Is “Operacion Tenazas” disinformation from the Venezuelan government?
Posted by Charles II on November 30, 2007
DemocracyNow! carried a segment with James Petras on the Operacion Tenazas story described below. Petras has not supplied any additional substantiation for the memo at the heart of this either on DemocracyNow! or in his Counterpunch article.
Charley points us toward a post by Larry Johnson discounting the report. Larry says:
State Department officers do not write memos to Hayden. Particularly mid-level Foreign Service Officers. A CIA officer under diplomatic cover sends his communications to headquarters via an encoded message. We call these messages cables, harkening back to the days of telegraphs and telegrams.This, in my judgment, is the work–very clumsy work at that–of the Venezuelan intelligence service eager to build on the truth that the United States has sought to oust Chavez.
This is probably correct. There are a number of things about the memo that raise questions, such as:
- How would it have been intercepted?
- Why would it have been routed from a field officer directly to the head of the CIA?
- Why is there only one name on the distribution list?
- Why did the Venezuelan government not supply a photocopy of the original in English?
- There’s phrasing that seems odd, such as “a group called Red Flag, long a sworn enemy of our interests in the country.” or “We have reaped the greatest successes in the spheres of propaganda and psychological operations, to the point that in the last weeks, we have imposed our agenda and dominated the publicity scene.” Cables tend to be dry and operationally oriented (See, for example this from Operation Condor).
- There is extraordinary discussion of individual personalities and a numbered bank account, details that would be unusual for communication to one of the top figures in government.
So, there’s plenty of reason to be skeptical about it. Unlike Larry Johnson, however, I don’t see any objections that are dispositive. It’s not unknown for very senior USG officials to be the point man on coups. Henry Kissinger on Operation Condor comes to mind. Nor is it impossible for that function to be outside of the Department of State. Rice is no Kissinger. My guess is that this has a 20% chance of being for real, and an 80% chance of being a fake… though perhaps one generated by the USG itself. The one thing that’s not at issue is that the tactics ascribed by the intercept to the USG have been used for real in the past.
Lee Sustar, a left voice, makes it clear that there is by no means unanimity within Chavez’s party on the reforms (see here). That’s important to understanding this. Venezuela is really divided into five camps: people who want socialism, people who would have a violent coup than permit socialism, people who realize that there has to be some way to stop the opposition from getting its way through violence and sabotage but are skeptical about the proposed reforms, people who are alarmed by the proposed reforms even though they acknowledge that Venezuela has race and class problems, and people who are totally confused by it all.
Choices! Choices! I guess things really are easier as long as Bush is the dictator.
4 Responses to “Is “Operacion Tenazas” disinformation from the Venezuelan government?”
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Mercury Rising 鳯女 
Phoenix Woman said
This is why we have brains, so we can use them to do things like a) sort out what’s being told us, and b) decide whether someone like Hugo Chavez is more worthy of our support (or at least tolerance) than, say, Pervez Musharraf or Islam Karimov.
CB said
Thanks for that assessment, and the point to Larry Johnson (also a Counterpuncher).
Rigged-up Latin American “October surprises” do have a long, strange and ignoble history (Brazil had a weird one in its last election, and then there was the role of Televisa’s Brozo the Ambush-Interview Clown in the desafuero incident in Mexico prior to its (fraudulent) elections). I imagine Bolivarians have probably seen “Our Brand is Crisis” (2004) too.
The Peruvian media recently gave heavy play to charges by backers of President Garcia that former President Toledo raped a young woman at a coke-fueled orgy. No substance at all to the charge, it seems, which was leveled the day before a censure vote on a member of Garcia’s candidacy. In Colombia, J.J. Rendón was caught on tape threatening a member of the La U party with a media-driven sex scandal if he did not perform a political chore required of him. The Fujimori trial in Peru, meanwhile, is bringing up the whole history of Vladimiro Montesinos again (bribed owners of news media with huge sums to ratfink Fujimori’s political opponents.)
The astonishing thing, I find, is not just that promiscuous relations between media and power is so violent and weird in Latin America, but that it seems to have taken such a firm hold in the United States of Alberto Gonzalez as well.
By the way, Eva “FOIA” Golinger’s post on the subject DOES promise an English-language version will be available, however.
For the life of me, I cannot seem to find the original text that supposedly aired on Venezuelan TV. You think maybe the translators might have jazzed it up a little for the boob tube? Another idle conjecture to toy with.
The Casas Memo incident during the Costa Rican referendum on the FTA only adds to the plausibility of nasty electoral dirty tricks, as do the rantings and ravings of those ORVEX people in Miami. Sadly, it is not hard to convince people here in LA these days that the United States of America is ruled by Springfield’s cheerfully kleptocratic “Diamond Joe” Quimby and his good buddy, “Fat Tony.”
Larry is right about how the story will play for domestic consumption, I imagine: “It may be hamhanded, but for internal Venezuelan consumption, this is brilliant psyops and should help Chavez further demonize the equally clumsy Americans.” In the land of trash TV — has anyone who lionizes Marcel Granier as a hero of Soviet freedom of expression ever actually WATCHED RCTV? — the ham actor is king.
Charley said
There is certainly reason for even socialists in Venezuela to be worried about the Constitutional reforms, but for the moment it is hard to see how the reforms Chavez has implemented would be able to continue without him. He appears to be trying to build community-based self-government models and in time that could be successful in developing a post-Chavez politics that does not return them to the oligarichal morass they were in before. Will he succeed? Will he change course? Can he be trusted?
All these are open questions. I rather doubt however, that the Venezuelan democracy is more precarious than our own.
Charles said
Charley says, “I rather doubt however, that the Venezuelan democracy is more precarious than our own.”
Well, there you have a point.
But how did we get here? Chiefly, we (or, rather, the leaders that supposedly represent us) were willing to repose our trust in one man.
I see the Venezuelan reforms not just as community-based. Rather, I see principles of indigenous governance in the splitting of power between workplaces, localities, and elective government. This is probably even more scary than socialism for the elites of Latin America.
For reforms of any kind to succeed, they have to not generate so much opposition that they unite the factions. They have to generate enough enthusiasm among their base so that people overlook the inevitable glitches. And they have to be understandable enough so that people don’t get lost along the way. I don’t think these reforms fit those basic parameters. If they go down, I think Chavez will get another try. But we will see.
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CB, interesting discussion of events that I had missed. I didn’t see the video version of “Tenazas,” and so can’t have an opinion on whether it was enhanced for TV, but will keep an eye out.
I didn’t think the Brozo interview was so bad. Politicians need to develop counterpunching skills and not take themselves too seriously.
One of our occasional commenters runs a blog about Mexico as the land of telenovelas. Real-life Mexican politics really is like watching Dallas (or other of the soaps) in Spanish. As long as you aren’t the one getting shot or disappeared or swindled, I suppose it’s entertaining.