Africa, New Zealand, you name it.  What we offer is open to everyone who can run a computer..  

(3)  The Favorite Son tactic is easy defeated.  If you don´t see how, stay out of the campaign business.


(4)   Finally, and most seriously, the record shows that when it comes to electoral campaigns, the C.I.A. is a chronic loser.  Saddled with B-squadder, D.C. political consultants who run paint-by-the-numbers campaigns, the agency has zero contacts among people who understand elections.

However, C.I.A. opponents had better not rejoice.  The record also shows that when it fails to obtain its ends via democratic peaceful means, the C.I.A. resorts to undemocratic violent ones.

Airplane "accidents" (Jaime Roldós and Omar Torrijos), "suicides" (Salvador Allende):   the list of deaths by misadventure is long and getting longer.  Hugo Chávez, president of Venezuela, who passed away yesterday from cancer, could be the latest victim.  Venezuelan Vice President Nicolás Maduro suspects the C.I.A. gave Chávez cancer; Maduro called for a scientific panel to investigate the problem.  Back In December 2011, Chávez mentioned the possibility of a C.I.A. cancer program to kill its adversaries. 

Before signing off:  some readers, notably the U.S. State Department, no doubt believe the C.I.A. had nothing to do with the deaths of Roldós and Torrijos, that their deaths were accidents, misfortunes, mishaps, acts of God -- in brief, misadventures.  If they truly believe it, they will have no objection to an exhaustive and impartial investigation by a neutral international body.  For that matter, if the C.I.A. is innocent, it should welcome the opportunity to prove it and to end the torrent of on-going speculation that is spreading like wildfire to include the death of Hugo Chávez.
_______________

*A reader, Salvador J., asks if  "personally" I ever used the Favorite Son tactic to Divide et Impera an electoral opponent´s voter base.

In the U.S., there are no runoff elections between the top 2 candidates, therefore the Favorite Son tactic is less pertinent.  However, it  is not entirely irrelevant.  Sometimes, primary elections can be analogous to a first election and the general election to a runoff election.

In the context just outlined, I never used the Favorite Son tactic; however, I know campaign chiefs who did and to great advantage.


I used the opposite tactic:  "Fat, Dumb and Happy."  To wit:

We always discouraged would-be candidates from entering a primary election against an entrenched incumbent who was going to be our eventual opponent in the general election.  We thus handed the latter exactly what he wanted, in fact, what every candidate craves, prays for:  a free ride.  Talk about happiness...  To the contrary, our candidates invariably had to win hard-fought primaries.

The primary over, the incumbent had 4 months to do what we had already done:  put together a campaign.  He would email his trustworthy Girl Friday to be his receptionist and do scheduling as in prior campaigns -- only to discover Girl Friday got married and left town.  As for his good old campaign press aide,  he landed a job as an editorialist with The Gainesville Sun.
   Bob, the friendly, conscientious coordinator of campaign volunteers, would love to help out but Aunt Mary came to town.  "Sorry.  Later, maybe."

Later never came.
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