Why the US demonises Venezuala's democracy

Venezuela is about to hold impeccably free and fair elections. Yet the US treats it as a dictatorship

Mark Weisbrot                             Guardian/UK                               3 October 2012

On 30 May, Dan Rather, one of America's best-known journalists, announced that Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez would die "in a couple of months at most". Four months later Chávez is not only alive and campaigning but widely expected to win re-election on Sunday.

Venezuela is probably the most lied-about country in the world.  A journalist can say almost anything about Chávez or his government and it is unlikely to be challenged, so long as it is negative. Even worse, Rather referred to Chávez as "the dictator" – a term that few, if any, political scientists familiar with the country would countenance.  Carter won a Nobel prize for his work through the election-monitoring Carter Center, which has observed and certified past Venezuelan elections. But because Washington has sought for more than a decade to delegitimise Venezuela's government, his viewpoint is only rarely reported.

In Venezuela, voters touch a computer screen to cast their vote and then receive a paper receipt, which they verify and deposit in a ballot box. Most of the paper ballots are compared with the electronic tally. This system makes vote-rigging nearly impossible: Unlike in the US, where in a close vote we really have no idea who won (see Bush v Gore), Venezuelans can be sure that their vote counts.

Yet in a report timed for the elections, the so-called Committee to Protect Journalists says that the government controls a "media empire", neglecting to inform its readers that Venezuelan state TV has only about 5-8% of the country's audience. Of course, Chávez can interrupt normal programming with his speeches (under a law that pre-dates his administration), and regularly does so. But the opposition still has most of the media, including radio and print media – not to mention most of the wealth and income of the country.

The opposition will probably lose this election not because of the government's advantages of incumbency – which are abused throughout the hemisphere, including the United States, but because the living standards of the majority of Venezuelans have dramatically improved under Chávez. Since 2004, when the government gained control over the oil industry and the economy had recovered from the devastating, extra-legal attempts to overthrow it (including the 2002 US-backed military coup and oil strike of 2002-2003), poverty has been cut in half and extreme poverty by 70%. And this measures only cash income. Millions have access to healthcare for the first time, and college enrolment has doubled, with free tuition for many students. Inequality has also been considerably reduced. By contrast, the two decades that preceded Chávez amount to one of the worst economic failures in Latin America, with real income per person actually falling by 14% between 1980 and 1998.

It is not just Venezuela that regularly comes under fire from the Washington establishment: all of the left and newly independent governments of South America, including Argentina, Ecuador, and Bolivia are in the crosshairs (although Brazil is considered too big to get the same treatment). The state department tries to keep its eyes on the prize: Venezuela is sitting on 500bn barrels of oil, and doesn't respect Washington's foreign policy. That is what makes it public enemy number one, and gets it the worst media coverage.

But Venezuela is part of a "Latin American spring" that has produced the most democratic, progressive, and independent group of governments that the region has ever had. They work together, and Venezuela has solid support among its neighbours. This is the former president of Brazil, Lula da Silva, last month: "A victory for Chávez is not just a victory for the people of Venezuela but also a victory for all the people of Latin America … this victory will strike another blow against imperialism."

South America's support is Venezuela's best guarantee against continuing attempts by Washington – which is still spending millions of dollars within the country in addition to unknown covert funds – to undermine, delegitimise, and destabilise democracy in Venezuela.     [Abridged]  

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/oct/03/why-us-dcemonises-venezuelas-democracy

The lies about aid and Afghanistan

The closure of British-built Afghan schools is a reminder of how the public has been misled about the west's intervention

Conor Foley                            Guardian/UK                              28 September 2012

The news that the British have built far more schools and hospitals in Helmand province than the government of Afghanistan can afford to run, exposes a lie about our intervention in that country that is in many ways as insidious as the lies that surrounded the invasion of Iraq.  Afghanistan was always different from Iraq, both in terms of legal authority and in the manner in which the intervention was carried out. Most significantly, Afghanistan was not "invaded" by the west. Or if an invasion took place, it happened in 2006 or else in 2009.

The US-led Operation Enduring Freedom, which ousted the Taliban 10 years ago, was carried out by special forces who flew into the country with suitcases full of cash. They bought the allegiance of selected warlords and then called in air strikes against the Taliban hold-outs. Crudely put, we backed one side against another in a brutal civil war that had been going on since the fall of the previous externally imposed government of President Najibullah.

An international conference in Bonn, Germany, legitimised the process in December 2001 and selected Hamid Karzai as president basically because he was the most prominent Pashtun that could be found who spoke good English. The UN mission sent to help oversee the process was deliberately given a "light footprint" with no executive authority and extremely few resources. A token international military force was also deployed consisting of 4,000 soldiers.  At the same time a larger number of humanitarian aid workers arrived to help with the postwar reconstruction. I was one of them and lived in the country for a year-and-a-half between 2003 and 2004 so had a ringside seat of the resulting debacle.

The Taliban regrouped in Pakistan and gradually stepped up their cross-border attacks. International aid workers were among the softest targets to attack, and I lost count of the number of friends and colleagues who were killed and injured during this time. Part of the reason we were attacked was a decision by western governments to tie the delivery of aid into a counter-insurgency strategy that was essentially developed to make up for the lack of troops (who were by then increasingly bogged down in the fighting in Iraq). Aid became increasingly viewed as instrumentalist, a means of buying hearts and minds, isolating the insurgents, or to "shape, hold, clear, and build" as the counter-insurgency terminology puts it.

That this strategy was not working was obvious to everyone on the ground, and convinced the British and Canadian governments to significantly ramp up their military deployments in Kandahar and Helmand in 2006. However, rather than publicly admitting that they were being sent in to fight counter-insurgency campaigns, these were dressed up in humanitarian language. The UK defence secretary at the time, John Reid said: "We're in the south to help and protect the Afghan people to reconstruct their economy and democracy. We would be perfectly happy to leave in three years time without firing one shot." A Canadian diplomat subsequently admitted to me that this was the only way of selling the operations to a sceptical public.

For a couple of years, discussions on Afghanistan took on an Alice in Wonderland dimension where words became devoid of their usual meaning. Observer columnist Nick Cohen wrote perhaps the most extraordinary article ever on the subject when he blamed the lack of delivery of aid projects for a failure to consolidate the military defeats that were supposedly being inflicted on the Taliban. In fact the problem was the exact opposite. There has never been a lack of aid, but a lack of security, which at root is a governance problem and for which counter-insurgency can never be a substitute.  The 2006 "surges" are now widely recognised to have been catastrophic failures.

Alternative options were on offer back in 2001. As Lucy Morgan Edwards has convincingly argued, the hardline elements in the Taliban leadership could probably have been overthrown internally, leading to a genuine reconciliation process to bring an end to the country's civil war. We had a chance to genuinely help the Afghans build a better country. Instead we are going to leave them with not much more than a bunch of empty buildings.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/sep/28/afghanistan-intervention-schools-closure         {Abbrev.]

Why the American Raj is Under Seige

by Eric Margolis                      Pub. by Eric Margolis                         September 28, 2012

The killing of the US ambassador to Libya and angry demonstrations across the Muslim world over a tacky anti-Islamic hate video have produced the usual flood of commentary.  Across the land comes the familiar cry, “why do they hate us?” That any Americans can in this day and age still be surprised that their nation is hated by many people from Morocco to Indonesia to Nigeria is by far the biggest surprise. We have learned little from 9/11.

The mass fury does not come because Muslims are irrational, violent beings.  The hate video  we have been witnessing: is merely the spark that ignited the combustible haze of anti-Americanism that lies over much of the Muslim world. What they do not understand is that the American imperium’s goal is to advance its own strategic, economic and political goals and keep much of the planet under its influence.

Such ambitions and behavior used to be called “imperialism. At its apogee, the Britain Empire ruled one quarter of the globe and most of the world’s seas and oceans. At the heart of this vast empire lay its “jewel,” India. Britain’s rule over India was known as the British Raj (raj meaning rule in Hindi).

In 2008, I published my second book, “American Raj.” I sought to distill my fifty years of experience in the Muslim world to explain to Americans what was really going on in the troubled region, why it was so violent and unstable, and our own errors in fostering this problem. The more I examined the historical parallels between the British Empire and today’s American dominion over most of the Arab world, the more it became evident that the U.S. had inherited the British Empire in 1945 and was copying its highly successful managerial techniques.  Chief among these was divide and rule, using petty princes and potentates as surrogates, building armies of native troops known as “sepoys,” forcing the subcontinent into economic subservience and captive markets. Britain’s genius lay in managing a huge empire with tiny numbers of its own soldiers and officials.

I warned that the Mideast was seething with anti-Americanism, fury over the plight of Palestinians, wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and rage against the corrupt, brutal rulers imposed by the U.S., Britain and France. In “Raj” I urged the United States to practice the values it preaches and help build real democracy in the Arab world before it was too late. The first step, I asserted, was a just settlement for Palestine. Not a single American publisher would touch “American Raj.” It was simply too heretical in challenging the myths of benign American foreign policy or predicting a coming explosion. My book was published in Canada and Europe, but not in my own country.

In December, 2010, two years after “Raj” came out, the Arab world began to erupt against dictatorship, corruption, and oppression. The revolt began in little Tunisia but soon spread to the bulwark of America’s Mideast Raj, Egypt, where the exceptionally brutal, corrupt US-backed dictatorship of Husni Mubarak was toppled. For 40 years, Washington had sustained military dictatorships in Egypt, keeping the lid on a restive population.

The angry demonstrations still flaring across the Muslim world are a volcanic eruption of anger at America. They are not terrorism or religious fanaticism, though numbers of religious fanatics are indeed involved.  They are anti-Americanism in full flame.  And the near universal belief among its citizens is that the western powers are stealing their oil and gas resources, abetted by corrupt, Quisling regimes. The natives are fighting back, just as they did under the British Raj. Those who know India’s history will recall the great 1857 Indian Mutiny in which “loyal” native sepoy regiments turned on their British officers and their families.

America’s armed forces and CIA are now waging military operations and assassinations in five Muslim nations: Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, and, most recently, Libya. Washington supports some of the world’s most reactionary and odious regimes. In short, there are a multitude of reasons for people in the Muslim world to be angry at America. Washington clings to its overseas empire with the same tenacity as Britain’s imperialists at a time when the United Kingdom’s postwar economy lay drowning in debt. Britain could no longer afford its globe-girding empire then, and America can no longer afford its global imperium today. Both Raj’s had feet of clay.

© 2012   Eric Margolis is a veteran of many conflicts in the Middle East                       [Abridged]

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2012/09/28-7

The Times They're a Changing. Or Are They?

31 states outlaw gay marriage. But this election offers four opportunities to stop bans.

by David Morris                 Pub. by  On the Commons                    September 18, 2012

The recent colorful tirade by Minnesota Vikings punter Chris Kluwe against a legislator who demanded the Baltimore Ravens owner fire linebacker Brendon Ayanbadejo for supporting gay marriage and the overwhelmingly positive response to it by football fans and players alike are heartwarming developments. It shows how far we’ve come. Exchanging rings in Dobbs Ferry, Vermont.  But, the fact, voters in 31 US states have already approved constitutional amendments to outlaw gay marriage, usually by wide margins, shows how far we have to go. However this fall voters in four states—Maryland, Maine, Minnesota, Washington—will have an opportunity to reject similar bans on same sex unions

The path from prejudice to understanding and acceptance has been much smoother in other countries. Eight European countries have legalized same sex marriage, including predominantly Catholic countries like Portugal and Spain. In Europe this is not a left-right issue. The new Socialist-led government in France promises to legalize same sex marriage next year. The Conservative-led government in Britain will introduce similar legislation. On this continent, in 2000 the Canadian Parliament, by a wide margin, banned same-sex marriage. Five years later, after a series of court decisions overturned bans in several Canadian provinces the nation’s legislators revisited the issue, reversed themselves and legalized same-sex marriage.

How many times we’ve changed the institution of marriage. We’ve upgraded the status of wives (originally subordinate to their husbands in the eyes of the law), enabled no-fault divorce (initiallya spouse had to prove wrongdoing), permitted family planning (many states once banned the sale of contraceptives), and overturned bans on interracial marriage. How often scripture was used to justify opposition to change. Believe that wives must be subservient? Cite Genesis 2:24. Oppose divorce even when both parties want one? Cite Matthew 19:3-9. Oppose contraception? Cite Genesis 1:28. Oppose interracial marriage? Cite Acts 17:24-26.

Opponents of same sex marriage argue they are defending the institution of marriage but their arguments have little to do with marriage. After all, the institution of marriage has suffered grievously in the only-heterosexuals-can-marry era. The percentage of households comprised of married couples plunged from 78 percent in 1950 to just 48 percent in 2010. Meanwhile the 2010 Census reported about 600,000 same sex households in this country. Allowing those among them who want to abandon cohabitation and choose marriage to do so can only strengthen the institution of marriage.

Nor does the argument opponents make that they are defending the psyche and safety of children have anything to do with marriage. Same sex couples already parent 115,000 children and study after study after study finds them at least as well-adjusted as children of heterosexual couples. In 2008 a Florida Circuit Court judge, after taking voluminous testimony from both sides on whether to overturn that state’s ban on adoption by same-sex couples flatly concluded, “… based on the robust nature of the evidence available in the field, this Court is satisfied that the issue is so far beyond dispute that it would be irrational to hold otherwise; the best interests of children are not preserved by prohibiting homosexual adoption.”

Indeed, as psychologist Abbie Goldberg points out, the fact that gays and lesbians do not become parents by accident, compared to almost 50 percent accidental pregnancy rates among heterosexuals “translates to greater commitment on average and more involvement”. And allowing same sex couples with children to marry can only benefit the child.

No, the arguments against same-sex marriage are not about marriage; they’re about homosexuality. We should remember that only a generation ago an admission of homosexuality could not only get one fired but arrested. We’ve come a long way since then.  Nevertheless, prejudice against homosexuals is widespread. In 34 states it is still legal for lesbian and gay employees to be fired simply because their employers disapprove of their sexual orientation.

In several states the Catholic Church is leading the fight against legal recognition of same sex couples. The Catholic Church, regrettably, doesn’t point to the part of the New Testament that conveys the essence of the values that Jesus hoped would be the foundation of Christianity. Matthew relates the story of a Pharisee asking Jesus, “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?” His answer is both instructive and revealing as to which side of the debate He might take. “Jesus replied: ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” (22:36-40)  I suspect that for Jesus what is important is not a family structure based on biology or even heterosexual relationships but the quality of love exhibited in relationships.              [Abridged]

David Morris is Vice President and director of the New Rules Project at the Institute for Local Self-Reliance,

Get Used to 'Extreme' Weather, It's the New Normal

by Connie Hedegaard                                  Guardian/UK                          September 19, 2012

It has been a summer full of reports of extreme weather, of unparalleled scope and severity. Among the highlights: one of the warmest years on record in the US, record-high temperatures in central and eastern Europe, the wettest summer in the UK, the heaviest rainfalls in northern India and the Philippines and the most severe droughts in the US and east Africa."Climate change is happening, and it exacerbates a whole range of other global problems, adding further instability in an already unstable world."

In short, climate change and weather extremes are not about a distant future. Formerly one-off extreme weather episodes seem to be becoming the new normal. Weather extremes are not that extreme any more. Heatwaves, floods, droughts and wildfires are the new reality of an ever warming world.

And this should not come as a surprise. Scientists have been warning for years that as the planet heats up, we will have to deal with more severe, more changeable, more unpredictable weather. The evidence is mounting that human-caused warming is pushing normal warming effects to extremes. Heatwaves have increased in duration and frequency. Some parts of Europe are now gripped by severe water shortages while other parts have suffered extreme precipitations causing floods and increased crop losses. Heatwaves, floods, droughts and wildfires are the new reality of an ever warming world.

And although not every extreme weather event can be attributed to climate change, scientists are now much more confident about linking individual weather events to climate change. Take 2011's record warm November in the UK, the second hottest on record. Researchers say that it was at least 60 times more likely to happen because of climate change than because of natural variations in the earth's weather systems.

This summer continued the pattern. The retreat of sea ice in the Arctic smashed the previous record, with just half the ice present compared to when satellite measurement began in 1979. Or take another example: Greenland's July thaw, where satellite data showed that about 97% of the massive ice sheet surface covering the island was melting. "Was this real or was it due to a data error?" a Nasa scientist questioned. Unfortunately, the data was correct. Climate change is happening, and it exacerbates a whole range of other global problems.

But isn't it too costly to invest in a low-carbon world, some may ask? Well, yes it costs. But so does business-as-usual. It would be wrong to believe that to continue business-as-usual is the cheap option.. On the contrary, it is very expensive. Just one example: the World Bank issued a global hunger warning recently after severe droughts in the US, Russia and the Ukraine sent food prices to a record high. According to the World Bank, prices for maize and sorghum increased by 113% and 200% respectively in some markets in Mozambique and in Sudan. This kind of cost that often gets ignored. It would be wrong to believe that to continue business-as-usual is the cheap option.

Businesses don't need to be told about the financial losses caused by weather extremes. This summer's drought in the US devastated the multibillion-dollar corn and soybean crops. Insurers in the US may face as much as $20bn losses this year, their biggest ever loss in agriculture. This is not exactly helping fight the economic crisis. It is simply incredible what big risks some people are prepared to take on behalf of future generations. Despite the facts and evidence in front of us, there are still many interests advocating doing nothing or continuing with business-as-usual. Or just forgetting the climate crisis until we have solved the economic crisis.

And whereas some see the current financial turmoil as a bitter setback for international climate protection, I see intelligent climate action as a driver of new opportunities for jobs in Europe, for investments in energy efficiency technologies, for boosting innovation and competitiveness, for lowering energy bills. Tackling the climate crisis helps, not damages, our economic security and prosperity. Both crises are interlinked and must be tackled together.

© 2012 Guardian News and Media Limited                http://www.commondreams.org/view/2012/09/19-7

Connie Hedegaard was appointed as Danish minister for the environment in August 2004. She has been European commissioner for climate action in the European Commission since February 2010.