If there’s one thing media want you to know about Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez, it’s that he doesn’t like the United States. On the PBS NewsHour (1/10/13), Ray Suarez told viewers that Chávez
antagonized Washington, it seemed, whenever he could, forging friendships with Iran’s Mahmoud Abbas, Syria’s embattled Bashar al-Assad, and he formed an especially close bond with Cuban presidents Fidel and Raul Castro.
On the CBS Evening News (1/8/13), Scott Pelley said: “Chávez has made a career out of bashing the United States and allied himself with Iran and Syria.”
While it’s hard to say Chávez has made a “career” out of U.S.-bashing—he does have, after all, a full-time job as president of Venezuela—you, too, might be excused for harboring some hard feelings towards a government that helped to try to overthrow your own. Which may be why U.S. reports rarely bring up the 2002 coup attempt—and when they do, treat Washington’s involvement in it as another nutty Chávez conspiracy theory.
Here’s Juan Forero in the Washington Post (1/10/13):
A central ideological pillar of Chávez’s rule over 14 years has been to oppose Republican and Democratic administrations in Washington, which he accuses of trying to destabilize his government.
“I think they really believe it, that we are out there at some level to do them ill,” said Charles Shapiro, president of the Institute of the Americas, a think tank in San Diego.
As ambassador to Venezuela from 2002 to 2004, Shapiro met with Chávez and other high- ranking officials, including [Vice President Nicolas] Maduro. But the relationship began to fall apart, with Chávez accusing the United States of supporting a coup that briefly ousted him from power. U.S. officials have long denied the charge.
Shapiro recalled how Maduro made what he called unsubstantiated accusations about CIA activity in Venezuela, without ever approaching the embassy with a complaint. He said that as time went by, the United States became a useful foil for Chávez and most Venezuelan officials withdrew contact.
“A sure way to ruin your career, to become a backbencher, was to become too friendly with the U.S. Embassy,” Shapiro said.
So Venezuela has a strange political culture where being friendly with the U.S. government gets you in trouble.
Hugo Chávez (photo: Valter Campanato/Agencia Brasil)
The Post airs Chávez’s charge—and then the U.S. denial. But the United States had all sorts of contact with the coup plotters before they made their move against Chávez in 2002. According to the State Department (7/02):
It is clear that NED [National Endowment for Democracy], Department of Defense (DOD) and other U.S. assistance programs provided training, institution building and other support to individuals and organizations understood to be actively involved in the brief ouster of the Chávez government.
And the CIA, as was reported by Forero himself (New York Times, 12/3/04), knew of the coup plotting.
The Central Intelligence Agency was aware that dissident military officers and opposition figures in Venezuela were planning a coup against President Hugo Chávez in 2002, newly declassified intelligence documents show. But immediately after the overthrow, the Bush administration blamed Mr. Chávez, a left-leaning populist, for his own downfall and denied knowing about the threats.
Scott Wilson, who was the Washington Post foreign editor at the time, told Oliver Stone for his film South of the Border:
Yes, the United States was hosting people involved in the coup before it happened. There was involvement of U.S.-sponsored NGOs in training some of the people that were involved in the coup. And in the immediate aftermath of the coup, the United States government said that it was a resignation, not a coup, effectively recognizing the government that took office very briefly until President Chávez returned.
And we know that the United States made quick efforts to have the coup government recognized as legitimate. The Bush government, immediately after the coup, blamed it on Chávez. And some of the coup plotters met with officials at the U.S. embassy in Caracas before they acted.
But the important thing for readers to know, according to Wilson’s successors at the Washington Post, is that U.S. officials deny they supported anything.
You don’t have to believe Chavez is Jesus on a stick
To accept that our gummint was trying to give his the shaft.
Can we maybe say something about PBS NewsHour referring to “Iran’s Mahmoud Abbas” ?? We trust these people to inform us?
To answer (with a question) the question posited in the title: Because he knows us?
With the CIA’s involvement in both overthrowing and destabilizing governments in central and south America as well as elsewhere, it isn’t too hard to understand why Chavez doesn’t like the U.S. Government. Rumors of the attempted assassination of Chavez by the CIA as well as the past history of assassinations by the CIA doesn’t help either. Chavez has been elected several times by a majority of the Venezuelan people and this proves that the U.S. isn’t really interested in democratically elected governments but rather more interested in those governments (dictatorships or otherwise) going along with U.S. policy what ever it may mean for that particular country. Our foreign policy in many countries has created a certain hostility towards the U.S. in many foreign countries and with good reason. The U.S. has its dirty fingers involved in so many countries and we are usually on the wrong side. The difficulties that we have with Chavez are of our own making and we have only ourselves to blame for it. The U.S. doesn’t care about democracy as much as it cares about butt kissers who do as they are told by the U.S. Government. Ailing Chavez may soon be gone and that won’t in the short term, help the U.S. Government as the Venezuelan people, based on recent history, might just blame the U.S. for that as well. The U.S. gets to reap what it has sowed. In this case the U.S. is its own worst enemy.
Thank You Venezuelans. Thank You Hugo Chavez. Thank You ‘Forgone Conclusion.
I’ve always felt that the campaign to smear Hugo Chavez was always been just a simple matter of a guilty conscience for America. One one hand there’s a wealthy oil guy in Venezuela who has earmarked a lot of money and resources into building up his county’s infrastructure — roads, schools, hospitals, power grid, etc. Conversely here in America we had Pres. Bush, also a wealthy (VERY) oil guy who, along with also wealthy oil cohorts like Cheney and Rice, implemented public policy that was the exact opposite. Presently our social and physical infrastructure is divided and crumbling — our literacy rates are dropping, infant mortality numbers increasing, and child poverty rates increasing. In a decade or so it will be interesting to see how well off both nations are in relation to each other.
The reason Hugo Chavez, Fidel and Raul Castro, Rafael Correa, Daniel Ortega and the late, Chit Guevara and just about every totalitarian dictator red or socialist or in that path, hate the USA is very painfully obvious even for a 10 year old child..
THE TERRORIST, COMMUNIST, LIBERALS AND SOCIALIST HATE USA! – BECAUSE THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA REPRESENTS AND PROMOTES FREEDOM AND DEMOCRACY AND HUMAN RIGHTS!..
THEY ACCUSE US OF HURTING THEIR PEOPLE OR CONSPIRING AGAINST THEM WEN IN REALITY, THEY ARE THE ONES THAT JAIL OR KILL THEIR OWN.
THEY ACCUSE US OF BEING EVIL AND THEY HATE US BECAUSE, THEY SEEK TO ENSLAVE THEIR OWN PEOPLE TO MAKE THEM THEIR SERVANTS LIKE IN CUBA, NORTH KOREA, CHINA AND VIETNAM AMONG OTHERS, AND TO DO THIS, THEY WILL COMMIT THE MOST UNSPEAKABLE HORRORS AND GENOCIDE ON THEIR PEOPLE OR OTHERS AND NOT COINCIDENTALLY, STALIN, MAO, POL POT AND MANY OTHERS RED OR SOCIALIST AND TOTALITARIAN DICTATORS, ALSO HATED THE USA AND ALL WE STAND FOR!.
THIS DESPOTS THAT CLAIM TO LOVE THEIR PEOPLE SEE THEMSELVES NOT AS PUBLIC SERVANTS DEDICATED TO BETTER THEIR COMPATRIOTS LIFE – THE THINK OF THEMSELVES, AS KINGS AND THE PEOPLE, THEIR SERVANTS..
THE HATE US, BECAUSE THEY BELIEVE THEY ARE GODS WITH POWER OVER LIFE AND DEATH AND THE USA IS THE ONLY COUNTRY THAT CONSISTENTLY DENOUNCES THEM AND TAKES MANY OF THEIR VICTIMS AS REFUGES.
AND YES!, THEY HATE USA, BECAUSE THEY WILL LIKE TO BRING TO HUMANITY AN AGE OF DARKNESS BUT THEY CAN’T BECAUSE THEY FEAR US, BECAUSE WE ARE HERE TO DENOUNCE THEIR EVIL AND WE ARE FAST AND STRONG TO ACT TO PUT AND END TO THEIR ABUSES AND CRUELTY OVER HUMANITY!, AND BECAUSE THEY SEE THAT, WE ARE A PEOPLE BRAVE AND FREE IN CHARGE OF OUR OWN DESTINY!.
LONG LIFE TO THIS LAND AND PEOPLE I CALL MY OWN,
MY SHINING CITY ON THE HILL!.. MY REFUGE AND HOME.
!! GOOD BLESS AMERICA!!!
Today Hugo Chavez continues kidnapped in some undisclosed room or Hospital in Cuba and in Venezuela, no one knows if he is alive or in a coma, or dead and stiff like Lenin and for many days now, nothing else is disclose about him and that is because, the despots Fidel and Raul Castro need more time for securing their new and obedient henchman – Nicolas Maduro in the venezuela trone as the new, “El Presidente” and, the new puppet of the Castro brothers in their life or dead efford to keep the continuous exploitation of the Venezuelan treasure and Oil because, it is well established that 11 million Cubans beggars in that other failed communist totalitarian regime “led” by the mafiosi brothers Fidel and Raul Castro, are absolutely dependent for their survival, on the thousands of barrels of Oil and the $10 billion that annually the government of Hugo Chavez gives the Castro brothers and so crucial for them to maintain alive, their repressive regime. In return the Venezuelan people get 50 thousand “technical advisers” that invade the Venezuelan society and government like a virus and that are there, help steal the wealth and oil of the Venezuelan people with the full approval and support of Hugo Chavez and his mafia “Chavizta” who also benefit immensely from all the experience in intelligence, and surveillance and political demagogy that Fidel Castro shears whit them and with the help of those “Cuban advisers” always in the background in Venezuela, molding public opinion in favor of Chavez, intimidating the opposition or teaching the Pro-Chaviztas how to gradually destroy a Democracy, suppress and monitor the people to eventually make them slaves of the. ‘New but old’.. Socialist but very “Democratic”,, Dogmatic Mafiosi State.
10 facts that may hurt the sensitivity of the pro Chavez and Castro crowd but, this is the true of the Chavez “Socialism of the XXI Century”, or The Banana Socialist Mafia (for short).
.. .. .. .. .. ..
1) Hugo Chavez planed & perpetrated a fail military coup in 1992 against Venezuelan president Carlos Andrés Pérez for what he was sentence to jail but pardon by the next president Rafael Caldera after serving only two years regardless, of the 300 dead’s attributed to his military action.
2) In 1999 Chavez gain power in a election full of irregularities and shortly after, became officially alined with the totalitarian regime in Cuba, and other terrorist states.
3) Chavez has called for the destruction of Israel and exports naturally rich Uranium to the Iran.
4) Chavez was a very dear friend of the late terrorist dictator. Muammar Gaddafi.
5) Chavez modified the Venezuelan constitution, to facilitate his permanence in power indefinitely under a veil of “democracy and free elections”.
6) All voting machines in Venezuela are “electronic” and connected to a central station in Government.
7) All Venezuelan voter id’s are made and encoded in Cuba.
8) The Cuban Government is connected with the Venezuela Government true a fiver optic cable paid by Chavez (70 million) to give “internet to the Cuban people” and capable, of a transmission capacity of 640 gigabytes per second enough, for 10 million simultaneous phone conversations. But Cuba internet remains the slowest in this hemisphere and a complete rarity among regular Cubans.
9) President elected not yet inaugurated Hugo Chavez now facing dead on one more coup d’etat against the letter of the constitution, is imposing as his presidential and revolutionary successor, the men of Castro and running mate for VP.. Nicolas Maduro.
10) Chavez gives the Castro regime $10,000,000,000 on Oil and dollar subsidies in exchange, for the help of 20,000 “doctors” (3 years of study) and some other 25,000 “advisers” in the army, police, government and other security agencies.
Vicente Dias, thanks for the comedy. I needed a good laugh.
Chavez hates the US? No
Venezuela provided free heating oil to New Orleans after Katrina.
Venezuela has not attempted to overthrow the United States Administration – Although the US Administration continually attempts to destablise Venezuela.
Who let the moron commercial troll in? Did the CIA pay you Dias? I haven’t seen that much bull shit since the day we feed the herd of cows ex-lax in the salt licks.
So how much do the Commercial Corpress pay for being a moron?
I read your article( frHugo Chavez: Why Does He Hate Us?) from Venezuala Analysis. Very good Mr. Hart. Some time ago I used to have a year subscription to FAIR. Looks like it’s still providing a invaluble contribution to a free and democratic society.
I read your article (Hugo Chavez: Why Does He Hate Us?) from Venezuala Analysis. Very good Mr. Hart. Some time ago I used to have a year subscription to FAIR. Looks like it’s still providing a invaluble contribution to a free and democratic society.
Considering how worked up the right tends to get over imagined slights like American soldiers serving under foreign commanders, as in UN peacekeeping operations, imagine how Americans would react were they treated to a fraction of the abuse the US has meted out to Latin America.
Nobody ( including Chavez ) really hates the US. Because there are two United States: one includes the average ameican, the brave social movements as IAC, Codepink, Occupy and many others and the second comprises american institutions such as President Obama ( the “Nobel” Peace Prize, ah! ah! ), the Pentagon, the Patriot Act, Wall Street, etc.
One opposes the other. Ironically one might say that the US hates the US. Class belonging is above nastion belonging. Enough proof is what William Burcett, a billionasire and former candidate to US prtesiodency said: ” This is class warfare and we are winning !”.
Who the hell cares?They hate us?Good -we hate you too.Happy?Now go enjoy your day.Sell us your oil at an honest price .We will sell you our crap at an honest exchange.If you cant fly with that then we can easily make life harder for you.You are the tick and we are the host.We have a symbiotic relationship to a degree.But ONLY to a degree.Beyond that …how should I say this?Ummmmmm how about
hit the road?
http://www.flash-mp3.com/W861KWtUHJP5wPtl532.html