corrente

Coup a comin'? Maybe?

Bush administration official press release media spokesperson/psyops at CNN and MSGOP and Fox etc....have been breathing heavily in recent days about the rise in gas prices across our majestic God fearin' nation, go figger. How can that be!? Hey! Blame it on Venezuela (you know it's coming) and commie gym teachers from Cuba who are infiltrating every nook and cranny in Caracus. Rich white heathers from the burbs, surounded by rabble commie hillbillies, and armed with slingshots have taken to the streets in designer jeans to take back their nation for baseballo and motherhood and aerobics. Enter Commander Codpiece and the avenging Calvinist Elect of the Bush administration. Send in some private military mercenary contractor goons and some especial forces to do the surgical dirty work. Then prop President Umm in front of a TV camera and let him puff and preen and "talk tough" about Castro and turrist and fridem and grave national security dangers to 'Murica's precious bodily oil and gas fluids. What else is new. Election comin'! And nothin' gits the average 'Murican Babbitt all a hootin' and hollerin' quite like a kick in the nuts at the petrol pump. Fillin' up the pig with expensive furrin' commie erl? That just hain't rawght. Not with NASCAR season upon us.

Well, we'll see.

Excerpts from recent Stratfor briefing:

[Petroleos de Venezuela, owns the U.S. company CITGO.]

...a U.S. government source close to the Venezuelan situation informed Stratfor today that virtually every unit in the Venezuelan military has been seeded with Cuban soldiers. The source added that -- unlike Venezuelan troops -- Cuban troops would fire on opposition demonstrators if ordered to do so. In terms of their accents and physical appearance, Cubans are indistinguishable from Venezuelans. Therefore it would appear that the Venezuelan military had opened fire on the protesters.

If it became public knowledge that the Cubans had intervened in Venezuela, the United States could not simply ignore it. It would not be a matter of domestic politics -- although that should not be discounted -- but a strategic challenge by Cuba in an area of vital importance to the United States. Therefore, government officials who are floating these stories are setting in motion a dynamic in which the United States will have to become
more active in Venezuela. They are, so to speak, forcing their own hand.

This, at least, is clear: U.S. officials are claiming that Cubans are in Venezuela. A White House source told a Venezuelan journalist March 4 that Venezuela is the second most important problem facing the United States after Iraq. At some point, The Washington Post or The New York Times will publish that news, and the administration will be forced to make some decisions. Since they are setting up the situation in the first place, we must assume they have some idea of what they're doing. It is always possible that one faction in the administration is trying to force the situation; Washington is Washington. But our source is not the sort to go out on a limb. The source is a very sound, official leaker.

That means the administration might have decided it does not have enough on its plate -- and wants to try its hand at a new game.

I'm sure that the pantysniffers at the Washington Post and CNN and NBC/GE and the New York Times - and blah blah blah - will get right to the bottom of the whole ugly unraveling embroglio, asap. Uh-huh...shooor.