{"id":127698,"date":"2019-02-11T12:00:14","date_gmt":"2019-02-11T12:00:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=127698"},"modified":"2019-02-09T13:16:08","modified_gmt":"2019-02-09T13:16:08","slug":"cia-in-venezuela-7-rules-for-regime-change","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2019\/02\/cia-in-venezuela-7-rules-for-regime-change\/","title":{"rendered":"CIA in Venezuela: 7 Rules for Regime Change"},"content":{"rendered":"

U.S. regime change operations in Latin America have seven consistent features.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"\"<\/a>

A supporter of Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro, wearing a red beret is flanked by member of the militia during a rally in Caracas, Venezuela, Saturday, Dec. 17, 2016. (AP Photo\/Fernando Llano)<\/p><\/div>\n

1 Feb 2019 – <\/em>As President Trump pulls U.S. troops out of Syria and Afghanistan, his secretary of state Mike Pompeo and national security adviser John Bolton are taking their frustrated interventionist impulses south to Venezuela.<\/p>\n

Why Venezuela, a country of 32 million people on the north coast of South America? The country poses no threat to the United States. Venezuelan immigrants throng Miami, but they are not found on the Mexican border where the president says there is a crisis. Outside of Florida and Washington, D.C., few Americans have any discernible interest in the country.<\/p>\n

Oil is a huge factor. Venezuela is one of the world\u2019s largest oil producers, though now most of its oil revenues go to pay off Russia. Now the Trump administration seeks to\u00a0channel the oil revenues<\/a><\/u>\u00a0to its preferred president, Juan Guaido.<\/p>\n

Trump doesn\u2019t want to fight land wars in the Middle East, but he does need to look and feel tough. An attack on the socialist legacy of Hugo Chavez and the failed rule of Chavez\u2019s successor Nicolas Maduro offers a way to project his manliest self without the intolerable demands of being a wartime president.<\/p>\n

Trump has been\u00a0filibustering<\/a><\/u>\u00a0about Venezuela since August 2017, when he said of the U.S. military:<\/p>\n

\u201cThey have many options for Venezuela \u2014 and, by the way, I\u2019m not going to rule out a military option. We\u2019re all over the world, and we have troops all over the world in places that are very, very far away. Venezuela is not very far away, and the people are suffering, and they\u2019re dying. We have many options for Venezuela, including a possible military option, if necessary.\u201d<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And \u201cfilibuster\u201d is the apt term. Long before\u00a0\u201cfilibuster\u201d<\/a><\/u>\u00a0signified lengthy speech in the U.S. Senate, a filibuster (filibustero<\/em>in Spanish) referred to an American adventurer who sought to foment insurrection in Central and South America in the 19th century.<\/p>\n

John Bolton was filibustering when he leaked his intentions toward Venezuela on an artfully displayed notepad:\u00a0\u201c5,000 troops to Colombia.\u201d<\/a><\/u><\/p>\n

In Bogota, former Colombia President Alvaro Uribe tweeted back, \u201cNo, gracias,\u201d but was otherwise supportive.<\/p>\n

What a change from 15 years ago. In 2002, president Hugo Chavez, the self-proclaimed Bolivarian revolutionary, confronted a military coup supported by the United States. Governments across Latin American rallied in defense of Chavez\u2019s government, and the coup fizzled.<\/p>\n

Now Latin America has more conservative governments that feel threatened by the exodus of some 3 million Venezuelans into neighboring countries.<\/p>\n

What remains the same is what Latin American scholar Abe Lowenthal calls the \u201chegemonic presumption\u201d of the U.S. government. The presumption is that Latin America is the United States\u2019 \u201cbackyard.\u201d In this mental construct, Venezuela is seen as a private domain where Washington can do what it pleases, with or without the support of other countries.<\/p>\n

The cast of characters hasn\u2019t changed.<\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s special envoy to Venezuela, Elliott Abrams, was pursuing regime change in Latin America, via illegal means 30 years ago.\u00a0Convicted<\/a><\/u>\u00a0of withholding information from Congress in the Iran-Contra conspiracy, Abrams was pardoned by the late President Bush.<\/p>\n

John Bolton is on record as favoring regime change in\u00a0Libya,<\/a>Syria<\/a><\/u>,\u00a0North Korea<\/a><\/u>\u00a0and\u00a0Iran<\/a><\/u>. Alas, Libya\u2019s Qaddafi is dead. Bolton\u2019s boss is pulling U.S. troops out of Syria (which Iran welcomes). Trump is talking peace with North Korea. Without Venezuela, what would the mustachioed warmonger do with his time?<\/p>\n

Long history<\/h2>\n

\u201cWhile there\u2019s no proof the CIA is involved there, I\u2019m sure they are,\u201d said Peter Kornbluh, analyst at the National Security Archive, in an interview. \u201cThe U.S. has long wanted to see Chavez and Chavismo overthrown.\u201d<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The CIA has a 75-year history of regime change operations in Latin America going back to the coup in Guatemala (1954), the failed invasion of Cuba (1961), scores of assassination attempts in Cuba (1961-2001), the invasion of the Dominican Republic (1965),\u00a0election meddling and a coup in Chile<\/a><\/u>\u00a0(1964-73), intervention in Nicaragua (1980s), invasion of Panama (1990) and a soft coup in Honduras (2009).<\/p>\n

While we don\u2019t have verifiable information about the CIA\u2019s activities in Venezuela today, U.S. regime change operations in Latin America have seven consistent features, some of which are visible in Venezuela today.<\/p>\n

1. Work with local intelligence service<\/h2>\n

The CIA stations in the regions have long had strong relations with local partners.<\/p>\n

\u201cCIA-trained Cubans controlled DISIP, the Venezuelan intelligence service, in the 1970s,\u201d Kornbluh said in an interview. One of those Cubans, Luis Posada (known by the CIA cryptonym AMCLEVE-15), played a central role in planting a bomb on a Cuban airliner in 1976, killing 73 people. He took refuge in Venezuela and became a senior official in DISIP.<\/p>\n

Chavez purged the intelligence service of pro-American officers, but the CIA never stops recruiting.<\/p>\n

You can be sure they\u2019re using their people in the military and intelligence agencies,\u201d said Mel Goodman, a retired CIA briefer whose work took him to CIA stations in the 1970s and \u201980s. \u201cIt\u2019s basic tradecraft.\u201d<\/p>\n

2. Package covert operations as “public diplomacy,” “promoting democracy,” and\/or “protecting human rights”<\/h2>\n

When Elliott Abrams started helping mount covert regime change policies in the 1980s, his formal job title was assistant secretary of state for human rights. He broke the law in service of human liberty, he explained.<\/p>\n

Otto Reich, another Reaganite regime changer in the 1980s, used the State Department\u2019s Office of Public Diplomacy as the cover for covert operations. According to a House Foreign Affairs Committee\u00a0report<\/a><\/u>, senior CIA officials used Reich\u2019s office to mount a \u201cdomestic political and propaganda operation\u201d in support of Nicaragua policy.<\/p>\n

Reich never lost his taste for intervention. Two decades later, in the second Bush administration, he became assistant secretary of state for the Western Hemisphere and supported the failed coup against Chavez.<\/p>\n

More recently, the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), a U.S.-funded agency, has funneled millions to the opposition groups in which Guaido\u00a0rose to political prominence.<\/a><\/u><\/p>\n

Venezuela says NED is a front for covert operations; the U.S. government denies it.<\/p>\n

3. Create new pseudo-independent front groups<\/h2>\n

In 1985, I wrote a\u00a0story that appeared in the New Republic<\/a><\/u>\u00a0about how CIA officers created, guided and controlled the Nicaragua Democratic Force (FDN), which sought the overthrow of the country\u2019s leftist government.<\/p>\n

A CIA officer named Tony Feldman explained to Edgar Chamorro, director of the FDN, that he shouldn\u2019t tell reporters the group was trying to overthrow the government. \u201cHe emphasized we should say we were trying to \u2018create conditions for democracy.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

What if someone asked where the FDN got their money?<\/p>\n

\u201cSay your sources want to remain confidential,\u201d Feldman advised, a clever answer redolent of truthiness.<\/p>\n

Echoes of such evasions can be heard in the denials of some Venezuelan opposition groups today.<\/p>\n

4. Use the State Department to support existing parties that align themselves with regime change<\/h2>\n

The WikiLeaks cables illuminate multiple examples of this tactic.<\/p>\n

In the 2015 book”The WikiLeaks Files: The World According to US Empire<\/a><\/u>,” the radical transparency group highlighted numerous State Department cables documenting how the United States sought to undermine elected governments whose policies were opposed by local economic elites and U.S. policymakers.<\/p>\n

After leftist Evo Morales was elected president of Bolivia in 2005, the U.S. ambassador immediately threatened to cut off U.S. and international aid. When Morales decided to spurn the assistance, the State Department began focusing instead on strengthening the opposition, which was based in the eastern region of the country known as Media Luna. A\u00a0cable from April 2007<\/a><\/u>\u00a0discusses \u201cUSAID\u2019s larger effort to strengthen regional governments as a counter-balance to the central government.\u201d<\/p>\n

A\u00a0USAID report<\/a><\/u>\u00a0from 2007 stated that its Office of Transition Initiatives (OTI) \u201capproved 101 grants for $4,066,131 to help departmental governments operate more strategically.\u201d Funds\u00a0also went<\/a><\/u>\u00a0to local indigenous groups who were \u201copposed to Evo Morales\u2019 vision for indigenous communities.\u201d<\/p>\n

When the region rebelled against Morales\u2019 government in 2007, many Latin American governments feared a U.S.-backed coup was in the offing and came to Morales\u2019 defense. His government survived.<\/p>\n

Nicaragua got the same treatment. In March 2007, the U.S. ambassador\u00a0asked the State Department<\/a><\/u>\u00a0to provide an additional $65 million over the next four years \u201cthrough the next Presidential elections\u201d when the leftist Daniel Ortega would be running for reelection.<\/p>\n

The U.S. funds went for \u201cthe strengthening of political parties,\u201d \u201cdemocratic\u201d NGOs, and \u201cgroups engaging in critical efforts that defend Nicaragua\u2019s democracy, advance our interests, and counter those who rail against us.\u201d<\/p>\n

Reviewing the WikiLeaks book in\u00a0Jacobin,<\/a><\/u>\u00a0Dan Beeton and Alexander Main commented:<\/p>\n

\u201cCables like this one should be required reading for students of US diplomacy and those interested in understanding how the US \u2018democracy promotion\u2019 system really works. Through USAID, the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), NDI, IRI and other para-governmental entities, the US government provides extensive assistance to political movements that support US economic and political objectives.\u201d<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

5. Build domestic support via Washington think tanks<\/h2>\n

This is not a CIA function, but it is a consistent feature of U.S. regime change policies in Latin America. Intervention in the internal affairs of other countries requires sophisticated intellectuals and policy arguments that can outwit or overwhelm those who object to an outside power \u201cmeddling in our elections.\u201d<\/p>\n

Enter the\u00a0Atlantic Council<\/a><\/u>\u00a0and\u00a0Center for Strategic and International Studies<\/a><\/u>, which have taken the lead in advocating the replacement of Venezuela\u2019s current government.<\/p>\n

6. Target Cuba<\/h2>\n

CIA operations in Latin America have a way of working their way back to Cuba. Ever since the agency\u2019s invasion force was routed at the Bay of Pigs, the CIA has sought revenge. The agency plotted multiple times to kill President Fidel Castro. They protected the terrorists who bombed the Cuban airliner in 1976. The agency\u2019s problem is that it has been consistently thwarted.<\/p>\n

In the late 1980s, Cuban intelligence rolled up a CIA operation headed by a Cuban-American officer named Amado Gayol. The government turned this successful counterintelligence operation into a five-part TV series that made the agency look silly in the eyes of the Cuban people. Fortunately for Langley, Americans never learned of that particular regime change debacle.<\/p>\n

Along the way, Cuba supported leftist movements throughout America\u2019s supposed \u201cbackyard.\u201d While revolutionary Cuba failed to build economic prosperity and drove many of its people into exile, the one thing the government in Havana did very well was defying U.S. regime change policies.<\/p>\n

That is why Venezuela, Bolivia and Nicaragua turned to Cuba for support. That is one reason why Bolton labeled Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua the\u00a0\u201cTroika of Tyranny.\u201d<\/a><\/u><\/p>\n

7. Deploy violence<\/h2>\n

U.S. regime change policies have usually required indiscriminate violence to succeed. From assassination of senior officials (Cuba, Chile) to invasion and occupation (Dominican Republic, Panama) to peasant massacres and death squads (Nicaragua, El Salvador, Guatemala), the annals of regime change are bloody.<\/p>\n

What to expect in Venezuela<\/h2>\n

Now the CIA has another regime change mission, says Mel Goodman.<\/p>\n

\u201cUnlike in Syria and Afghanistan, they have very clear guidance from the president. [CIA Director] Gina Haspel knows what\u2019s expected. Her whole career is operations. You can be sure, they\u2019re down there collecting. They\u2019re calling their people. They\u2019re putting on the pressure to follow the White House line.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a dangerous and fraught situation,\u201d Kornbluh said in an interview. \u201cFrom a humanitarian point of view. From a military point of view. And from the point of view of an imperial United States returning to the region.\u201d<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

__________________________________________________<\/em><\/p>\n

Jefferson Morley is a senior writing fellow and the editor and chief correspondent of the\u00a0<\/em>Deep State<\/a>, a project of the <\/em>Independent Media Institute. He has been a reporter and editor in Washington, D.C., since 1980. He spent 15 years as an editor and reporter at the\u00a0<\/em>Washington Post. He was a staff writer at\u00a0<\/em>Arms Control Today\u00a0and Washington editor of\u00a0<\/em>Salon. He is the editor and co-founder of\u00a0<\/em>JFK Facts, a blog about the assassination of JFK. His latest book is\u00a0<\/em>The Ghost: The Secret Life of CIA Spymaster, James Jesus Angleton<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 venezuelanalysis.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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