In Perspective: Hugo’s Anti-Americanism

Hugo Chavez’s America-bashing rant at the U.N. stems from Venezuela's dysfunctional oil culture. To understand Chavez, stop thinking of Venezuela as a Latin American country. It has more in common with the Middle East.


UPDATE: See Thomas Lifson's comments on this article at The American Thinker.


By DAVID PAULIN

Hugo Chavez’s bizarre anti-American rant at the United Nations has got Americans asking, “What makes Chavez tick?”

To understand him, stop thinking of oil-producing Venezuela as a Latin American country. Think of it as a dysfunctional Middle Eastern petro-state. Doing that is the key to understanding Chavez and Venezuela.

Many oil-rich Arabs have a sense of cultural superiority and entitlement. So do many Venezuelans: Chavez is one of them. The 52-year-old former Army lieutenant colonel grew up during Venezuela's oil boom years in the 1970s. That’s when the South American nation seemed poised to attain First World status; or so many Venezuelans thought in the era of "Saudi Venezuela."

Chavez and most Venezuelans still entertain the notion that God blessed Venezuelans with fabulous oil wealth. Indeed, they regard themselves as special because of this. Yet 80 percent of 25 million Venezuelans live in poverty and endure rampant crime and corruption. These indices appear to have worsened under Chavez's administration – all of which Chavez denies.

Venezuela’s oil wealth can no longer pay the bills as it did in the 1970s, when Venezuela had half the population as today, and significantly less debt and fewer social problems. Yet the myth of Venezuela’s oil wealth persists. Ultimately, it’s a source of Chavez’s inner conflict – and his anti-Americanism.

Like many Venezuelans, Chavez grapples with this contradiction – the myth of Venezuela’s oil wealth and reality of its poverty. And like many Venezuelans, Chavez blames outsiders for the country’s mess – gringos, oligarchs, whomever. He blames everybody, in short, except decades of statist polices and corruption that have been Venezuela’s undoing over the years. Chavez has continued to follow these policies while attacking the nation’s democratic institutions, press, and civic organizations.

As Chavez blames Third World poverty on everybody but the Third World, he has done little himself to address his own country’s monumental problems. His anti-poverty efforts amount to a patchwork of populist programs. They ensure his popularity. But they fail to form a comprehensive poverty-reduction program, promoting growth and diversifying the oil-dependent economy.

When Chavez bashes America and calls President Bush “the devil,” one also must hold up a harsh light to Venezuela. The oil-producing country survives on its oil revenues. It imports much of what it needs; and it creates very few of its own goods and services -- at least not any that most Venezuelans would want.

Until the mid-1990s, for instance, Venezuela’s phone system barely worked -- until the gringos at GTE Corp. took over, broke up corrupt unions, dismissed inept and elitist Venezuelan managers, and got the system up and running in a few short years. These gringos grate on the nerves of proud Venezuelans like Chavez. Deep down, however, Chavez must realize that Venezuela could never have accomplished anything like this on its own. No doubt, Chavez would prefer the inconvenience of lousy phone service rather than letting the gringos show him up.

A prominent Venezuelan sociologist once told me that many Venezuelans “are like the guy who should have made it but didn’t.” They're unable, he said, to accept responsibility for personal and collective failures. Instead, they blame others.

In Chavez’s case, he blames America. It’s a natural target. After all, for all his anti-American bluster, America is still the standard by which many Venezuelans judge themselves. In doing so, they are shamed at the thought that, for all their sense of entitlement, they could never match the Americans in respect to their management savvy, creativity, and smarts.

Ultimately, Chavez and Venezuelans like him want attention. They want to be players on the global stage. Oil wealth, they figure, entitles them to this.

Chavez’s anti-Americanism, moreover, achieves the recognition he never could attain by providing mundane things such as decent public services, crime control, and serious anti-poverty programs. It’s no wonder that Chavez gets along so well with oil-rich Middle Eastern thugs, who also are adept at the blame game, as they accuse Israel, America, or whatever they can come up with to excuse their dysfunction.

No wonder so many Third World delegates in the U.N. applauded Chavez's anti-American rant. They, like Chavez, find it easier to blame America than to accept responsibility for their personal and collective failures.


Author's note: This article received minor copyediting after it was posted. There were no factual changes; however, the expression "Saudi Venezuela" was inserted in one sentence.

Snubbed Again

NYT Article on Iraq’s Rogue Cops Fails to Mention Steven Vincent


By David Paulin

In the old Soviet Union, leaders who fell into disfavor with the Stalinist government invariably had their images air brushed out of official photos.

And out of history.

Something similar is going on at The New York Times in respect to Steven Vincent, the only American journalist to have been murdered in Iraq.

The latest example may be found today in the Times' lead story, “Iraq Stumbling in Bid to Purge Its Rogue Police.” The article focuses on the problem of Shiite militiamen and criminals who are “entrenched throughout Iraq’s police and internal security forces.”

In an astonishing omission, however, the 2,300-plus word piece fails to mention Vincent – even though there would have been ample reasons to do so. Vincent, after all, was a New Yorker; he had lived with his wife, Lisa Ramaci, in the East Village. Moreover, he was one of the first journalists to report on the issue of police corruption in Iraq. He wrote about it just over one year ago in an Op-Ed in The Times.

On top of that, Vincent’s killers probably were rogue police who may have been retaliating for that Op-Ed, published just two days before his murder on Aug. 2, 2005. Vincent and his translator, Nour Itais, were abducted off a street in the southern port city of Basra by what witnesses said may have been a rogue police unit.

In short, Vincent is inseparable from this story. Yet the article fails to mention him. How come?

Certainly it's not some unintentional oversight. After all, lead co-author Edward Wong was the reporter who wrote his paper’s story on Vincent’s murder. On Aug. 3, 2005, Wong wrote:

“An American journalist from New York who was writing about the rise of conservative Shiite Islam and the corruption of the Iraqi police was abducted and shot to death Tuesday evening in the southern port city of Basra, American and Iraqi officials said today. The reporter's interpreter was also shot and is hospitalized in serious condition.”

And Wong made sure to note the role that Vincent’s Op-Ed may have played in his death:

“On Sunday, The New York Times printed an article on its op-ed pages that Mr. Vincent had written about the British military in Basra, in which he sharply criticized the British for allowing religious Shiite parties and clerics to take control of Basra and populate the security forces with their followers.

"He wrote that a police lieutenant had confirmed for him that a few fellow officers were carrying out assassinations of former members of Saddam Hussein's Baath Party, apparently in revenge for the oppression of the Shiites under his rule.

'"He told me that there is even a sort of 'death car': a white Toyota Mark II that glides through the city streets, carrying off-duty police officers in the pay of extremist religious groups to their next assignment," Mr. Vincent wrote."

The Times has snubbed Vincent previously. Just ask his widow. Recently, Ramaci had a letter to the editor in The Times, complaining that an Op-Ed published on Sept. 6, "Iraq's Endangered Journalists,” overlooked her husband's death.

You can be sure Times’ Op-Ed editors scrutinized every word of that Op-Ed. Yet Ali Fadhil, an Iraqi physician-turned journalist, wrote something that was obviously false: “As dangerous as Iraq is for foreign reporters, they at least have the advantage of being considered untouchable by the Iraqi police and security forces.”

What about Vincent?

Ramaci told me in a recent e-mail that she felt the slights had to do with the fact that Vincent was a freelancer -- not worthy of any respect from The Times. No matter that he left behind an impressive body of work, published in places like National Review and FrontPage Magazine, not to mention a wonderful book, “In the Red Zone: A Journey Into the Soul of Iraq.”

Of course, the types of magazines for which Vincnet wrote tend not to espouse political views that are popular at The Times.

One of Vincent’s strengths was that he, unlike Times staffers, moved freely about Iraq without bodyguards. He provided a unique perspective, one that was not filtered through a prism of daily suicide bombings or “mounting casualties.”

On the other hand, most mainstream reporting out of Iraq has relied heavily on Iraqi stringers. Many have little journalism training, and their loyalties are open to question.

“The Western news media could not function in Iraq without the dedication of Iraqi journalists,” wrote Fadhil in the Op-Ed piece that raised Ramaci’s ire. “Many of the biggest stories were either written by Iraqis or reported by them.”

The Times has snubbed Vincnet on other occasions. Last March, Ramaci noted, the paper ran a big series about the ongoing problems with the Iraqi police and security forces, yet Steven’s name was never mentioned. And in an earlier article, the paper even misspelled Steven’s first name, she noted.

The reporters and editors at The Times, of course, are not Stalinists. But many seem to have a mentality that shares attributes of the extreme left and right -- attributes now found in the post-modern fascism of multiculturalism and political correctness. One of those attributes is a sense of elitism. Mavericks like Vincent are square pegs who don't fit anywhere into the world according to The New York Times.

No wonder that increasing numbers of people read The Times not for its news -- but for its spin. Vincent was a writer for the New Media, however, not the old. The Times may forget him. His devoted readers will not.

UPDATE: Steven Vincent was one of two freelance journalists honored in 2006 with the Fifth Annual Kurt Schork Awards in International Journalism. Vincent was recognized posthumously for his work revealing the existence of police death squads in Iraq. Vincent’s widow, Lisa Ramaci, will receive the award and a $5,000 prize during ceremonies in London. The Kesher Talk blog has more here and here.

Also, see my earlier article about Steven Vincent, "Soldier With a Pen."

Steven Vincent: Forgotten by The New York Times


The freelance journalist's brutal murder may have been triggered by his Op-Ed in The New York Times. Why did the paper's editors forget this?


By David Paulin

Steven Vincent, the only American journalist murdered in Iraq, left behind an impressive body of work that is noteworthy for its incisive analysis and moral clarity. His book, “In the Red Zone: A Journey Into the Soul of Iraq,” drew on a number of fine articles, written mainly for conservative magazines such as National Review and FrontPage Magazine.

The quality of Vincent’s work owed much to the fact that he traveled alone, outside the Green Zone. He avoided the mainstream media’s formulaic reporting; it viewed the war, insurgency, and reconstruction through a prism of “mounting” casualties, suicide bombings, and prisoner abuse scandals.

When Vincent was murdered just over one year ago in the southern port city of Basra, the mainstream media responded with extensive coverage. His killing, it was widely noted, may have been in retaliation for an Op-Ed piece that Vincent published, two days earlier, in The New York Times.

Vincent described how the British Army had ignored the infiltration of Basra’s police force by Iranian-backed Shiite militias and political groups, including those loyal to radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. This coincided with a spike in fundamentalist violence in the southern port city.

He noted as well that police vehicles apparently were used to abduct and kill people. Coincidently, two days after that article ran, a vehicle similar to what Vincent had described intercepted the writer and his translator, Nour Itais, off a Basra street.

Later, Iraqi police found Vincent’s battered body on the outskirts of town with a gunshot wound to the head. Nour was shot and left for dead; but she survived.

Forgotten by The Times?

Today, the Times’ Op-Ed editors appear to have forgotten that Vincent’s Op-Ed piece may be the thing that got him killed. In an Op-Ed the Times ran on Sept. 6, "Iraq's Endangered Journalists," author Ali Fadhil overlooked Vincent’s death when writing about Iraq’s beleaguered journalists.

You can be sure Times’ Op-Ed editors scrutinized every word of that Op-Ed. Yet Fadhil, an Iraqi physician-turned journalist, wrote something that was obviously false: “As dangerous as Iraq is for foreign reporters, they at least have the advantage of being considered untouchable by the Iraqi police and security forces.”

What about Steven Vincent?

The most outraged New Yorker to read Fadhil’s Op-Ed was Vincent’s widow, Lisa Ramaci-Vincent. On Saturday, Sept. 9, the Times published a letter from her, calling attention to Fadhil’s oversight:

To the Editor:
While reading "Iraq's Endangered Journalists," by Ali Fadhil (Op-Ed, Sept. 6), I was shocked by his claim that "foreign reporters have the advantage of being considered untouchable by the Iraqi police and security forces."

Might I remind Mr. Fadhil that on Aug. 2, 2005, my husband, Steven Vincent, an American journalist living in and writing from Basra, was kidnapped and killed by five men in police uniforms?

Two days before Steven's murder, The New York Times ran an Op-Ed article he wrote in which he disclosed how the British Army was ignoring both the infiltration of the Basra police force by Iranian-backed Shiite militias, and the resulting spike in fundamentalist violence. He specifically mentioned the white police vehicles used to abduct and kill an ever-increasing number of people; two days later, one of those vehicles came for him.

Steven thus has the dubious distinction of being one of the few foreign journalists in this Iraq conflict specifically targeted for execution.

Lisa Ramaci-Vincent.
New York, Sept. 7, 2006

Just an Oversight?

How could the Times forget Vincent? Perhaps it was a simple oversight, completely innocent. Ostensibly, that’s probably the case. But such oversights often occur for unconscious reasons – the result of unconscious biases and ideological agendas.

Along these lines, consider that Fadhil’s harsh critique of Iraq’s news media fit neatly into the Times’ view that the Bush administration, besides embarking on an illegal and unnecessary war, has totally bungled Iraq’s reconstruction.

As to innate biases, deep down the Times’ Op-Ed editors probably fail to see Vincent as a serious journalist. He was not a tried and proven staff writer but a freelancer. Even worse, Vincent was a blogger, which merits little respect in the mainstream media.

No matter that Vincent’s blog had a large and loyal following, as demonstrated by the “blog burst” honoring him on the first-anniversary of his murder. Above all, Vincent’s biggest liability for Times' editors is probably that he was a hawk on the war (though he never, to be sure, voted for George Bush). They may have dismissed him, at least subconsciously, as a misguided crank.

The Belmont Club also saw something strange in the Times’ oversight: “(W)hy did the NYT leave him off the books? Beneath them or not one of them?” And it also offered some interesting speculation on the Vincent’s murder:

The most innocent explanation is that he was "outside the pattern". The regular journalists know the drill: when to work out of a hotel and work through stringers; when to "arrange" an interview which will provide the journalist with protection; and maybe, through the grapevine, know which stories not to cover unless you have recently bought a lot of life insurance.

When foreign journalists operate outside of the envelope as in the case of mainstream news anchors who made unscripted descents from American patrol vehicles, their risks increase dramatically. When Eason Jordan described his arrangements with Saddam for "access" he was probably stating a fact of life. If you don't have your own tank and infantry company along, a camera and a press pass provide scant protection.

It’s not just the Times that has a bad memory. Apparently, not a single newspaper or wire service article noted the one-year anniversary of Vincent’s death: August 2, 2005. It would have been the perfect occasion to update the status of his murder investigation; editors commonly run such stories on the anniversaries of headline-grabbing murders like Vincent’s.

Questions about Ali Fadhil

Aside from the Times’ slight to Vincent, Lisa Ramaci, and those who admired his work, there are questions worth asking about Ali Fadhil and his Op-Ed.

See letter (below) from reader identifying himself as Ali Fadhil, author of the NYT Op-Ed, who has complained about errors in this section of the article.

Certainly Fadhil is an interesting figure, both for his harrowing experiences in post-Saddam Iraq and his meteoric rise in journalism. The former physician, who is in his mid-30s, saw there was money to be made when big-time media outlets arrived with the U.S.-led invasion.

Switching from medicine to journalism, he ended up making a good living as a controversial pro-American blogger (supported with “private donations” from overseas groups) and as a writer and “media assistant” for a variety of news outlets.

As the war become unpopular, Fadhil went onto write for left-wing British publications. He produced a film and wrote articles about the U.S. assault on the Sunni-controlled rebel stronghold of Fallujah – portraying it as a vibrant city that U.S. forces destroyed, so to speak, in order to save it.

Fadhil, incidentally, was born a Sunni Muslim but last year he downplayed this fact. “I don’t look at myself as one now,” he told The New York Times, in a story about his controversial pro-American blog.

In his Op-Ed, Fadhil wrote: “The Western news media could not function in Iraq without the dedication of Iraqi journalists.” In fact, “Many of the biggest stories were either written by Iraqis or reported by them.”

And what stories might those have been? It’s an interesting question in light of ongoing concerns about the mainstream media’s biased coverage of the war, insurgency, and reconstruction. Part of the blame has been laid on the mainstream media’s heavy use of stringers, people with limited journalism experience and questionable allegiances.

Interestingly, people with Fadhil’s journalism experience – or lack of it – would not have a prayer of landing a newsroom job at the Times if they visited the paper’s personnel office and filled out an application. Yet in Iraq they played major roles in stories.

Moreover, Fadhil noted, such work put them on dazzling fast-track careers with Western publications and broadcast companies. He’s now a Fulbright fellow at New York University. Vincent, in contrast, struggled on a freelancer’s salary, earning maybe $300 to $500 per story. Sales of his book were ho-hum but picked up considerably after his murder. He was starting to think of himself as a failure, his wife recalled.

Perhaps Fadhil’s transformation from pro-American blogger to a darling of Britain's anti-American press reflected heartfelt convictions, not opportunism calculated to give editors what they wanted. There’s no shame in changing one’s mind. Vincent himself had doubts about the war at the time of his death. But he also felt it was imperative to stay the course.

Troubling Issues

Fadhil’s Op-Ed also raised some troubling concerns. Iraq’s news media, he argued, is now heading toward media models like those in Iran, Saudi Arabia or Syria.

Certainly, if true, these allegations are worth investigating. Fadhil blames the problem on the dismantling of U.S.-backed programs that had once supported Iraq’s nascent post-Saddam news media. At the same time, however, his Op-Ed had some points that appeared problematic – and contradictory.

“Today journalists in Iraq face death threats from all sides,” he warned. He complained as well that Iraq’s “prime minister threatened to close any news media outlet that insufficiently supports the Iraqi government in its fight against sectarian violence.”

But what’s wrong with that?

Perhaps the Times and Fulbright selection committee would disagree, but in the face of a monstrous nihilistic insurgency and Islamic fanatics, it hardly seems unreasonable to close down publications that fail to support efforts to stop sectarian violence.

Moreover, it’s perplexing that Fadhil would suggest that such a crackdown would help move Iraq’s press freedoms toward the media models found in Iran, Saudi Arabia or Syria. Presumably, the greatest threat to Iraq’s journalists is from insurgents and extremist Islamic groups that – horror of horrors – the prime minister is attempting to marginalize by denying them publicity, even if that means journalists lose the freedom to be irresponsible.

Come now, Dr. Fadhil, you can’t have it both ways. Except, perhaps, in the fairy tale world of New York’s academic and media elites in which Fadhil now moves.

Trigger Happy Troops?

Fadhil at one point nearly repeats former CNN news chief Eason Jordan’s career-ending slander that U.S. forces have deliberately targeted journalists:

“(T)he American soldiers who were so helpful to us in the early days of the occupation now have a different attitude. By 2005, if an Iraqi journalist aimed a camera at a United States Army convoy, the soldiers’ rules of engagement allowed them to shoot. American soldiers have been responsible for the deaths of about 14 journalists in Iraq, the majority of them Iraqis.”

What could have made those soldiers so nasty? Perhaps it was the nature of Iraq’s insurgency and suicide bomb attacks? Not to mention the avalanche of negative media coverage that, according to most soldiers, consistently failed to capture progress which they saw being made.

Along these lines, consider a story in online magazine Salon, "The Victim and the Killer," written by Phillip Robertson, a longtime foreign correspondent. Intent on finding the U.S. sniper who killed a friend, an Iraqi doctor-turned stringer who worked for Knight-Ridder, Robertson got himself an embed slot. He snooped around. After two weeks, he came upon a likely suspect: a “tall, good looking man,” he wrote, who was part of the 256th Brigade Combat Team.

Chatting with the sniper about his work, Robertson nudged him to talk about the death of Yassir Salihee, 30, who was mistaken for a suicide bomber as he drove erratically one night toward a Baghdad intersection.

The sniper became nervous, wrote Robertson, telling him, “I really hope he was a bad guy.”

The shooting was justified, according to a month-long military investigation that included an interview with an Iraqi witness. Editor & Publisher, the trade magazine that covers the newspaper industry, called Robertson’s piece “the most remarkable” of the war.

But author Greg Mitchell, well known for his odd left-wing views, quoted a Knight-Ridder editor as saying that "it bothers me somewhat" that Robertson was "not being totally honest... embedding with the military with the purpose of doing his own investigation into this. Give Mitchell credit for at least adding some balance to the story.

Fadhil has had his own run-in with U.S. troops. In his Op-Ed, he mentioned the night troops stormed into his home after they “blew out the doors with explosives and shot several bullets into the bedroom where my wife, 3-year-old daughter, 6-month-old son and I were sleeping.

“They destroyed our furniture, and I was hand-flexed, hooded and taken to an unknown place. It turned out that the raid was connected to the kidnapping of Jill Carroll, the Christian Science Monitor reporter who had been abducted in my neighborhood the day before. The Americans apologized and gave me $500 for the time I spent with them and $1,000 for the damage to the house. I was released the next morning.”

No doubt such stories are told and retold at New York University as Fadhil relates Iraq’s grim realities. One hopes that, for balance, Fadhil also mentions some of the abuses he suffered under Saddam’s rule; or perhaps his Sunni background spared him such indignities; or perhaps Saddam’s men provided him with better compensation than the Americans when he was the victim of mistaken identify.

UPDATE: Steven Vincent was one of two freelance journalists honored in 2006 with the Fifth Annual Kurt Schork Awards in International Journalism. Vincent was recognized posthumously for his work revealing the existence of police death squads in Iraq. Vincent’s widow, Lisa Ramaci, will receive the award and a $5,000 prize during ceremonies in London. The Kesher Talk blog has more here and here.

Also, see my earlier article about Steven Vincent, "Soldier With A Pen."

Author's note: "Steven Vincent: Forgotten by The New York Times," received some copyediting shortly after the original post. Also, the phrase "anti-British" was changed to "anti-American."

Who is Nick Turse?

Author of L.A. Times Vietnam Atrocity Story Is Dedicated Leftist

"(T)he DoA (Doctrine of Atrocity) did not originate during the Vietnam War, but instead was part of a long legacy of the U.S. military's conduct during wars against racial Others over the prior 100 years."

--Nick Turse, Columbia University PhD dissertation: "Kill Anything That Moves: U.S. War Crimes and Atrocities in Vietnam, 1965-1973" (Photo from Mother Jones)


By David Paulin

The Los Angeles Times made quite a splash with its lengthy article detailing how American troops allegedly committed atrocities during the Vietnam War 40 years ago. Left-wing bloggers have been swooning over the Sunday showcase piece, "Vietnam: The War Crimes Files." And no wonder. The whopping 4,400-word article, describing alleged atrocities as if they happened only yesterday, was not really about Vietnam: It was about Iraq.

Only the most obtuse reader could miss that. The authors slipped "Iraq" into the narrative after 400 words, with mentions of alleged atrocities and prisoner abuse there.

To date, conservative bloggers and readers have paid little attention to “The War Crimes Files.” Presumably, they glanced at it and quickly dismissed it as more agenda-driven reporting aimed at stopping “Bush’s War.”

In their cursory look, however, those readers missed an intriguing element in the story – and perhaps its most important element. The lead author, Nick Turse, is not a staff writer like co-author Deborah Nelson. He is “a freelance journalist living in New Jersey” who, as an editor’s note mentioned, had uncovered archival material on Vietnam War atrocities “while researching his doctoral dissertation.”

What the editor's note omitted is that Turse also has a long history of supporting radical leftist causes and writing for radical websites and lefty publications such as Mother Jones and The Village Voice. So extreme is Turse's anti-Americanism that he even praised the Columbine shooters. To him, they were idealistic anti-establishment figures; kids who challenged the "educational system" in the spirit of the 1960s' radicals. Hiring him to research and write a piece on Vietnam War atrocities was comparable to hiring a Grand Dragon of the Ku Klux Klan to pen a major news article on affirmative action and race relations.

Indeed, for a major newspaper to hire a freelancer to research and write a controversial showcase story is highly unusual if not unprecedented. One wonders how Turse pulled it off: whether he made a good impression on some like-minded Times editors, or whether he parlayed his supposed expertise on Vietnam War atrocities into a prestigious freelance gig. Perhaps it was a little of both.

Turse found the old atrocity stories among files in a “once-secret archive,” while researching his doctoral dissertation at the National Archives in College Park, Md., “The War Crimes Files” related. Collected by a Pentagon task force in the early 1970s, the materials “confirmed atrocities by U.S. forces in Vietnam were more extensive than was previously known,” said the story. Atrocities were not limited to “rogue units” but “were uncovered in every Army division that operated in Vietnam.”

Given the U.S. military’s situation in Iraq, these allegations are obviously troubling and politically sensitive. This raises the question of why the Times trusted a freelancer like Turse to take the lead in writing and researching such an important story. He apparently had never written any major news article for the Times or other large mainstream newspapers, according to a Factiva news search.

Who Is Nick Turse?

Lots of newspapers use freelancers, to be sure. But untested freelancers seldom if ever play prominent roles on major stories, with the notable exception of foreign freelancers and stringers – especially all those “local hires” in Iraq who are dying in large numbers.

In light of the disturbing allegations in “The War Crimes Files,” an important question arises: Who is Nick Turse?

It takes only a little Internet sleuthing and Googling to learn of his ties to radical leftist causes and publications, ties that Times editors surely knew about. Knowing about this background explains much about Turse's apparent obsession with atrocity stories – just so long, to be sure, as it's U.S. troops committing atrocities and not North Vietnamese troops and the Viet Cong. Their terror tactics were widespread, part of official strategy and policy. It's almost certain they killed far more civilians than U.S. forces. The Democracy Project website pointed this out by citing detailed statistics, and it raised questions of its own about Turse and the Times' tendency to focus mainly on U.S. misdeeds.

Ultimately, however, messy details about the enemy's terror tactics are unlikely to trouble Turse, a dedicated leftist in the spirit of the 1960’s radicals he admires. Like so many in today’s left, Turse’s blame-America-first philosophy undoubtedly leaves him unable to put historical events into the proper focus as he portrays American troops as savages. In another era, most newspaper editors would have looked at Turse as problematic, but not today. His seamless move to the Times from radical web sites and lefty magazines says much about mainstream journalism today – and about newspaper editors who, having come of age in the 1960s, now control the levers of power.

"Kill Anything That Moves"

Like many people with such political views, Turse, ironically, appears to live a comfortable and privileged life. As a PhD student at Columbia University’s Center for the History & Ethics of Public Health, the title of Turse’s dissertation in 2005 was appropriate: "Kill Anything That Moves: U.S. War Crimes and Atrocities in Vietnam, 1965-1973."

Interestingly, the Times' biography of Turse mentioned only that he uncovered details of Vietnam atrocities “while researching his doctoral dissertation." No mention was made of his dissertation’s title, which presumably defined his focus: atrocities committed only by American troops.

Nor did the editor’s note mention two intriguing aspects of Turse's dissertation. One is its obviously false claim that U.S. troops committed atrocities during the entire war as a matter of military “doctrine” – what Turse called a “Doctrine of Atrocity.” Moreover, Turse claimed this atrocity-producing doctrine "was part of a long legacy of the U.S. military's conduct during wars against racial Others over the prior 100 years."

Ultimately, the abstract for “Kill Anything That Moves” reads like it was lifted from any of the angry books and articles of the Vietnam War years, notwithstanding, of course, its obligatory reference to Columbia's late Edward Said and his controversial book “Orientialism,” (1978).

No matter how bad Vietnam was, Iraq is not Vietnam in spite of how much Turse, his fellow travelers, and Times editors want it to be. The pathologies that existed in that war, during some time periods and in some places, are in fact not evident in Iraq among professional and well-trained military forces.

A list of Turse’s academic interests and accomplishments may be seen here. However, he appears to lack credentials in Vietnam studies, observed Democracy Project. The same may be said of his dissertation advisor, Amy L. Fairchild.

Anti-War Protester

When Turse was not immersed in archives derived from investigations undertaken by the military and nation he despises, he spent some of his time at anti-war demonstrations. At New York’s 2004 Republican National Convention, he writes of being “illegally arrested” and hauled to a detention center dubbed “Guantanamo on the Hudson.”

However, Turse appears to have spent most of his time outside of academia working as a freelance journalist, a trade he continues to practice. Don't look for any of his work in mainstream publications, however. His only mainstream news piece, according to a Factiva search, was his recent atrocity story in the Times. On the other hand, Turse’s byline regularly pops up on various leftist and antiwar websites and publications. On some of them, his biography describes his journalistic expertise as the “military-corporate complex, the homeland security state, and various other topics.”

Praised Columbine Shooters

And what might be those “various other topics”? In a truly bizarre article about the massacre at Columbine High School, Turse idealized troubled teenage shooters Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, portraying them as modern-day radicals. No matter that seven years ago, they murdered 12 fellow students, a teacher, and wounded 24 others – before committing suicide.

Americans were horrified, but not Turse. He argued that the teenagers had “good reason” for “fighting the American educational system and, by extension, the so-called American way of life.” His article, "New Morning, Changing Weather: Radical Youth of the Millennial Age,” was published in the winter 2000 issue of the online academic journal 49th Parallel.

“Approve or disapprove of their methods, vilify them as miscreants, but don’t dare disregard these modern radicals as anything less than the latest incarnation of disaffected insurgents waging the ongoing American Revolution.”

“I propose that kids killing kids may be the radical protest of our age, and that Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold may be the Mark Rudd and Abbie Hoffman figures of today.”

Turse concluded that “the struggle in which these boys are engaged may be as fundamentally important as ending the war in Vietnam (or imperialism, or racism, etc.) was to the hippies, Yippies, Diggers, and Panthers of the bygone era.”

Given the foregoing, it’s easy to see why Turse is so intent on rehashing every brutish incident that occurred in the Vietnam War and digging up and publicizing new ones – an endeavor, to be sure, that he’s been able to undertake thanks to the U.S. military’s own investigations. It’s the same military, ironically, that Turse despises.

It’s hard to know what to make of Turse, a young man with some odd contradictions. He’s upset at 40-year-old reports of atrocities allegedly committed by U.S. troops, yet he seems positively gleeful over the Columbine massacre.

Gaining a better understanding of the Vietnam War is clearly important. However, it seems unlikely Turse has the intellectual flexibility and openness to balance the war’s moral complexities and put the role of the U.S. military in an appropriate context. He sees what he wants to see. One wonders how he interpreted archival materials on alleged U.S. atrocities; perhaps co-author Nelson provided some balance.

L.A. Times: Help Wanted

All of which leads to another question: How did Turse convince editors at the Times to hire him as a freelancer? Did he find a kindred spirit in the newsroom, a true believer who shared his political views? Or perhaps he was hired based on the strength of his writing portfolio?

To land a freelance gig or staff position at a newspaper – any newspaper – applicants normally must impress an editor that they can write well, accurately, and in a balanced and intellectually honest fashion. (Well, OK, maybe the last two criteria no longer apply as much, but let’s say they still do for the sake of argument.)

Which one of Turse’s articles might have impressed the Times' editors?Perhaps it was one he wrote for the website “Unknown News”: "Marine Atrocities in Iraq War Provide Link to Brutal Past.”

Wrote Turse: “Atrocities are...a long-held Marine Corps tradition, as evidenced by the commission of atrocities by U.S. Marines during the Philippines Insurrection, the “Banana War” interventions in Nicaragua, Haiti and the Dominican Republic, in the Pacific theater during World War II and in later conflicts.”

Or maybe Times editors liked an article he co-authored at TomDispatch.com that compared war-ravaged Iraq to Katrina-ravaged New Orleans, claiming that both are “morphing into a single entity.” They will be “devoured by the same limited set of corporations, let loose and overseen by the same small set of Bush administration officials” asserted the article: "Corporations of the Whirlwind; The Reconstruction of New Oraq.”

“In George Bush's new world of globalization, first comes the destruction and only then does one sit down at the planetary table to sup.”

In another article Turse accused the U.S. military of brainwashing children by carrying out a “a full-scale occupation of the entertainment industry.”

“Through toys, especially videogames, the military and its partners in academia and the entertainment industry have not only blurred the line between entertainment and war, but created a media culture thoroughly capable of preparing America's children for armed conflict,” Turse wrote in "Bringing the War Home: “The New Military-Industrial-Entertainment Complex at War and Play,” published by TomDispatch.com in October, 2003.

Perhaps Turse had some sort of inside track to a Times editor, a possibility given some of the folks who invariably are found at the Times and other major news outlets. One example is Mary Beth Sheridan, a former Times reporter who now writes for The Washington Post.

Last year, Sheridan told a “first-amendment breakfast” at Columbia University that, as a result of being an imbedded reporter in Iraq, she realized U.S. troops were in fact “not blood-thirsty maniacs.” They were “really decent people” and even “sweet,” she said. On the other hand, a senior reporter at the Times, who also has visited Iraq, told me in a private conversation that U.S. soldiers were essentially jocks and "killers."

Perhaps Times editors were impressed that Turse was quoted as an expert on Vietnam War-era atrocities in a New York Times article in December, 2003. "Report on Brutal Vietnam Campaign Stirs Memories.” The article dealt with an investigative series by The Toledo Blade on alleged Vietnam War atrocities. Written in the run-up to the war in Iraq, it provided no new and significant insights about the Vietnam War, yet it won a Pulitzer Prize.

Perhaps one of Turse's writing awards impressed Times editors. In February, 2004, he won the "Stakhanovite of the Month" prize from "The Voice of the Turtle,” an online journal of leftist politics and culture.

“Comrade Turse,” as the journal called him, was cited for his poetry and other writings.

Having published his Times story on Vietnam War atrocities, Turse has joined the ranks of big-time mainstream journalism. He’ll undoubtedly get another “Stakhanovite” award. His editors at the Times deserve one too. Turse couldn’t have done it without them.

Author's note: “Who is Nick Turse?” was originally published at ModernConservative. This post has a few additional paragraphs dealing with Turse’s PhD dissertation. The Free Republic website provides a rough-and-tumble discussion of the ModCon article. Also, for additional analysis of "The War Crimes Files" see Wintersoldier.com. For incisive media criticism of this and other issues, visit Antimedia.

The Caribbean: A Playground for Jihad?

The Miami terror plot is among several terror plots and attacks with links to the Caribbean


UPDATE: See Thomas Lifson's comments at The American Thinker regarding an expanded version of this article published at ModernConservative. Also, see a related article at this blog, "Radical leftist British MP Puzzled Over Caribbean’s Links to Islam."


By DAVID PAULIN

The terror plot uncovered in the Miami area shares a largely unnoticed thread with Canada’s terror plot, London’s suicide bombings, the Washington-area sniper killings, and the aborted “shoe bomber” attack on a passenger jet. That thread is the Caribbean. These five plots brought together 13 young Muslim converts – all of whom had connections in varying degrees to the Caribbean. The island of Jamaica had ties to all but one plot.

In Miami, the seven young plotters, all Muslim converts in their early 20s and 30s, had set their sights on destroying Chicago’s Sears Tower. Four were born in the U.S. to Haitian parents; and two others were Haitian immigrants. One was born in the U.S. to Dominican parents.

After Sept. 11, 2001, the Middle East was presumed to be the main incubator of Islamic terrorism. But in these terror-related cases, the Caribbean has emerged often enough to suggest something may be going on in the region that would necessitate a reassessment of the jihad threat.

Anti-Western Political Culture

What in the Caribbean might inspire jihad? One possibility is its political culture. Beneath its idyllic image as a tourism playground, the region bristles with some of the same anti-Western pathologies and grievances as the Middle East. It comes not from ordinary people, to be sure, but from educated elites and those who move within their circles.

Many in the Caribbean – mainly its left-leaning academics and intellectuals – still boil over the region’s legacy of slavery. A conference on racism may produce the sort of emotions one would expect if slavery had ended only a few years ago. Even mainstream politicians, in discussing the Sept. 11 attacks, have been known to publicly say America got what it deserved. Generally, the region’s left-leaning leaders can be counted on to oppose Washington in the United Nations.

Could these anti-Western and anti-American pathologies explain the Caribbean’s ties to recent terrorism cases? It’s a possibility. Radical Islam, after all, attracts those who already seeth with grievances against America and the West. Ideology, not poverty, motivates young jihadis.

Before discussing the region’s pathologies in more detail, consider the four other Caribbean links to terror plots – all involving Jamaica to varying degrees:

In Canada’s terror plot, two of the 17 plotters had connections to the Caribbean. Ahmad Mustafa Ghany, a 21-year-old Trinidadian, was the university-educated son of a doctor who had immigrated to Canada. Another plotter, according to authorities, had origins in Jamaica. His name was never revealed, presumably because he was a juvenile. The plotters had planned to destroy major landmarks and behead Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

Then there were London’s suicide bombers. Nearly one year ago, the deadliest bomber was Germaine Lindsay, a 19-year-old Muslim convert. Born in Jamaica, he left for London as an infant but returned to the island to visit as a youngster. Lindsay was blamed for killing 25 people aboard one of three underground trains that he and three companions – Britons of Pakistani descent – targeted along with a double-decker bus. The bombings left 56 people dead and 700 injured

Lindsay left a pregnant wife, their baby son, and relatives in Massachusetts and the Caribbean.

Richard Reid, the so-called "shoe bomber," was another jihadi with Jamaican origins. Nearly six weeks after the Sept. 11 attacks, the al-Qaeda adherent tried to blow up an American Airlines jet bound from Paris to Miami. A former petty criminal who had served prison time, Reid was born in 1973 to an English mother and Jamaican father, who, during Reid’s childhood, spent much of his time in prison. Before Reid could light the fuse to his explosive-packed shoe, startled passengers subdued him.

Nearly one year after that came Jamaican-born Lee Boyd Malvo, the infamous 17-year-old sniper who was born in Jamaica but moved away as a child. He and his 41-year-old partner, New Orleans-born John Allen Muhammad, killed ten people in the Washington D.C. area. Muhammad and Malvo may not have fit jihadi profiles; however, they did share at least two traits with other jihadis: unstable family lives and a world view consistent with jihadi ideology. Indeed, Muhammad is said to have remarked that the Sept. 11 attacks “should have happened a long time ago.”

According to Malvo’s psychiatrist, Muhammad told Malvo that their $10 million extortion plot would help establish a new nation for blacks in Canada. Muhammad, an Army veteran who served in the first gulf war, had lived in the Caribbean. He had been linked to the black separatist group Nation of Islam.

Lastly, there is yet another plot of sorts with Jamaica links, although it was not included among the plots and attacks mentioned at the onset. It involved Jamaican-born Muslim cleric Sheik Abdullah el-Faisal, a radical preacher who made a name for himself delivering incendiary sermons in a London mosque which Lindsay and Reid may have attended. On March, 2003, el-Faisal was sentenced to nine years in prison, both for soliciting murder and inciting hatred for urging followers to kill Jews, Americans and infidels. He promised young Muslims who died in jihad that they would spend eternity in paradise with 72 virgins.

Jamaica’s terrorism connections

With Jamaica figuring into four of the five plots and attacks with Caribbean links, two questions naturally arise. Is it all a coincidence, or is there something about Jamaica’s culture that might inspire jihad?

Most Americans know Jamaica for its tourism and Bob Marley, the dreadlocked Rastafarian and reggae superstar who wrote the classic, "One Love." Trinidad, not Jamaica, would be a better candidate for inspiring jihad. It has a large Muslim population that includes some radicalized Muslims with a history of violence.

However, Jamaica has a dark side stewing beneath the idealized image of a paradise inherited from former African slaves. Here are some of the same deeply felt grievances and paranoia that exists in radical and politicized Islam – whether in the Middle East or among millions of Muslims in Britain, France, or the Netherlands.

To some extent, the island of 2.7 million also serves as an intellectual beacon for the region. The main campus for the University of the West Indies is on the island; and more than a few of its faculty propagate an anti-Western worldview.

To most American tourists, to be sure, the ordinary Jamaicans they encounter are friendly. Many long for U.S. visas. Jamaica has neither a large Muslim population nor history of Muslim radicalism. And like much of the English-speaking Caribbean, it is overwhelmingly black and Christian.

But those who venture away from the island’s gated resorts and beaches will be in for a surprise. At academic conferences, political gatherings, and in the opinion pages of Jamaica’s two Sunday newspapers, the discourse is animated by left-wing ideology, anti-Americanism, and a crack pot theory or two.

Some of this discourse is institutionalized in the education system. At the University of the West Indies, for instance, “colonialism” and “slavery” are among the most popular subjects for books coming off the university’s press. Jamaica’s left-leaning People’s National Party, a major booster of the university, has ruled the island for decades.

What kind of effect might it all have had on Lindsay, Malvo, Reid, el-Faisal, and the plotter in Canada?

To be sure, it may have been years since they set foot in Jamaica. But in an age of air travel, the Internet, and multiculturalism, immigrants in new countries are less likely to assimilate. For many it’s easier to identify with the countries from which they migrated, or from which their parents migrated. This is more likely in areas where there are large concentrations of immigrants from the same country. Miami has areas where Haitians predominate, and London and the United States have areas with large concentrations of Jamaicans. In some cases, they won’t identify with any country; jihad, however, may provide them a sense of identify.

Jamaica’s 9/11 conspiracy theories

Interestingly, Lindsay, the suicide bomber, is reported to have cried after the September 11 terrorist attacks, whose 3,000 murder victims included several Jamaicans. Between then and his suicide mission, something changed him.

Perhaps it was the anti-American discourse emanating from Jamaica and the rest of the Caribbean. It went into overdrive after the U.S.-led invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq.

Perhaps Lindsay and other Jamaicans believed a crackpot conspiracy theory that’s popular in the Middle East; that 4,000 American Jews failed to show up for work on Sept. 11, 2001, at the World Trade Center. A lecturer at the University of the West Indies, Sultana Afroz, gave credence to that theory during a public forum dealing with the possibility of a war in Iraq.

Perhaps Lindsay, Malvo, Reid, el-Faisal, and the Canada plotter were enraged over the remarks of a lecturer at the University of the West Indies, Cecil Gutzmore. He’s repeatedly asserted that the U.S. government cooked up the HIV/AIDS virus to control the world’s “non-white” population.

Gutzmore’s public comments also were echoed by a well-respected columnist for The Observer, a daily newspaper in Kingston, the capital. On Sundays, the paper’s opinion pages bristle with anti-American diatribes that, in the months ahead of the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, grew increasingly shrill.

Ironically, The Observer, the island’s most virulently anti-American paper, is published by Jamaican businessman Gordon “Butch” Stewart, who heads the Sandals and Beaches resorts which depend on American tourism. Not long ago, a Jamaica-born columnist who lives in Florida, Rev. Mervin Stoddart, praised Osama bin Laden in an Observer column. In another column, he compared America to Nazi Germany, calling it a racist society even worse than South Africa's apartheid regime.

To date, the psyches of Lindsay, Reid, Malvo, el-Faisal, and the plotter in Canada remain a mystery. How they became radicalized is not know. Certainly there was plenty of hate speech to be found in London’s mosques and among its anti-American chattering classes. Could they, however, also have been primed by the anti-American and anti-Western political culture in Jamaica and the Caribbean?

Another factor that may have affected them is Jamaica’s frayed social fabric. Jean Lowrie-Chin, a columnist for The Observer, mentioned in a column in July, 2005, that Malvo, Lindsay, Reid, and other ill-starred Jamaicans suffered troubled home lives. They migrated abroad and fell into the "waiting arms of well-versed foreign criminals and fanatics." By "omission or commission, we had a hand in their fate," she argued.

Among other social problems, many Jamaicans grow up in single-parent homes. Fifty percent of Jamaica’s households are reportedly headed by single women. A father’s name is missing on well over 60 percent of birth records. This can stigmatize children because of Jamaica’s conservative and judgmental climate.

Other Jamaicans have observed that the country’s heavy reliance on remittances forces mothers and fathers to work abroad, leaving youngsters with little adult supervision. It’s a common scenario in the Caribbean and other developing countries.

Neither Lindsay, Reid, nor Malvo appear to have had stable upbringings. Malvo's murder spree was widely portrayed as the case of a confused and vulnerable teen succumbing to the diabolical influence of his adult mentor.

In considering the Caribbean’s links to jihad – and Jamaica’s links in particular – another factor is worth considering that points to another potential threat. Haiti and Jamaica are major transshipment points in the drug trade. They’re populated by violent gangs that, conceivably, could team up with jihadists.

Jamaica, which suffered the world’s worst murder rate in 2005, is particularly problematic in this respect. For decades its inner-city areas have been dominated by “garrison communities.” Divided along political lines, they’re controlled by “dons” who oversee criminal activity, maintain order, and have loose ties to local politicians. The island also is the region’s top seller and producer of marijuana.

The U.S. State Department, to be sure, has given Jamaica decent marks for its anti-terrorism efforts, but the country’s mix of well-organized gangs, frayed social fabric, and anti-Western ideology may prove to be a potent incubator for future jihadists. The same may be said for Haiti, especially after the arrests of the Miami terror suspects.

Hugo’s Broken Promises
London’s left-wingers recently rolled out the red-carpet for Hugo Chávez; no matter that the populist leader has been a disaster for Venezuela’s poor.

Summary: Venezuela President Hugo Chávez is a hero to the international left. It loves his combative anti-Americanism and diatribes against neoliberalism and globalization. There are some messy details it ignores and that the mainstream media underreports: Poverty, corruption, and crime have gotten significantly worse under Chávez. In Latin America, Chávez’s popularity is waning as many see his agenda driven by a desire for power – not a genuine concern for the region and his fellow Venezuelans. Will his admirers continue to ignore reality?
By David Paulin

Hugo Chávez, Venezuela’s globetrotting president, got a big welcome in London recently while making one of his frequent world tours. Adoring leftists swooned over his anti-American diatribes and colorful one-liners, including branding President Bush a “genocidal assassin.”

Chávez and his entourage arrived in style aboard the presidential Airbus 319 – purchased a few years into his first term, amid considerable controversy. It wasn’t an official visit for the self-proclaimed “socialist” who favors designer suits and Cartier watches. Chávez’s host was London Mayor Ken Livingstone, 60, known informally as "Red Ken."

With Livingstone at his elbow, the 51-year-old Chávez reportedly got a “hero’s welcome” at one rally. At private functions, the man who once called himself a “Maoist” and praised Cuba’s “sea of happiness” hobnobbed with like-minded Parliamentarians and celebrities. The later included virulent anti-American playwright and Nobel laureate Harold Pinter and activist Bianca Jagger, former wife of Rolling Stone Mick Jagger.

Prime Minister Tony Blair, whom Chávez has compared to Hitler for supporting the war in Iraq, was nowhere in sight.

Chávez gets the rock-star treatment from the anti-American left that traditionally was showered on his 79-year-old mentor, Cuba’s president-for-life, Fidel Castro. It adores his frequent harangues of President Bush, his vaunted “social programs” for Venezuela’s poor, and his impassioned call for a Latin American free of Washington’s influence, and united under his so-called “Bolivarian Revolution” – named after Latin America’s liberation hero, Simón Bolívar.

Chávez’s admirers love the way he upstages Western leaders at international summits. They snicker when he announces he’ll provide subsidized heating oil to low-income Americans and Europeans. In their minds, it’s a well-aimed slap at immoral Western capitalism; no matter that Venezuela’s oil is the patrimony of Venezuelans, most of whom are poor. For Chávez and his rabid supporters, however, this misses the big picture. It’s perfectly legitimate to use oil wealth to buy influence and form anti-Washington alliances. So what if there are fewer petrodollars for Venezuelans.
For Chávez, oil and radical politics go hand in hand. At the recent OPEC summit in Caracas, for instance, the former paratrooper launched into a trademark rant against America and the West, during which he mentioned his “good friend” Ilich Ramírez Sánchez, 56 -- the notorious Venezuela-born terrorist known as “Carlos the Jackal,” who is serving a life sentence in France. Early into his presidency, Chávez wrote a letter of “solidarity” to the imprisoned “Carlos” whom he addressed as "Dear compatriot."
Chávez’s Failed Revolution

The anti-American left’s romance with Chávez is like many imperfect romances: messy details about a person’s true nature are easily overlooked. His supporters blithely ignore three colossal failures: Poverty, crime, and corruption have worsened considerably on Chávez’s watch.

For any self-respecting socialist (a term, incidentally, Chávez started applying to himself a few years ago) this ought to be a source of major shame, something many Venezuela observers have noted. Venezuela’s quality-of-life benchmarks, after all, plummeted despite Chávez’s vaunted “social programs” and – most significantly – despite record-high oil prices that traditionally lifted the oil-dependent economy, as dysfunctional as it had been.

Ken Livingstone and his soul mates may be unconcerned. They may give Chávez a pass on his many rights abuses against political opponents, the news media, civic organizations, and democratic institutions – thoroughly documented by groups such as Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International.
But like it or not, Chávez’s misgovernance has been a major betrayal of 26 million Venezuelans. Nearly eight years ago, a significant majority of the poor and dwindling middle-class voted for Chávez, a political outsider. They trusted him to reverse decades of declining living standards – all rightly blamed on a democratic government hobbled by years of corruption, inept policies, and irresponsible political parties.

Venezuela’s leaders had ruled – or misruled – a statist economy through the 1970’s oil-boom days of “Saudi Venezuela” and into the lean years of plummeting oil prices; years characterized by falling government revenues, currency crashes, and soaring inflation. Poverty in the oil-dependent economy soared from 30 percent to at least 60 percent by the late 1990s; private economists put it at 80 percent. In Venezuela and other developing countries, oil wealth has been a curse in part because government leaders rely on petrodollars for most funding – not taxpayers who demand accountability from them.

Desperate for change, many Venezuelans set aside deep concerns about Chávez’s past; that he’d staged a bloody and failed military coup in 1992 as an army lieutenant colonel.

But Chávez’s leadership was as inept as during his disorganized coup. Once in office he used his overwhelming popularity to rewrite Venezuela’s constitution and consolidate his power in an already centralized state. The resulting loss of checks and balances, however imperfect they’d been, opened the gates to epic levels of corruption and waste. So much for “revolutionary” idealism in a country that Chávez renamed Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela.

Under Chávez’s revolution, poverty has increased at least nine percent. Chávez has disputed these official statistics, to be sure; so he had Venezuela’s National Statistics Institute change its methodology, which give him the numbers he wanted. The new statistics failed to convince private economists and increasing numbers of Venezuelans, including many former Chávez allies: fellow leftists who now oppose him.

In respect to corruption, Berlin-based corruption watchdog Transparency International recently ranked Venezuela a dismal 130 out of 159 countries in its annual survey on perceptions of corruption. This put it below countries such as Russia, Niger, and Sierra Leone.

Venezuela “was one of a dozen countries where more than half of respondents said this (corruption) had 'greatly' increased,” noted The Economist.
That Venezuela’s corruption deepened is ironic. Chávez evoked his outrage over corruption when justifying his coup against President Carlos Andrés Pérez.
Responding to Transparency’s report, Vice President José Vicente Rangel, 76, called the corruption watchdog “a mercenary organization at the service of powerful transnational interests.” It was an expected response from Rangel, a three-time failed presidential candidate on Venezuela’s communist party ticket in the 1970s and 80s. In Venezuela, blaming others for individual and collective failures is not uncommon; and it’s been a defining feature of Chávez’s administration.

One example of Chávez's questionable spending was his purchase of a $65 million Airbus, reportedly the most modern presidential jet in Latin America. Many Venezuelans were outraged.

The Airbus replaced the presidential Boeing 707 and corporate jets. They’d been good enough for past presidents, whom Chávez mercilessly derided for corruption. Rafael Caldera, the previous president, even took a commercial airliner to Europe when Venezuela’s economy slipped into one of its regular tailspins. But for Chávez, who made 41 international trips during his first 21 months in office, the Airbus obviously had advantages, even for a socialist.

What happened to the presidential Boeing 707? Chávez loaned it to his leftist soul mate: Bolivian President Evo Morales, a populist and former coca farmer.

Then there’s runaway crime, traditionally a top concern of Venezuelans. Under Chávez, an already horrific murder rate doubled. There were 9,402 reported murders last year – about 25 per day or the equivalent of one suicide bombing in Iraq, whose population is about the same size as Venezuela’s. Most victims are poor.

These trends are alarming and well-known to anybody who follows Venezuela. Yet Chávez’s admirers still rave about his “social experiment.” In recent months, Danny Glover, the Rev. Jesse Jackson, and U.S. anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan were among the leftist elites who visited Venezuela as Chávez’s guests. For ordinary Americans who fancy that Chavez may be on to something, there are $1,300 “reality tours” being offered by San Francisco-based Global Exchange, a self-described “human rights group.”

Venezuela, boasts Global Exchange’s web site, “is at the center of a new, progressive model of socioeconomic development that is shaping Latin America’s future.” “Reality tourists” visit grim hillside slums ringing Caracas and listen to Chávez loyalists praise Venezuela’s socialism.

The mainstream media, to be sure, has given Chávez a bit of a pass as well. It has yet to cover Venezuela like Iraq – spinning nearly every story around a suicide bombing or negative trend, supposedly for the sake of “balance” and “context.” In Venezuela, such context is often missing.

Chávez losing support

Chávez’s popularity in Venezuela, to be sure, has declined over the past seven years, including among the poor. But he’s maintained sufficient support to remain politically viable. No matter that he’s failed to diversify the economy, attract investment, and create jobs.

No matter that his poverty-reduction efforts are in reality a patchwork of social initiatives – subsidized markets, housing, and education – that form no coherent program. As one Venezuelan poverty expert put it, it’s “social theater.” Why do the poor still support him? Chávez speaks directly to them and gives them hope, something previous leaders never did.

Ken Livingstone and others may be unconcerned by such contradictions – so bedazzled are they by Chávez’s anti-Americanism. But in Latin America, increasing numbers of political leaders and ordinary people are losing patience with Chávez – including leftists who refuse to define themselves by their anti-Americanism.

In Mexico and Peru recently, Chávez’s trademark insults aimed at conservative presidential candidates helped to reverse the leads of left-leaning candidates he favored. One poll cited by The Economist showed only 17 percent of Peruvians viewed Chávez favorably. Peru recalled its ambassador from Caracas, citing Chávez’s meddling in its elections.

And then there was Sunday’s landslide relection of Colombia’s center-right President Álvaro Uribe, a close Washington alley. Chávez had criticized the 53-year-old Uribe’s ties with Washington. He supported his leftist rivals. But voters were impressed by two things that neighboring Venezuela hasn't seen in years: improved security and the strongest economic growth in a decade. The election is widely seen as a setback for Chávez.

The region’s political leaders, for their part, are growing increasingly annoyed at Chávez’s demands that they support his anti-Washington alliances. This includes Chávez’s answer to Washington’s Free Trade Area of the Americas – named the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas (whose three members to date are Venezuela, Cuba, and Bolivia).

Brazil President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, a leftist, surely fumed when Bolivia’s Morales, encouraged by Chávez and Castro, nationalized natural gas fields in which Brazil’s Petrobras had a major stake. Brazil and Argentina are major consumers of Bolivia’s gas.

"Chávez has been saying, in effect, 'You're either with us or against us,'” Michael Shifter, a senior policy analyst at the Inter-American Dialogue policy group in Washington, told The New York Times. “For most Latin Americans that hubristic message doesn't go over very well, whether it comes from Washington or Caracas."

So much for claims that Chávez is uniting Latin America’s leftists.

Many need no “reality tour” to understand that Chávez is not the modern and positive force portrayed by Livingstone and his fellow travelers. They see him as a reactionary one – rooted in old-style populists such as Argentina’s former president, Juan Perón.

To them Chávez’s leftist populism is irresponsible, nationalistic, and authoritarian; it’s “much more interested in policy as an instrument for attaining and conserving power than in power as a tool for making policy,” observed Mexico’s former foreign minister, Jorge G. Castañeda, writing in the current Foreign Affairs.

A better vision for the region, Castañeda argued, is provided by its modern leftists, composed of reconstructed communists, socialists, and Castroists; they generally govern responsibly and may be found today in Chile, Uruguay “and, to a slightly lesser extent, Brazil.”

“This left emphasizes social policy – education, anti-poverty programs, health care, housing – but within a more or less orthodox market framework. It usually attempts to deepen and broaden democratic institutions.”

“Chávez is not Castro; he is Perón with oil. Morales is not an indigenous Che; he is a skillful and irresponsible populist,” Castañeda concluded.

Don’t bother telling that to Livingstone and his friends. Just as their counterparts of another era idealized Stalin, Mao, and Castro, they give Chávez the red-carpet treatment no matter what.

For them ideology trumps all else – even if ordinary voters reject that ideology.


June 1, 2006
Author’s Note: I revised this piece since posting it. To provide a bit more context to my main points, I added a few additional sentences and paragraphs. This includes a paragraph about Colombia’s presidential election last Sunday and another describing visits made by Chávez’s admirers to Venezuela. There were no factual changes.

Media Mischief

Jill Carroll Reconsidered or: How the MSM Publicly Trashes Wal-Mart but Secretly Loves its Business Model

Details about The Christian Science Monitor’s relationship with Jill Carroll have been sketchy in the past. But a recent exchange of e-mails I had with a Baghdad-based staffer reporter for The Monitor, Dan Murphy, has shed new light on how The Monitor used -- or perhaps misused -- Carroll.

By David Paulin

The mainstream media loves to excoriate Wal-Mart for a variety of alleged sins -- paltry wages, skimpy benefits and, horror of horrors: big profits. This fixation is hypocritical, however, when one considers how some in the mainstream media treat their own employees.

Jill Carroll is a case in point.

Carroll, of course, was the freelance reporter on assignment for The Christian Science Monitor when she was kidnapped last January 7th, while being driven to an interview in one of Baghdad's Sunni Arab neighborhoods. Her translator, Allan Enwiyah, was shot to death.

Carroll’s captors released her nearly three months later on March 30th -- the day I published a piece about her and the mainstream media’s exploitation of freelancers: “Jill Carroll’s Kidnapping: A Black Eye for the Mainstream Media’s Use of Freelancers.”

Details about The Christian Science Monitor’s relationship with Carroll have been sketchy in the past. But a recent exchange of e-mails I had with a Baghdad-based staffer reporter for The Monitor, Dan Murphy, has shed new light on how The Monitor used - or perhaps misused - Carroll.

Originally, Murphy contacted me to protest a single paragraph in my Carroll story. It claimed that Carroll, as a Monitor freelancer, would have enjoyed none of the same benefits as a staff reporter at the paper - although, to be sure, it noted Carroll was apparently not treated as a typical freelancer.

Murphy set the record straight.

Carroll in fact enjoyed a highly unusual situation with The Monitor. She was given the same benefits as a staff reporter, such as insurance and a room in The Monitor’s rented hotel facilities, according to Murphy. However, she was paid as a freelancer. In other words, she got paid per article.

How much? Murphy wouldn’t say. But the late Steven Vincent, the gifted freelance journalist and author of “In the Red Zone,” wrote three Monitor articles and earned $300 apiece “if I remember rightly,” said his widow, Lisa Ramaci-Vincent, in an e-mail to me.

As any journalist knows who has worked abroad, it’s not easy writing the kinds of multi-source stories the Monitor likes from a place like Iraq - where one faces irregular phone service, frequent electrical outages, traffic gridlock, and roving kidnappers. According to a Factiva search, Carroll produced about one Monitor article every three to five days, starting with her first piece on February 17, 2005. She also continued to occasionally freelance for other papers, including the Chicago Sun-Times and USA Today.

Those interested in media trends should note that The Monitor apparently pioneered a new type of employment model in respect to Carroll - an innovation I’ll bet not even Wal-Mart has tried. Normally, one has to be on a company’s full-time payroll to get benefits of any kind, but exceptions were made for Jill Carroll.

One can speculate as to why The Monitor did this. I suspect it was straight forward. It simply didn’t want to spend the money for a staff writer (I’d presume $42,000 to $55,000 per year), but it did have a need for extra copy. An accomplished journalist like Carroll, churning out about one story a week, would work just fine on a freelance basis.

There’s no denying it was decent of The Monitor to offer Carroll the same benefits as a staff writer. In doing this, her editors were no doubt aware that Iraq had simply gotten too dangerous to allow Carroll to live on her own, as she’d done for at least one year in Iraq. And what a year it was for her: a hardscrabble life of budget hotels, irregular paychecks, and growing danger – all of which she described in a colorful article for last year’s February/March American Journalism Review: "Letter from Baghdad: What a Way to Make a Living."

Days after Carroll’s release, The Monitor announced it had quietly added Carroll to its reporting staff, shortly after her kidnapping. This, Murphy said, was to ensure she had a financial “cushion” after her release. The Monitor waited until after her release to publicize this, he explained, because of concerns that revealing this while she was in captivity would jeopardize her situation with her kidnappers.

This all sounds logical, and it was very nice of The Monitor to do. But I can’t help but think that a sense of shame also motivated The Monitor; that its editors had to do something like this to avoid the shaming they otherwise were sure to face. Certainly, Carroll would not have had a huge “cushion” at the end of her freelance gig with The Monitor - but that issue was one with which her editors had never apparently troubled themselves.

There’s no doubting that freelancing can be tough, as Carroll noted in American Journalism Review. That’s why few journalists enjoy it for very long; most hope to eventually land a full-time job. I assume this was the case with Carroll. Going to Iraq, in part, was probably a way for her to jumpstart her career after she got laid off from her reporter assistant job at The Wall Street Journal.

It was nice to see Carroll finally got what she must have wanted: a staff position on a decent paper. It’s unfortunate she got it by suffering a brutal kidnapping and then living for the next three months with the possibility that she could, at any moment, suffer the same fate as her translator.

On a related front, The Monitor has yet to address another issue: What might it have done differently to have kept Carroll and her translator out of harm’s way? Unlike most American news organizations in Baghdad, The Monitor reportedly had no Western security consultant. Would it have made a difference? Did Carroll or any of her colleagues undergo hostile-environment training?

We’ll probably never know. The media, after all, is not that good at investigating itself.