Lesh Unleashed

Matthew Lesh strikes again! Recall that Lesh, now ensconced at John Roskam's neoliberal think tank, the Institute of Public Affairs (IPA), during his university years was the political director of the Australasian Union of Jewish Students (AUJS).

But first let one of The Australian's most rabid attack dogs, Chris Kenny, set the scene for you:

"[I]n a lengthy online report complementing her television and radio reporting for the ABC from Venezuela this month, Zoe Daniel failed to mention socialism... In fact, she referred to Chavez not as a socialist leader but as a 'charismatic, populist President'. Daniel's powerful piece, focusing mainly on the trauma and starvation faced by the populace was picked up by War News Updates, a news aggregator covering conflict zones. But it felt obliged to note the ABC's oversight.

"'WNU Editor: The authors of the above report do not mention the word 'socialism' in their report, nor how the policies of nationalisation and government confiscation completely destroyed what was once (one of) Latin America's top economies. Instead the focus on why people are starving in Venezuala is on sanctions, corruption, etc... in short, the usual excuses while ignoring the real reason why everything has collapsed'." (Socialists overlooked in ABC's Venezuela, 24/6/19)

Enter Lesh, in Kenny's words:

"Elsewhere, the Institute of Public Affairs' self-styled 'free market jihadi', Matthew Lesh, jumped on Twitter pointing out the missing factor and decrying the piece as 'disgraceful' and 'biased' misreporting. Daniel snapped back that she had referenced Chavez as socialist in other pieces filed that week and suggested Lesh was overcome by his own bias. Interestingly, the ABC seems to have reacted to the criticism. Among almost 2500 words, it altered one sentence with the addition of a solitary but important word. The original article posted on June 12 said: 'Charismatic, populist President Hugo Chavez was adored by the poor for his community support programs, free health care and education and generally subsidised living.' It was 'updated' early the next morning (the day after Lesh's tweet) to the following:

'Charismatic, populist President Hugo Chavez was adored by the poor for his socialist policies: community support programs, free health care and education and generally subsidised living'. This fiddle served more as an admission of error than a worthwhile correction of the analysis. It was just the inclusion of the trigger word, socialist, to square off against criticism and insulate from more." (ibid)

Two observations on Kenny's piece are in order here.

While Kenny invokes the Matthew Lesh of the Institute of Public Affairs, he studiously omits Lesh's AUJS/ Zionist background, surely a "fiddle" of equal proportions.

Second, sadly, how typical of the ABC to allow themselves to be spooked by the The Australian, as though its Zionist crusading really mattered.

Update 25/6/19: It should be pointed out that Kenny is indulging in a half-truth when he asserts that Hugo Chavez was a socialist. In fact, Chavez did not declare for socialism until 2006. IOW, from the April 2002 coup against him, which soon collapsed, and led to his speedy return to power in Venezuela, he could not be called a socialist. (See Comandante: The Life & Legacy of Hugo Chavez, Rory Carroll, 2013, p 143.  Carroll was the Guardian's chief correspondent in Latin America.

Venezuela for Dummies

So sad to see some otherwise bright people not quite up to scratch with the ongoing attempt by the US at regime change in Venezuela.

Maybe they've never heard of the CIA coups in Iran (1953), Guatemala (1954), or Chile (1973), to name but the tip of the US regime change iceberg last century. But surely, Iraq (2003), Honduras (2009), Libya (2011), and Syria (2011-) have lingered in their memory?

I wish.

So here, I think, is really all you really need to know about what's going on in Venezuela, which is to say all you really need to know about what is going on in the minds of the neocon/ziocon crazies who hold the levers of power in Washington:

"Every ten years or so, the US needs to pick up some small, crappy little country and throw it against the wall, just to show the world we mean business."

Learn those words by heart. They're standard operating procedure for imperial America, and for as long as it believes it has an unfettered right to interfere in, undermine, sanction, or invade other countries in order to facilitate its global corporate agenda of pillage and plunder, they will remain relevant.

The words, of course, come from US neocon warmonger Michael Ledeen, at a time when he was salivating at the prospect the 2003 US invasion, occupation and destruction of Iraq.

Since that time, Ledeen has been pleased to see the devastation of Libya, and no doubt still has his hopes set on that of Syria. While Iran is currently in his cross hairs, no one, including Venezuela, is safe from the neocon/ziocon lust for blood and domination. As the following full-throated howl from Ledeen makes abundantly clear.

(And do I really need to point out here, that for Ledeen - and Trump neocons/ziocons Bolton, Pompeo and Pence - 'tyrants' are those who resist being rolled by the Americans, and 'would-be revolutionaries' are CIA assets such as Venezuela's current US puppet, Juan Guaido?)

"The tyrants are in a jam, and Machiavelli pronounced tyranny the most unstable form of regime. I'd welcome stronger odors of rot in Caracas and Tehran, but there are some even so. I believe we must act. Speeches and sanctions are not likely to suffice. Our allies and the would-be revolutionaries have well-justified suspicions that, when their lives are on the line, the United States will not send in the Marines. Or even the Air Force. Hope they're wrong." (From What does a successful revolution smell like? Faster, please!, pjmedia.com, 1/3/19)

Get it?

Just Speculating...

Just two foreign policy reasons for consigning the government of Scott Morrison to the dustbin of history come the May election:

Not only has it recognised West Jerusalem as Israel's capital, it has now climbed on the USraeli bandwagon and recognised Trump puppet Juan Guaido as president of Venezuela. (Guaido gets Canberra's backing in Venezuela, Sydney Morning Herald, 29/1/19)

Australia has already involved itself militarily in USraeli wars of regime change in Iraq and Syria. Could Venezuela be next?

After all, Morrison wouldn't be the first political leader in history to try to stave off political oblivion with an overseas military adventure, featuring, of course, 'our best and bravest'.

The Simple Truth

In response to this tweet of Bernie Sanders@SenSanders...

The Maduro government has waged a violent crackdown on Venezuelan civil society, violated the constitution by dissolving the National Assembly and was re-elected last year in an election many observers said was fraudulent. The economy is a disaster and millions are migrating. 1/3 (24/1/19)

Asad Abukhalil@asadabukhalil tweeted...

Those who disappoint you on Palestine will disappoint you on Venezuela, and vice versa.

How true.

Magic Happens, even in The New York Times

Pence backs anti-Maduro moves was the header for The New York Times report recycled in yesterday's Sydney Morning Herald.

"US Vice-President Mike Pence," it began, "has declared the United States' 'unwavering support' for planned mass protests in Venezuela against president Nicolas Maduro, the most explicit backing yet by the Trump administration as opposition leaders try to unseat Maduro... 'We are with you,' Pence wrote on Twitter on Tuesday in both Spanish and English, adding, 'We stand with you, and we will stay with you until Democracy is restored and you reclaim your birthright of Libertad'."

The report went on to cover the ins and outs of the matter. These included the emergence of the president of Venezuela's National Assembly as a touted replacement for Maduro, and Trump's "all options are on the table" speech at the UN last September. All pretty standard fare for the average news junkie.

But then, magic, as the saying goes, happened, and lo and behold, came this truly prophetic, utterly subversive utterance, the third last paragraph:

"Many citizens of Latin America recall a long history of the US supporting coups in the region by right-wing military leaders who then quashed democratic processes and rule of law to maintain power for years and sometimes decades."

Was the nameless journalist - there was no byline - who secreted these timeless words of contextual wisdom in his report trying to tell us something? Something to do with the future of Venezuela if Pence and his cronies have their way?

Was he what!

Do These Fools & Knaves Really Think...

... we're not wise to their tricks?

2011:

"'The future of Syria must be determined by its people, but President Bashar al-Assad is standing in their way. For the sake of the Syrian people, the time has come for president Assad to step aside'... As Obama issued his statement, the leaders of France, Germany and Britain joined him in calling on Assad "to face the reality of the complete rejection of his regime by the Syrian people and to step aside'." (Assad must go, Obama says, Scott Wilson, The Washington Post, 18/8/11)

2019:

"A dozen Latin American governments and Canada have delivered a blistering rebuke to Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, questioning the legitimacy of his second term and urging him to hand over power as the only path to restoring democracy in this crisis-wracked South American country... The US is not formally a member of the [Lima] Group but has been a vocal supporter and US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo participated in the meeting by video conference." (Regional powers urge Maduro to step down, Franklin Brecino, AP/The Sun-Herald, 6/1/19"

Hypocrisy Overload

There is something really quite nauseating about a wet-behind-the-ears supporter of the failed fascist/apartheid state of Israel, which has been ethnically cleansing, occupying and colonising Arab Palestine since 1948, and subsists on US aid and weapons, lashing Venezuela as "a failing socialist state"; complaining that "the Australian government is rejecting temporary visa applications from [Venezuelan] students, and parents coming to visit their children who live here - because of the volatile situation"; and bemoaning Australia's failure to stand up for "freedom, democracy and the rule of law... abroad as well as at home." (Punching below our weight, we've not even stood up for our values, Matthew Lesh, The Australian, 29/8/17)

Lesh is a former official of the pro-Israel Australasian Union of Jewish Students (AUJS) and currently, according to his appended bio, "a research fellow at the Institute of Public Affairs."