Fake News About Venezuela: A Simple Recipe
By Ricardo Vaz, www.investigaction.net
March 24th, 2017
Above Photo: From investigaction.net
Journalists who want to write fake news about Venezuela, or about any
other country or group that dares to stand up to US imperialism, only need
to follow this simple recipe:
Choose one or more countries/groups opposed to US imperialism
If available, have a former official, now being paid by the US government,
make the accusations
Season well with doses of war on terror and/or war on drugs
Sprinkle with opinions of experts who work in DC think tanks or US-funded
NGOs
While this looks like a very unsavoury mix, the results last very long and
can be reheated with no problems.
This recipe has been used and re-used plenty of times, either by US
officials to justify policies or by media outlets. But given how the media
critically accepts everything when it comes to foreign policy, there is
hardly a distinction to be made here.
A classical example were the fabricated connections between Chávez/Venezuela
and al-Qaeda. Other variants involve dealings with the FARC (1), Mexican
cartels, and the favourite dance partner is Hezbollah. On one hand, the US
relation with al-Qaeda is now a bit more complicated, as extremists may get
bombed if they are in Iraq but supported if they cross into Syria. On the
other, Hezbollah is the biggest obstacle to Israeli hegemony and the
colonisation of Palestine. This kind of propaganda is reminiscent of the
effort to fabricate connections between al-Qaeda and Saddam Hussein in order
to justify the invasion of Iraq. Some outlets would even have us believe
North Korea was supplying arms to Hamas!
The most recent story involves the newly-appointed vice-president, Tareck El
Aissami, who is a perfect ingredient because of his Middle Eastern ancestry.
Even though he was born and lived all his life in Venezuela, his parents are
Druze immigrants from Lebanon. The storm started with a CNN story about
the Venezuelan embassy in Iraq selling passports to dangerous people,
including members of Hezbollah, who would then use them to attack the US or
its allies. This operation was claimed to be directed by El Aissami. This
story was directly quoted by Marco Rubio during a renewed push by US
lawmakers for more sanctions against Venezuela. These came later from the
Department of the Treasury, this time linking El Aissami to Mexican cartels.
With a little more effort even the North Koreans might have been added to
the party.
image
Tareck El Aissami with an incriminating Palestinian scarf
All in all, there are many things that do not add up. First of all there is
the issue of Hezbollah plotting terror attacks the US, but we will not go
into detail here. It suffices to say that the evidence of Hezbollah
involvement in terror attacks abroad is, at best, very thin. Then there is
the sectarian issue. Western media, at the behest of western allies in the
Middle East, keep stirring up this supposedly grave Shia threat, with Iran
and Hezbollah even conspiring to reshape demographics and create an all-Shia
corridor in the Middle East. And yet their man in Venezuela is a Druze.
Equally ludicrous are claims that there are Venezuelan training camps in
Lebanon and vice-versa. Hezbollahs main foe is right next door, but somehow
it would need training camps halfway around the world! The links to the drug
trade presented by the Treasury are equally flimsy, and were picked apart
masterfully by Larissa Costas.
The star witness of CNNs expose, Misael López, has since been revealed to
be a close associate of Ana Argotti, who is in turn very close to Lilian
Tintori and Leopoldo López, the hard-right politician jailed for his role in
the violent activities during the 2014 guarimbas that resulted in over 40
deaths. Argotti has defended several members of the opposition charged with
violent crimes during this period. As for Misael López, he is also under
investigation for alleged sexual harassment and attempting to withdraw funds
from the Venezuelan embassy in Baghdad.
ELUSIVE CARTELS AND DOUBLE STANDARDS
Another high-profile fake story, followed by sanctions, involved Diosdado
Cabello, an important figure in the ruling PSUV and head of the National
Assembly at the time. Based on the account of a former bodyguard turned
star-witness, now living comfortably in the US, Cabello was accused of being
the boss of the elusive Cartel de los Soles. This is supposedly a very
important Latin American drug cartel run by the Venezuelan military. The
problem is that, unlike the stories we hear of cartels violently making
themselves known and marking territory, here we have a drug cartel run from
the highest levels of the Venezuelan state operating without anyone really
noticing it. It is like the Illuminati version of drug cartels.
image
Diosdado Cabello next to President Nicolás Maduro
Venezuela is often presented as an obstacle in the war on drugs, but the
truth is that the main actor in the cocaine trade is neighbouring Colombia,
the empires best friend and largest recipient of aid in the hemisphere. Any
list of officials connected to the drug trade has to start with (former
Colombian president) Álvaro Uribe if it is to be taken seriously. We are
talking about the country where the para-politics scandal broke, revealing
that dozens of elected officials had links to paramilitary groups, the heart
and soul of the drug trade. And yet we never hear stories of Colombian
politicians or military officials, who cooperate closely with the US
military, being involved in illegal activities, nor have sanctions ever been
imposed on them.
This double standard is only outrageous if we believe that the war on drugs
is actually designed to eradicate the drug trade. Rather, it is supposed to
manage it. In fact, drugs have been very useful for US agencies, for
instance to pacify black communities and derail the black liberation
movement in the 1970s. Coupled with draconian legislation and harsh
sentences, today they serve to feed the very lucrative prison industry. In
any case, large amounts of cocaine are consumed in the very place where the
drug money is laundered Wall Street. Even when a massive drug money
laundering scheme is uncovered at a major US bank, a mild slap on the wrist
and a fine worth a few days profit is all that can be expected.
FAKE NEWS AS BACKGROUND
None of this is intended as an endorsement or an exoneration of El Aissami,
Cabello, or anyone else. But these news and unproven accusations, as well as
others targeting lower-profile officials such as Néstor Reverol, are not
meant to prove anything or to lead to any judicial prosecution. They are
simply thrown out there and blindly echoed by an uncritical media, they are
meant to create background. From now on, whenever Tareck El Aissami appears
in the news we will read that he has links to terrorism and the drug trade,
and thus whatever he says or does will build on this background.
For the past two decades, Venezuela has been the biggest thorn in the US
side, a real nuisance in Washingtons backyard, striving for an
independent course (a second independence) and leading the efforts for a
regional integration which is not subjected to the interests of the Northern
empire. The US responded with its traditional regime-change operation,
destabilising at every turn, funding opposition groups, imposing a de-facto
financial blockade on Venezuela, even working to lower oil prices. Their
natural allies, the Venezuelan elites, have also been outraged that the
country they used to own has been taken away from them, and coup-plotting
has become their way of life.
And therefore these fake news are pre-emptive justification for a future
coup or foreign intervention. Should one of these take place, the media will
be ready with plenty of hyperlinks to these fake stories that present
Venezuela as a failed, rogue state, connected to terrorism and the drug
trade. The coup/foreign intervention would then look like the benign empire
saving the world from this threat.
What the empire, the local elites and the media keep underestimating is the
power of the masses that were awakened by this project, chavismo, that for
the first time sees them placed front and centre. There is now a political
conscience, a firm belief that the people should write their own history,
and it will take a lot more than fake stories from propaganda outlets to
restore Venezuelas former neo-colonial status. In the words of Chávez:
Aquí nadie se rinde, carajo!
Note:
(1) While the FARC have been involved in the drug trade, it has mostly been
at the lowest levels of the chain, levying a tax on sales of coca crops.
Associating them, and only them, to the Colombian drug trade, is incredibly
dishonest and exonerates those who profit the most out of it.
