<a href=www.thestar.com>Source Mar. 23, 2003. 02:05 PM DAVID OLIVE

In his brief televised address last Monday, George W. Bush offered no rationale for the U.S. attack on Iraq.

The U.S. president left that task to his vice-president, Dick Cheney, described last week by the Wall Street Journal as having "the highest credibility with Bush" among White House war advisers.

For months, Cheney has quietly disparaged the diplomatic manoeuvres on Iraq, counselling Bush to topple Saddam Hussein by force.

Last Sunday, the reclusive Cheney made his first talk-show appearance in seven months to offer perhaps the U.S. administration's fullest justification yet for war in Iraq.

Here are excerpts from Cheney's interview with Tim Russert on Meet The Press:

Cheney: "We have to address the question of where might these terrorists acquire weapons of mass destruction ... and Saddam Hussein becomes a prime suspect.... We know he has a long-standing relationship with various terrorist groups, including the Al Qaeda organization."

Even the most hawkish supporters of war on Iraq acknowledge that the Bush administration has continually failed to establish a substantive link between Saddam and Al Qaeda, which drew most of its funding and its Sept. 11 hijackers from Saudi Arabian sources and sought refuge in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, Sudan and Florida, but not Iraq.

There is no evidence Saddam, in his more than 20 years in power, shared his weapons with terrorists.

And International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors can find no evidence of a current Iraqi nuclear program.

Terrorists would most likely tap the huge and poorly guarded nuclear-weapons stockpile of Russia, or equip themselves with nuclear material that an impoverished North Korea, desperate for hard currency, is openly threatening to sell to all comers.

Cheney: "I have argued in the past, and would again, if we had been able to pre-empt the attacks of 9/11, would we have done it? And I think absolutely."

Cheney is suggesting here that the U.S. wishes it could have mounted a pre-emptive strike on a nation behind the Sept. 11 tragedy. But there was no such nation.

As for what the U.S. could have done by way of pre-emption, the U.S. intelligence community failed to do what was expected of it pre-Sept. 11.

Late in the day, Bush was presented in August, 2001, with a U.S. intelligence warning of a Sept. 11-type threat and chose not to act on it.

Earlier in 2001, Cheney short-circuited a congressional effort to bolster anti-terrorism measures.

He chose instead to spearhead an anti-terrorism task force of his own, with the goal of ensuring that the White House, rather than Congress, would get the credit for any reforms that resulted. But the Cheney task force was virtually inactive in the months prior to 9/11.

Cheney: "If you look at the track record of the International Atomic Energy Agency.... They have consistently underestimated or missed what it was Saddam Hussein was doing."

The credibility problem here rests with the Bush administration, not the IAEA. Early this year, the U.S. and Britain gave U.N. inspectors what they described as irrefutable proof that Iraq tried to obtain uranium from Niger, presumably for a nuclear weapon. The documents were almost immediately exposed as forgeries.

Cheney: "Our objective will be ... a government that's preserving the territorial integrity of Iraq and stands up a broadly representative government of the Iraqi people."

It is unlikely the people Cheney has in mind to lead a post-war Iraq would be "broadly representative" of Iraqi civilians.

Cheney and his top aides are pressuring a reluctant U.S. State Department to find a significant governing role in a post-war Iraq for Ahmed Chalabi, an Iraqi exile whose family ran the country decades ago.

Chalabi is now eager to head a post-war Iraq. The wealthy Chalabi, a golf partner of Cheney since the mid-1990s, was convicted in a Jordanian banking scandal about a decade ago.

Cheney: "We need to be prepared to provide humanitarian assistance, medical care, food, all of those things that are required to have (post-war) Iraq up and running. And we are well-equipped to do that."

Not so, says the head of InterAction, the leading U.S. coalition of non-government overseas relief organizations.

"We don't think the relief and reconstruction needs of the Iraqi people will be adequately met, based on the overly optimistic scenarios we understand the U.S. government is using," InterAction head Mary McClymont told the Wall Street Journal.

Cheney: "That flow of (Iraqi oil revenue), obviously, belongs to the Iraqi people, needs to be put to use by the Iraqi people, and that will be one of our main objectives."

If oil-rich Nigeria, Venezuela, Iran, Sudan, Mexico and Indonesia are any indication, very little oil revenue trickles down to ordinary citizens.

One widely anticipated change in affairs, though: French oil giant Total SA, long active in Iraq, likely will be pushed aside by U.S. and British entrants including ExxonMobil Corp. and Royal Dutch/Shell Group, until now forbidden by their governments from exploiting the world's second-largest oil reserves.

Cheney: "As we go forward and look at the threat of rogue states and terrorists equipped with deadly weapons in the future, the only nation that really has the capability to deal effectively with those threats is the U.S. ... The fact of the matter is for most of the others who are engaged in this debate (at the Security Council), they don't have the capability to do anything about it."

As it happens, Security Council member China has a larger army than the U.S. and Britain combined. All five permanent council members Ñ the U.S., Britain and the anti-Iraq war China, France and Russia, have nuclear capability.

Nuclear weapons are the only proven "weapons of mass destruction" Ñ capable of widespread property destruction and the immediate, certain death of millions of people.

In asserting that other nations are not up to the job, Cheney is in fact claiming a new role for the U.S. as the world's sole "constabulatory" power, a term he and other hawks are using with increasing frequency.

The assumption of this role requires that international bodies, including those of America's own creation (the United Nations, NATO, the Organization of american States, etc.), must be discredited.

Cheney: "In the past, many of our friends in Europe and elsewhere around the world, when they see a state that's sponsored terror, frankly, was willing to look the other way ...."

The U.S. itself has looked the other way when confronted with reports of chronic human-rights violations by countries it supports.

It did so in the 1980s when Saddam was inflicting brutalities on his own people while warring with a U.S. enemy, Iran.

As CEO of the oil-services giant Halliburton Co. in the 1990s, Cheney headed a company in violation of U.S. government bans on the sale of goods to Iraq and other countries deemed by the U.S. State Department to be "rogue nations."

As late as 2000, Halliburton was Iraq's largest supplier of oil-field services, and CEO Cheney was lobbying the U.N. to lift sanctions on Saddam's regime.

Cheney: "After we got hit on 9/11, (the president) enunciated the Bush doctrine that we will hold states that sponsor terror, that provide sanctuary for terrorists, to account.... That's a brand-new departure. We've never done that before. It makes people very uncomfortable, but it's absolutely essential."

Dating from 1903, when the U.S. supported an uprising in the breakaway Colombia state of Panama to facilitate a U.S.-built canal, Washington has sponsored efforts at regime change in Guatemala, Iran, Cuba, South Vietnam, Chile, Afghanistan, Libya, Grenada, Nicaragua, Panama, Somalia, Haiti and Bosnia. This is not a complete list.

Cheney: "The U.S. has established over the last several years ... an unfortunate practice that we've often failed to respond effectively to attacks on the U.S.

We had situations in '83 when the Marine barracks was blown up in Beirut. There was no effective U.S. response.

"In '93, the World Trade Center in New York hit; no effective response. In '96, Khobar Towers.

"In '98, the east Africa embassy bombings. In 2000, the USS Cole was hit.

"And each time there was almost no credible response for the United States to these attacks."

What these incidents have in common is that Iraq had nothing to do with them.

Russert asked what would be next after Iraq. Would the U.S. consider military action to pre-empt the nuclear programs of North Korea or Iran?

Cheney: "I didn't come this morning to announce any new military ventures or, frankly, to take any off the table. We haven't thought in those terms."

In the late 1990s, Cheney, future U.S. defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld and several men who now work for them as top advisers began to think very much in those terms.

They signed a founding manifesto of the Project For A New American Century, a conservative Washington think-tank.

The manifesto called for the United States to stop working through the U.N., NATO and other organizations that constrain U.S. power, and to promote regime change around the world.

The director of the Project For A New American Century is William Kristol, who first gained attention as a vice-presidential adviser nicknamed "Dan Quayle's brain."

Kristol, who now edits the Rupert Murdoch-financed Weekly Standard, probably the most influential of America's neo-conservative journals, has said Saddam's ouster is only the beginning.

"We haven't persuaded the Bush administration of everything," Kristol was quoted recently.

"They need to rethink their policy toward Saudi Arabia.... The administration kicked the can down the road on North Korea, but that remains a threat."

Additional articles by David Olive

Posted: Friday, March 21, 2003 By: dburnett1@nyc.rr.com

Date: Thu, 20 Mar 2003 07:02:57 -0500 From: Daniel Burnett dburnett1@nyc.rr.com To: Editor@vheadline.com Subject: The real wealth of Venezuela

Dear Editor: “Venezuela has not lost its competitive advantages …. There is no other country in Latin America with such great natural reserves … oil, tourism potential, minerals, and a youthful population as well as its geographic position … Venezuela has tremendous advantages.”

I am sure that anyone who has spent time in Venezuela, or anywhere else in Latin America, has heard similar sentiments expressed many times. I've lost track of how many times I have heard Venezuelan acquaintances express utter bewilderment at Venezuela’s poverty when it is so richly endowed with natural resources. I have spent endless evenings in Guayaquil listening to Ecuadorians assert with great certainty that Ecuador should be amongst the worlds wealthiest countries given it’s cash crops of banana, coca, mango, and shrimp.

Of course, the natural wealth of South America is tremendous, and South Americans should be grateful for that. That Venezuela posses tremendous natural wealth, is made clear by the tens of millions of dollars invested in scouring its countryside with satellite imagery and seismic testing in search of black gold and other millions invested in extracting true gold from the Guayana.

There is, however, tremendous irony in these efforts to find quick wealth in Venezuela.

I have no access to the fancy technologies of these large oil and mineral corporations, but I believe I can easily find more wealth in Venezuela than they ever will. It is in plain sight all along the highway from Maiquetia in to central Caracas. It is all over the place in Petare, Chacao, and Catia. And where my relatives live, on the outskirts of Barquisimeto, you can’t walk 10 feet without bumping into it. Of course the “wealth” that I am referring to is the people of Venezuela.

Of all the false ideologies that have taken root in Latin America the most pernicious is the idea that wealth is something that comes from the land or what is beneath it ... all countries that have truly become modern, realize that the fundamental source of wealth is the human mind.

This should be clear from looking at the world around us. How many advanced countries can you think of that don’t have excellent educational systems? Germany, France, Canada, Japan, Korea, and Australia have a lot of differences in terms of what their histories have been and how the developed economically. At least two countries on that list have no natural resources to speak of. But one thing they all have in common is a very well-educated population and a superior educational system.

And what of the United States?  You know, the country whose public education system is often criticized by its own politicians as being deficient. Well, not only does the United States have a well-educated population, but its university system has no rival. When it comes to technical education (engineering, mathematics, and the natural sciences) US universities are the gold standard -- the best students from the world over strive to gain entry to US universities.

Conversely there are numerous countries that are well-endowed with natural resources but mired in poverty ... Nigeria, Sierra Leon, Zaire, and Venezuela are just a few of many such countries.

Of course, there are many historical reasons why some countries are economically advanced and others are not. A well-educated populace alone will not guarantee prosperity. But, while a well-educated population may not be a sufficient condition for development, it clearly is a necessary one.

In my previous letter I laid out what economic policies I believe need to be followed for Venezuela to develop. But, based on what I have shown above, it should be clear that improving the educational level of the Venezuelan population is equally vital for development.

So if we accept that, the question becomes what can Venezuela do to improve its educational system?

First the good news. By Third World standards Venezuela already has a relatively well-educated population. Over 88% of the Venezuelan population is literate, and the vast majority of its youth are enrolled in educational institutions. Hence, mass literacy campaigns like those of Cuba or Nicaragua are not what is needed.

However, no one should be satisfied to be good by Third World standards ... for Venezuela to create industrial corporations that can compete in the world economy, Venezuela must posses a population that is educated to First World standards. At present it is nowhere near possessing this.

Lets take this problem one step at a time.

First we must find a way to improve primary and secondary education. As most people, even in advanced countries, never receive a university level education, it is the quality of primary and secondary education that determines the overall educational level of the country. Further, it is not possible to have quality universities if the students coming into the universities (i.e. the product of the primary and secondary schools) do not already posses a good basic education.

The biggest problem in Venezuela is the same one faced by educators the world over. Namely, that most people’s educational attainment does not surpass that of their parents. For a country like Venezuela, where most of the parents are poorly-educated themselves, this is significant obstacle that must be overcome.

Here are several ideas that may contribute to solving this problem.

First, one must make schools a place where students will voluntarily attend and spend much of their time. One way of accomplishing this is providing three free meals per day for all students. Given that a large percentage of the Venezuelan population is always wondering where its next meal will come from, this will be a very important incentive for many families to make sure their children attend school.

It would also help if school hours were extended ... this serves an important pedagogical function in that the extra hours would be used as time for studying. Does anyone believe much studying takes place when students return home to the poorer areas of Venezuela?

Of course, once we have the students in the schools, we must have ways of making sure that real education takes place. To accomplish this, I propose adopting an idea that is near and dear to George W. Bush’s heart ... standardized testing. I would propose that there be nationwide exams for all grades and all subjects at the end of each school year. This would necessitate Venezuela having a standardized nationwide curriculum. Further, as the goal is to raise academic standards in Venezuelan schools, it is imperative that these exams be rigorous.

The purpose of these tests would be two-fold. First and foremost, it would measure the progress of the students. Students who did not pass these exams would not be allowed to proceed to the next grade. This allows educators to be sure that students are mastering the required material.

It also allows for evaluation of the teachers. If students of a given teacher perform poorly relative to similar students who have other teachers, there is clearly a problem with that teacher. If the teacher can remedy that problem fine ... if not, they can seek another line of work.

This kind of standardized testing is not without its drawbacks. It has, for example, been criticized as stifling creativity and independent thinking. However, these concerns can be largely addressed by making these tests emphasize problem-solving skills as opposed to simple rote memorization.

More importantly however, standardized testing ensures that a high level of education is taking place. I can personally attest to value of this method. I attended public schools in the State of New York which had exactly this type of standardized testing. This has led to New York State having schools that are consistently ranked higher than those of most other states in the United States.

While these tests were administered for most subjects, they were not administered for all subjects in all years. There was a significant increase in the quality of instruction and the seriousness of the students when everyone knew that there would be a state exam at the end of the year. It bears further noting that New York has population of approximately 19 million, which shows that this type of testing can be done on the scale of a country the size of Venezuela.

Given that these improvements in primary education that I am proposing would be costly, it is imperative that this sort of testing regimen be used to ensure that the precious ... and all too scant ... resources of the Venezuelan government are not wasted.

Similar initiatives can be taken with respect to university level education. A good first step would be for the government to follow up on one of Chavez’s campaign promises from 1998. That is, university level education should be restricted to subjects that will be economically beneficial to Venezuela. This would mean restricting the university studies of students to technical fields, some business subjects, and ... to a limited extent ... medicine.

Of course, there will be an outcry by some regarding this limitation on students “freedoms.” However, given that Venezuela is subsidizing the educational system it has, the prerogative of subsidizing only those activities that it feels will produce the greatest returns. While it is certainly true that, in a perfect world, everyone should be free to study what they please, circumstances in Venezuela are anything but perfect. It is therefore the moral imperative of the Venezuelan State to see that its resources are used in a way that will yield the greatest benefit for society. Restricting fields of study would allow universities to focus their resources on fewer areas of study and thereby improve their academic level without requiring additional resources.

Another step to improve the academic level of Venezuelan universities would be the imposition of rigorous entrance exams. The scarce resources available for higher education in Venezuela must be focused on those who are talented and industrious, not on those who are mediocre or indifferent. As an extension of this, to continue their university studies, students will have to show sustained academic success. Those who do not take advantage of the opportunities offered them should not be offered further opportunities.

Many will object that these measures are very harsh ... indeed they are.

However, we must keep in mind what the overriding goal is ... the goal is to create a highly-educated population and workforce that will be capable of creating the more prosperous and modern Venezuela which is desired by the overwhelming majority of the Venezuelan population.

It is toward accomplishing this goal that all educational policies must be directed.

Venezuela cannot continue to use its higher educational system as a social welfare program where large numbers of young people are to be “stored” until they are finally turned loose, poorly-educated, into a society where they will find no productive employment.

Allowing higher education to continue in such a poor state is a crime against both the youth who are poorly served by it, and the larger society which loses the benefits of having its youth’s talents fully developed.

There are other policies that could be of tremendous benefit to the Venezuelan educational system and economy. One such policy would be for the government to ensure that any Venezuelan student who is accepted for graduate study in a technical discipline in any university in an advanced country has the financial means to pursue those studies.

At first this may seem like a bad idea. After all, won’t it mean that Venezuela will be wasting precious resources funding a “brain drain” as a significant number of those people may not return after completing their studies? The answer to that question is no.

First, it is important to realize how valuable this education will be. Virtually all leading universities in science and technology are located in the advanced countries of North America, Europe, and Asia. If Venezuela is ever to rise to the level of the advanced countries, it must have people who have mastered the science and technologies of the First World. To do that they must study at the universities of the First World.

It is true that many will not return Venezuela upon completion of their studies. Instead they will obtain jobs with companies in the countries where they studied. But that is not something that should be viewed as bad. Rather, it is very good in that it will greatly increase their exposure to the best technical and managerial practices of the developed countries.

Yes, it is certainly true that some of these people will never return to Venezuela and that will be a loss. But keep in mind that education is a form of investment and there are always losses with all types of investment. Having the government provide cheap capital to companies, as I advocated in my previous letter, will also result in losses as some of those companies will never be successful. However, it is expected that the gains that come from those that are successful will more than compensate for those losses and make the investment a worthwhile activity.

In the same way, the people who return from abroad after going through this process will be an invaluable asset that will more than compensate for those who do not return.

And rest assured, large numbers of them will return.

• As I am sure most VHeadline.com readers are aware, anyone who is born and raised in Venezuela remains a Venezuelan for the rest of their life, regardless of how many years they live abroad.

If good economic policies are implemented, and there is productive use for their skills in Venezuela, many of them will return to their homeland. When they return, they will staff and lead Venezuelan companies, and in many cases serve as the entrepreneurial talent behind new companies that wouldn’t otherwise be created.

This process is already at work with other countries, notably China. Many Chinese students with advanced degrees and years of experience in US industry are now returning to China and founding high tech companies. This process, the great benefits that are accruing to China from it, was the subject of an article in the Wall Street Journal on March 6. I urge those who have access to that periodical to read it.

Just as with the economic policies that I put forth in my previous letter, these reforms to the educational system will cost a significant amount of money ... probably several billion dollars annually. Increasing teachers salaries, extending school hours, providing free meals in schools, and paying for university studies overseas will require resources above and beyond what the educational system currently receives ... but this is an investment that cannot be avoided.

It is to these tasks that the petro dollars that Venezuela generates must be dedicated. If there are less important tasks that are consuming government resources, they may need to be pared back. This is also why it is imperative, as I have mentioned before, that the foreign debt be dealt with ... either by suspending payments on it entirely, or restructuring it so that those payments are significantly reduced. The income from petroleum, combined with good economic and educational policies, is Venezuela’s ticket out of poverty.

Venezuela cannot continue to use so much of it just to pay for the failed governments and policies of the past.

These ideas are but a few of the many which could greatly benefit Venezuela. Notice that they incorporate ideas that are normally thought of as coming from the Left, and others normally thought of as coming from the Right. Venezuela doesn’t have the luxury of endless polemics regarding ideology ... the only criteria that should be used in determining what ideas to use are what works. Ideas that prove effective should be adopted and expanded ... those that prove ineffective discarded.

Demonstrated success is the key metric against which everything will have to be measured.

I cannot emphasize enough how difficult the improvement of the Venezuelan educational system will be ... importing machines and technology from abroad to build a factory is child’s play compared the task of making sure the factory is staffed with highly trained and competent Venezuelan employees.

It will cost much ... reforms may be opposed by many ... and, not least ... it will require much work.

But developing and fully exploiting Venezuela’s true wealth ... the abilities of it people ... is the only path to the prosperity and true independence that Venezuela has long sought, but never known.

Daniel Burnett dburnett1@nyc.rr.com

A Tale of Two Fables

www.prospect.org By Robert B. Reich Issue Date: 4.1.03

Fable 1: The world is blessed with an advanced civilization renowned for its dynamism and freedom. Most of the world's peoples admire and emulate it. But this civilization fails to notice a primitive, evil force that emerges worldwide, intent on destroying it. Motivated by envy and hate, the evil force exploits the openness of the civilization to wreak havoc upon it. Only in the nick of time does the civilization find the strength and moral fiber necessary to destroy the evil and thus save humanity.

Fable 2: The world is ruled by a giant corporatist power that exerts control through technologies and materialist comforts. This sinister force acts to seduce, brainwash, monitor and intimidate the world's people. But a few descendants of a former, more spiritual world, hidden away in mountains and teeming cities, keep the old faith alive. Through their cunning and bravery, these outlaws discover weaknesses in the system, and they exploit those weaknesses to destroy it and thereby liberate humanity.

Whatever happens to Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden, America's long-term security may depend more on which fable most people worldwide believe describes the future.

These are potent and dangerous fables. Each is animated by the righteousness of its cause and the conviction that survival depends on destroying the opposing evil. Each also offers a comprehensive narrative that explains all politics, economics and social change as aspects of a single drama played out on the world stage. And each fable reinforces its opposite: The more one is believed and acted upon, the more plausible its opposite becomes to those who are thereby threatened. And as those who are threatened act upon the opposing fable, they thereby confirm the fears of those who cling to the other.

By acting as if it believes Fable 1, the Bush administration is starting to convince many people around the globe that Fable 2 is closer to the truth. In its commitment to invading Iraq regardless of what most of its major allies believe to be necessary or prudent, its insistence on the right to move preemptively against any nation it considers potentially dangerous to American interests, its quickness to see terrorist links to al-Qaeda in almost any separatist or insurgent movement -- in Chechnya, the Philippines, Colombia, Venezuela and many other hot spots around the world -- and its assertion of American military power as the preferred method of dealing with instability, the administration is fomenting anti-Americanism almost everywhere outside the United States. In a matter of months the White House has undermined NATO, severely jeopardized America's relationships with Europe, Japan and Latin America, and encouraged Arab and Islamic extremism across North Africa and Asia.

The point here is not to suggest a moral equivalency between terrorism and Bush's foreign policy but to understand why the administration's ham-fisted approach to diplomacy -- you're either with us or against us -- is playing into the hands of radicals who want the world to believe Fable 2. That a large and growing number of people outside the United States now tell pollsters America is a greater threat to world peace than al-Qaeda is evidence not just of the White House's inept communications but of its larger failure to explain and justify its actions to a world that had been largely sympathetic toward America in the months following September 11 but is now almost universally cynical about this nation's motives.

Not since the Vietnam War have we witnessed such a profound loss of faith in the moral authority of the United States. The consequences are potentially tragic. If we appear more like the world's bully than its beacon light, how can we count on our friends and neighbors to help us reduce the odds of further terrorist attacks here? If Fable 2 offers the world's destitute and angry a more convincing explanation for their condition, how can we prevent the ranks of terrorists from growing?

Equally worrisome is the possibility that Americans come to believe Fable 1, unleashing a new and more virulent xenophobia and jingoism. An American public scarred by 9-11 and fearful of future terrorist attacks is especially vulnerable to demagoguery about America's unalloyed virtue and a worldwide conspiracy of evil that threatens our survival. A similar narrative captured the American mind in the 1950s when communism seemed poised to obliterate us, but in the 1950s we hadn't been traumatized by thousands of civilian deaths on American soil. The consequences this time around could be a larger erosion of civil liberties at home and a more uncompromising militarism abroad that gives the rest of the world greater reason to believe Fable 2.

Extremists gain power when politics becomes polarized around opposite views of reality. As the two fables gain credibility among opposing camps, the world's single remaining superpower grows ever more isolated, and the world becomes an increasingly dangerous place.

Robert B. Reich Copyright © 2003 by The American Prospect, Inc. Preferred Citation: Robert B. Reich, "A Tale of Two Fables," The American Prospect vol. 14 no. 4, April 1, 2003 . This article may not be resold, reprinted, or redistributed for compensation of any kind without prior written permission from the author. Direct questions about permissions to permissions@prospect.org.

www.villagevoice.com Press Clips by Cynthia Cotts April 17 - 23, 2002

The New York Sun is rising, but how long before it sets? Media writers have been hyping the April 16 launch of the conservative paper for weeks, and Tina Brown hosted a party for Editor in Chief Seth Lipsky, a respected newspaperman who miraculously raised $20 million from a dozen investors. Speculation abounds about the motives of backers including Conrad Black (now Lord Black), who previously tried to buy The Daily News and The New York Observer, and the team of Roger Hertog and Michael Steinhardt, who recently bought into The New Republic. Even as the buzz turns to skepticism, Lipsky remains serenely confident. In an interview, he praised his investors for their "abiding commitment to New York and the idea of civic involvement." As proof, he recalled that while investors' money had been scheduled to come through on September 11, the deal still closed speedily on October 1, with the original group intact.

But deep pockets empty quickly in the news trade, and some wags already see the Sun on the western horizon. They say that given the economics of publishing, the paper cannot possibly achieve its initial target of 25,000-35,000 paid circulation or survive more than a few glorious years. The streets of Manhattan are littered with the remains of dead start-ups, and The New York Observer, while popular, has never turned a profit.

"This is the work of a group of well-to-do people who want to get their approach into the marketplace of ideas," says Daily News editor in chief Ed Kosner. "It's an intellectual vanity publication, and there's nothing wrong with that." But Kosner sees the Sun's audience as "a very small niche, the niche of weekly and monthly journals."

According to one industry insider, the tone of the paper will make all the difference, and Lipsky's best chance for success is "if he can make New Yorkers excited to pick it up . . . then usurp the Observer and become the 10021 paper."

Jonathan Rosen, a writer and editor who worked with Lipsky at the Forward, praises the Sun editor as an astute political analyst and scrupulous journalist who "understands the entertainment value of news" and whose passion will carry the day.

"Bear in mind," says Rosen, "The New York Review of Books has a circulation of over 100,000. Who would have thought a journal written and edited by a bunch of eggheads working out their deep intellectual questions would be so appealing to so many people? What made it work was the people who created it and wrote for it really cared."

Sun chief operating officer William Kummel believes the paper's potential audience includes not just conservative elites, but anyone with a propensity to read daily newspapers in New York.

In the first year, Kummel expects about 75 percent of paid circulation to come from newsstands and 25 percent from subscriptions. The Sun will deliver about 60,000 copies to 4000 newsstands in the metropolitan area, where they will sell for 50 cents a pop. In hopes of accelerating the circulation numbers, the company has contracted with distributors owned by the New York Times Company and the Tribune Company. For home delivery, the Sun has contracted with Mitchell's Newspaper Delivery Service, which delivers the Times and other papers to Manhattan, Brooklyn, the Bronx, and beyond, and with Newsday to provide home delivery in Queens and Long Island.

In response to skepticism about the Sun's ability to attract readers, Kummel boasts that the Sun's circulation director is Cathy Lane, a Newsday veteran who helped launch the Spanish-language newspaper Hoy. Hoy claimed a circulation of 60,000-plus after three years. But does New York have as many conservatives as Hispanics?

Coup? What Coup?

New York Times foreign editors never liked Hugo Chávez, having repeatedly painted the Venezuelan president as a dangerous would-be dictator. So they must have popped their last bottle of Pulitzer champagne last week when they heard that Chávez had been toppled by an alliance of business and military leaders.

Of course, the Times was too diplomatic to use the word "coup." Instead, in an April 13 front-pager, Juan Forero reported that the "mercurial strongman" had been "forced to resign" by military men after his supporters killed 14 civilians during a strike.

When the White House called Chávez's fall a victory for democracy, Times editors must have thought they had an excuse to downplay the unconstitutional moves of interim president Pedro Carmona. From Forero's perspective, dissent was minimal, with only Cuba calling the resignation a coup. In the same edition, the Times ran a fluffy Carmona profile and an editorial saluting Venezuela for independently replacing a "ruinous demagogue" with a "respected business leader." In a news analysis, Larry Rohter explained why the transition was not technically a coup.

Even as the Times was propping up Carmona, Narconews.com was posting a portrait of a blindfolded and gagged Simón Bolívar, the 19th-century hero who liberated Venezuela from Spain. Publisher Al Giordano (a friend of mine) reported that the coup had been condemned by the governments of Mexico, Peru, Argentina, and Paraguay, and that Chávez's authoritarian tendencies paled before those of the new regime, which had not only dissolved the Supreme Court and Congress, but also fired the attorney general and raided the homes of Chávez supporters.

Giordano speculated that the civilian deaths had been falsely blamed on Chávez, and noted that the whole thing smacked of CIA efforts to destabilize Chile in the 1970s. His bottom line on Saturday: "A twice democratically elected government has been deposed by a military junta that has installed an illegitimate, unelected president."

Giordano, a dogged critic of the Times, was vindicated the next day when an international outcry led to Chávez's reinstatement and a virtual front-page correction in the Times. For the April 14 edition, Ginger Thompson joined Forero in Caracas, where they interviewed Venezuelans who rejected what they called the, um, coup. In a sidebar, Forero clung to the now-fading claim that Chávez cronies had fired on civilians.

In the same edition, Tim Weiner delivered a Week in Review piece placing the ouster as one in a long line of "Latin American coups tacitly encouraged or covertly supported by the United States." Weiner named several reasons Bush might have wanted Chávez out, most notably the politics of oil. In Latin America, he wrote, the U.S. has long "supported authoritarian regimes . . . in defense of its economic and political interests."

Enter The Washington Post's Scott Wilson, who reported on April 14 that the coup had not been spontaneous, but the work of dissident military officers who said they had been planning it for months and had solicited the approval of the U.S. Embassy in Caracas.

On April 15, Times reporters used the word "coup" unapologetically for the first time. Better late than never, but too bad they couldn't see it in the first place.

www.theatlantic.com

........... García's career as a fiction writer remained publicly static during his time in Venezuela, but journalistically he took an odd turn: he left Momento and went to work for Venezuela Gráfica, a magazine commonly called Venezuela Pornográfica in Caracas. Solemn fictionists might be put off by such work, but García accepted it then and still accepts it. "I'm interested in personal life," he said, explaining that at the moment in Barcelona he was reading the memoirs of Jackie Kennedy's chauffeur. "I read all the gossip in all the magazines. And I believe it all." The Cuban revolution lifted him, for the first time in his life, out of journalistic fluff and fun and into advocacy. He opened the Bogotá office for Prensa Latina, went to Havana later, and in 1961 became assistant bureau chief in New York. He quit in mid-1961 during a wave of revisionism, in solidarity with his disgruntled boss; and with his wife Mercedes, the Barranquilla girl who had waited for him for three years until he married her in 1958, and his two-year-old son Rodrigo, he left New York, but not without a tropical memory of the city. "It was like no place else," he said. "It was putrefying, but also was in the process of rebirth, like the jungle. It fascinated me." The Garcías headed for New Orleans by Greyhound, passing through Faulkner country. García duly noted one sign advising DOGS AND MEXICANS PROHIBITED and found himself barred from hotels where clerks thought him Mexican. He had planned to return to Colombia, but Mexico, being a film capital, lured him, and on the urging of Mexican friends he changed plans and began slowly, and with much difficulty, a new career as a screenwriter. He wrote one short story in Mexico and then lapsed into a silence that lasted several years. ..................