The media on Chavez and Uribe: Client states favored over enemies

Sure, Chavez may have authoritarian tendencies, he may be hostile to the United States, he has made alliances with US enemies, and he has called Bush a donkey.

On the other hand, the United States has a history of supporting violent military coups, at times lending assistance in genocide, other times showing tacit support to dictatorial regimes, and has shown hostility to many democracies in South America, past and present, including Venezuela. To top it off, the US at least showed tacit support for the forced removal of the democratically elected Chavez, at the most had a hand in his kidnapping. The media only ever mentions the possibility of “tacit” support, repeated verbatim across all media channels – as if they have something more substantial than the US governments word to supply as evidence. The Times never even bothers to mention that the real hostility started after the 2002 coup against Chavez in Venezuela which the United States openly supported.

Venezuela’s “leftist” leader may have failed in his attempt to get a Security Council seat but so did Guatemala, the country the right-wing US government was supporting. The Chavez government used tons of money to try to win the vote; however, the US has been using its enormous economic and military power as influence for decades. Something Venezuela could hardly hope to counter.

The Times’ Simon Romero only finds importance in the “limits of the efforts by the Venezuelan president, Hugo Chavez, to find a prominent platform for his views.”

This is all typical of the media’s reporting on Venezuela. When Venezuela strengthens ties with countries in opposition to the United States this is depicted as simply “an effort to counter the power of the United States.”

It seems impossible for the media to consider that Venezuela may actually being doing the exact same thing the US claims to be doing when it strengthens ties to not so pleasant bedfellows – simply looking out for their own “national interests.” At least allow the readers to decide without influence from what sounds like a US State Department press release.

Chavez’s government isn’t the only one getting special treatment by the media. A recent article in the Washington Post about landmine use in Colombia left two important factors out of its coverage. One, the US has pushed Uribe to up the intensity of crop eradication and military operations in Colombia - which is highly funded by the US.

Also, the questions surrounding the paramilitary in Colombia were not included in the article. The fact they have not set down their arms and continue a violent rampage of torture, murder and other human rights violations, and that they were not completely exonerated by the cited study of landmine use, is not mentioned.

So which country is the client state?

When in doubt just read the paper.