Today's Stories

August 14-16, 2009

Jeffrey St. Clair
The Fall of the House of Stanford

August 13, 2009

Eduardo Galeano
I Hate to Bother You

Joanne Mariner
Letting Cheney Off the Hook

Michael Donnelly
Burning Forests for Electricity

Norman Solomon
When the Dead Have No Say

Russell Mokhiber
Boycott Whole Foods

Tim Wise
Sick Heil! The Hitlerizing of Obama

Brian M. Downing
Succession and the Pakistani Taliban

Dave Lindorff
Single-Payer and Medicare

David Manning / Miriam Cotton:
Iran Versus Honduras: a Subtle Difference

Martha Rosenberg
John Hughes, Gone With Only 59 Candles

Website of the Day
Congress Can't Find Their As-teroids

August 12, 2009

Michael J. Watts
Nigeria on the Brink

Bouthaina Shaaban
Where are the Arabs to Stand Up for the Hanoun and Ghawi Families?

Ricardo Alarcón
The Cuban Five: Justice in Wonderland

Binoy Kampmark
Terror Australis

Paul Craig Roberts
Concocting the Appearance of Recovery

Alan Farago
Going Down Absurd: the Future of Florida Bay

James Ridgeway
Ghostwriting Your Meds

Dave Lindorff
10 Questions to Ask If You Find Yourself at an ObamaCare Town Hall Meeting

David Macaray
Labor and the Conventional Wisdom

Niranjan Ramakrishnan
The Assimilation of Niranjan Ramakrishnan

Website of the Day
A Petition in Support of Janice Harper

August 11, 2009

Ricardo Alarcón
Forbidden Heroes

Marshall Auerback
America's Biggest Economic Problem?

Reza Yavari
Inside Iran's Most Infamous Prison

Winslow T. Wheeler
How Congress Pays For Its Pork

Tim Wise
Red-Baiting and Racism

Uri Avnery
A Moral Person

Deepak Tripathi
Getting Away With Torture

Greg Moses
Time to Plan for the Worst

Benjamin Dangl
Boycotting Big Beer

Dave Lindorff
Hecklers Unite! Why Aren't Progressives Disrupting ObamaCare Town Halls?

Website of the Day
What Bush Told Chirac About the Iraq War

August 10, 2009

David Price
Trial by FBI Investigation

Mike Whitney
There is No Recession; It's a Planned Demolition

Alan Farago
Seeds of Destruction: How the National Economy was Wrecked by the Politics of Deregulation in Florida

Conn Hallinan
The Honduran Coup: a U.S. Connection

Russell Mokhiber
Health Care: In Defense of Disruption

Paul Krassner
The Mystery Behind the Manson Murders

Sousan Hammad
Orgy of the Dead: the 2009 Fatah Conference

Jonathan Cook
Israeli School Apartheid

Ira Glunts
Netanyahu's Sister-in-Law Detained by Israeli Police; Calls Evictions an Unjustified Folly

George Wuerthner
Dead Tree Hysteria

Website of the Day
Conyers: ObamaCare is Crap

August 7 - 9, 2009

Alexander Cockburn
It Pays to Have a Nuke

Mike Whitney
Economy on a Scaffold

Elaine C. Hagopian
Obama's Israel Albatross

Carl Ginsburg
RX For Healthcare

Miguel Tinker Salas
Honduras is Only Part of the Story: the Conservative Counter-Attack in Latin America

Saul Landau
The Kidney Broker and the Money Laundering Rabbis

John Ross
The Mexican Genome: Big Science in the Service of Indian Genocide?

Anthony DiMaggio Obama and the Israel Lobby: Origins of Power

John Stanton
Expanding Human Terrain Systems?

Christopher Brauchli Legal Absurdities: Outing Three Strikes

Wajahat Ali
A Muslim American Hero: an Interview with Dave Eggers on "Zeitoun"

Ron Jacobs
As Long as the Wars Continue, We Must Resist Them

Franklin Lamb
Sunday Morning on the Dunes: Cleaning "Free Gaza Beach"

Bruce E. Levine
Protect Us From Our Friends

Michael Winship
Neighborhood Watch for Planet Earth

David Macaray
Glimmers of Hope for Labor?

Stephen Fleischman
Suicide Squad

Robert Bryce
Unplugging the Next Big Thing: the Hype Over Electric Cars

Robert Dodge, MD: Hiroshima and Nagasaki Remembered

Mark Seth Lender
The Message of the Glossy Ibis

David Yearsley
Vaucanson's Faun and the Duck in the Attic

Ben Sonnenberg
Chris Fuller's Brilliant Debut

Lorenzo Wolff
When Music's the Character

Poets' Basement
Dominguez and Corseri

Website of the Weekend
Warren Buffett's Betrayal

August 6, 2009

Ishmael Reed
Let's All Have a Beer

Paul Craig Roberts
The Expiring Economy

William Blum Assassinations and Coups: Keeping Track of the Empire's Crimes

Michael Donnelly
Rod Coronado: the Hardest Working Man in Animal Rights "Terrorism"

Jonathan Cook
Rabbis Ban Marriage for Israeli "Untouchables"

Dave Lindorff
The Health Care Reform Sell-Out

Ellen Brown
The Public Option in Banking

Website of the Day
Ellsberg on Hiroshima

August 5, 2009

Dedrick Muhammad /
Barbara Ehrenreich
The Destruction of the Black Middle Class

Norman Solomon
The Incredible, Shrinking Health Care Plan

William Blum
The Myths of Afghanistan: Past and Present

Gareth Porter
The ISI and the Taliban: US Officials Are Protecting Pakistani Aid to Taliban

Mary Lynn Cramer
The Myth of Medicare for All

Jim Goodman
Obama Needs to Take a Stand on Trade

Nadia Hijab
Playing From Strength in the Middle East

Gretchen Kroth
Guatemala's Garbage Dump Education System

Steve Macek /
Scott Sanders
Privatizing the Airwaves

Sarah Lazare
Inside G.I. Resistance

Website of the Day
The Locavore Myth

August 4, 2009

Mike Whitney
Bernanke's Shell Game

Dave Lindorff
The Recession Isn't Over, By a Long Shot

Patrick Cockburn
Did British Bomb Attacks in Iran Provoke Hostage Crisis?

Jonathan Cook
Israel's Campaign to Silence Human Rights Groups

Jeff Sher
Making a Mess of Health Care Reform

Dean Baker
Why Don't We Globalize Health Care?

Andy Worthington
Gitmo as Hotel California

Uri Avnery
A Jeremiad

Mark Weisbrot
U.S.-Brokered Mediation in Honduras Has Failed

Alvaro Huerta
Hold That Dustbin! So Much for the "End of Racism"

Website of the Day
Pentagon to Ban Facebook and Twitter?

August 3, 2009

Pam Martens
Millions of Americans Pushed Into No-Law System by Colluding Banks

Anthony DiMaggio
Media Backlash: Obama and the Settlements

Udi Aloni
And Who Shall I Say is Calling? A Plea to Leonard Cohen

Mike Roselle
See the Mountains of WestVirginia ... Before They're Blown Up!

Dr. Susan Block
Beat It! Sex, Death and Michael Jackson

Roy Bourgeois / Margaret Knapke
School of Coups

Joe Bageant
A Yard Sale in Chernobyl

Dina Jadallah
Hiding the State

Dave Lindorff
Of Blue Dogs and Jellyfish

Martha Rosenberg
Grand Closings in Evanston: How the Recession is Hitting Illinois

Website of the Day
Why We Can't "Afford" Health Care

July 31 - August 2, 2009

Alexander Cockburn
The Biden and Clinton Mutinies

Gabriel Kolko
Searching For Enemies

John Prados
The Intelligence Oversight Mess

Joe Bageant
The Bastards Never Die

Tim Wise
Rationalizing Racial Oppression

Carl Ginsburg
Frist First: Follow the Money (and Find the Plump Heart of "Health Care")

Michael Fox
The Honduran Coup as Overture

John Lindsay-Poland
Revamping Plan Colombia

Michael Winship
Pay-to-Play: Washington's Sport of Kings

Rev. William Alberts
White Men Can Jump ... to Conclusions

Andy Worthington
Judge Orders Release of Tortured Gitmo Prisoner

Steve Breyman
Counting the Unemployed

Cyrus Bina
Racism, Class and Profiling

Missy Beattie
Promises Ignored

Ron Jacobs
Into the Vapid: Consuming the Cultural Product

Willie L. Pelote, Sr.
Party of Concessions: Democrats Never Learn

Lucia Alvarez
Fall of the House of Kirchner? Return of the Right in Argentina

Dave Lindorff
David Brooks' White Guy Nightmare

Lawrence R. Velvel
Madoff: What Should be Done Now?

Omar Barghouti /
Sid Shniad
United for Freedom and Universal Justice

James L. Secor
The Name of the Game is Wipe-Out

Belén Fernández
Zelaya in Nicaragua: Has Another Constitution Been Violated?

Jeffrey St. Clair
Frank Lloyd Wright in Hollywood: the Ennis House as Imperial Ruin

David Yearsley
Beauty in Dark Places: Berlin's Olympic Stadium

Brian J. Foley
Pre-Eating: a Threat to Restaurants Everywhere

Alan Cabal
Onward, Into the Fog: Thomas Pynchon's
"Inherent Vice"

Kim Nicolini
The Way War Feels

Lorenzo Wolff
The Way It Felt the First Time: the Jump Rope Magic of the Shangri-Las

Poets' Basement
Four Poems From the Chinese

Website of the Weekend
Obama's Ex-Doc Knocks ObamaCare

July 30, 2009

Patrick Cockburn
Victims of a Covert Tit-for-Tat War

Gareth Porter
Afghanistan's US-Backed Child-Raping Police

Saul Landau
Summer of Denial

Greg Grandin
Honduran Coup Over?

Diane Farsetta
Pentagon Pundits Get a Pass

Stephen Soldz
The King Case, the APA and the Missing Ethics Investigation

Alan Farago
Learning How to Survive in a Depression From "Weeds"

David Macaray
Cops and Labor Unions

Mike Howells /
Jay Arena
Volunteerism Will Not Rebuild the Gulf Coast

Christopher Brauchli
Oatmeal Envy

Website of the Day
Changing the SOFA

July 29, 2009

Carl Ginsburg
Our Crisis, Their Gain

Clifton Ross
From Tegucigalpa to El Paraiso: a Voyage From Curfew to State of Siege

Paul Craig Roberts
How Fake is the "Recovery"?

Franklin C. Spinney
Winning Hearts and Minds, Pentagon Style

James Bovard Lackawanna Six: Bogus Charges and Martial Law

Anthony DiMaggio
Health Care, the Media and Public Opinion

Bouthaina Shaaban
How Will Arabs Wake Up?

Greg Moses
A Catch and Trade Policy for Labor Costs

Wajahat Ali
No Racism in Obama's Post-Race America?

Gary Leupp
Beer Will Not Solve This

Ayesha Ijaz Khan
Musharraf, Imran Khan and Overseas Pakistanis

Website of the Day
Why Single-Payer Gets No Respect

July 28, 2009

Jean Bricmont
Bombing for a Juster World?

Uri Avnery
Obama, Netanyahu and the Settlements

Dean Baker
Right to Rent: a Remedy for the Foreclosure Crisis

Heather Gray
Stupid Cop Tricks: Driving Too Close to a White Female and Other Episodes in Racist Policing

Jonathan Cook
Can an "Arab Soul" Yearn for Israel's Anthem?

Winslow T. Wheeler
Beyond the F-22: the Future of Pentagon Reform

Belén Fernández
Thomas Friedman Does Afghanistan

Carl Finamore
The Hotel Workers' Kickass Local 2

Eli Jelly-Schapiro
Striking the World Cup

Harvey Wasserman
We All Stand Before Peltier's Parole Board

Website of the Day
Behind the Wheel

July 27, 2009

Ishmael Reed
Gates: Post-Race Scholar Yells Racism

Patrick Cockburn
Elections Shake Kurdistan

Roger Burbach
Hillary and Obama Nix Change in Honduras

Steve Breyman
Bomber Joe and Russia: Why is Biden Channeling Cheney?

Ramzy Kysia
Gaza: On the Right of Resistance

Stephen Soldz
Will the American Psychological Association Renounce the Nuremberg Defense?

Raymond J. Lawrence
Sexual Hocus Pocus in the Episcopal Church

Greg Moses
The Color Line is Black

Binoy Kampmark
Swine Flu Panic

Kim Ives
Lavalas and Haiti's Student Union Unite

Website of the Day
Meet the Paid Assassins of Health Care

July 24-26, 2009

Alexander Cockburn
"A Damned Murder, Inc."

Clifton Ross
Surreal Honduras

Patrick Cockburn
Party of "Change" Challenges Old Guard in Kurdistan

William Polk
Report Card on Obama From a New Frontiersman

David Sterritt
Screening the Politics Out of the Iraq War

Ray McGovern
Hooded in Bush's Hood

David Lindorff
Cops Gone Wild

Hannah Mermelstein
"The War is With the Arabs"

Carl Ginsburg
The Actually Existing Health Care System

Helen Redmond
The Selling of Single-Payer Features

John Ross
The Song of the Guerrilla

Bill Simpich
Fair Play for Cuba and the Cuban Revolution

Mark Weisbrot
Learning From China on How to Beat the Recession

Lee Sustar
U.S. Labor in Crisis

David Macaray
Union Workers Forced to Accept Massive Cuts

Felipe Matsunaga
Obama's Slow (and Familiar) Dance With Cuba

Sara Mann
Why Health Care Will Kill My TV

Martha Rosenberg
Which is Worse? Germs in Our Food or the Antibiotics That Kill Them?

Missy Beattie
Cha-ching Culture

David Ker Thomson
Empty Nest: a Natural History of Now

Ron Jacobs
United4Iran, a Footnote

Stephen Martin
The Crying of Lots 1 Thru 50

David Yearsley
Psst, I Show You a Feelthy Gluck

Gilad Atzmon
Bruno: a Glimpse Into Zionism?

Kim Nicolini
Guilty Laughter in the Dark: Seeing Brüno Twice

Poets' Basement
Kakak and McLellan

Website of the Weekend
Dead Prez: Summertime

July 23, 2009

Jeffrey St. Clair
The Masters of Perfidy: AIG and the System

Saul Landau /
Nelson Valdés
Hypocrisy and the Honduran Coup: Term Limits Only Apply When Governments Help People

Jonathan Cook
The Reality of Israel's "Open" Jerusalem

Nadia Hijab
Israeli Warships in the Red Sea

Dave Lindorff
Living in a Police State: the Gates Incident

Laura Carlsen
21st Century Coups d'Etat

Steve Breyman
Bankers Beware?

Ellen Brown
How California Could Turn Its IOUs Into Dollars

Norman Solomon
Spinning Health Care

Jorge Mariscal
Youth Activists Demand Military-Free Schools

Website of the Day
Copy-Editing Sarah Palin

July 22, 2009

Bernard Chazelle
How to Argue Against Torture

Nikolas Kozloff
The Coup and the U.S. Airbase in Honduras

Carl Ginsburg
The Recovery, Phase Two

Clifton Ross
Back to the Future? Return to El Salvador

Anthony DiMaggio
Health Care, Media and the Case for Socialized Medicine

Michael Donnelly
The Whoppers Behind WOPR

Nadia Hijab
Memoirs of a Lost Arab World

Dedrick Muhammad
Structural Inequality: News Not Fit to Print?

Charles Thomson
Cronyism at the Tate

Alan Farago
Ted Williams and the Florida Keys

Website of the Day
Himmelstein: Howard Dean is a Liar

July 21, 2009

Sasan Fayazmanesh
The Iranian Election and Its Aftermath

Uri Avnery
Breaking the Silence on Israeli War Crimes

Dean Baker
Séance on Wall Street

Jonathan Cook
Team Twitter: Israel's Internet War

Dave Lindorff
Saving Private Bergdahl

Andy Worthington
Interrogating the Uighurs

David Macaray
Heat, Dust and OSHA

Carl Finamore
The Deferential Party

Harvey Wasserman
Cronkite and Three Mile Island

Walter Brasch
The Marie Antoinettes of Health Care

Website of the Day
Linebaugh: Magna Carta and the Commons

July 20, 2009

Pam Martens
Judicial Apartheid

Nikolas Kozloff
Honduras and the Big Stick: Obama's Bullish Behavoir in Latin America

Paul Craig Roberts
Threatening Iran

Deepak Tripathi
Obama's Policy on China and Iran

Ira Glunts
Netanyahu's Time Bomb: Building in the Vineyard of the Mufti

P. Sainath
Put Your Money Down, Boys

Binoy Kampmark
The Moon Landing and the Cold War

Stephen Fleischman
The First Anchorman

Norman Solomon
Cronkite and Vietnam: Beyond the Hype

Andy Worthington
Predictable Chaos as Gitmo Trials Resume

Ron Jacobs
Out of the Haze, Into the Darkness: Recalling 1979

Website of the Day
Why Publishing Can't be Saved (as it is)

July 17-19, 2009

Alexander Cockburn
"Watch What We Do, Not What We Say"

Nikolas Kozloff
Chiquita in Latin America: From Arbenz to Zelaya

Joanne Mariner
CIA Apples: Bad at the Top of the Tree

Joe Bageant
America's White Underclass

Jonathan Cook
Israeli Road Signs: Wiping Arabic Names Off the Map

Saul Landau
Why So Much Sympathy for Madoff's Dupes and So Little for the Poor?

John Ross
Jurassic Fallout in Mexico

Sue Sturgis
Senator Sessions, Race and Impartiality

Anita Sinha /
Daniel Farbman
The Ricci Case and the Myth of Special Treatment

Peter Morici
Obama's Donut Economics

Pervez Hoodbhoy
Whither Pakistan? A Five-Year Forecast

Ramzy Baroud
Gaza and the Language of Power

Greg Moses
The Real Demand Crisis

Kia Mistilis
The Niger Delta Crisis

Missy Beattie
The Placebo President

David Ker Thomson
How Not to See: Things to Tell Your Eyeballs

James G. Abourezk
Evil Spirits: the Booze Strip in Indian Country

Paul Richards
Why Does Jon Tester Want to Log Wild Montana?

Dave Lindorff
Dark Days for Working People (With Three Small Rays of Light)

Marc Levy
Just Like Hanoi Jane

Matt Siegfried
The Good War Goes Hot

Stephen Martin
Panopticon Blues

Ben Sonnenberg
Sembène's Faat Kiné

David Macaray
Casablanca: When Melodrama Trumped History

Charles R. Larson
A Pakistani, Victorian Novel Celebrating Women

David Yearsley
That's Women for You: Abbas Kiarostami's Così

Lorenzo Wolff
Death Rattle and Roll: the Sound From England's Gutters

Poets' Basement
Payne, Anderson and Williams

Website of the Weekend
Hitler Learns of Sarah Palin's Resignation

July 16, 2009

Paul Craig Roberts
What Economy?

Afshin Rattansi Iranian Planes and the Hidden Toll of Economic Sanctions

Gregory V. Button
The Search for Environmental Justice in Perry County, Alabama

Evan Knappenberger
Profile of a Deserter

Michelle Bollinger
Why is Leonard Peltier Still in Prison?

Russell Mokhiber
White House to ABC News: No Obama Single-Payer Doc

Belén Fernández
Iranian Penetration, Oh My!

Alice Walker
What is Torture Like? A Letter to Obama

Nicholas Dearden
Paying the Climate Debt: the G-8's Troubling Model

Albert Osueke
Sotomayor and the Identity Mountain

Website of the Day
Sotomayor for the Prosecution

July 15, 2009

Manuel Garcia, Jr.
The Assassination Bureau

Vijay Prashad
A Political Recession

Dean Baker
Stimulus Arithmetic

Ray McGovern
Cheney Sweating Bullets

Jonathan Cook
Jenin's Model of "Economic Peace"

David Rosen
Shouts From the Gallery: the Sotomayor Hearings and the Culture Wars

Eric Walberg
Uighurs vs. Afghans: a Study in Contrast

Greg Moses
Three Dimensions of a Complete Stimulus Plan

Sousan Hammad
Decolonizing Israel

Binoy Kampmark
The Trial of Charles Taylor

Tracy McLellan
The Story of My Arrest

Website of the Day
11 Days in Saudi Gitmo

July 14, 2009

Eamonn McCann
The Emperors of Bombast: Bono, U2 and the Crisis of World Capitalism

Joanne Mariner
Obama's New Euphemism

Franklin Spinney
The Taliban Rope-a-Dope

Steve Heilig
Walking Mount Tam: an Interview with Gary Snyder

Ali Abunimah
Hamas' Choice

Dave Lindorff
The End of "Nice" Health Care Reform

Nikolas Kozloff
The Politics of Destabilization: McCain and Honduras

Ellen Brown
From Golden State to Subprime State

Alice Slater
How US Missile Defense Plans Sabotaged Nuclear Disarmament Talks With Russia

Ron Jacobs
Protest U.S. Aggression

Joe Allen
The Fight to Save James Hickman in Jim Crow-Style Chicago

Website of the Day
Mel Brooks Does the French Revolution

July 13, 2009

Uri Avnery
The Essence of the Regime

Mike Whitney
The Deflating Economy

P. Sainath
How the World Depression Hits Orissa

Gareth Porter
A US / Iraq Conflict on Iran

Paul Moore
Rap in the Streets, Rap in the Suites

Tim Wise
Off the Deep End: Private Clubs, Public Prejudice

Andy Worthington Former Insider Shatters Credibility of Military Commissions

David Macaray
Cartoon Voices: Serf's Up in Hollywood

Cal Winslow
The Healthcare Worker War

Niranjan Ramakrishnan
Spring in the Time of Obama

Website of the Day
Washington's Deep Game with China

July 10-12, 2009

Alexander Cockburn
Obama's Biden Problem

José Pertierra
The Cuban Five: a Cold War Case in a Post-Cold War World

John Ross
After the Honduran Coup

Conn Hallinan
The Settlements and the Quartet

Nikolas Kozloff
C Street Band: Sex Scandals, Moral Hypocrisy and the Far Right Agenda in Latin America

Clifton Ross /
Marcy Rein
U.S. and Honduras: Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Good Neighbor

Carl Ginsburg
Summers' Clouded Crystal Ball

Michael Neumann
Say It Loud, Say It Proud: There is No God!

Gilad Atzmon
The Left and Islam: Thinking Outside of the Secular Box

Jeffrey St. Clair
The Parable of the Golden Parachute

Ellen Hodgson Brown
California Dreamin': How the State Can Beat Its Budget Woes

Jim Goodman
Rural America Needs More Than Listening Sessions

Christopher Bickerton
Europe's New Politics of Hard Times

Wendell Potter
Health Care Industry Adopts Tobacco Lobby's Tactics

Dave Lindorff
CIA Lies: Why Isn't Congress in Open Revolt?

David Ker Thomson
Switchbacking Toward Bastille Day

Anthony DiMaggio
The Michael Jackson Feeding Frenzy

Raymond Lawrence
Michael Jackson as Sexual Pervert: the Calumnies of Peter King

Walid El Houri
Neda and Marwa: a Tale of Two Murdered Women

Stephanie Westbrook
Yes, We Camp

Roger Gaess
The Shades of Highgate Cemetery

David Yearsley
Tara, America's Dream House

Kim Nicolini
Caution: Men at Work, Robbing Banks

Poets' Basement
Five Poems From the Japanese

Website of the Weekend
Free Tiga and Hugh!

Weekend Edition
August 14-16, 2009

As Hostilities Loom, Propaganda War with Venezuela Heats Up

Colombian Elites Fear Bolivaran Revolution

By NIKOLAS KOZLOFF

As a result of Colombian President Álvaro Uribe’s decision to allow six U.S. military bases on his country’s soil the propaganda war has heated up in the Andean region. In neighboring Venezuela, Hugo Chávez says Colombia is seeking to destabilize the border and has hinted that war could be imminent.

When Uribe and Chávez slug it out rhetorically the two constantly employ historical references, in particular to the Great Liberator Simón Bolívar. A leader of the independence struggle against Spain, Bolívar was a member of the Caracas aristocracy and liberated Venezuela, Colombia and Ecuador from imperial rule in the early nineteenth century.

Why is this Bolivarian rhetoric still so common and integral to politics in the Andean region? To answer that question I wrote a piece for the Washington, D.C-based Council on Hemispheric Affairs in March, 2008. I was prompted to write the piece in response to the political crisis stemming from a Colombian military raid on a FARC guerrilla encampment within Ecuadoran territory. For years the Colombian government has been at war with the leftist FARC and is wont to pursue its political enemy across its borders in Venezuela to the east and Ecuador to the south.

Then as now, Uribe’s U.S.-assisted military brinksmanship resulted in a rhetorical outburst from Chávez. In light of the current crisis and threat of war perhaps it’s instructive to revisit my original piece for the Council on Hemispheric Affairs, followed by some up to date commentary:

Colombia-Ecuador-Venezuela: A Close Call

“As last week’s diplomatic crisis between Venezuela and Colombia demonstrates, Chávez has once again sought to appropriate historical symbols in an effort to score political points. Employing explosive language, Chávez remarked ‘Some day Colombia will be freed from the hand of the (U.S.) empire. We have to liberate Colombia.’

At its peak, the political battle lines of the triangular confrontation embracing Colombia, Venezuela, and Ecuador had been drawn. On the one side was Colombia, a key U.S. ally headed by rightist Álvaro Uribe. On the other side was Chávez, who seeks to turn Venezuela into a powerful regional player that may serve as a counterweight to Washington’s desire to project its authority. Ultimately, Chávez seeks to plant his socialist economic agenda fused with a parliamentary democratic political system throughout the region and to this end he has been able to recruit key allies such as Ecuador, Bolivia, Nicaragua, and, of course, Cuba.

Bolívar and His Historical Legacy

When Chávez employs the word ‘liberate,’ he conjures up the epic struggles from South America’s stormy political past which gave the continent its present borders. The Venezuelan leader clearly intends to make an association with Bolívar, a Venezuelan native hero who liberated Colombia from the Spanish. Bolívar, the ‘Great Liberator’ is revered by many as a great hero in the lands that he freed from Spain.

A tactical military genius, Bolívar was also a skilled politician who in 1819 adroitly managed to briefly unify Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela and Panama into one large nation state called the Republic of Gran Colombia. The Great Liberator believed Venezuela would carry more prestige as part of a larger entity than it could ever hope to acquire on its own. ‘Only a Venezuela united with New Granada [Colombia] could form a nation that would inspire in others the proper consideration due to her,’ Bolívar once argued. Because of Bolívar’s cult-like status in the region, it’s critical for Chávez to prove that he is on the right side of history, and that he, and no one else, has inherited the true mantle of the Great Liberator.

The Standoff

The recent crisis involving a Colombian military incursion into Ecuador is politically tailor-made for Chávez, and the Venezuelan leader has wasted little time in seeking to exploit it. The diplomatic tit-for-tat was set into motion on March 1st when, in flagrant disregard for Ecuadoran sovereignty, the Colombian government ordered an attack of a FARC guerilla camp site in Ecuador, a mile from the Colombian border. For years, the Marxist FARC has been locked in a protracted struggle with successive Colombian governments in Bogotá.

From a military and strategic standpoint, Uribe has some reason to be pleased: seventeen rebels were killed in the raid, as well as Raúl Reyes, the FARC’s second in command. Though there’s no evidence that the U.S. helped to plan the attack, the Southern Command in Miami might have played a role by providing intelligence to the Colombian military.

For years, the U.S. has provided billions of dollars in military aid to the Colombian government which has been at war not only with left wing guerrillas but also with other progressive forces such as indigenous peoples, human rights workers, and labor union activists. The Uribe government has been tainted by human rights abuses and its association with right wing paramilitary death squads.

While Uribe has been aggressively prosecuting the war almost from the onset of his presidential term, he has now succeeded in escalating the conflict beyond its borders. Predictably, Ecuador immediately recalled its ambassador to Colombia and ordered troops to deploy to the border. Predictably, Chávez backed up Ecuador by similarly recalling its ambassador to Colombia and massing troops on its western border. Uribe then hit back against Chávez, accusing him of supporting the FARC guerrilla insurgency and encouraging terrorism.

Employing Bolívar as a Rhetorical Tool

Although it has always been somewhat unlikely that the border dispute would result in actual military hostilities, it appeared to be very risky (at least for part of the time). For a while, Chávez appeared intent on stepping up his non-stop public relations blitz against President Uribe. For the Venezuelan leader, part of his future efforts are likely to hinge on appropriating historical symbols such as Bolívar and casting the Colombian regime as enemies of the Great Liberator and his legacy. Bolívar, Chávez has said, was a socialist like himself; was stridently opposed to the United States, and, also like himself, was determined to build a classless society. What’s more, the Venezuelan leader argues, Bolívar’s dream of uniting Latin America represented a threat to oligarchs and imperialists, thus awakening the ire of the United States.

Chávez has no doubt taken some historical liberties and embellished his causal intellectual ties to Bolívar. The Liberator never talked about class struggle per se, though he did refer to the need to abolish slavery. The Liberator also issued decrees for the establishment of schools (for boys as well as girls), deplored the misery of indigenous peoples, and ordered the conservation of forest resources.

But Bolívar was perhaps most forward looking when he spoke of the necessity of integrating Latin America. It was Bolívar, early on, who understood that the region had no future unless it confronted both Europe and the U.S. as a unified bloc. The United States, Bolívar once famously declared, seemed ‘destined by providence to plague America with misery on behalf of freedom.’

Chávez has said that he will not rest until Venezuela is liberated from the ‘imperialist and anti-Boliviaran threat.’ He frequently draws comparisons between Bolívar’s struggle against the Spanish Empire and his own political confrontation with the United States (which Chávez habitually refers to as “The Empire”). Employing his usual penchant for making over self-serving historical connections, however far-fetched they may be, Chávez recently warned Colombian ‘oligarchs’ not to tangle with Venezuela. ‘Don’t even think about it,’ he said, or ‘you would run into the soldiers of Bolívar.’

Bolívar’s Cult of Personality in Venezuela

Given the prominence that Chávez has attached to Bolívar in his public speeches, it’s not surprising that books about the Great Liberator are briskly selling in Caracas. In Venezuela, Bolívar is revered as a God-like figure and his popularity continues to soar. Indeed, a popular religion based on the fertility goddess of María Lionza has appropriated Bolívar as one of its central ritual figures. The faith is based on indigenous, black, African, and Catholic roots, and priests hold ceremonies in which the spirit of the Liberator is channeled through a medium who coughs when Bolívar is present, since Venezuela’s most distinguished native son had a debilitating case of tuberculosis. Meanwhile, religious altars of the faithful generally feature a portrait of Bolívar.

Venezuela’s currency, main squares, and universities bear the Liberator’s name. His sayings are taught in schools, broadcast on the radio and emblazoned on government buildings. Chávez almost reverentially has referred to his political movement as a ‘Bolivarian Revolution.’ Chávez has renamed his country the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela and has reportedly left a chair empty at meetings to honor the Liberator.

Chávez supporters, or Chavistas, have dubbed the areas they politically control as ‘liberated zones of the Bolivarian Republic,’ and adorn offices and homes with portraits of the Liberator. Chávez has promoted so-called Bolivarian Circles, local grassroots groups at the local or barrio level, which lobby the government for important grass-root resources.

Meanwhile, Chávez champions Bolívar’s idea of a unified South America, and echoes the Liberator’s words during his televised speeches. Chávez also likes to appear on television with a portrait of Bolívar near at hand. Riding along Caracas highways, one may see repeated instances of murals juxtaposing portraits of Chávez and Bolívar.

In Caracas, a key historic landmark is Bolívar’s house as a youth. Located along downtown streets crowded with informal vendors, the house is often full of visiting school children. In conjunction with the author’s next book, Revolution! South America and the Rise of the New Left (to be released April 1 with Palgrave-Macmillan), a visit is paid to the museum, and its director, Mercedes García, is interviewed.

According to her, Chávez’s chronically lengthy speeches awakened an interest in the Liberator. The volume of people visiting the museum has been increasing, and at the time I visited, 3,500 individuals were showing up every week. In particular, there was great curiosity amongst the military, and soldiers from all over the county were paying visits to the museum.

War of Words Between Chávez and Uribe: It’s All About Bolívar

Uribe however has sought to question Chávez’s almost exclusive appropriation of Bolívar as a political icon. ‘The truth, President Chávez, is that if you are pursuing an expansionist project in this continent, Colombia has no place for that, project,’ Uribe remarked. ‘One cannot set fire to the continent, as you are doing, speaking one day against Spain, the next against the United States; abusing Mexico one day and Peru the next, and the day after that, Bolivia,’ Uribe continued. ‘One cannot abuse a whole continent, or set it on fire as you do, by speaking of imperialism, when you, based on your own ambitions, are looking to set up an empire.’

Seeking to rip down Chávez’s historical narrative, Uribe said ‘We cannot abuse history, we cannot stain the memory of our heroes, by disfiguring them in popular demagoguery, in misleading the people. We cannot mislead the people by misinterpreting the legacy of the Liberator Bolívar. Bolívar was an integrationist, but not an expansionist.’

Bolívar, Uribe continued, brought independence to South American nations, ‘but he did not bring them [newly independent countries] a new era of subjection.’ Turning up the rhetoric, Uribe added, ‘Bolívar did not spend his time trying to remove European domination from the Americans, only to impose his own terms with the power at his disposal—as you wish to do—on the people of Venezuela and on the people of Colombia.’

Sparing no opportunity to exploit his favorite subject, Chávez has accused Uribe of being a spokesperson of the ‘anti-Bolivarian oligarchy.’ The Colombian oligarchy, Chávez remarked, ‘Doesn’t want peace and believes it can mess around with us. Neither the Colombian oligarchy nor any other oligarchy can mess with us. Venezuela needs to be respected.’ In one of his typical bombastic flourishes, Chávez added that when Uribe accused him of carrying out Bolivarian expansionism in South America, the Colombian politician was talking like the U.S. President. Underneath Uribe’s mask, Chávez said, lurked President Bush.

Colombian Elite: Fearful of Bolivarian Revolution

Uribe’s diplomatic ripostes are not surprising, given the fortress mentality now prevalent within the Colombian elite. Within a rising tide of left social movements and progressive-minded regimes that have flourished throughout the region, Colombia remains a bastion of conservatism and reaction. What’s worse, many ordinary Colombians are beginning to gain inspiration from Chávez and his so-called Bolivarian Revolution, thus adding to the Colombian elite’s sense of political isolation.

In several Colombian provincial states, Bolívar has again been politicized. Recently, Colombians formed Bolivarian Circles similar to those common in Venezuela. In Barranquilla, a Colombian port, barrio and social activists, union organizers and some members from the Polo Democrático left opposition have united to form the Corriente Bolivariana Colombiana (Colombian Bolivarian Current), a political organization that claims almost 5,000 members and fields candidates in local elections.

A worrying consideration for the Colombian elite is that Chávez may have an ideological impact not only upon ordinary Colombians, but also those Colombians living in Venezuela. For years, Colombian immigrants have fled the war in their country, fleeing across the border and seeking greater economic opportunity. Unfortunately for the Colombian elite, many émigrés have returned to Colombia and helped to organize Bolivarian movements at home.

Oscar Manduca, a Bolivarian organizer and candidate in Atlántico state on the Caribbean coast, has remarked, ‘This is a social movement against poverty in Colombia. Venezuela’s revolution can help change things here through solidarity and cooperation across the frontier.’ Meanwhile the Movimiento Bolivariano de Colombia S A (sin armas)—the Bolivarian Movement of Colombia (without arms)—is presenting an electoral challenge to right wing politicians who control politics along the Colombian frontier in Santander state.

Containing the Bolivarian Revolution

Ever since Chávez was elected in 1998, the Colombian media establishment has been implacably opposed to the Venezuelan leader and commonly refers to Chávez as a dictator or caudillo. Venezuelan commentator Gabriel Bustamante believes that Colombian journalists ‘don’t know, and don’t want to know, anything positive’ about political and social changes in his country. ‘Revolutions threaten their privileges, so there is a need to create Chávezphobia —an excessive and irrational fear about Chávez and even Bolívar to try to stop Colombians being influenced,’ he said.

There would seem to be a fair degree of truth in what Bustamante says. The newspaper El Tiempo, a bastion of elite sentiment in Bogotá, has editorialized that ‘Caudillos like Chávez have historically impeded the consolidation of liberal democracy in Latin America.’ Rafael Nieto, a columnist at the Colombian magazine Semana, worries that ‘Polo Democrático leaders going to Caracas and Bolivarian officials in Bogotá could become a daily occurrence.’

Echoing elite opinion, the Uribe government has acted to limit Chávez’s political influence within Colombia. Before diplomatic relations wound up in tatters, Uribe was careful in handling Chávez when the latter visited Colombia. Uribe forced the Venezuelan president to meet him at an isolated hacienda rather than allow his presidential motorcade to travel through the capital.

What’s more, a meeting with opposition Polo Democrático leaders had to be conducted after midnight, in private at the Venezuelan Embassy. When Chávez asked to visit Bolívar’s historic hacienda in central Bogotá, the authorities (who were afraid that the Venezuelan leader would come into contact with ordinary Colombians) denied his request. Meanwhile, Colombia’s intelligence services cracked down on the Corriente Bolivariana Colombiana, raiding a political meeting of the group on the coast. Armed Forces Commander Freddy Padilla commented that ‘Bolivarian circles are spreading all over Latin America, and particularly here in Colombia we want to prevent this from happening.’

Santander: Chávez’s Great Historical Villain

Within this climate of escalating political tensions, Chávez has whipped up a furor by making skillful use of his own historical narrative. He has referred to the ‘Colombian oligarchy’ as the most rancid and criminal elite group in Latin America. The oligarchy, Chávez says, descends from a despicable historical figure named Francisco Paula de Santander. For Chávez, Santander, Bolívar’s Vice President, is a great historical villain.

It was Santander, Chávez charges, who was most responsible for bringing down South American unity and dashing any hope that the Bolivarian independence struggle might lead to real political change. By 1825, Bolívar’s influence on the countries that he had liberated was on the wane. Returning to Bogotá from his military campaigns, the Liberator resumed his duties as president of Colombia but found that he had little political support from government officials and the local citizenry.

In 1827 he pushed for a new Colombian constitution that would have increased the power of the president. But a constitutional convention in 1828 rebuffed Bolívar and rejected any change to the constitution. It was a stunning reversal for him. Egged on by his supporters however, he struck back by assuming dictatorial powers. Predictably, such a move did not go over well amongst Colombia’s political elite.

Sporadic uprisings broke out in opposition to Bolivarian rule, and in 1828 a group of conspirators in Bogotá, tiring of his dictatorship, broke into the presidential palace intent on murdering him. It was Santander, Chávez claims, who was the intellectual author of the plot to kill Bolívar and thus sabotage the Great Liberator’s political project.

Though Bolívar survived the infamous ‘Black September Night’ attempt against his life, Colombia’s continued opposition to his united Latin America dream disillusioned him. Dispirited and disheartened, the Great Liberator resigned as president. By now sick with tuberculosis, Bolívar departed Bogotá for the Caribbean coast.

Gran Colombia was already in shambles: Venezuela had left the Republic as had Ecuador and the new nations Bolívar helped to found were wracked by violence and internal dissension. Bolívar died on the way to Cartagena on December 17, 1830, at the age of 47. Bolívar asked to be buried in his home city of Caracas, but he had so many political enemies that his family feared for the safety of his remains. In 1842, his body was finally taken home.

Seeking to take advantage of Bolívar’s tragic death and political eclipse, Chávez has remarked, in yet another questionable historical leap, that Uribe is a spokesperson for the ‘Santanderean’ and ‘anti-Bolivarian’ oligarchy. Uribe responded in turn that the Venezuelan president was manipulating history and that Santander “gave us the example of adherence to the law. The truth, President Chávez, is that we cannot make a mockery of the law, as you do, trying to abuse General Santander, and exchange the rule of law for personal whim.”

Bolívar’s Death: Chávez Suspects Foul Play

Taking his picturesque concept of history to yet greater political heights, Chávez is now intent on proving that Bolívar was poisoned by corrupt oligarchs and did not succumb to tuberculosis. The Venezuelan leader asserts that in Bolívar’s day, tuberculosis was not lethal enough to cause death in a few scant weeks. As evidence to support his version of the medical arts, Chávez points to one of Bolívar’s letters in which the Liberator discusses his future plans. Bolívar wrote the letter shortly before his own death.

‘Some say he [Bolívar] was very ill and knew he was going to die, and he wanted to die by the side of the sea and he died happy, and Colombia was happy and Venezuela was happy,’ Chávez said in a long speech. ‘How the oligarchs fooled us, the ones here, the ones there. How the historians who falsified history fooled us.’

The Venezuelan leader recently convened a high commission, led by his vice president and composed of nine cabinet ministers and the attorney general. Their mission: exhume Bolívar’s remains, which lie in a sarcophagus at the National Pantheon in downtown Caracas, and conduct scientific tests to confirm Chávez’s contention—that diabolical assassins murdered Bolívar. ‘This commission has been created because the executive considers it to be of great historical and cultural value to clarify important doubts regarding the death of the Liberator,’ Venezuela’s official Gazette said.

Even Chávez’s most stalwart supporters say their leader may have gone too far this time. ‘This doesn’t make any sense,’ said Alberto Mueller Rojas, a retired general who works as a presidential adviser on international affairs and military matters. ‘Why should I care? Bolívar died. If they killed him, they killed him. If he died of tuberculosis, he died of tuberculosis. In this day and age, this doesn’t have any significance.’

In his historical novel, The General in His Labyrinth, the legendary Colombian writer Gabriel García Márquez portrayed Bolívar as a man of the people opposed by a reactionary oligarchy. However, neither García Márquez nor any serious historian has suggested that the Liberator was poisoned. John Lynch, a Bolívar biographer, points out that as the Liberator lay dying he was watched over by a ‘qualified and conscientious’ French doctor whose medical bulletins were later published in Caracas. Lynch has accused Chávez of “a modern perversion” of the mythical cult of Bolívar.

It’s unlikely that Chávez will ever be able to prove his historical hypothesis by exhuming Bolívar’s tomb, but at least he will have succeeded in scoring more points in the never-ending propaganda war against Uribe. As the frail diplomatic engagement continues in the upcoming weeks, and Ecuador, Colombia and Venezuela try to tame their simmering wrath, it won’t be surprising if we hear yet more Bolivarian rhetoric coming from adjunct professor Chávez. Almost two hundred years after his death, Bolívar is still the central and defining figure in the lands that he formerly liberated, a region still wracked by chronic political instability, poverty, and glaring social inequalities.”

Looking back on my article written a little more than a year ago it is striking how little politics has changed in the Andean region. Indeed, Chávez continues to employ Bolivarian symbols and his government has sought to pass an education bill based on “the Bolivarian doctrine”: a term used by the Venezuelan President to describe his socialist political movement. The measure has generated considerable controversy with some protesters claiming that the bill will open the door to socialist indoctrination in schools. In the international arena meanwhile, Chávez has said that the U.S. seeks to fracture Bolivarian unity by installing its bases in Colombia and Soto Cano in Honduras [for more on the U.S. airbase at Soto Cano, see my previous columns].

Chávez never misses a chance to use Bolívar for political ends. In a column for the state-run Bolivarian News Agency the Venezuelan President recently made allusion to an early diplomatic encounter between Bolívar and the United States. In 1817, American ships sought to supply arms to Spanish forces opposed to Bolívar in Venezuela. When Bolívar captured the two ships Secretary of State John Quincy Adams sent a Baltimore journalist with political ambitions named John Baptiste Irving to negotiate with Bolívar.

In her book Venezuela and the United States: From Monroe’s Doctrine to Petroleum’s Empire, historian Judith Ewell writes that Irving was instructed to secure the release of the ships and the handover of the vessels to their rightful owners. Irving was also told to secure an indemnity for the lost cargo. Bolívar received Irving graciously as he hoped that the diplomatic envoy would extend U.S. political recognition to his movement.

However, diplomatic negotiations quickly deteriorated: Bolívar would not back down on his position vis-a-vis the ships while Irving failed to provide the coveted recognition. Bolívar grew disenchanted with the U.S., a power which in his view had failed to provide adequate support for South American independence movements. According to Ewell, Irving did not take Bolívar’s dismissal of the shipping issue lightly. For several months, the American fired angry notes back to Adams which characterized Bolívar as a tyrant and a “Don Quixote with ambition.” “The wheels of his [Bolívar’s] government,” Irving wrote, “are clogged already with imbecility.” In 1819 Irving finally gave up his mission and returned to the U.S.

In his column Chávez made reference to the Irving-Bolívar diplomatic spat, writing that the U.S. has historically sought to head off Latin American unity. To this day, Chávez says, Washington continues its geopolitical strategy in such nations as Honduras and Colombia. A few days ago, during a summit of South American nations held in Quito, Ecuador Chávez continued to hark on this theme.

Ecuador has pursued a political alliance with Venezuela and recently the Rafael Correa government refused to renew a lease for a U.S. military base located at the port city of Manta. In Quito, Chávez was joined by Correa as well as the deposed President of Honduras, Manuel Zelaya. During the summit Chávez compared Uribe to General Francisco de Paula Santander and remarked that in Ecuador “Bolívar’s sword is more alive than ever.”

“Now I understand why Bolívar got tied up with Manuela Sáenz,” Chávez added. The Venezuelan was making reference to Simón Bolívar’s lover, a native of Quito. As I note in my book Revolution! South America and the Rise of the New Left which came out just after I wrote my piece for the Council on Hemispheric Affairs, Sáenz is a potent political symbol linking Venezuela to Ecuador.

“To this day,” I wrote in my book, “Ecuador and Venezuela still have the same flag colors. Saenz belonged to the aristocracy and met the Liberator after the famed Battle of Pichincha. She accompanied Bolivar on his military campaigns, carrying out intelligence work, raising funds for independence forces, and cheering on the troops. Saenz also demonstrated great valor on the battlefield, seeing action during the Battle of Ayacucho…Saenz’s love letters to Bolivar are preserved in a Quito museum, along with some of her garments and an oil painting showing her in her childhood.”

In her day, Sáenz remarkably rose to the rank of coronela or colonel. Like Chávez, Correa is a politician who makes skilful use of historical symbols. Indeed, Correa recently raised Sáenz’s rank to generala or general in recognition of the woman’s efforts in the South American independence struggle.

Nikolas Kozloff is the author of Revolution! South America and the Rise of the New Left (Palgrave-Macmillan, 2008)

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