From: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Me: > That is true, of course, only if you believe all accusations that cast the > US in a bad light and ignore all evidence to the contrary. The US did not, > of course, support the coup. Was the Administration insufficiently active > in deterring it? Yes, I think so. If it had acted, of course, no doubt > all across Latin America people would be blaming us for interfering in > their internal affairs. It should have acted - but there's a very large > difference between _supporting_ a coup and _failing to stop_ a coup, oddly > enough. Find an official statement by the American government saying that > we supported the overthrow of Chavez. Even one. Otherwise, stop throwing > around accusations where you have no evidence except conspiracy theories. >
OK, my sloppy writing. The US supported post-facto the coup, unlike the rest of the Americas. Maybe I should have said approval? Here's The Guardian with what could be construed as ante-facto (pre-facto?) "encouragement" if not support: US 'gave the nod' to Venezuelan coup Julian Borger in Washington and Alex Bellos, South America correspondent The Bush administration was under intense scrutiny yesterday for its role in last weekend's abortive coup in Venezuela, after admitting that US officials had held a series of meetings in recent months with Venezuelan military officers and opposition activists. The White House yesterday confirmed that a few weeks before the coup attempt, administration officials met Pedro Carmona, the business leader who took over the interim government after President Hugo Chavez was arrested on Friday. But the White House press secretary, Ari Fleischer, denied that the US had offered any support for a putsch. The US defence department also confirmed that the Venezuelan army's chief of staff, General Lucas Romero Rincon, visited the Pentagon in December and met the assistant secretary of defence for western hemispheric affairs, Roger Pardo-Maurer. The Pentagon said: "We made it very, very clear that the United States' intent was to support democracy and human rights, and that we would in no way support any coups or unconstitutional activity." However, it was not made clear why the talks broached the subject of a coup, four months before the event. Mr Fleischer said the subject had been brought up at meetings with Venezuelan opposition leaders because US diplomats in Caracas had "for the past several months" been picking up coup rumours. "In the conversations they had they explicitly told opposition leaders the United States would not support a coup," he added. However, a defence department official quoted by the New York Times yesterday said: "We were not discouraging people." "We were sending informal, subtle signals that we don't like this guy. We didn't say, 'No, don't you dare' and we weren't advocates saying, 'Here's some arms; we'll help you overthrow this guy.'" http://www.guardian.co.uk/Archive/Article/0,4273,4395499,00.html Are you familiar with Monty Python? Nudge nudge, wink wink. Brett
