Posted on 04/17/2002 9:34:48 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
Criticizing losers is easy — and it sure isn't hard to run off a list of what Venezuelan coup leaders did wrong in their botched ouster of Hugo Chavez. The momentary regime of Pedro Carmona shut down congress and the supreme court and moved to fire elected officials around the country — all very unpopular actions. It even screwed up the little things, such as not making sure Carmona's cabinet "looked like Venezeula" (to coin a phrase). According to the Wall Street Journal's Marc Lifsher, whose reporting on Venezuela has been invaluable, the pictures of the nearly all-white Carmona government did not sit well with the public.
There's really no dispute that the removal of Chavez would be a good thing for Venezuela and the United States. It is notable that the American Left, even with its low standards, has not adopted Chavez's cause in recent years. He may be Fidel Castro's best buddy on the mainland, but he's also seen as a corrupt demagogue who is not to be trusted.
What the American Left is starting to do, however, is use the incident as a tool for attacking the Bush administration. The Council on Hemispheric Affairs already is proclaiming that the CIA must have been involved because, well, isn't the CIA always involved? It also accuses the State Department's Latin American chief Otto Reich — who remains an obsession among the anti-anti-Communist set — of playing "dirty tricks" against Chavez.
New York Times columnist Paul Krugman was more thoughtful in taking a similar tack yesterday, though he was equally wrong. He attacked the Bush administration for its "foolish" and "stupid" response to the coup. Although Chavez is an unsavory anti-American, said Krugman, the United States must not allow "realpolitik" to trump the imperatives of our "shared democratic values." He continues: "Latin America has become a region of democracies — and these democracies seem remarkably robust."
This assumes too much. It is essential to remember that Chavez brought this coup upon himself, through his own autocratic actions, just as the state department said he did in an announcement last week. Chavez may have been elected, but that does not make Venezuelan democracy "remarkably robust." Quite the contrary. Civil society there has been in decline for quite a while, and it recently took a nosedive thanks to the misrule of Chavez. The coup occurred precisely because Venezuelan democracy is anything but healthy. (And it may be less healthy throughout South America than Krugman would have us believe; one of the reasons so many regional leaders condemned the coup is because they wanted to send a message about insubordination to their own militaries.)
This is not to say the coup was a necessary course of action, even from the standpoint of those who think Chavez must go. As Stephen Johnson of the Heritage Foundation points out, there were efforts already underway to remove Chavez from office through the devices of Venezuela's own constitution. It is possible to believe that his days were numbered without have to resort to extra-legal methods.
The coup went so badly that it's hard not to wonder whether Chavez didn't have a hand in it. He moves from a weakened position to a strengthened one. Let's be clear, however, in labeling this conspiracy theory as totally speculative. The enemies of the Bush administration won't be nearly so generous. Wednesday's New York Times, for instance, reports that Otto Reich urged Carmona not to dissolve the National Assembly, a claim the Times darkly interprets as "rais[ing] questions as to whether Mr. Reich or other officials were stage-managing the takeover by Mr. Carmona."
Except that Carmona apparently wasn't letting himself be stage-managed. But that doesn't matter. The Left now will make a determined effort to see the hand of Otto Reich behind it all — as if wishing would make it so.
"I'm very concerned about what message it sends about our support for democracy there and around the world," said Senator Tom Daschle, the Democratic majority leader. "I think that we've got to be supportive of democratic principles even when they choose to elect people we don't like."
In some ways, the back-and-forth between administration officials and Democrats recalled the suspicion and bitter policy battles over Central America and Cuba during the Reagan administration. The administration's foreign policy team is dominated by anti-Castro hard-liners, who fought those policy battles, and they are running afoul of familiar antagonists including Senator Christopher Dodd, a Connecticut Democrat who has long specialized in Latin American affairs.
Mr. Dodd expressed dismay that the administration had been slow to criticize Mr. Chávez's ouster. Administration officials erroneously reported on Friday that Mr. Chávez had resigned and said his antidemocratic behavior was responsible for his undoing. Only after Mr. Chávez had been restored on Saturday did the administration support a resolution at the Organization of American States condemning the interruption of democratic rule.
"While all the details of the attempted coup in Venezuela are not yet known, what is clear is that the vast majority of governments in the hemisphere lived up to their responsibilities under the Inter-American Democratic Charter, and denounced the unconstitutional efforts to take power from a government which had been freely elected," Mr. Dodd said.
Mr. Reich, who is a Cuban exile, warned Congressional aides that there was more at stake in Venezuela than the success or failure of Mr. Chávez. American officials accuse Mr. Chávez of meddling with the historically independent state oil company, providing haven to Colombian guerrillas and bailing out Cuba with preferential rates on oil.
In the closed door briefing, Mr. Reich said the administration had received reports that "foreign paramilitary forces" suspected to be Cubans were involved in the bloody suppression of anti-Chávez demonstrators, in which at least 14 people were killed, a Congressional official said today.
Mr. Reich, who declined to be interviewed today, offered no evidence for his assertion, the official said. ***
Otto Reich, the assistant U.S. secretary of state for Western Hemisphere affairs, phoned Carmona Friday and pleaded with him not to dissolve the National Assembly, the newspaper reported.
Reich, a Cuban American known for his opposition to Cuban President Fidel Castro told Carmona that such a move would be a "stupid thing to do," and provoke an outcry, the Times reported, citing a State Department official.
Earlier Tuesday, the Bush administration, which appeared to tacitly endorse the Chavez's short-lived ouster, said it met with the Chavez's opposition in recent months but denied encouraging a coup.
Chavez returned to office Sunday. He was deposed by military officers Friday after 17 people were killed during huge protests against his rule.
Despite Reich's prodding, the interim government led by Carmona attempted to fire all members of the Supreme Court and the National Assembly. It called for new congressional elections to be held by December.
President Bush appointed Reich during a congressional recess in January to bypass the legislative body's nomination approval process. Democrats had blocked Reich's nomination because of his staunch anti-Castro views and his role in the Reagan administration's controversial strategy against the Nicaraguan Sandinistas in the 1980s.
What the American Left is starting to do, however, is use the incident as a tool for attacking the Bush administration. The Council on Hemispheric Affairs already is proclaiming that the CIA must have been involved because, well, isn't the CIA always involved? It also accuses the State Department's Latin American chief Otto Reich — who remains an obsession among the anti-anti-Communist set — of playing "dirty tricks" against Chavez.And all of them must be posting on FR. Or it sure seems that way to me.
Even when the elected people are trying to phase out democracy and cozying up to communist dictators like Castro? There goes Dashhole with his Mr. Rogers analysis again...are there any lows this guy won't sink to?
Another noodle that won't stick. I think Daschle is trying to imitate Christopher "there's no commie I can't love" Dodd.
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