Language

Delacour Smacks Down Shifty Shifter in DC Post

Submitted August 27, 2004 - 2:01 am by Al Giordano
Narco News correspondent Justin Delacour - who was in Caracas with us for the recent, historic, first-ever-in-any-country-on-earth, referendum vote on a sitting president, has a letter in today's Washington Post:

Respect for Venezuela
Friday, August 27, 2004; Page A20

In his Aug. 23 op-ed column, "Contained Revolution," Michael Shifter said that Venezuela's performance under President Hugo Chavez has been "dismal."

Throughout Mr. Chavez's time in office, the government has invested in the expansion of education and school lunch programs, health care, and subsidized food, building materials and credit for the poor.

On a recent visit to Caracas, I saw the government-run stores that were built in poor neighborhoods to provide food staples at below-market prices. I also saw the medical facilities and health services that the government provides free of charge.

Mr. Shifter did not mention that economic problems during Mr. Chavez's time in power are partly due to the business-led opposition, which has attempted to sabotage the government through capital flight, disinvestment and business lockouts. After the opposition lost the recent referendum by a large margin, opposition leaders continued their campaign of political destabilization by crying "fraud," though the Carter Center and the Organization of American States found no evidence of voting irregularities.

It's time for the U.S. political establishment to show the democratically elected government of Venezuela the respect that it deserves.

JUSTIN DELACOUR
Albuquerque

Commentary: Michael Shifter is responsible for more atrocities against human rights in our hemisphere than anyone else in this century. He is, get this, the author of "Plan Colombia."

Sad, but true: He coordinated and staffed the Council on Foreign Relations Committee that wrote the legislation to send, first, $1.3 billion dollars of U.S. taxpayer money to the Colombian State and Military, to fight an unwinnable war against the poor population of Colombia.

He picked the committee members to rubberstamp his proposed war crimes... the committee was chaired by U.S. Senators Mike DeWine (R-Ohio) and Bob Graham (D-Florida), who sponsored the legislation, based on the text written by Shifter, to fund a Civil War in Colombia.

How much blood can two hands fit?

So it is no surprise that Shifty Shifter, today, is trying to supress the good news from Venezuela and it's potential to spread elsewhere. Shifty Shifter may be inoculated against democracy... but the grand majority of us in this world, in this América are not... We look for authentic democracy... Shifter runs from it and tries to keep it from erupting... And he is paid very well to do that.

Don't shake hands with war criminals, as Barry Crimmins says.

Shifty Shifter is a bad person. Congratulations to Delacour for getting a letter into the Washington Post to smack him down!

Reply

Our Policy on Comment Submissions: Co-publishers of Narco News (which includes The Narcosphere and The Field) may post comments without moderation. All co-publishers comment under their real name, have contributed resources or volunteer labor to this project, have filled out this application and agreed to some simple guidelines about commenting.

Narco News has recently opened its comments section for submissions to moderated comments (that’s this box, here) by everybody else. More than 95 percent of all submitted comments are typically approved, because they are on-topic, coherent, don’t spread false claims or rumors, don’t gratuitously insult other commenters, and don’t engage in commerce, spam or otherwise hijack the thread. Narco News reserves the right to reject any comment for any reason, so, especially if you choose to comment anonymously, the burden is on you to make your comment interesting and relevant. That said, as you can see, hundreds of comments are approved each week here. Good luck in your comment submission!

The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.
  • Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.

More information about formatting options

User login