By Dave Lindorff

    American Secretary of War Robert Gates knows a real leader when he sees one.  “Clearly, as far as I’m concerned,” he said, Vladimir Putin, and not President Dmitry Medvedev, "has the upper hand right now."

     Well hell, Gates should know. After all, he deals on a daily basis with the same peculiar situation here in the US, where the president also is a figurehead and the real power lies in the hands of Vice President Dick Cheney.

By Dave Lindorff

What the hell is Barack Obama talking about?

He says that America should be talking with leaders in Cuba, Iran, Venezuela, Korea, Syria. Fine. But he calls this “talking with our enemies.”

What enemies?

Let’s get something straight. Enemies are people who are fighting against you, who are trying to destroy you. Is Cuba fighting against America? Is Iran fighting against America? Is Venezuela fighting against America? Syria? China? No. These countries may be rivals, but they are not enemies.

The closest we come to having an actual enemy in today’s world is North Korea, where we are technically still in some kind of truce following a hot war, but of course that war itself has been over for half a frigging century, and nobody has been killing anyone on the Korean Peninsula in decades.

By Dave Lindorff

The New York Times had a news article about Venezuela in Thursday’s edition, but it was about Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez saying he would cut diplomatic ties with neighboring Colombia. There wasn’t a word about a memo from a CIA operative in Caracas to CIA Director General Michael Hayden, uncovered yesterday, outlining a plan for interfering with a Venezuelan referendum set for Dec. 2, and laying out the steps for instigating and backing a coup.

The plot, called “Operation Pliers,” and laid out in the letter to Hayden by an undercover operative named Michael Steele, who reportedly works in the US Embassy as a “regional affairs officer,” was intercepted by Venezuelan intelligence and released publicly on state TV yesterday.

Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff told the editorial board of the Chicago Tribune that he has a "gut feeling" that the US has entered into a new period of increased risk of terrorism.

Let me get this straight - Chertoff has a "gut feeling" that the US is on the verge of another terrorism attack.

I'm getting a gut feeling that this is a impending Wag the Dog operation as Bush continues to feel the increasing public scorn for his commutation of Scooter Libby's prison sentence, the mounting public opinion against the war, the plummeting Bush-Cheney public approval ratings, the defection of Republican senators from the "all war, all the time" Bush war agenda, the backlash from claiming executive privilege for the RNC emails originating in the White House, the White House refusal to allow aides to testify before congress, the burgeoning congressional investigations...those are just a few of the high points from which it's important to distract the public's attention.

But there's more, and even more reason to be concerned about the Bush administration's handling of national security. ABCNews is reporting that an alQaeda cell is either in or en route to the US.

Cindy Sheehan has met with Chavez a few times as well as some other liberal figures and he openly admits that he is probably the next target of imperialist America because of his oil so Im wondering if we should make him a major part of our election strategy, bring him into commercials and what not as supporting the democratic party in ending our imperialistic ways and putting our country on the right track with nations like Venezuala instead on the track to war. I think we should put a lot of emphasis on Hugo Chavez as an ally of the democratic party, it'll reach out to the mainstream.

Robert Koehler writes:

Indeed, something remarkable is happening in the Southern Hemisphere, news of which we in El Norte get only in heavily filtered, ludicrously distorted doses. Women and indigenous people are suddenly ascending to ranks of power. In Uruguay, a former human-rights attorney is now defense minister. Unimaginable possibility is dawning, and the wounded and imprisoned of earlier decades are grieving openly for the first time and crying “Nunca mas!” — never again.

And three countries so far, Venezuela, Argentina and Uruguay — with more, almost certainly, to follow suit — have formally declared that they will no longer send their military personnel for training at the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation, which is better known by its former name, the School of the Americas, housed in Fort Benning, Ga.

Citgo is the wholly-owned subsidiary of the national oil company of Venezuela. It set-up a program where it is providing subsidized heating oil or gas to poor communities in Chicago, Boston and New York. Remember when Grassley was begging the major oil companies during to Senate Hearings on price-gouging to do something similar but got no takers?

Heard last week on Democracy Now, a Senate Commmittee (intelligence, I think) was starting an investigation into the Citgo program looking for fraud or other wrong-doing. This is apparently more important than investigating how Bush lied us into the Iraq war or of Bush's illegal wiretapping program.

I just found an interesting article here: http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/news.php?newsno=1736. In it, there is a ray of hope for the world poor. I wonder why Chavez is so upsetting to Pat Robertson and possibly the rest of the lowlives in DC - I know that they have lots of oil shares, but do they also have shares in the health care industry? No wonder then, that they find his attitude threatening to their fat wallets and portfolios.

"The liberal soul shall be made fat: and he that watereth shall be watered also himself." (Proverbs 11:25)

Pat Robertson should not have apologized. He hit the nail right on the head. Hugo Chavez is much more of a threat to us than Saddam ever was. Hugo is forming a 2 million man malitia "home guard" ha ha and he in unison with Fidel Castro and other South,Central American and Mexican countries with the help of 700,000 MS 13 gang members could really reek havoc on our country. There are already 20,000 MS 13 gang members in this country (in 33 states)and god only knows how many Cuban and Middle east terrorist are here. Bush don't have the balls to deal with this threat or the Iran and North Korean threat. He has shot his wad on Iraq and can't even catch 1 man Bin Laden. What a sorry ass looser. He didn't do Afganistan right and he is not doing Iraq right - not enough troops on the ground- which is dangerous for them-- He should have remained a sissy cheerleader he sure is not man enough to be commander and chief.

August 24, 2005

WHY PAT ROBERTSON ISN'T TREATED AS A TERRORIST

John Chuckman

America's fundamentalist carnival includes many fascinating acts. Pay your money, and you can watch preachers weeping and screaming, dismissing whole segments of humanity as evil, threatening murder, shaking down congregations for extra donations to named-after-themselves projects, or hitting people in the head to heal cancer. You will also see some monsters finally caught after years of molesting children or hear others advocating crimes against humanity such as using nuclear weapons.

Pat Robertson is one of the Christian Sideshow's longer-running acts, periodically adding some new nightmare to his grim repertoire. Oddly, Pat regards himself as a kind statesman-preacher, a latter-day boondocks version of Talleyrand, Talleyrand having started his remarkable and utterly unprincipled career as a Bishop. Pat regularly mixes the tax-free benefits of religion with the promotion of nasty politics. He has run for President, started quasi-religious organizations to promote his political ambitions, and freely offers his uninformed advice on national and world affairs.