The last time James Bloodworth attacked the Venezuelan government, or the last time j'ai remarqué at any rate, he didn’t appear to know that Hugo Chavez first took office in 1999. In his dernière attaque, Bloodworth seems to have at least become aware of that much.
He tries to pass himself off as a leftist – the kind who applaudit Obama’s drone strikes all over the world but also moans that Obama heads “the most isolationist US Government in years”. The number of countries the Obama administration has bombed approaches deux chiffres. Bloodworth disregards facts as casually as he does the lives of people on the wrong end of US guns.
Bloodworth also pretends that nobody could reasonably doubt what “renowned” groups like Human Rights Watch (HRW) and Amnesty International say about Venezuela.
The worst political violence in the Chavista era has taken the lives of hundreds of peasants who supported the government. I’m sure Bloodworth doesn’t have a clue about this – and that he wouldn’t care if he did. It’s been routinely ignoré for many years by the international media and the “renowned” human rights groups. As I anticipated, I heard crickets chirping in response to an article I sent journalists based in Caracas about the trial of the accused killers of Sabino Romero.
Ken Roth has made such a bad joke of HRW in recent years that it is easier than ever to explain why its statements about Venezuela or any other country should be viewed with tremendous skepticism. Anyone who declares, as Ken Roth did, that the USA is the “world’s most powerful proponent of human rights” has fully embraced the US establishment’s delusions and doesn’t care who knows it. Those who want voluminous evidence of HRW’s subservience to the US government should read this letter to HRW and also watch ce débat that was hosted by Democracy Now.
Amnesty is not as bad as HRW, but that doesn’t say very much. It has long exhibited the kind of bias one expects from an NGO dependent on rich Western donors and that can afford to give its former secretary-general, Irene Khan, a $794,000 severance package.
Amnesty still hasn’t declared Chelsea Manning a Prisoner of Conscience – somebody who has been tortured and who is serving a 35 year prison sentence because decency compelled her to expose atrocities perpetrated by the US military. By contrast, in 2012 Amnesty immediately declared three jailed Riot Pussy members (all of whom are now released) to be Prisoners of Conscience. Amnesty has also applied preposterous doubles standards in its position on arming western backed rebels in Syria as opposed to Palestinians in the Occupied Territories.
In 2004, Haitian president Jean Bertrand Aristide was overthrown (in fact, kidnapped) by US troops. Amnesty never denounced the USA for perpetrating the coup. Amnesty also did very shoddy work in Haiti in other ways comme je l'ai expliqué ici.
In 2010, Amnesty made an absolutely outrageous claim about the Venezuelan TV media. Amnesty said that Globovision was “the only TV station whose license has not been revoked in recent years because of its editorial line”. The international media generally spread the lie that Globovision was the “last critical voice” – as if all the other TV stations refuse to broadcast criticism of the government. That’s completely false (vehement criticism of the government is regularly broadcast on the largest TV stations as explained ici), but Amnesty sunk lower and said that no other TV stations remained open. That was either extreme dishonesty or gross incompetence on Amnesty’s part.
As this Telesur piece points out, Amnesty’s dernière déclaration about Venezuela sidesteps the fact that environ la moitié of the 43 deaths in last year’s anti-government protests were caused by protesters. Amnesty does not demand that the primary cheerleaders and foreign donors to the opposition – the US government – refrain from backing another coup in Venezuela. The key word in the last sentence is “another”. The US State Department’s Office of Inspector General conceded that the US government was involved with a coup that briefly ousted Hugo Chavez in 2002:
« Il est clair que le NED [le National Endowment for Democracy], le ministère de la Défense (DOD) et d’autres programmes d’aide américains ont fourni des formations, un renforcement des institutions et d’autres formes de soutien aux individus et aux organisations considérés comme activement impliqués dans la brève éviction du gouvernement. gouvernement Chávez.»
A serious human rights group can only miss that if it wants to.
The governments of the Western Hemisphere have massivement opposed Obama’s efforts to promote a coup. They understand how easily any of them can be vilified by a US-led disinformation campaign. Obama’s government helped the 2009 military coup in Honduras succeed – something Hillary Clinton was brazen enough to acknowledge in her memoir – and it irrevocably opened many eyes in the region. Only fake leftists and compromised human rights groups would ignore it.
Spoiler Alert
The last time I rebutted a Bloodworth article about Venezuela, his response was to simply call me a “Srebrenica truther” on Twitter. Bloodworth’s smear was encouraged by the persistent liar and Murdoch stooge, Oliver Kamm. There is a fair chance these two geniuses will produce a sequel to that creep show. Their allegations against me are based on this book review which I hope many more people read.
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A clown indeed as is Kamm, but worth recalling that the “progressive” George Monbiot fully backs their vilification campaign against any rational questioning of the official story on Srebrencia.
And sure enough, he did the “Srebrenica truther” thing again on Twitter.
He’s a complete clown. I remember recently he was endorsing defences of Fallujah.
https://twitter.com/j_bloodworth/status/573228605171478531
True moral clarity from Jamie.