Venezuelan opposition tactics seem too USA-tailored

<a href=www.vheadline.com>Letters - Express Your Opinion/Reply Posted: Friday, March 28, 2003 By: Einnoc Lebrac

Date: Wed, 26 Mar 2003 19:45:07 -0800 (PST) From: Einnoc Lebrac venezuelanoestuya@yahoo.com To: editor@vheadline.com Subject: Letter to the Editor

Dear Editor: Perhaps I am naive, but I find that more and more the Venezuelan opposition tactics seem too USA tailored, the lies, the terrorist stories, the unproven proofs, the illegal legality of certain acts, the seemingly altruistic actions pretending to justify everything by claiming honorable intentions behind them. (e.g. the supposed Circulos de terror, the supposed guerrillas, the supposed Cuban infiltration, etc.)

When I say USA, I do not mean all Americans; only those who support the Bush administration’s outrageously invasive policies (my best friends happen to be Americans); and when I say the opposition, I mean all those who support the tactics being used to get rid of the President by destroying Venezuela. I do believe in clean opposition.

I was at a conference in Montreal, Canada, a few days ago and, during a break, of course the subject of conversation was the attack on Iraq. There were people from different countries, including a gentleman from Iraq who lives now in the USA. He was explaining certain things about his country that made me think of my dear Venezuela.

Of course the cultures are different between the two countries (Iraq/Venezuela) … although Americans seem to think the whole world should become Americanized, as if Democracy (as we know it in this side of the world) were the ultimate truth and the only way to drive a country, and therefore a mandatory way.

This gentleman from Iraq was saying that he believed that Saddam Hussein probably killed those Kurds with chemical weapons, but that apparently it was the USA who supplied Saddam with such technology at a time when using those weapons was not a bad thing … and I wonder, what reason did the USA have to give this kind of technology to this individual?

As I wonder why did Bin Laden end up having those weapons to kill Russians?

Is it perhaps that, when it suits the USA, the possession and use of those weapons is right, and when it does not suit their interests it is not?

I can not help but feel that the weapons that were not found in Iraq, now will be found … as soon as they get downloaded from the tanks and trucks that are arriving in Baghdad. Why? Because they have to prove it somehow. They have to justify the massacre of a country whose people have known the horrible consequences of inhuman economic sanctions.

• If the problem was Saddam, why didn’t they do this before… if they cared so much about the Iraqi people?

Some say, it is because it was convenient then to build terror around Saddam, to create a market to sell weapons in the surrounding countries to help them defend themselves from Saddam (even if in most cases, people did not even know how to use them, and had to import pilots and soldiers from Poland and other countries to fly those sophisticated machines, etc).

It is similar to the tactics of convenience being used by our own people in Venezuela.

People I had admired have become so greedy that they have not even stopped for a moment to think that if we open the doors for an American invasion (by asking them to intervene) they will not do it for nothing, and the price will be way too high to pay. Bombs will fall on our houses, buildings will be totally destroyed, people will die, and maybe by accident some of our own will fall as well.

Why do we insist on asking the Americans to fix our problems?

Who decided that they know it all?

What is it that people find so good about the US?

I have been there many times (have good American friends) and every time I visit, I get more scared of that society … the way teenagers treat their parents and teachers, the way they treat one another, the way police officers hit people, the rate of suicide, the rate of crime. They are just a bigger country with a bigger ego, and a bigger economy, but in my opinion, unfortunately, with a rotten society … where family means nothing anymore, where values don’t seem to count, where everybody is out for himself or herself.

The more they have, the more they want ... their “so evolved” government does not even care about protecting the environment for the generations to come.

Please, good American people (and I know there are millions of very good people out there) don’t take offence at my writing. You love your country and I love mine. I bet you would not want other countries from the “South” to come and invade your country and tell you to live your life in a “Southern” way.

It would be totally unjust, because your way of life is different than ours, and, as that of Iraq. I have said this many times ... Communism is a thing of the past, and perhaps so is your type of Capitalism.

A new world order is needed, and I believe Democracy/Capitalism is not it … at least not for other societies. The whole world is asking for change and advancement which Democracy has not been able to provide (except for those who are stronger and have used it to grow and flourish at the expense of others, by taking advantage of the corrupt and greedy governments of other countries).

Anyway, I find that these opposition tactics in Venezuela smell too much like “made in the USA” and it is scary!

Einnoc Lebrac venezuelanoestuya@yahoo.com

P.S. Readers, the above are my sincere thoughts/feelings … please do not send me more of your hate mail, as I will not read it… It is painful to realize that we Venezuelans are no longer communicating like Venezuelans … our methods of communication are now imported?