According to the Huffington Post, the Bush Administration has been insincere in its portrayal of Venezuela as state that supports terrorism and poses a security threat to the US. In fact, the writer, Mark Weisbrot, regards these "charges" against Venezuela as completely off-base and totally "ridiculous."
The claims by the Bush Administration that Venezuela is a state that "sponsors terrorism" is rooted in the seizure of computer files from Colombian military forces that suggested there were ties between Chavez and the FARC (a guerrilla revolutionary organization).
The New York Times recently came out smothering these claims saying that these computer files are far from authentic and that the Bush Administration has jumped to unfair conclusions. Overall, as Weisbrot suggests, this misinformation and inaccurate relay to the press by the Bush Administration has underscored the US' isolation of Latin America.
In other words, it seems that the Bush Administration made inaccurate claims based on un-supported assumptions that lead to our dismal relationship with Venezuela in order to promote his "War of Terrorism" agenda.
The two challenging democratic candidates for 2008, Clinton and Obama, have both voiced their plan to improve the US' relationship with the Latin America economically and through discourse. Hopefully, if one of them is elected, they commit to their plans and do better than the Bush Administration has.
No comments:
Post a Comment