[R-G] A New Era Between Washington and Venezuela?

[Anthony Fenton]

A New Era Between Washington and Venezuela?
February 5th 2009, by Eva Golinger - Rebelion.org
http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/4176

For a moment, to please all those who’ve fallen in love with the new  
president of the United States, let’s forget everything that was said  
about Venezuela during the last two terms of the ex-president George  
W. Bush, by spokespeople in his government. And let’s also forget  
about everything Obama and his Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said  
during the campaign because, well, sometimes the things that are said  
during the campaign are just to please the voters. So we’re just going  
to analyze what Obama and the new members of his team have expressed  
since he was elected to the most powerful political position in the  
world.

The new United States president didn’t delay much in repeating the  
same comments about President Chavez and Venezuela that he made during  
the campaign. During an interview with the US-Hispanic television  
channel Univision, January 13, 2009, President Barack Obama,  
responding to a question about Latin America and specifically  
Venezuela, declared, “Chavez has been a force that has impeded the  
progress in the region.” Later he commented, “We must be very firm  
when we see this news, that Venezuela is exporting terrorist  
activities or backing malicious groups like the FARC. That creates  
problems that are unacceptable. That is not the good international  
behavior that we would expect from anyone in the hemisphere.”

This declaration from President Obama sounds like something coming  
from the Bush Administration, just as President Chavez pointed out.  
(Note: here I could say yet again that exactly that is true, that  
there isn’t much difference between Bush and Obama with respect to the  
imperialist policies of the United States, but I promise that I won’t  
say it yet. It’s better that I be able to prove it with his own  
actions and attitudes.) In that statement, Obama repeated the two main  
viewpoints promoted by all the Washington agencies, including the  
Congress headed by the Democratic Party, during the last four years:  
Chavez is a destabilizing force in the region, and Venezuela has ties  
with terrorism. But let’s continue.

Later, the new Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, declared during  
her confirmation hearing in the U.S. Senate, “We have problems in our  
own hemisphere with some energy providers, like Hugo Chavez… We have a  
challenge in Latin America, and our challenges have to do with the way  
we get involved to make a difference. We should worry less about what  
Chavez says and more about what we do at the end of the day.” Here  
it’s valid to compare what the then-incoming Secretary of State  
Condoleezza said in 2005, when already in her confirmation hearing she  
stated that “Hugo Chavez is a negative force in the region.” That  
famous phrase by Rice put the aggressive, hostile, and bellicose plan  
against Venezuela into action, which is obviously being reinforced by  
the new administration in Washington, regardless of color or political  
affiliation. In the United States, be him red or blue, Republican or  
Democrat, he is an imperialist regardless. Here it should be added  
that with respect to the analysis, what a candidate to the highest  
diplomatic position in the United States says in her confirmation  
hearing is a demonstration of her priorities when she takes the office  
of Secretary of State. So the fact that two Secretaries of State have  
spoke of Venezuela and President Chavez as a “negative force” or a  
“problem” has significant implications for Washington’s foreign  
policy. Since 2005, Venezuela has been and continues to be a policy  
priority for security, defense, and intelligence in the United States.  
It was classified as such in a July 2008 State Department report which  
highlighted three global priority areas in US foreign policy: Iran’s  
support for the Iraqi insurgency, the growing presence of Al Qaeda en  
Afghanistan, and the “association” of Venezuela with “terrorist  
states.” I’ll repeat, what I have just detailed in this last phrase  
are the three global priorities for the security, defense, and  
diplomatic corps of the United States. Venezuela is among these three.

But as if this wasn’t enough, in his swearing-in speech, the new  
United States president declared, “Each day brings further evidence  
that the ways we use energy strengthen our adversaries.” Okay, he  
didn’t necessarily name Venezuela, but there’s no doubt that the South  
American country with the largest oil reserves in the world was in  
mind when he made that comment. Further along in his speech, when  
President Obama was alerting the enemies of the United States that his  
government would retake and defend its position as world leader (as if  
it had done something different in recent years), said “To those who  
cling to power through corruption and deceit and the silencing of  
dissent, know that you are on the wrong side of history, but that we  
will extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist.” Well,  
here he didn’t necessarily direct this message indirectly to  
Venezuela, but still, with everything that has been said about  
Chavez’s government, it’s quite possible.

And then there’s James Steinberg, the new number two in the State  
Department. This young gentleman’s résumé includes positions like  
recent chancellor of the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs at  
the University of Texas at Austin; Analyst for the RAND Corporation, a  
business contracted by the Pentagon to develop its principal  
strategies; Assistant National Security Advisor at the White House  
(1997-2001); and a researcher at the Brookings Institute, one of the  
three think tanks that develop the imperialist policies of Washington.  
Steinberg already began to throw darts hard at Venezuela during his  
United States Senate confirmation hearing on January 22. In response  
to a question regarding Latin America by Senator Robert Menendez of  
New Jersey, Steinberg said, “I think that the people have realized  
that the offers of Chavez don’t lead to a better life or better  
success of the peoples… For too much time, we’ve ceded the playing  
field to Chavez, whose actions and vision for the region don’t serve  
the interests of his citizens nor of the people throughout Latin  
America.” What? Obviously Senator Menendez is not being well informed  
about how much things have improved in Venezuela over the last ten  
years. For example, Venezuela today enjoys the lowest unemployment  
rate in its history, lower than the unemployment rate in the United  
States! (In Venezuela it’s at 6 percent while in the United States the  
unemployment rate is at 7.2 percent). Not even to mention that in  
Venezuela, under the revolutionary policies of President Chavez, no  
Venezuelan is without free medical attention at all levels, while the  
United States healthcare system is deplorable. More than 46 million US  
citizens live without access to the healthcare system. And statistics  
in education, infant mortality, life expectancy, industrial  
development, recovery of cultural traditions, indigenous languages,  
and the level of electoral participation that the Bolivarian  
government has accomplished is without precedent in Venezuelan history.

But to top off this treatment from Obama’s government, their website  
shows that they clearly consider Venezuela to be their number one  
enemy. In the section of the site where they highlight their political  
agenda related to energy, one finds the following objective:  
“Eliminate Our Current Imports from the Middle East and Venezuela  
within 10 Years.” And in another part of the agenda the same concept  
is articulated this way: “Within 10 years save more oil than we  
currently import from the Middle East and Venezuela combined.” This  
same objective was repeated January 26, 2009, when he said, “The  
United States will not be a hostage to increasingly limited resources  
from hostile regimes,” during a White House ceremony. Okay, so  
Venezuela is considered to be one of the most important objectives of  
the Obama administration in the area of energy, which is considered  
part of the security and defense strategy of Washington.

So from everything that’s been said and done in less than a month by  
the new administration of Barack Obama, is there evidence of any  
change in the hostile and aggressive tone against Venezuela? I think  
the answer is a resounding no, unfortunately. What is demonstrated is  
simply what we’ve been saying: the empire is the empire, regardless of  
its color. Until it stops viewing itself as the best in the world and  
the global leader that looks to impose its vision and model on the  
rest, the empire will continue being the same. Meanwhile, Venezuela,  
together with other free and honorable peoples, must continue  
constructing its future, remaining alert to the imperial attacks that  
threaten its prosperity.

Translated by Erik Sperlinger