The American Blueprint for Destroying Venezuela

The ongoing and transparent attempts by Washington to rid Venezuela of what they have deemed to be an unsuitable leader has its roots nearly a decade ago.  Thanks to the dreaded WikiLeaks, we have proof that Washington, through one of its most influential global intelligence partners, has long had plans in place to re-engineer the world's most oil-rich nation.

On February 27, 2012, Wikileaks began to publish the Global Intelligence Files which consisted of over five million emails from Texas-based Stratfor.  One of these emails dated September 23, 2010 provides an internal analysis of the situation in Venezuela.  To put this email into context, Venezuela held parliamentary elections on September 26, 2010 to elect 165 deputies to the National Assembly.  In this election, then-President Hugo Chavez's ruling United Socialist Party of Venezuela won the most seats (98) which maintained their majority but relinquished his supermajority which allowed for the easy passing of his legislative agenda.  The email was written by Srdja Popovic, one of the founders of the Center for Applied Non-Violent Action and Strategies (CANVAS) which has the following mandate:

"The core of CANVAS's work is rather to spread the word of "people power" to the world than to achieve victories against one dictator or another.  Our next big mission should obviously be to explain to the world what a powerful tool nonviolent struggle is when it comes to achieving freedom, democracy and human rights."

CANVAS touts that it has worked with pro-democracy activists from more than fifty nations including Iran, Venezuela, Palestine, Ukraine and Egypt and touts the following successes:  

....and the following areas where it is currently attempting to create change:

Let's go back to Mr. Popovic's musings about Venezuela.  Here is a screen capture showing the first page of the document:

Here is his analysis of Venezuela's social and economic issues and the resulting vulnerabilities:

"1. Oil based economic resources, used for covering basic needs and social control shows its weakness as prices of oil continue to fall on world Market. This produces plenty of difficulties for the almost exclusively Oil based economy. Critics accuse Chavez's government of severe incompetence and corruption, and many people are unhappy that Venezuela's oil-driven economy remains in a recession while all other South American countries are seeing growth

2. High inflation rate causes economic decline, which is reflected in growing dissatisfaction among people. But, Chavez irresponsible politics is not recognized as a main reason for failed economy, and majority of the population are accusing corrupt ministers, bureaucrats, and foreign powers. If opposition could change this widespread opinion, it would attract the poor and low educated people who are the Chavev’s strong support. 

3. Violent crime is very common in Venezuela.  In the first 11 months of 2009, Venezuela had 12,257 homicides. Earlier this month, Interior and Justice Ministry director of security and surveillance Haitam Sabeck was shot six times in an apparent theft. Kidnapping is also a major and growing problem, though the exact numbers are not known due to widespread underreporting. This crime situation is exacerbated by the failure of the law enforcement to act, and in many cases law enforcement officials are actually the perpetrators of the crimes.

4. Continuation of nationalization carried by state against domestic and international business sector deteriorates the situation in economy. More firm proofs that the State is in fact very bad manager is spun by state propaganda but consequences are getting recognized by employers.

5. Increase of use of coercive pillars by the regime: Use of fear and economic dependency as tools for social control. Pressure towards Business and Union Associations, along with the Church, Enactment of repressive laws, Human Rights are violated and not guaranteed. There is a rising level of Discrimination against dissidents.

a. Two main methods by which the climate of fear and dependency are created is through the fabrication of the threat of international invasion, and the use of economic pressure. The possibility of attack from the United States and its ally Colombia are constantly being raised by Chavez and his government. In August 2009, he said that the military needed to be ready for a confrontation with Colombia, because the US plans to expand their presence there posed a threat.Businesses are threatened and frequently nationalized. Threats on business are rife, as Venezuela has used the nationalization of banks in the country to arrest wealthy bank owners (although there are indications this was related to a personal vendetta). Chavez also recently threatened to seize businesses that raised prices after the devaluation of Venezuela’s currency.

b. Pressure on dissidents comes in a number of different forms. The government has violently broken up protests and rallies, as have pro-government groups. Additionally, opposition groups and politicians are harassed in a number of ways. Chavez has accused the opposition governor of Tachira of secessionism and attempted to remove him from office. The opposition mayor of Maracaibo, Manuel Rosales, was forced into exile.

6. Mass Media under censorship and a self-inflicted censorship. Limited freedom of expression. Continuous crackdown on private media in order to narrow the political space available for the opposition. 

7. High level of positive expectations of opportunities, deteriorating public confidence in state institutions despite Chavez steady charisma, confrontational discourse, populism and demagogy." (my bold)

Here are his comments on Venezuela's international alliances:

1. Alliance with Cuba and other strategic countries, such as: Iran, China, Libya, etc (replacement of Venezuelans with non-Venezuelans Human resource and skills and knowledge)

a.) Relations with Iran: Venezuela developed closer energy partnerships with Iran in 2009, entering into a fuel delivery agreement through which Venezuela pledged to deliver shipments of up to 20,000 barrels of gasoline to Iran. Iran also pledged to invest $760 million in the Dobokubi and Ayacucho oil fields in Venezuela. There are continuous rumors that Iran and Venezuela are cooperating in uranium exploration in Venezuela to supplement the relatively small reserves of uranium that Iran currently has. There have also been allegations that Iranian militant proxies such as Hezbollah and Hamas could be using Venezuela as a training ground and as a way to raise funds through drug smuggling.

b.) Relations with China: Venezuela agreed to ship 630,000 barrels of crude oil per month to China in 2010. A commission to review joint Chinese-Venezuelan construction projects was established in Dec. 2009. The commission will reportedly review energy, technological, economic and political cooperation agreements. China’s interest in Venezuela is relatively peripheral. The energy agreements are primarily for China to secure from Venezuela the orimulsion technology so that when it develops other heavy and sour oil deposits, it will be able to process the crude into fuel. So while China appears to be quite interested in Venezuela, it is primarily for its own economic purposes.

c.) Relations with Russia and arms purchases: Venezuela has made agreements for more than $6 billion worth of arms purchases from Russia. In addition to purchases of fighter jets and other military equipment, Chavez recently announced in Nov. 2009 that shipments of armored vehicles and antiaircraft systems had already begun arriving. Construction also began on a Russian-backed Kalashnikov factory in the state of Aragua. The Kalashnikovs are reportedly destined to arm the militia organizations that support the regime."

Is it just me or do some of these issues sound just like the talking points that Washington has been using to justify their recent (and possibly future) actions in Venezuela?  Not surprisingly, Mr. Popovic invokes the use of Chavez's crusade against American imperialism, noting that this mimics the rhetoric that Fidel Castro used against Washington.

Mr. Popovic goes on to list potential opposition allies that could participate in a campaign to oust President Chavez:

"1. Political parties that will oppose Chavez on Elections (hopefully united).

2. Student and Civil Groups, potentially active in mobilization of youth, Get Out To Vote Campaign and “control the ballot boxes and defend the votes” activities.

3. Media: Independent, foreign, 

4. Guilds, Unions and Professional Associations: journalists, medical, engineering, law.

5. Federacion Campesina

6. Federacion Venezolana de Maestros

7. Fedecamaras

8. Fedenagas

9. Entertainment and cultural actors (find out if they are organized)

10. Immigrant communities in VE (Asociacion Italo-Venezolana, Hermandad Gallega, etc…)

11. Neighborhood Associations

12. Asamblea de Ciudadanos (discuss political situations)

13. Asamblea de Padres y Representantes

14. Fe y Alegria 

15. Dividendo Voluntario para la Comunidad

16. Rotary Club

17. Sports communities (baseball players in the US, FIFA)

18. Former oil workers and executives

19. Catholic Church

20. University Faculty Members"

Here is a list of issues that the author feels could be exploited to convince Venezuelans to rid themselves of their current political leaders:

1. Crime and insecurity: 18000 murders a year and complete areas in barrios ungovernable by security force. The Situation has tremendously deteriorated since 2006. Elections dramatically: Reason for change.

2. Education: Government is taking over the education system: Professors need to get fired up. They will have to lose their jobs or submit! They need to be encouraged and there will be a risk. We will have to convince them that we hold them to the highest levels of society; they hold the most valued responsibility. Teachers will motivate the students. Who will influence them? How will we touch them?

3. Youth: The message needs to be tailored towards the young people, not just university students. 

4. Economy: Oil is Venezuela’s, not the government’s, it’s your money, is your right! Welfare and Social Security. 

5. Women: What do mothers want? Rule of Law, police under local authorities. We will allocate the necessary resources. We don’t want any more thugs. 

6. Transportation: Workers need to be able to reach their jobs. It’s your money. We need to be able to hold government accountable, and we cannot do it as it is right now. 

7. Government: Redistribution of wealth, everyone must see an opportunity. 

8. There is a strong presidentialist trend in Venezuela. Can we change it? How can we work with it?"

Given the recent massive failure of Venezuela's electricity infrastructure, the following comment is either prophetic or sinister:

"A key to Chavez’s current weakness is the decline in the electricity sector. There is the grave possibility that some 70 percent of the country’s electricity grid could go dark as soon as April 2010. Water levels at the Guris dam are dropping, and Chavez has been unable to reduce consumption sufficiently to compensate for the deteriorating industry. This could be the watershed event, as there is little that Chavez can do to protect the poor from the failure of that system. This would likely have the impact of galvanizing public unrest in a way that no opposition group could ever hope to generate. At that point in time, an opposition group would be best served to take advantage of the situation and spin it against Chavez and towards their needs." (my bolds)

This is particularly interesting given this tweet from U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo:

Let's close this section with this observation about the basic requirements for a successful coup against the current Venezuelan political leadership: 

"Alliances with the military could be critical because in such a situation of massive public unrest and rejection of the presidency, malcontent sectors of the military will likely decide to intervene, but only if they believe they have sufficient support. This has been the pattern in the past three coup attempts. Where the military thought it had enough support, there was a failure in the public to respond positively (or the public responded in the negative), so the coup failed."

With all of this in mind, let's close with what CANVAS had to say about recent events in Venezuela:

While Stratfor functions as a private global intelligence company, its links with Washington, the intelligence state as well as the Deep State are suspected as shown in this email from Stratfor which lists various think tanks that are, in some cases, controlled by former Washington-based politicians:

"They (CANVAS) are supported by the Albert Einstein Institution (founded by Gene Sharp), Democracy Research Guide, International Center on Nonviolent Conflict Resources, International Republican Institute and the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs. They may have also received CIA funding and training during the 1999/2000 anti-Milosevic struggle."

In any case, it certainly appears that Washington is at least partially following the CANVAS script for a revolt/coup in Venezuela.  After all, it does help to at least have some sort of plan for re-engineering a nation that has a long track record of ignoring Washington.

What May Lie Ahead For Syria

Updated June 2013

Now that the mainstream media is pretty much ignoring WikiLeaks Stratfor email releases because they just aren't as exciting as one would hope, I thought that it was time to take a look through the 700 odd that have been released thus far.  I happened on one particular email release regarding a nation that has been in the news a great deal over the past few months; Syria.  

The email in question was written by "bhalla@stratfor.com" and sent to "secure@stratfor.com" on December 7th, 2011 and was entitled "INSIGHT - military intervention in Syria, post withdrawal status of forces".  I'm assuming that "bhalla" is Reva Bhalla, Stratfor's Director of Analysis as shown on Linkedin here.

Apparently, on December 7th, 2011, Ms. Bhalla had a meeting at the Pentagon with the United States Air Force strategic studies group.  In the meeting were four officers at the Lieutenant Colonel level including one French and British representative.

Before we go any further, here’s a political map of the region for your reference:

The officers present at the meeting grilled Ms. Bhalla on the strategic picture in Syria and then she grilled them on the military picture.  Ms. Bhalla claims that there is a very low level of understanding about what is actually at stake in Syria, the roles of neighbouring countries including Turkey and Iran.  The officers told Ms. Bhalla (without actually saying it) that SOF (Special Operations Forces) teams, presumably from the U.S., U.K., France, Jordan and Turkey were already on the ground focused on reconnaissance missions and training opposition forces, despite the fact that a U.S. intelligence officer admitted that "...there isn't much of a Free Syrian Army to train right now, but all the operations being done now are being done out of 'prudence'.”.  Ms. Bhalla was also informed that “…the level of information on Syrian OrBat (Order of Battle) was the best that it's been since 2001.  The Air Force has been told to prepare to act within 2 to 3 months.".  

The officers present then told Ms. Bhalla that the use of SOF teams would not be part of an air campaign (as was used in Libya) to provide cover for the Syrian rebels, rather, the idea was to "hypothetically" commit guerrilla attacks and assassination campaigns to try to collapse the ruling Alawite forces from within.  Their primary concern about the use of an air campaign is the level of air defences in Syria compared to those in Libya.  Syria has a very strong air defence system around Damascus and along its borders with Israel and Turkey complicating the initiation of an air offence program.  An additional complication is the uncertainty surrounding the involvement of Iran in defending Syria.

Here's an interesting quote from the email:

"There still seems to be a lot of confusion over what a military intervention involving an air campaign would be designed to achieve. It isn't clear cut for them geographically like in Libya, and you can't just create an NFZ (No Fly Zone) over Homs, Hama region. This would entail a countrywide SEAD (Suppression of Enemy Air Defenses) campaign lasting the duration of the war. They dont believe air intervention would happen unless there was enough media attention on a massacre, like the Ghadafi move against Benghazi. They think the US would have a high tolerance for killings as long as it doesn't reach that very public stage." (my bold/my expansion of acronyms)

The last sentence in that paragraph is most fascinating.  Apparently, the killing of nearly 100,000  innocent Syrian men, women and children in dribs and drabs doesn't quite cut it. 

According to Ms. Bhalla, the main base for this operation would be Cyprus.  The group at the meeting was split on the involvement of Turkey with the Air Force intelligence officer seemingly quite "pissed off at them".  As well, with most U.S. fighter jets out of Iraq, the United States has yet to negotiate a SOFA (Status of Forces Agreement) with Iraq to use their airspace for any operations against Syria.

The French representative at the meeting was of the opinion that France would be more reluctant to enter a conflict in Syria during an election year.  The United Kingdom representative also emphasized the reluctance of the U.K. to participate but said that the renegotiation of the EU Treaty had undermined the United Kingdom's role in the European Union and that the U.K. may be looking for a way to reassert itself on the continent.

Who knows if we can trust the information in this email?  Regardless of its "truthiness", at the very least, it does provide an interesting window into the possible thought processes among the nations that could be involved in a future conflict in Syria.

WikiLeaks and Stratfor - The 2008 Federal Election and What Might Have Been

I rarely post twice on the same day but, with today's WikiLeaks/Stratfor email release, it is just too tempting.  I found these two emails, the first entitled "Insight - McCain #5" dated November 5, 2008 and the second entitled "Insight - The Dems and Dirty Tricks" dated November 7, 2008 of particular interest.  Both emails were flagged as **Internal Use Only - Do Not Forward**.  You'll see why.

The author of both emails, burton@stratfor.com, could well be Fred Burton, Stratfor's Vice President for Intelligence, a former special agent with the U.S. Diplomatic Security Service among other things. 

Let's start with the second email to put the first one into context.  The second email opens by stating that:

"1.) The black Dems were caught stuffing the ballot boxes in Philly and Ohio as reported the night of hte election and Sen. McCain chose not to fight.  The matter is not dead inside the party.  It now becomes a matter of sequence now as to how and when to "out".

2.) It appears that the Dems "made a donation" to Rev. Jesse...to keep his yap shut after his diatribe about the Jews and Israel.  A little bird told me that it was a "nice six-figure donation".  This also becomes a matter of how and when to out.

3.) The hunt is on for the sleezy Russian money into O-mans coffers.  A smoking gun has already been found.  Will get more on this when the time is right.  My source was too giddy to continue.  Can you say Clinton and ChiCom funny money?..."

For your information, the word "ChiCom" generally refers to Chinese Communist.

The recipient of the email, howerton@stratfor.com, responded by stating that

"...The Dems quit pretending and admitted to themselves that to win it you have to get off your high horse and play dirty when you have to.  And they won."

 Now, let's look at the second email.

"After discussions with his inner circle, which explains the delay in his speech, McCain decided not to pursue the voter fraud in PA and Ohio, despite his staff's desire to make it an issue....Staff felt that they could get a federal injunction to stop the process.  McCain felt the crowds assembled in support of Obama and such would be detrimental to our country and it would do our nation no good for this to drag out like last go around, coupled with the possibility of domestic violence."

"Curiously, there are whispers of McCain being set up by the Cheney/Bush crowd, because McCain was never liked by either...My guy said Rove and company want to bring in someone they can control the next go around.  McCain was not controllable.  Jeb Bush's name is being discussed...".

To summarize, the evening of the 2008 federal election, John McCain was urged by his aides to contest the results of the election by seeking a court injunction to prevent the voting results in both Ohio and Pennsylvania from being certified.  All I can think is thank goodness that John McCain had the strength of character to just say "no" when it counted.  I also found it quite interesting that, according to Mr. Burton, Karl Rove et al did not like John McCain because he was "not controllable".  What does that say about George W. Bush?

For fun, let's look back at the results of the 2008 election to see what might have changed if Senator McCain had succumbed to the wishes of his handlers and contested the vote in both Ohio and Pennsylvania.  First, nationally, Barak Obama received 365 electoral votes and his share of the popular vote was 69,456,897.  John McCain received 173 electoral votes and his share of the popular vote was 59,934,814.  Ohio had 20 electoral votes in 2008 and 52 percent of voters chose the Democrats giving Obama all 20 electoral votes.  Pennsylvania had 21 electoral votes in 2008 and 55 percent of voters chose the Democrats giving Obama all 21 electoral votes.  If John McCain had won all 41 electoral votes from both Ohio and Pennsylvania, his total would have risen to 214 and President Obama's total would have dropped to 324, making the end result exactly the same as it turned out to be with an Obama victory.  If John McCain had elected to contest the election, it would have solved nothing other than perhaps creating unnecessary national chaos, especially in light of the kerfuffle after the 2000 election.

It is interesting to see how Stratfor involves itself domestically by opining on America's political theatre.  It is also fascinating to see that Mr. Burton, a Stratfor Vice President and one of the world's leading experts on international terrorist organizations, has a very strong anti-Obama leaning.  But, I guess when you're a spy, you're able to ferret out a conspiracy around every corner.  It's just one of the benefits of the job.