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Now
Now that Robert Gates has been confirmed
by the Senate, the question becomes: what does the emergence
of the new Defense Secretary mean for Latin America? Under Gates'
disgraced predecessor Donald Rumsfeld, the U.S. pursued a bellicose
stance towards leftist regimes such as Venezuela. Rumsfeld led
the charge against Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, remarking
that "He's a person who was elected legally, just as Adolf
Hitler was elected legally."
Predictably, Venezuela's response
was not long in coming. Vice-president José Vicente Rangel
categorized Rumsfeld's statements as "desperate" and
"irrational." He strongly attacked the U.S. Defense
Secretary, commenting that it was Bush, not Chavez, who most
resembled Hitler. "If some politician or President can
be compared with Hitler, it is Bush, because he [Bush] has invaded
countries, he has massacred people, he has created prisons in
various parts of the world," Rangel said.
Undeterred, the indefatigable
Rumsfeld barreled onwards, making completely unsubstantiated
claims that Chavez had sought to foment unrest in Bolivia. At
one point, he told reporters in Paraguay that "there certainly
is evidence that both Cuba and Venezuela have been involved in
the situation in Bolivia in unhelpful ways."
Rumsfeld's comments prompted
concern on Capitol Hill, even amongst fellow Republicans. Senator
Arlen Specter, a member of the Committee on the Judiciary of
the U.S. Congress, grew alarmed that Rumsfeld's hot headed stance
towards Chavez was complicating joint U.S.-Venezuelan counter-narcotics
efforts. In a letter to Rumsfeld, Specter said diplomatically,
"it may be very helpful to U.S. efforts to secure Venezuela's
cooperation in our joint attack on drug interdiction if the rhetoric
would be reduced."
Gates' Predecessor:
Ratcheting Up the Pressure on Venezuela
Even as the U.S. moved to arm
the Colombian army to the teeth, Rumsfeld blamed Venezuela for
destabilizing the Andean region. "I can't imagine why Venezuela
needs 100,000 AK-47's.," he said during a news conference
in Brasília. "I just hopethat it doesn't happen I
can't imagine that if it did happen, that it would be good for
the hemisphere," he added.
Needless to say, that kind
of rhetoric didn't help to smooth tensions. For years, authorities
in Caracas have been worried about the lawless and violent 1,200
mile Colombian-Venezuelan border. Political violence from Colombia
has spilled across the border, with the U.S.-funded Colombian
military and right wing paramilitaries routinely making incursions
into Venezuelan territory.
The paramilitaries, allegedly
tied to the Colombian armed forces, have pursued refugees into Venezuela,
where they have killed or kidnapped those fleeing the violence.
Even worse, the Chavez government claims that Colombian paramilitaries
have fired on Venezuelan security forces. Ongoing clashes have
led to the untimely deaths of Venezuelan military personnel.
Chavez has claimed, plausibly, that he needs to modernize the
army so as to defend Venezuela's westernmost frontier.
Chávez, angered by the
ex-Secretary of Defense's efforts to demonize Venezuela, called
Rumsfeld a "war dog." In yet another memorable Chavez
quip the Venezuelan President remarked, "The dog says in
a cynical way that he knows no one who is threatening Venezuela,
so he does not know himself. We should give the little dog a
mirror so that he can see his face."
Rangel added to the anti-Rumsfeld
broadside in Venezuela by remarking that the U.S. Defense Secretary
was "The Lord of War." He then pointed to U.S. hypocrisy
as regards arms buildups. "In Venezuela," he declared,
"we are worried about the elevated military spending by
the United States, which stands around 450 billion dollars what
are they fearing in order to justify such high military spending?"
Gates: Bombing
Nicaragua
On the surface at least, Gates'
ascendancy would seem to underscore a move away from the aggressive
foreign policy espoused by neo-conservatives. Chavez himself
has rejoiced in Rumsfeld's political demise. The Venezuelan
leader beamed as he read aloud a news story about the ex-Defense
Secretary's resignation. "Heads are beginning to roll,"
he said during a news conference. "It was about time he
resigned. The president should resign now."
Chavez should think twice,
however, before rushing into celebration. Robert Gates' background
suggests that he may pursue just as aggressive a policy as his
predecessor in Latin America. Of particular concern is Nicaragua,
where the Sandinistas recently returned to power under the leadership
of Daniel Ortega. Given Gates' historic opposition to the Sandinistas,
it's possible that the U.S. may try to destabilize the poverty-stricken
Central American country once again.
In 1984, Gates, who was then
CIA Deputy Director, recommended to his boss, William Casey,
that the United States use air strikes to destroy Nicaragua's
"military buildup." In his memo, Gates remarked that
he was advocating "hard measures" that "probably
are politically unacceptable."
That kind of rhetoric and approach
suggests that Gates may prove just as bellicose as the neo-conservatives.
When he was queried about the Gates memo, Thomas Blanton, Director
of the National Security Archive in Washington, D.C. (an organization
pledged to uncovering and declassifying information at the highest
level of government), remarked "It sounds like Donald Rumsfeld.
It shows the same kind of arrogance and hubris that got us into
Iraq."
Speaking to the Los Angeles
Times, Blanton added that Gates' advocacy of bombing Nicaragua
was extreme at the time. "It sure wasn't a mainstream opinion,"
he said. "Most Americans thought we shouldn't be doing
anything in Nicaragua. How possibly was our national security
interest at stake?"
When Congress forbade funding
the Nicaraguan Contras, Ronald Reagan used the proceeds of arms
sales to Iran to fund the rebels. According to documents, Gates
apparently knew about Oliver North's efforts to raise money for
the Contras; critics claim that the new Secretary of Defense
did not undertake sufficient measures to stop the scheme from
going ahead. Independent Counsel Lawrence E. Walsh, who investigated
the Iran Contra scandal, remarked that Gates was "less than
candid" about his role in the affair but did not bring charges.
Gates, SAIC
and Venezuela
The question now is whether
Gates has changed his views regarding Latin America or still
wants to provoke confrontation with leftist regimes. That issue
has now become a prominent one, given the reemergence of Gates'
old nemesis, Daniel Ortega. Though Ortega has jettisoned much
of his earlier anti-U.S. rhetoric, the Sandinista leader has
cultivated a budding alliance with Venezuelan president Hugo
Chavez (for a detailed analysis of these developments, see my
earlier Counterpunch piece, "In Nicaragua, a Chavez Wave?").
Nicaragua is dirt poor and wracked by debt, but Ortega can now
count on oil shipments from Venezuela, a country which is wielding
its political influence throughout the region.
Blanton has claimed that it
would be a mistake to look at Gates' 22-year old memo as a reflection
of his current day thinking. When Gates came under scrutiny
for his alleged role in Iran Contra and his bid to become CIA
Director in 1987 proved unsuccessful, the ambitious intelligence
man became, in the words of the Los Angeles Times, "chastened"
and his earlier arrogance was "diminished." According
to Blanton, Gates changed once he became CIA Director in 1991.
"Very possibly," noted Blanton, "the Robert Gates
nominated for secretary of Defense is the Robert Gates who is
the best CIA director we ever had, and not the Robert Gates who
was a 'mini-me' Rumsfeld."
Gates's background, however,
suggests that he may not significantly alter Rumsfeld's Venezuela
policy. In 1993 Gates left government after working 27 years
in the intelligence business. But, he was never far from the
corridors of power. Gates joined SAIC (Science Applications
International Corp.), a shady contractor for the Pentagon, CIA
and other federal agencies, where he served on the board of directors.
SAIC, which reported $7.5 billion in earnings in 2005, is involved
in everything from intelligence gathering to Iraqi reconstruction
for the Pentagon.
Gates' tenure at SAIC should
give Chavez pause. As I document at great length in my book,
HugoChavez: Oil, Politics, and the Challenge to the
U.S. (recently released by St. Martin's Press), SAIC has
played a dodgy role in Venezuela. In 1996, SAIC signed a joint
venture with PdVSA (the Venezuelan state oil company) to handle
the firm's IT operations.
According to Chavez, however,
the joint venture, called Informatica, Negocios y Tecnologia
(known by its Spanish acronym INTESA), had ties to the CIA.
SAIC, charged Chavez, was using INTESA as a means of conducting
espionage. During the confrontational oil lock-out of 2002-3,
when the Venezuelan opposition sought to bring the economy to
a halt and force Chavez from power, PdVSA sustained serious damage
to its IT system. The Chavez government claimed that INTESA
was involved in the sabotage. When the lock-out fizzled, Chavez
promptly discontinued INTESA.
Gates Sails
through Senate Confirmation
Though Gates's tenure on SAIC's
board of directors proved brief, he maintained ties to the company
even after leaving when he joined the advisory board for VoteHere,
an electronic voting machine firm tied to SAIC. Given his past
involvement with SAIC, one would think that the Senate would
have at least touched on the issue during the extraordinarily
brief one day confirmation hearing.
I have reviewed the transcript
from the hearing and neither the words "SAIC" nor "Venezuela"
was broached by any Senator (not to mention Nicaragua). Gates
was resoundingly confirmed by a vote of 95-2 in his new position.
The two dissenting votes, in fact, did not come from Democrats
but from pro-war Republican Senators Rick Santorum and Jim Bunning,
who disliked Gates' criticism of the war in Iraq.
The Democrats, coasting on
their recent victory in the mid-term elections, had the opportunity
during Tuesday's confirmation hearing to show the American public
that they were concerned about the direction of U.S.-Latin American
relations. Though Rumsfeld, through his public utterances, did
much to erode trust between Venezuela and the United States,
the new Secretary of Defense could chart a new course. By failing
to question Gates on his past or his views on Latin America,
the Democrats have signaled that they are not overly concerned
with reining in Bush's hawkish foreign policy in the region.
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