Ok, let's send complaints to them:
http://www.transparency.org/cont...ct_us/
directory
I have just sent my complaint and I hope others who read this blog do this as well. Yes, they're probably just another BS organization, but if they're going to spread BS it's best to call them on it like OW has done. It takes little effort on our part to notify them that their BS has been exposed.
you're partly right. the company didn't provide all of the info publicly until this year but now it's all there. i really wonder if the consultants just couldn't read spanish, as the english site doesn't include hardly any of this info, and what is there isn't linked from the home page. you have to go to the press room and root through a bunch of happy face silliness about how wonderful is pdval before you get to the good stuff.
by the way i had heard about the report but didn't look up the methodology. thanks for calling that to our attention.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/busin...ess/
7399678.stm
This is a truncated version of what was broadcast over BBC WNS his early morning. The radio broadcast indicated that Japan is the worse country re bribery
http://www.bbc.co.uk/
worldservic..._briefing.shtml
Eugene, for your information: there are more than 33 countries in the world and Venezuela is not in Europe. I know, it is a complicated world out there.
Keep learning, boy.
Don't stop believin', Dan.
OW - I have sent you an urgent email to your petrowars addy. Could you read it and respond asap.
Thanks
Calvin
This TI, as well as HRW and AI, well, by now the studious observer would understand the propaganda games being played by powerful capitalist interests.
Makes it hard to veiw any of these organizations as being very credible--they are part of the great game for power and wealth.
Why should anyone expect different?
But it is good, OW, that you try to bring to light the most gross inconsistencies. However, the true believers duped by the empire's ideology will drink it up.
Same as it ever was.
hedgehog,
They've been providing all the financial info TI says they dont' give ALL along.
The Gestion and Resultados have been puslished every year in all the major papers and on the web-site.
The full audited financial statements have also been on the web site but sometimes late. This year they were finally on time.
Thanks Steve, yes I agree we should all send complaints.
This non-sense should be retracted and I would LOVE to know who the consultants were that did this.
Some former PDVSA managers who have an axe to gring maybe?
He he he, maybe this ango-phone orgainizations didn´t know how to read spanish so they did not bother reading the pages that provide all these financial staement thatyou mentioned. They ethno-centrically belive every companey in the word should publsih thier reports in english and english only. Thos LAZY ango-phoners who just want to have the wrold adopt to hem
True.
What is even more ironic about that though is for a long time PDVSA DID publish all their stuff in enlgish. They had to to file it with the SEC In fact, sometimes they published stuff in english and NOT in spanish.
I guess now that they changed to using the language that Venezuelans actually speak the poor TI people couldn't handle it 
Is there also a section in their balance cheet like "cheap oil for "amistosos" politicians in the exterior no matter if from rich countries or poor"?
I hope they respond and you publish it.
OW - information is invented nd garnered from the laptops to condemn Venezuela.
Information is ignored when it is freely available also to condemn Venezuela.
It¡s all bogus and another brick in the wall of the media war.
Lemmy:
Yup, in the financial reports they report to what countries they send the oil. You may want to review this post:
http://oilwars.blogspot.com/2008...all-oil-
go.html
note I did this post with infor from the PDVSA financial statements BEFORE T.I. came out and in effect said PDVSA doesn't have financial statements released to the public
BTW, they do say how much they sell to whom under the terms of the various discounts such as PetroCaribe and the San Jose accords.
OW, and don't you think that this is not simply an example of incompetence?
Please, given what we know of US black op propaganda throughout the decades, is this really incompetence.
It is good that you point this out, however.
Doesn't Venezuelan information agents scan for this stuff--instead of leaving the yoeman's work to a lowly, but astute, blogger?
I'm just say'n.
OW,
The funny thing is that at least in this case the information purports to be based on objective criteria. Their "Corruption Perceptions Index" is so subjective that I wonder how people take to measure anything. During the Asian Financial Crisis (this was 1997, I think), the corrpution perceptions index of the affected countries (this included some Asian countries, like South Korea), but also Thailand, etc. went quite literally in one day from excellent to rock bottom even though nothing objectively had changed substantially. My guess is their research on Vzla is frequently farmed out to people who have serious biases.
This happens with other NGOs too, like Reporters Without Borders, whose local affiliates are, like, oppo activists and the reports come out to be bad to the point of being propagandistic.
The new found love of chefeEsChefe for Las Matemáticas shows impact.
Its going to enter history books as "revolution" with best accounting ever.
Oops when I said "Asian countries" above, I meant "Asian Tiger" countries. Thailand is not a "tiger" yet I suppose
another great piece of honesty. thanks ow. i sent a complaint along to ti.
keep on,
SR,
It may well turn out that their is dishonesty here -either on the part of TI themselves or those who they get to do the work for them (though as Utpal says why do these organizations keep using people with clear political biases).
This story isn't over yet so stay tuned.
Thanks OW,
And could you please explain about why the blog was down?
Was it really a private party/slug-fest to hash out economic arguments--and you didn't want to attend to extraneous lines of thought?
Slave's a big boy--he can take the truth. 
Kepler | 05.14.08 - 7:05 am | #
Kepler, duh, there are more than thirty-three countries in the world? NO! And yes I've heard that Venezuela is not in Europe. I even went there and found it to be in South America. Tell me, is Japan in Europe? What does this little geography lesson have to do with anything?
The BBC report over the air was interesting. They made a specific point that Japan was worse than the African countries. This report no doubt has surfaced for its fifteen minutes while the word "corruption" will be linked endlessly to African countries, and yes, to Venezuela.
But for real corruption lookee here:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/0...ion/
02wed1.html
For corruption and government / corporate dominance of public discourse lookee here:
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/...s-the-
kind.html
A two billion dollar subway station?!
http://www.observer.com/2008/no-...-overrun-
review
ow, keep up the good work we really need more people like you dedicated to exposing the right-wing.
Long live Chavez and long live Communism!
Chris
Yeah, great work OW.
No doubt TI will not publish a correction and the NYT's next feature piece on PDVSA will have the flawed finding in the 3rd or 4th paragraph.
Watch this space
Well, we'll see if TI has any ethics or not.
It will certainly be extremely ironic if an organization that prods governments to be open and provide accurate information doesn't hold itself to any sort of standards.
check this out from ITs Mission Statement:
http://www.transparency.org/abou...ation/
statement
"The positions we take will be based on sound, objective and professional analysis and high standards of research. "
yeah, right.
OW, the description of 'objective' when it comes to having to interpret human motives and events is extremely dubious.
If we didn't have biases we wouldn't be capable of filtering information from noise.
Political machinations come to the forefront when I read the tern 'objective' with respect to human society or a narrative of events.
More or less compelling works better for me.
But suffice to say that TI gets its money and support from somewhere--and to think that it isn't influenced by where its funding comes from is simply being, well, non-transparent.
check out this rubbish being peddled by the right-wing media ... that video was probably shot in Cuba and made to look like Venezuela. Fuck the opposition and their media terrorism
http://www.venezuelapress.com/20...-pesimo-estado/
Chris
Year Funding by the BRITISH GOV
2006/07 £750,000
2007/08 £1,000,000
2008/09 To be confirmed
2009/10 To be confirmed
2010/11 To be confirmed
In 2006 a 5 year Partnership Programme Agreement (PPA) was agreed between Transparency International and DFID.
http://www.dfid.gov.uk/
aboutdfid...onstatement.asp
Media terrorism. HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
You are a parrot.
RR,
Tranparency International in Venezuela has opposition publisher and activist Roberto Bottome on its board and was run for up until 2002 by right wing opposition writer Gustavo Coronel.
I'm wondering if those are the people that couldn't find the PDVSA information.
If TI claims to be non-political then it shouldn't affiliate with people who have such obvious biases.
OW,
You make a strong, compelling case here. Have you written TI yourself asking for an explanation/response to your points? If so, and they answered, I think all your readers would be interested in their explanation and/or defense of what appears to be pretty sloppy work - I know I would be. regards, T
Tambo,
Its being worked on assidiously as we speak.
And some more info on this is simply breathtaking. For example, you'll be amazed at who it is that gathered this information on PDVSA for T.I. and what their background is - I know I was.
So there will be more information on this forthcoming.
OW - there are one or two sites which want to reprint this excellent report and analysis. It would have more bite if you could reveal the names of the "consultants" used so as to bury them and their shenanigins.
OW, I remember--you met Gustavo C. on one memorable occasion, no?
What is for sure--Gustavo C., now living in the US won't be voting for Senator Obama. LOL
http://www.aporrea.org/actualida...dad/
n67535.html
This link for 2005 explains a lot. Robert Bottome could be related to Peter Bottome who is chief shareholder of RCTV.
An organization called INTERPOL says that the computers that the Colombian government claims to have gotten from the FARC are authentic.
Anyone know - is INTERPOL more reputalbe than Transparency International?
If not, I guess we know where to file that piece of information.
Here is another likely BS ranking system (which of course has Venezuela in last place 
) :
http://economia.eluniversal.com/
...mo_861489.shtml
Anyone volunteering to find it and read it to see if it is as bogus as TI?
Based on the little bit they give on it in the article I suspect that there isn't enough hard information in it to evaluate it. For all we know, they just completely make it up.
OW, my take on INTERPOL is the same as TI.
What do they mean by 'authentic'?
All along, this entire magic computer thing is totally moot--because the computer could likely have been a plant. They can take legit information and mix it with total bullshit.
You are dealing with a CIA black-ops budget that is literally in the tens of billions of dollars.
The way this computer was happened upon, the illegal transgression against Ecuadoran soveriegnty, etc., this is simply rubbish.
And as I said before--that Colombia is teaming up with one of the world's most ruthless rouge state--with a history of slaughtering millions of people--well, jeez, wouldn't Chavez be irresponsible if he didn't coordinate with the FARC, if for no other reason than to be ready to counteract a US attack from Colombia?
Information about US black propaganda is available--and it is quite sophisticated. They work with corporate media to manipulate the flow of information and public perceptions in myriad countries.
I agree. I think it is smokescreen and much to do about nothing.
Given all the lies about WMD, about the Gulf of Tonkin, ... hell going all the way back to the Mexican-American war (well, at least Lincoln was smart enough not to beleive the BS ) it always amazes me how some people believe whatever the "authorities" tell them as if something coming from the U.S. or a European government must be true.
Hot off the press from the Ven Embassy in Washington
Embassy of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela
to the United States of America
Statement
The Embassy of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela in Washington , DC , would like to warn the international community with regards to the serious manipulation that a number of political sectors and news outlets have spread due to the report issued by INTERPOL on Thursday, May 15, 2008.
It is of public knowledge that the only aspect the report issued by the International Criminal Police INTERPOL acknowledges is that the alleged computers found by the Colombian Armed Forces had apparently not been altered.
A different matter is the alleged content of these computers. This supposed content, and without previous authorization from INTERPOL, has been manipulated, widespread and turned into propaganda by the Colombian government, as well as officials from the United States and Colombia, who have spread the most reckless and irresponsible accusations against the government of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela.
It is with utter concern that we question the intentions of these sectors that, without any substance, have become accessories in this evident campaign against the government of Venezuela . Do these sectors hope to end any possibility of a humanitarian agreement in Colombia ? Are they hoping to internationalize the conflict in Colombia and spread it in order to destabilize Latin America ? Or do they intend to use these alleged arguments in order to fulfill the old intention of including Venezuela on the list of countries that sponsor terrorism? Even more worrisome is how evident this campaign articulation is and which closely resembles the steps usually taken by the Bush administration in order to generate - even without any proofs - instability and wars in other countries.
Washington, DC, May 15, 2008
OW
please check your email. First full draft ready
Uhm, OK, and the computers? What about the computers?
OW, so who DID gather the info on PDVSA for TI?
Utpal
I just read the INTERPOL report.
It doesn't say anything about VZ. It does specifically say its job was not to try and interpret any information in the files.
Anyone can download it for reading. (pdf format)
Have you seen the pictures on Devil's Excrement latest post? Wee Reyes with Rangel? Ivan with the Fat Man in the Palace? They mean nothing? OK.
The minute of silence by the Fat man in the Palace?
OK. Chacin Double Identity wishing success to the FARC nothing?
OK...oops, I remember you support the FARC.
Never mind. Next scandal...and waiting for the collapse. Mark my words: it will happen before September 2010.
Back to topic: why hasn't the Venezuelan government counter-attacked this with a press-conference where they tell point by point to international journalists about why that report is supposed to be wrong? Why do we only hear Chavez making bad jokes about things that have nothing to do with what is being asked?
Well at least FARC is transparent, now that their computer files have been proven to be original to Reyes. The whole world now knows that Chavez materially supports a terrorist organization. Transparent!!!!
press conference on what, the TI report?
I am not aware they even know about it. Further, only a summary of it was published in other languages such as Spanish. To read all the supporting documentation, data, and methodology, as I did, you have to read english as that is only in english.
That could be why it flew under some peoples radar. But it will be more visible soon.
anyone know why BoRev.net is down? i used to visit that blog as well as this one for news on venezuela, it's been down for days .. something's not right!
must be your connection. I haven't been accessing it just fine.
jsb,
And Reagan (and your and my tax dollars) supported the Nicaraguan contras. What of it?
oh, and not to mention the U.S. financing and support for the Afghan mujahadeen where a young Bin Laden first learned all his deadly skills.
Dio!
Are you going to repeat to death that a wrong justifies another wrong? Specially as any crimes by a US-Liechtenstein-Bulgarian-Chinese or San Marino government here do not have anything to do with the FARC blowing up children...it is disgusting.
Ow, if someone of your relatives - Dios no lo quiera - gets raped or killed by some Joe McDonald, would you be happy if you were told Joe McDonald's crime is OK because Clark Doe killed someone else in Nevada? Are you completely round the bend?
Friends of Bolivarism: Even if US Governments supported extremist Mujahedin and Contra guys doesn't legitimize Chávez to support a terrorist organization like FARC, which is refused by the overwhelming mayority of the people for whose liberation those terrorists are allegedly fighting for.
This is a very simple and effective ethical principle, easy to understand. Nevertheless really important.
But that is just the point Kepler - is it wrong?
What makes it wrong? Surely not just the fact of using violence. If that were the case then you would have to say the U.S. military in WWII was criminal because it killed German and Japanese civilians. I don't think there are many who would make that arguement.
Rather, it is the underlying causes of the conflict that determine its legitimacy. And as we've seen before there are certainly some valid reasons why some people in Colombia may feel they have no alternative but to fight.
Joder, me tuve que agachar para que no tocase la mierda que volaba a la velocidad de la luz desde el otro lado del Atlántico.
Ow: you are comparing things that cannot be compared. The only fucking thing those FARC criminals are thinking of is protecting their own bloody lives and drug businesses, not the poor or else. They could go the Chilean way, go outside, make PR about whatever conditions they claim in Colombia and so on. If they wanted, they could get refugee status in many countries and from there campaign to change government or to make things such that they can return.
Even today Uribe is sending the paras to jail and to the USA. There is absolutely NO WAY the FARC are going to win, so it is: either they go on killing innocent people because they want to go on with their drug businesses and wait until they are exterminated or they do the decent thing and use non-violent methods.
There were no pacific methods to fight Hitler.
Don't come with the crap of the eighties or union people getting killed (which is very tragic and needs to be stopped), they need to go out and start tabula rasa to discuss a peace accord.
"they do the decent thing and use non-violent methods"
They tried that, and got slaughered. They don't have to keep doing it just to satisfy you who lives in a peacefull and non-repressive country where your rights are fully respected.
"There is absolutely NO WAY the FARC are going to win"
Even if true the relevance of this is what??? So if the U.S. hadn't helped them win the French resistence would have been wrong to fight and should have just all moved off into exile and left the country to the fascists?
Seriously Kepler, you need to think through the logic of your statements better.
BTW, back to more on topic - I find it amazing people just take statements by the U.S., interpol, TI. etc. at face value.
How many lies they have to be caught in before some people stop believing in them is beyond me.
Interpol is not lying and the FARC are not a force for good, Dan. You need to check yourself. This supporting the blowing up of women and children by the FARC, just because the empire is doing this or that, doesn't change the fact that the FARC are....killing and kidnapping innocents. And you support that. Where do you draw the line? If Reagan had shot babies into space would you say it's ok for FARC to do the same? If Bush had ate babies, would you say it's ok for FARC to do the same? Your moral relativism is the reason you no longer have any credibility among anyone but true believers.
A violent lefty talking about logic...
I list things so that you can try to understand:
1) The eighties are not the same situation and even if they were: they would be stupid as to stay in the same fucking streets and call for some other gang or para to kill them. The people fighting Pinochet were not so stupid. You get out of the country, you fight with PR and via legal ways.
2) In Colombia, there is a democracy, even if dysfunctional. Most people do NOT FUCKING WANT the system the drug FARC dealers want to impose anyway. They cannot force and at the same time kill innocent people.
They can at best go outside and ask for investigations and for cleaning up the system.
The system in Colombia might be preventing them from making a system of Colombia that less than 5% of the population want, but it is not killing you. The Nazis were doing it. Ah...forget it. I really thought you were not a pathological case like all other extremists...go fucking explain your garbage to the many families of the innocent people and tell them you killed their children and their women because the Colombian government did not allow you to do your politics the way you wanted. You are not better than the Muslim terrorists.
Jsb, for Ow, it would be right because otherwise the FARC drug dealers could not make Colombia into a system they and less than 5% of the population want. So it is fine to shoot children and all the rest: either that or they have to become PMs and presidents and so on.
"Where do you draw the line?"
Simple. Basic human rights have to be respected and people have to be allowed to peacefully participate in the political system and be free to choose the political leadership of their country without being systematically murdered in the process.
If that were the case in Colombia then indeed there would be no reason for anyone to resort to force. But sadly it is not the case.
Kepler, is what the FARC represents is overwhelming rejected then why not let them participate in elections and lose badly? Why did the government and the right wing go so far out of their way to murder leftist politicians if they were all going to lose badly anyways?
Maybe they don't want them building a movement that could peacefully challenge for power?
Yeah, maybe that is it.
You do not enforce your human rights by killing people who have nothing to do with them being trespassed.
Ow, you are forgetting there are lots of people from both so-called "left" and "right" who do not want this conflict solved because it would become much easier to fight cocaine production.
Kepler,
Are you a complete pacifist? If so your position is understandable and legitimate.
But I know for sure that is not the case with JSB who is pursueing a very inconsistent and hypocritical line of supporting force when his allies do it and opposing it when his foes do it even if in both cases they face extreme repression.
And btw, if the FARC really depended on cocaine (which I highly doubt - the drug traffickers set up the paramilitaries expressely to fight the FARC because it was against trafficking) then they could simply take all the profit out of it by legalizing it which is what they should do anyways. Even Mary O'Grady sees the light on that issue.
Heehee, what a bunch of nutjobs you got in here, Burnett. Good luck in getting rid of them.
The way I see it, the same wackos that disregard the Interpol report on the laptops and are gullible enough to believe any orwellian bullshit coming out of Miraflores, also believe 9/11 was an inside job. There goes their sense-making.
Losers.
"The way I see it, the same wackos that disregard the Interpol report on the laptops and are gullible enough to believe any orwellian bullshit "
That is what they said about people like Scott Ritter who said Colin Powell was lying in his U.N. presentation about Iraq's WMD.
Whatever, Dan. This is Chavez in bed with terrorists we're talking about here. Stop trying to dodge the bullet by bringing a subject totally irrelevant to venezuelans.
Since you also support these terrorists, the least you could do is shut your hole about it.
As the saying goes - one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter.
War is hell. General Sherman marched through Georgia burning everything in his path. Bye Bye slavery, slavers get a lesson. Innocents suffered? For sure. Three cheers for General Sherman.
"Basic human rights have to be respected and people have to be allowed to peacefully participate in the political system and be free to choose the political leadership of their country without being systematically murdered in the process."
Wow, sounds like George Bush wanting to keep troops in Iraq.
Two things about the computer business (interesting how the Oppos only really started talking when that topic came up--I guess they haven't found any toes to stand on with regard to the actual post topic)
1. The Interpol report, surprise surprise, apparently doesn't say what the newspapers say it says.
http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/...m/analysis/
3448
it quotes from the report such gems as
" "83. Seized exhibit 26, a laptop computer, showed the following effects on files on or after 1 March 2008:
* 273 system files were created
* 373 system and user files were accessed
* 786 system files were modified
* 488 system files were deleted"
and
"in Exhibit 31, there are:
* 2,110 files with creation dates ranging between 20 April 2009 to 27 August 2009
* 1,434 files which show as having been last modified between 5 April 2009 and 16 October 2010
It concludes that "these files were originally created prior to 1 March 2008 on a device or devices with incorrect system time settings. (Page 33)"
The article points out
"What this means is that any user changing the time on the operating system can create a document with any date they please, either a prior or even a future one."
Finally the report summary says,
"The verification of the eight seized FARC computer exhibits by INTERPOL does not imply the validation of the accuracy of the user files, the validation of any country's interpretation of the user files or the validation of the source of the user files."
2. But it doesn't matter. I still have yet to see anything from the alleged files that actually says anything about the Venezuelan government actually doing a damned thing to help FARC. Clearly they were *talking* to FARC, and talking fairly nice, while they tried to get them to release prisoners. Well, duh. I know the US way of trying to get people to do stuff for you is to threaten them, but for normal countries "diplomacy" tends to involve talking nice to people--maybe even (gasp) insincerely, or even implying that sometime in the future you might *do* something nice, whether or not you have any intentions of actually doing so. Again, that's a big DUH! The Colombians got *NOTHING*, and they're spinning it into this huge deal. As I've said, the *only* thing that suggests to me that any of this is real is that surely anyone trying to hang a frame would have done a half decent job.
Meanwhile, of course, we simply know flat out that both Colombia and the US arm and bankroll and train terrorists and death squads on a constant, ongoing, widespread basis. And Venezuela's supposed to be on the defensive for saying what it took to successfully get some hostages released? Give me a fucking break.
PLG,
Yes, that is my understading too. What Interpol says is that no one has tampered with the files since march 1st or whenever it was that the computers were presented. It doesn't say who created all the files in the first place - presumabely anyone could have.
Is that what the Interpol report says? I think it is but I haven't read it and have heard elsewhere where they say these computers really did belong to Reyes.
And yeah, the silence on T.I. is deafening. Indeed they do have nothing to say. Nor does T.I. itself. Lets see if that changes.
"Wow, sounds like George Bush wanting to keep troops in Iraq."
Not quite. But then again if Bush's actions in any way matched his rhetoric...
I like how in Israel Bush said in the future the Middle East will be completely democratic.
That would indeed be nice. But it won't happen as long as current U.S. policies of supporting dictators stay in place. Mubarak has his son all lined up to keep lording over Egypt for another 30 or 40 years. And I doubt the U.S. will cut them off.
I was just about to write something without reading the later comments till I just noticed that Purple Library Guy had just written up my thoughts exactly as I wanted to write them up. See how GMTA
Utpal
I've walked inside the new PDVSa and it stinks. I Know people who worked there, changed job and returned now, their opinion is the same, there are a lot of people hired that don't know what they are doing
Perhaps it smelt better before you walked in?
You are hardly an unbiased source, but let's play along. Suppose, just for a moment, that what you say is true. The only reason the staff had to be replaced was because they went on an indefinate political strike to bring down the elected government.
During the last few months that the previous management ran PDVSA, it produced nothing whatsoever, and when they finally shown the red card, they vandalised the operating equipment and computer systems causing millions of dollars worth of damage.
So however bad you claim the new management and staff perform, they do at the very least produce oil. And they don't, as far as I'm aware, vandalise public property.
The old management predicted that PDVSA and the country wouldn't last a week without them.
Then after the strike failed they predicted that unless they were hired back immediately the company and the country would collapse in months:
http://oilwars.blogspot.com/2005...-have-
been.html
Of course, none of that happened and PDVSA is probably now a better managed company than it has ever been.
That is what really has some people's goat and why they go to such lengths to disparage the company with all sorts of non-sense.
And btw, I've been inside PDVSA headquarter to visit their library and can tell you that a) there are no bad odors there and b) you can find most any information you want unless of course you are like Transparency International and DON'T WANT to find it.
What an excellent post OW. It has been both educational and a pleasure to read it.
ow, you must think you are very smart correct?
Yes i guess they dont "vandalise" on purpose, but for example I know somebody who worked specifically in El Palito refinery, he was a little scared because nobody followed the security procedures or even the procedures. Thats why there have been many fires and explosions and injured people. So they might not be "evil vandalisers" but that improvisation is more or less the same. So I guess even if you put chimps to run the company it would take a while to make it collapse, it was number 3 worldwide before Chavez became president. I'm optimistic, new people will come and will replace the improvised workers.
yeah, Pedro, it was number three in the world for its ability to keep oil prices down by busting quotas and having a management that worked assiduously to make sure that the Venezuelan state couldn't get their hands on any of the revenues.
Despite problems that OW has pointed to for quite a while, the Venezuelan people would lynch the old management if they tried to return PDVSA to its former manifestation. A caricature of a state oil company whose management had more alligence to the US empire and the Euro-elites than they did their own country men and women.
oil warrior, here is something to fuel your denial fantasies about Hummers in Venezuela. Boy you really are fucked in the head!
http://media.noticias24.com/0805...0805/
hum17.html
Right, a very credible link, with plentiful and very convincing proof!!!
Hahahahahaha
Sabes qué, Phil Winfield, eres un absoluto cretino.
I am not convinced that people who quota busted and helped send oil to $8 per barrel and gave away oil to Exxon-Mobil for $1 per barrel in royalties were all that smart.
Well maybe they were smart when it came to ripping off money as they did with all their little outsourcing schemes but they sure didn't do anything for Venezuela.
3.3 million barrels of oil are flowing out of Venezuela each and every day. Someone must be doing something
we didn't have Bush or Irak back then. I have to say: thank you America for using our oil to bomb Irak. Our oil prices will get "better" everyday. And that is not thanks to Chavez.
wow you are so smart. I have to agree with Phil. What is it you do for a living? Are you in the oil industry? you are beyond fucked in the head.
you have the answer for everything !
Apparently what's needed is an organization to monitor the organizations like Transparency International and Reporters Without Borders (or CIA,for short), including the methodology they use and their political and financial lineage.
As we've seen, their findings are almost automatically accepted as authoritative (especially when they're critical of official enemies like Iran or Venezuela), and then repeated in the media echo chamber until they're simply a part of the official narrative.
We're seeing a similar phenomenon right now with NGOs acting somewhat as 'useful idiots' (with their warnings about impending epidemics in Myanmar) for the old and new colonial rulers anxious to force humanitarian aid on the understandably wary generals.
Bob,
Yes that is a problem and indeed these organizations do need to be looked into.
With T.I. I am not 100% what the deal is. They actually farm out much of their work to local affiliates which in some places may be honest and legitimate groups and in other places, such as in Venezuela, they are not without the central leadership realizing it.
Or, it could be that the central leadership does realize what is going on and is fine with it - which means the whole organization has propogandistic ends.
At the very least, T.I. is clearly inept. For example, they had different local branches collect the information base this report on. Yet, there would naturally be large variations between how the people in say Mexico gathered the information and how the people in Nigeria gathered it. So the final data might not necessarily reflect a real difference between oil companies in those two countries but rather more a difference in how hard the Mexican branch of TI and the Nigerian branch of TI worked to collect the data. So the whole methodology for collecting the data was flawed from the start.
If they wanted an honest and consistent data set they should have had one group of people collect the data for all the oil companies. That way they could have ensured that the standards of research were the same. Yet they didn't do that.
T.I. at the very least seems to be indifferent to the quality of its work.
Thanks, ow, for this excellent expose of TI's lies abaout PDVSA.
"Five months later his slide is continuing. Opinion polls peg Chávez's approval rating at 35%, his lowest level in five years, and 60% say they oppose his policies."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/
...ela.hugo.chavez
2013 is still a long way off, but it won't come soon enough.
"The golden goose, the state oil company PDVSA, is sick. Instead of ramping up production to take advantage of record prices, its output has slumped by 16%, according to Opec, prompting speculation about under-investment and mismanagement."
Wow, OW. Let's see, do we believe your numbers? ...or OPECs.
Hmmm....
Anyway, at least crime is going down. Oh, but wait, it isn't.
2013, my brother. 2013.
Jsb, even if my friends in Venezuela think I am crazy or just say "oh, yeah, yeah, you living in Europe", I insist: the best for Venezuela is to have Hugo until 2010 or 2011 even 2012. We need gullible people to understand it FULLY.
JSB, quotaing outdated polls in from a silly article where the idiot who wrote it said industry and services were "slumping" (for the record industry grew 7.6% in the first quarter of 2008 and services probably grew 10 or 15%) isn't going to get you very far.
BTW, OPEC itself doesn't come up with numbers on oil production and doesn't include all oil in what it publishes from other sources - again if you and the author don't know that that is your problem, not Venezuela's
OW
Brilliant! a great piece of research on your part my friend.
I found this little tidbit on Wiki:
TI is organised as a group of some 100 national chapters, with an international secretariat in Berlin, Germany. Originally founded in Germany in 1993 as a not-for-profit organisation, TI is now an international non-governmental organisation, and claims to be moving towards a completely democratic organisational structure. TI says of itself:
Transparency International is the global civil society organisation leading the fight against corruption. It brings people together in a powerful worldwide coalition to end the devastating impact of corruption on men, women and children around the world. TI's mission is to create change towards a world free of corruption."
It rejects any idea of "northern superiority" regarding corruption, and is committed to exposing corruption world-wide. Since 1995, TI has issued an annual Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI); it also publishes an annual Global Corruption Report, a Global Corruption Barometer and a Bribe Payers Index. However the TI USA Chapter has never commented within its publications [1] on any corruption case within the USA, and has taken money from the Boeing Corporation [2], whose executive Darleen A. Druyun was imprisoned for corrupt activities, leading to the resignation of Boeing CEO Phil Condit.
OW,
That article is worse than you say. If you look at the OPEC Report, it shows a reduction of 6%, not 16%. I don´t know if this was a typo in The Guardian article. In any case, it seems that many OPEC countries had similar reductions: like, Saudi Arabia of 5%, which suggest to me that this was probably just the OPEC cuts they made last year (only a few countries like Iran had increases, not by much) according to the OPEC figures. They cite as their basis something called "secondary sources" for their calculations, but don't specify what they are.
ow, are the first qrtr growth figures out yet? i haven't seen them anywhere ...
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/
ful...750C0A966958260
Interpol's Nazi Affiliations Continued After War
E-MAIL
Print
Save
Share
Digg
Facebook
Mixx
Yahoo! Buzz
Permalink
Published: March 6, 1990
LEAD: To the Editor:
To the Editor:
Your Feb 22 ''Lyons Journal'' on the regrets of Interpol for its shady past, omitted important facts about Interpol's past Nazi affiliations.
The Interpol hierarchy has had an unhealthy history of close connections to National Socialism. Not only did Interpol share its headquarters with the Gestapo during World War II, but it also officially operated as a division within the Nazi Security Police. Two Nazi war criminals, Reinhard Heydrich and then Ernst Kaltenbruner were the agency's wartime presidents.
The right-wing bias continued after the war. In 1963, Jean Nepote was elected Interpol's president. He had collaborated with France's collaborationist Vichy Government during the war. In 1968, Interpol elected Paul Dickopf as its president. Although it was discovered that he had been an SS officer in the war, having worked in the very villa where Interpol and the Gestapo were headquartered, he nevertheless remained president until 1972.
Although the current secretary general, Raymond E. Kendall, is well intentioned, Interpol's interest in Nazi war criminals during the crucial 1950's and 60's was nonetheless virtually nonexistent. Admitting its past mistakes is the first step in making Interpol the vaunted police organization that the public often perceives it to be.
GERALD L. POSNER
New York, Feb. 22, 1990
The writer is co-author of ''Mengele: The Complete Story'' (1986).
http://www.elpelao.com/paises/co...a-
custodia.html
INTERPOL NAZI CIA se contradice PC farc ROTA cadena CUSTODIA
http://www.radiomundial.com.ve/y...oticia.php?
5823 Cómo pudo Raúl Reyes y los guerrilleros de las Farc generar tanto contenido? Según la página 28 del informe, se lee: INTERPOL puede declarar lo siguiente con respecto a los archivos de usuario contenidos en las ocho pruebas instrumentales de carácter informático decomisadas a las FARC: Se encontraron 109 archivos de documentos en más de una de las pruebas instrumentales 452 hojas de cálculo 7.989 direcciones de correo electrónico 10.537 archivos multimedia (de sonido y vídeo) 22.481 páginas web 37.872 documentos escritos (de Word, PDF y formato texto) 210.888 imágenes De los anteriores, 983 archivos estaban cifrados Según el propio Noble, "se puede decir que este volumen de datos corresponde a 39,5 millones de páginas de Microsoft Word y, si todos los datos incautados estuviesen en formato Word, a un ritmo de 100 páginas por día, se tardaría más de 1.000 años en leerlos." Si una persona se tarda 1000 años en leer tantos documentos, ¿cuántos años más tardaría en escribirlos?..
uptal,
the stats haven't been officially released by the BCV but they must be circulating as articles on El Universal and other places have been referencing them. The stats on industry I got from here:
http://www.eluniversal.com/2008/
...fu_863075.shtml
Funny how they use words like "slumping" and "lento" to describe 7.6% growth.
A little Orwellian, no?
Jeepers, Pulpo you are right. Look at this:
http://www.transparency-usa.org/....org/
intro.html
The U.S. military and Iraq war effort are full of corruption yet there is no mention of it. In fact, there is no mention of corruption in the U.S. at all!!!
Then you look at who is on the board of TI-USA - people from Bechtel and General Electric. Well, no wonder!!
Why would Bechtel want to stop corruption in military contracts when they are probably big recipients of it?
The more you look at it T.I. is looking less and less like a genuine anti-corruption organization and more and more like something else.
BTW, also scroll down that page and note where their funding comes from. Among other places from Exxon.
It turns out that Exxon and Shell, among other oil companies, give money to TI. Yet I don't recall seeing in the TI report on oil and gas any mention of the fact that they got money from same of the same companies they were ranking.
For god's sake any little reporter or columnist knows to report conflicts like that yet here an anti-corruption watchdog doesn't even report its own conflicts of interest!!!!!!!!!!
There you go. If PDVSA wants decent rankings it needs to start coughing up some money for T.I.
Everyone knows, you have to pay to play.
Eugene, do you actually read Spanish?
"Si una persona se tarda 1000 años en leer tantos documentos, ¿cuántos años más tardaría en escribirlos?.."
Well, I work with computers and I have a couple of computers. All in all I certainly have that amount of data. I have not read it all. A lot of it is reference material I search when there is need for that and I certainly did not produce all that material.
Eugene, same on you. Jews are usually more clever than that.
(yeah, call me whatever)
Ow,
Interesting findings.
I haven't had the time to read it all, but I would say: confront, confront, that is the only way.
Yes, we will confront, to the extent we can. Or at the very least expose.
BTW, how much longer until the political program you were referring to gets published on the internet? I want to read it.
Kepler, my command of Spanish is rudimentary. I believe I've even said as much here and on one or other oppo blog but I try to plow through an item, often dictionary in hand because I need to improve my Spanish. My hope is to retire to live in Venezuela, God willing, with my wife and I don't expect people to speak English for me. I don't claim to be an expert in computer science either.
As for being "clever", (like a Jew) well, I am in some things and not in others. I can't figure out those Wall Street derivatives, puts, calls, shorts, longs, to save my life. True I haven't tried too hard either. I'm pretty quick where it matters to me. That's how I support my family driving taxi.
I have a question for you though: In all of those files the Uribists and the neo nazi interpols could only come up with the vaguest hints of a Chavez/FARC connection, none of which could ever stand up in any real court of law as providing any type of evidence. Aren't you concerned about a media campaign that demonizes your country, that helps it become a potential target of economic or military warfare? Are there any people in Venezuela who you care about? You, after all, seem to understand some of the lies that were used to sell the Iraq war. Look at Iraq now: war ravaged, on the verge of partition, its economy set back decades, - all based on fabrications like those being spun out of the computer files. Do you really doubt that any US government now or in the foreseeable future is incapable of doing to Venezuela what it has done to Iraq and Indochina? (Another chain of attrocities that was based upon trumpted up "evidence" BTW).
How long would it take you to search all of that data? Interpol says
"In non-technical terms, this volume of data would correspond to 39.5 million filled pages in Microsoft Word and, if all of the seized data were in Word format, it would take more than 1,000 years to read at a rate of 100 pages per day. To break the 983 encrypted files, INTERPOL's experts linked and ran 10 computers simultaneously 24 hours a day / 7 days a week for two weeks."
And they found no evidence against your country. Aren't you glad of that?
BOREV is a laugh riot by the way in its coverage of this interpol thing.
http://www.borev.net/2008/05/
wai..._this_thin.html
Ow, I am not publishing any political programme.
We (it is not just me) are working on something more concrete. It is taking more time than I wanted because other Venezuelans are involved. Worst case scenario we can take to the end of this year (but not later than October), best case scenario for the end of June, most likely scenario for July.
And then you will hear about it not just by me, but probably by looking at many sites and newspapers.
We are working for Venezuela's sustainable development, not for going in a helicopter to Orchila to drink whiskey because someone close to us becomes president:
http://joacoramon.blogspot.com/2...la-
orchila.html
On another topic: Colombian terrorists are deserting. Karina gave up. Kudos to the Colombian people who want peace.
ok. I don't think it says much for these people that it is taking them so many years to come up with a program.
They sure aren't looking any better than Chavismo - and that is saying something.
BTW, why is it an issue that Chavez's kids would take vacations? Duh, there father is the president and presumabely earns a salary.
Jenna Bush just got married, and trust me, it wasn't in a town's clerk office.
Ow, I don't care about your problems with your country. I care about those in Venezuela.
Again and again you excuse things of Chavismo
by saying others do similar things.
There are murderers, thieves and rapers in every country. That does not excuse their crimes.
In Europe children of, say, Conservative Angela Merkel or Socialist Zapatero are not being brought to remote islands on the helicopters of the national army or the like. When something like that has happened with some minister, there is a scandal and papers write about it and people protest here. That is what happens when there is a democracy and real freedom of press.
Did Chavez pay for bringing those whiskey drinkers to Orchila on a helicopter?
As I said: I am not a politician. What I (and several others) am doing on my free time is more of a practical thing for Venezuela.
We will reveal it on due time. Then both the King of Venezuela and his rogue people as well as the opposition and the ninos and whatever will have to take a position on it.
But as for PJ (I have nothing to do with that or any party): it has more of a programme (one you did not understand, apparently) now than Chavismo after more than 9 years in power and billions of petrodollars. Please, give me the link to a clear programme by the government of Venezuela.
Bullshit Kepler. PJ has not programme. It only counts if they make it public which they don't. Secretly e-mailed "programs" aren't worth much are they.
There is nothing wrong with Chavez's or anyone else's kids going on vacation. It doesn't indicate corruption, or theft, or anything else except that Venezuelans happen to like to go to the beach.
The country is going through a boom. So lots of people are buying expensive things and taking vacations. It may be a waste of money for the country but there is nothing illegal about it and that you and the opposition keep harping on stuff like this just distracts everyone from the very big and very real problems that Venezuela DOES face.
Ow, you do not use an army helicopter to bring your children to the beach. Well, at least I do not know anyone who owns a helicopter with soldiers and all...
PJ's programme is known within the party at least.
Can you tell me where I can find the programme of the Chavismo movement?
If you google a wee bit you can find the political programmes of nearly every party in Western Europe. I suppose a government like Chavez's should have one by now, after so many years ruling.
Where is it?
In case you did not understand it:
Dónde está el programa del chavismo?
Oil is headed to $130 per barrel. Unreal. Who knows, maybe Golman Sachs prediction of $200 isn't so crazy after all.
These days the higher the price of oil goes the more annoyed I get with Chavez though. He has the perfect opportunity to really do something for the development of Venezuela yet to date I see nothing along those lines.
A wasted opportunity is much more embittering than no opportunity at all.
Kepler,
Read my comments before responding and you'll look less silly. I said above:
"I don't think it says much for these people that it is taking them so many years to come up with a program.
They sure aren't looking any better than Chavismo - and that is saying something."
Can you guess at what the last sentence implies?
It says a lot, but less than about those who
are employed to do that since 1999. Most of the PJ guys are working in normal jobs, like Katy or others.
The government has a lot of people AND money to pay them to focus on that and then print as many copies as they want.
OW, one of the murderers that you support turned herself in. Seems the Western part (nearly 1/3 of FARC) is falling apart thanks to the valiant efforts of Uribe to rid his country of this scum.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/ameri...cas/
7407666.stm
Her family had urged her to surrender. Why do you support these bandits when even their own families want them to give up this reign of terror?
Even murderer Karina said now it is the time for dialog.
Meanwhile, another for-profit, capitalist-owned, multinational corporation is continuing to help average Venezuelans.
" Grupo Edifer, a Portuguese construction company, is in talks with the Venezuelan government to build a hospital in Caracas, Jornal de Negocios reported, citing Edifer Chairwoman Vera Pires Coelho.
The hospital may cost about 100 million euros ($156 million), the Portuguese newspaper reported. Edifer may also build a plant in Venezuela for Portuguese drugmaker Atral Cipan, Jornal said. "
Capitalism triumphs again and supplies the revolution with the tools it needs to help average Venezuelans live health and prosperous lives. Capitalism works!!!
No problem with that.
But why is this work not being given to Venezuelan companies? Even if Venezuelan companies don't have the technical capacity to do all that they should be heavily involved so they DO develope that capacity.
PJ:
http://www.primerojusticiatachir...ional/
index.php
Well, Jsb, those are a couple of euros that will benefit the sustainable development of Europe as well.
Ow, because capable Venezuelan companies are usually opposition people. Chavez would not like that. That is the same reason why he prefers to give extra subsidies to the European Union, New Zealand, Belarus, etc, instead of Venezuelan diary companies.
Kepler,
I am pretty sure you know that neither time nor money are the reason for the lack of a program. It doesn't take that much time and effort - a lot less than either Katy or I have put into blogging over the past year for example.
The real reason they don't have them is all (or almost all) political parties in Venezuela are run by meglomaniacs like Chavez or Rosales who just want to do whatever they feel like doing and couldn't care less about what their followers think much less what kind of program they should have.
Venezuelan politics is personality based rather than issue or program based. That is the problem and that is why no-one has a program.
"Ow, because capable Venezuelan companies are usually opposition people. Chavez would not like that."
Could be true, in which case his policy is very wrong and self-defeating.
Kepler, JSB,
You both condemn the FARC for their abuses, while you don't say a word about the much larger abuses committed by the Colombian military and right-wing paramilitary forces who are intimately connected to Uribe's party and the Colombian government.
Are you completely ignorant of the fact that several human rights organizations over the years have reported that the grand majority of the death and massacre in Colombia are at the hands of the paramilitaries and the Colombian government?
So why such a condemnation of the FARC, when you don't say a word about who the much larger terrorists are in Colombia?
If you are worried about terrorism in Colombia, and who supports it, you should be calling for the overthrow of the Colombian government and those in Washington who send them millions of dollars each year. Now THAT is what supporting terrorism looks like. We don't need to "discover" a laptop in the jungle to proove it.
Meanwhile, Colombian and international human rights organizations that routinely document human rights violations have repeatedly shown over the years that the guerrillas are responsible for only a minority of the killings of civilians. For example, the Colombian Commission of Jurists (CCJ) reported last year that during President Uribe’s first term in office (2002-2006), the guerrillas were responsible for 25 percent of the killings of civilians. Meanwhile, the paramilitaries accounted for 61 percent of the deaths and the Colombian military for the remaining 14 percent.
http://www.colombiajournal.org/
c...colombia280.htm
So who are the bigger terrorists here? So those of you who are so passionately opposed to the FARC, maybe you should be even more concerned about the Colombian government? They are, afterall, implicated in more than twice as many massacres as the FARC.
Anonymous,
Even a relative of Uribe's is in prison right now for his work with the paras. I condemn violence from any sector.
Have you read some of what Ghandi did?
I have answered extensively about Colombia in this blog.
Anonymous,
Even a relative of Uribe's is in prison right now for his work with the paras. I condemn violence from any sector.
Yes, and about 30 of Uribe's closest allies are in prison for their connection to paramilitaries.
So do you condemn Washington for supporting terrorism in Colombia? I haven't seen you say a word.
Yet you seem to be very outspoken about Chavez supporting the FARC (even though there isn't a shred of evidence to prove it), yet you don't say anything about the fact that Washington and the Colombian government are the much larger terrorists.
Why are you so biased? Do you really care about terrorism? Or do you only care about it when it is politically useful?
For example, Kepler said:
On another topic: Colombian terrorists are deserting. Karina gave up. Kudos to the Colombian people who want peace.
Kepler | 05.20.08 - 8:14 am | #
Colombian terrorists are deserting? So, you mean the Uribe government and the paramilitaries that they are connected to are deserting?
Oh, no, you don't mean that. You mean that the much smaller source of terrorism, the FARC, is deserting.
The #1 terrorists in Colombia are not deserting at all. In fact, they are strongly supported by Washington and the Venezuelan opposition. But that doesn't seem to be a concern to Kepler, or anyone else from the Venezuelan opposition who pretends to care about terrorism in Colombia.
The problem is that they only care when it is convenient for their argument.
"If you are worried about terrorism in Colombia, and who supports it, you should be calling for the overthrow of the Colombian government..."
Why are you so undemocratic? We don't support a coup in Colombia against a democratically elected administration no more than you would want a coup in Venezuela. It's obvious to us, Chris, that you have no democratic tendencies. Rather, you are a jacobin who supports terror, murder, kidnapping and extortion. You're on record.
The Venezuelan government doesn't systematically murder its opponents. The Colombian government does.
That changes the options that are open to the Colombian opposition and means the Colombian government is not a true democracy. It is a psuedo democracy, sort of like Iran. It is democratic to an extent but people with certain beliefs are excluded (as in Iran) or murdered (as in Colombia).
Dan, the FARC are a fringe violent organization that has no support in Colombia and will be exterminated over time (as evidenced in today's surrender). The murdering of women and children is coming to an end, no thanks to FARC supporters like Chavez. You forfit a place in society when you extort, kidnap, murder... The FARC will surrender or be put down like the dogs that they are. Long live Colombia's hero Uribe!
We don't support a coup in Colombia against a democratically elected administration no more than you would want a coup in Venezuela.
One of these governments has been shown to be implicated in the mass murder of its civilians. Human rights organizations attribute 75% of the massacres in Colombia to be at the hand of the Colombian military or right-wing paramilitaries that are closely linked to the Uribe government.
The Venezuelan government has not been shown to be involved in any massacres. So these are two significantly different circumstances.
But I never called for a coup in Colombia. In any decent democracy the government would be overthrown through a judicial process, and would be tried for their crimes.
You should be calling for this to happen in Colombia. But you aren't. Instead, you focus on the much smaller perpretrator of violence, the FARC, and completely ignore the massive violence of the government forces.
This, my friend, is called hypocrisy. Appalling hypocrisy.
Rather, you are a jacobin who supports terror, murder, kidnapping and extortion. You're on record.
I don't support the FARC any more than the Venezuelan government does. I condemn the violence, but I also see the FARC as only one side in a two-sided conflict. The FARC is the weaker, less dangerous side. That does not excuse their violence. But if you really care about ending violence in Colombia, you'll have to focus on the MAJOR perpetrator of violence, the Colombian government.
This is something you never do, because you are a total hypocrite.
Really, JSB, and what about the slaughter of the Union Patriotica?
The murdering of women and children is coming to an end, no thanks to FARC supporters like Chavez.
No, actually just a few weeks ago 6 opposition activists were murdered by pro-government forces after they held a protest against the violence of the Colombian government.
Sorry, looks like the murdering isn't ending.
You forfit a place in society when you extort, kidnap, murder...
Unfortunately, this isn't true. I wish it were, then people like George Bush, and Alvaro Uribe would no longer have a place in society.
Long live Colombia's hero Uribe!
This is what supporting terrorism looks like.
"I don't support the FARC any more than the Venezuelan government does."
Considering the arms, money and shelter that Venezuela has provided, I find your claim laughable. You are clearly sympathetic, at a minimum, to the murderers in FARC's ranks.
The Colombian government is democratically elected, with institutions that should investigate and prosecute murderers in their ranks. I do not support any murderer. I do support the legally sanctioned killings of FARC leaders who do not surrender. Kill them all.
Call me a hypocrite if you must. Anyone who murders women and children, whether a parra or FARC should be prosecuted. But because FARC are beyond the institutions of civil society, hiding in the jungles, they must surrender or face the fate of Reyes.
May peace be upon Uribe. A hero of the people. A defender of the people. Long live Uribe.
"Really, JSB, and what about the slaughter of the Union Patriotica?"
Really, Dan. The perpertrators should be brought to justice. And they, alongside the murderers in FARC can face justice together.
May Uribe's valor be an example to all of the Americas.
Fat chance that will happen given that the perpertrators run the Colombian government just as they were supported by the Colombian government at the time.
"Anyone who murders women and children, whether a parra or FARC should be prosecuted."
When will the US soldiers who kill woman and children in Afghanistan be prosecuted?
JSB, what about the fact that Uribe's party is intimately connected to the largest source of violence and murder in the country?
I see this doesn't concern you. Violence only concerns you when it is convenient to you?
Considering the arms, money and shelter that Venezuela has provided,
Please give solid evidence to support your claim, not just "Colombia says they do."
May Uribe's valor be an example to all of the Americas.
Hahaha, this doesn't seem to be what is happening in Latin America right now my friend.
At this point, the corrupt war criminals in Washington are about the only ones who support Uribe.
"When will the US soldiers who kill woman and children in Afghanistan be prosecuted?"
Any US soldier who intentionally kills innocents should be tried in a court of law as has happened already.
"Fat chance..."
Mario Uribe's indictment? Fat chance? It may be a long road, but justice can be done, Dan. Kidnapping, extortion, murder, dismemberment, terror...do not bring about justice. It only prolongs the violence on both sides.
I feel sorry for you that you've fallen so far that you cannot see the difference between Uribe's heroic defense of the people of Colombia vs. FARC's terror of the pueblo. It's ok, Dan. Thankfully it's all coming to an end soon and there will be another FARC memoir or two for you to comfort yourself with.
Uribe will outlast the FARC. The FARC is dying. Long live Uribe.
May Uribe's valor be an example to all of the Americas.
jsb | 05.20.08 - 2:04 pm | #
So you are implying that all the governments of the Americas should maintain ties to paramilitary forces that massacre their populations?
I see. Good example indeed.
Can you spot the younger Uribe as cash is doled out to paramilitaries for a job well done ?:
http://www.justiceforcolombia.or...amilitary/
4.jpg
This is a war. It will be conducted as such. And Uribe will be victorious as well the people's armies of Colombia. FARC will be defeated, like Che in Bolivia. Prepare your monuments, communists.
This is a war. It will be conducted as such.
Yes, apparently it is a war against the civilian population, since that's what the human rights organizations are talking about.
Its also a war against labor leaders, a couple dozen of them have been killed so far this year. Many of them were organizers of the March 6th parade against the Uribe government. They're dead now.
http://www.semana.com/wf_InfoArt...px?
idArt=111220
So, JSB thinks that the Uribe government should be an example for all the Americas.
In other words, all governments should murder their opposition?
"Any US soldier who intentionally kills innocents should be tried in a court of law as has happened already."
given the massive civilian casualties from the Afghanistan and Iraq war and the dozen or so soldiers that have been jailed for atrocities over the past seven years this statement is simply not true. And the cause of the bulk of civilian deaths isnt a result of inadvertent misfire or trigger happy individuals but official policy. The US uses massive bombings of urban areas in Iraq (a war crime in of itself given that the country is under occupation) to subdue armed resistance and the air force bombing of civilians in Afghanistan has gotten so bad that even karzai was recently forced to publicly protest in order to save face. its also widespread knowledge that the rules of engagement are either non existent or not enforced in many areas of occupation. and in the air force, at least, planners take into consideration the potential collateral damage before each mission so killing civilians is official policy no different (though more deadly)then when a suicide bomber blows up a cop and takes the people surrounding the later with him. most importantly one has to remember that both these wars are aggressive wars, neither Iraq or Afghanitsan has any capacity of conquering the US, and the people resisting are those who are refusing foreign domination of their country.
"the bulk of civilian deaths isnt a result of inadvertent misfire or trigger happy individuals but official policy."
That is simply a lie.
The majority of civilian deaths in Iraq, for example, are the result of terrorist attacks on markets and mosques.
As for your criticism of The Northern Alliances victory over the Taliban as "aggression", one wonders what the hell you would have had anyone do about the Taliban harboring Al Queda. Nothing?
jsb - so murder is fine as long as it kills the people YOU do not like based on your world view.
Official policy in Iraq was to torture prisoners in Aby Ghraib. Official policy in Afghanistan was to kidnap and deport any suspects to Egypt for torture confessions. This is without mentioning Guantanamo.
This is the sort of policies Scott Barnard supports so it is natural for him to support Uribe's policies of murdering the opposition, trade unionists etc.
He does not seem to realize that such policies will just strengthen the guerilla movements as this was what caused them to from in the first place.
jsb - based on your condining of political murder, wpuld be be ok for the Tupamaros to murder, say Oscar Pérez and Leopoldo López? Your answer must be yes based on the above posts you made.
The majority of civilian deaths in Iraq, for example, are the result of terrorist attacks on markets and mosques.
Acts which are a direct result of the US invasion and occupation.
How easy it is to invade and bombard a country, and then blame the resulting civil strife and conflict on the victims of that invasion. Once again, your hypocrisy is stunning.
As for your criticism of The Northern Alliances victory over the Taliban as "aggression", one wonders what the hell you would have had anyone do about the Taliban harboring Al Queda. Nothing?
The answer certainly isn't to begin an open bombardment of the country.
With that logic then you would have also agreed that the United States should have been bombarded in the 1980's when they were financing and arming Al-Qaeda?
I suppose you would agree with dropping bombs on New York since the United States continues to harbor international terrorists such as Orlando Bosch and Posada Carriles?
I think it can be hereby concluded that JSB is a total lunatic. Enough said.
http://machetera.wordpress.com/2...glove/#more-
240
Colombia’s bloody glove
May 20, 2008 ·
What Interpol was NOT asked to investigate is almost as interesting as what it was. Were the “FARC” computers planted? Wait…you weren’t supposed to be thinking about that.
Time Magazine Suggests that the Possibility that Colombia Planted the Computers has not been Investigated
Pascual Serrano - Rebelión
Translation: Machetera
In an article from Miami by Tim Padger, titled “The U.S. Dilemma Over Chavez,” Time magazine joins the voices who see the many gray areas in the affair of the computers supposedly captured by the Colombian army from Raúl Reyes’ camp.
Time indicated that
“the possibility, albeit remote in the eyes of many observers, that Chavez might be right — that the laptops themselves might not be authentic.” The magazine said that “Interpol chief Richard Noble said he was ‘absolutely certain’ that the computers ‘came from a FARC terrorist camp.’ But technically, all that Interpol did in its examination of the computers was to confirm that they had not been messed with post-March 1; it wasn’t asked to investigate Chavez’s allegations that the computers had been planted by the Colombian military in the first place.”
Time’s journalist also acknowledged that the United States was behind Colombia’s incursion into Ecuador, which provoked the indignation of the countries in the region, with even the OAS calling it a violation of international law.
The article also said the Bush administration had little authority to qualify Venezuela as a sponsor of terrorism, saying that “much of the region feels the U.S. lacks the moral authority in this case to label Venezuela a terrorism sponsor.” It added that should the United States designate Venezuela as such, Chávez could “counter more loudly with the case of Luis Posada Carriles, the Cuban exile wanted in Venezuela for allegedly masterminding a 1976 terror attack on a Cuban jetliner in Caracas, which killed 73 people.” Despite this, “the U.S. refuses to extradite Posada despite FBI evidence implicating him in the crime.”
What Interpol was NOT asked to investigate is almost as interesting as what it was. Were the “FARC” computers planted? Wait…you weren’t supposed to be thinking about that.
What's amazing is how people just blindly swallow the accusations of the Colombian government and the criminal government in Washington, without batting an eye.
There is no way to validate where the computers came from, or where the information on the computers came from. Therefore, they are basically meaningless.
Not to mention what the "information" means...
"Any US soldier who intentionally kills innocents should be tried in a court of law as has happened already."
Armed guards in Iraq occupy a legal limbo
By John M. Broder and James Risen
Wednesday, September 19, 2007
WASHINGTON: The shooting incident involving private security guards in Baghdad on Sunday that left at least eight Iraqis dead revealed large gaps in the laws applying to such armed contractors.
Early in the period when Iraq was still under American administration, the United States government unilaterally exempted its employees and contractors from Iraqi law.
Last year, Congress instructed the Defense Department to draw up rules to bring the tens of thousands of contractors in Iraq under the American laws that apply to the military, but the Pentagon so far has not acted. Thus the thousands of heavily armed private soldiers in Iraq operate with virtual immunity from Iraqi or American law.
There have been numerous incidents of killings or injuries of Iraqi civilians by employees of Blackwater USA, the company involved in the incident on Sunday, and other private military contractors.
The most egregious recent episode came last December when a Blackwater gunman was reported, during an argument, to have killed a bodyguard for Vice President Adel Abdul Mahdi.
He was whisked out of the country and has not been charged with any crime, said Peter Singer, a Brookings Institution scholar who has written extensively about contractors in Iraq.
On Wednesday, Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki of Iraq complained of killings of Iraqis "in cold blood" by American armed contractors. He said Sunday's shooting was the seventh such case involving Blackwater. Iraq's government is threatening to throw Blackwater out of the country, a move that would have a dramatic impact on American operations inside the country.
Publicly, the Bush administration has not said how it would respond if the Maliki government tries to carry out its threat to evict Blackwater, but administration officials and executives in the security contracting industry both said Wednesday that they believed that the White House and the State Department would seek to block any move by Iraq to force the company out. The issue is already leading to sharp tensions between the two governments, and any effort by the United States to force Iraq to keep Blackwater could make the Maliki government appear to be a weak puppet.
For years, government officials and members of Congress have debated what has become in Iraq the most extensive use of private contractors on the battlefield since Renaissance princes hired private armies to fight their battles. The debate flares up after each lethal incident in Iraq, but there has been no agreement on how to police the private soldiers who roam Iraq in the employ of the United States government.
The Blackwater incident, which Iraqi officials have branded "a crime," has led American authorities to suspend temporaril
The Blackwater incident, which Iraqi officials have branded "a crime," has led American authorities to suspend temporarily most uses of private contractors as traveling bodyguards, and it has put the issue of security contractors back on the front burner in Washington.
A Blackwater spokeswoman declined to comment Wednesday, but in an earlier statement, the company said that its employees "responded legally and appropriately to an attack by armed insurgents."
Several members of Congress and nongovernment analysts said that the oversight of thousands of private military personnel was plainly inadequate and were urging passage of new laws governing contractors, particularly those carrying weapons. The laws governing contractors on the battlefield are vague and rarely enforced. Senators John Kerry, Democrat of Massachusetts, and Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, successfully sponsored an amendment to a Pentagon budget bill last year to bring all military contractors in Iraq under the Uniform Code of Military Justice.
The bill did not include State Department contractors, like the Blackwater gunmen involved in Sunday's incident, but Senator Graham said Wednesday that he intended to try to extend its reach to all civilian contractors in Iraq and other war zones. While contractors are not subject to the military code, some argue they could be prosecuted for crimes abroad under civilian law, but in the case of Iraq, that has not been tested.
"If we go to war with this number of contractors in the war zone, thousands of them armed, you need application of UCMJ to maintain good order and discipline," said Senator Graham, who serves in the Air Force Reserve Judge Advocate General Corps.
"This is a real gap in discipline," he added. "These people are on a legal island." In the House, meanwhile, Rep. John Murtha, the Pennsylvania Democrat who is chairman of the House Defense Appropriations Subcommittee, is pushing legislation that would require the secretary of defense to set new personnel standards for contractors and to establish clear rules of engagement for security contractors operating in Iraq and Afghanistan. Murtha's panel noted that "the oversight and administration of contracted security services is woefully inadequate."
Even the trade association representing armed contractors called for new regulations to rein in contractors who abuse Iraqi civilians or violate the terms of their contracts with the United States government. "If you're going to be outsourcing this much of our war-fighting capability, you have to have appropriate oversight," said Doug Brooks, president of the International Peace Operations Association, which represents private military contractors including Blackwater.
Between 20,000 and 30,000 civilians work for the United States in Iraq as private military contractors, part of a civilian work force that equals or exceeds the more than 160,000-person military force there. The State
Here's Privatization At Its Worst: Bushites To Use Privateers To Start Iran War?
http://www.foxnews.com/
printer_f...,352579,00.html
Navy-Contracted Vessel Fires Warning Shots on Fast Boats in Persian Gulf
Friday , April 25, 2008
ADVERTISEMENT
A vessel contracted by the Navy in the Persian Gulf fired warning shots Thursday on two fast boats believed to be of Iranian origin.
In a story first reported by FOX News, Navy officials said the Westward Venture fired upon two boats about 50 miles off the coast of Iran.
U.S. Navy Fifth Fleet spokeswoman Cmdr. Lydia Robertson said the boats were of unknown origin, but other Navy officials told FOX News that the markings of the boats and their behavior led them to believe they were Iranian and typical of those used by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard.
The Iranian Navy countered those claims Friday, saying on Iranian television station Al-Alam that they didn't have a confrontation with a U.S. ship and that the Westward Venture may have fired on a non-Iranian vessel, Reuters reported.
The approximately 1,000-foot-long Westward Venture is contracted by the U.S. Military Sealift Command to carry military cargo to Kuwait. It fired upon the fast boats while traveling north in international waters. Defense officials told FOX News it did so after attempts to get the boats' attention failed.
A Navy security team of 12, armed with M-16 rifles and .50-caliber machine guns, was onboard the Westward Venture at the time the warning shots were fired.
The incident, which lasted for about 15 minutes, began when the Westward Venture attempted to make bridge-to-bridge contact to warn the fast boats that they were too close.
The Military Sealift Command vessel then blew its whistle and fired flares before finally firing warning shots with the machine guns and M-16s when the boats came within 100 yards of the cargo ship.
Bridge-to-bridge communication was established after the shots were fired, with someone claiming to be the Iranian Coast Guard contacting the Westward Venture.
"It is not clear if this was one of the small boats or a separate boat," Robertson said.
The Iranian Revolutionary Guard is suspected of being involved in this incident, officials told FOX News.
Defense officials said that typically the guard behaves in a very unprofessional and aggressive manner, using unmarked boats and uniforms, unlike the Iranian Navy.
Oil prices rose sharply Friday on news of the confrontation, on concerns that a conflict between U.S. and Iranian forces could cut oil supplies from the Persian Gulf region. The cost for a barrel of light, sweet crude oil for June delivery rose $3.08 to $119.14 on the New York Mercantile Exchange after earlier rising as high as $119.50.
Prices were already up before the report on news of a pipeline attack in Nigeria and a looming refinery strike in Scotland.
The incident follows two other encounters between U.S. and Iranian ship
Chris says: " jsb - so murder is fine as long as it kills the people YOU do not like based on your world view."
No, I think murderers should be prosecuted whether they are in government, the military, from the left or the right. It is you who seek to distinguish the FARC's crimes as legitimate. I've been very clear on my position. Prosecute everyone within the democratic institutions available. Everyone.
"Prosecute everyone within the democratic institutions available. Everyone.
"
and
"Long live Colombia's hero Uribe!"
Isn't there any limit to your hypocrisy? What a douchebag....
Uribe, peace be upon him, hasn't murdered anybody. He is as much a democrat as Chavez. What hypocrisy could you mean?
" Uribe, peace be upon him, hasn't murdered anybody"
His armed forces have murdered hundreds of peasants and dressed them as FARC guerrillas, according to a report that came out a few months ago. According to reports from your own country he's been also in bed with drug cartels in the past. He's not exactly clean. You also seem to ignore the reports that attribute close to 80% of the violence in Colombia to the right-wing paramilitaries and the Colombian army. The Colombian government is at least as guilty of atrocities as the FARC is.
You also seem to ignore the reports that attribute close to 80% of the violence in Colombia to the right-wing paramilitaries and the Colombian army.
Not to mention all the people from Uribe's government who have been indicted for their connections to the right-wing paramilitaries.
If you condemn all murders, then you should condemn not only the murders from the FARC, but also the MUCH LARGER amount of murders that come from the forces that have been shown to have close ties to the Uribe government.
You're a hypocrite. End of story.
OW,
You'll have to forgive me for not going through 164 comments (at this count): Did you ever get in touch with TI? Did they ever respond to your analysis, and if so, what did they say? regards, T
More on that will come out in a bit.
They have been contacted. So far they are stonewalling.
But I will be pursueing it more myself in the future. Technically they have an "ethics" board and someone like that who are seperate from the people who write the reports should look into this. Not only was this report flawed and wrong but there were very basic conflicts of interest. For example, the people who gathered data had strong biases and T.I. itself is funded by some of the companies the report was written on.
Hey OW, good to see that your blog is available again.
Talking about bizarre international indicators, what do you think about this Global Peace Index?
http://www.visionofhumanity.org/.../rankings/2008/
Venezuela ranks 123 from 140 whereas the United States ranks 97 and a country like Egypt 69.
Particularly I feel this chart is risible at the least but you might as well take a look. I really don't know how the formula for calculating the index but I will just point out some numbers:
1. Number of jailed population per 100,000 people
Venezuela - 1301
USA - 5
(Does that mean that there are only 15000 inmates in the whole US and there are around 350000 in Venezuela? nice)
2. Ease of access to weapons of minor destruction
Venezuela - 4
USA - 3
(It shows these guys didn't see Bowling for Columbine. Probably don't like Michael Moore)
3. UN Deployments 2006-07 (percentage of total forces)
Venezuela - 5
USA - 5
(of course, since relatively the two percentages are so similar this is a terrific indicator of peacefulness)
4. Military Capability/Sophistication
Venezuela - 4
USA - 5
(Who would have thought? we can almost confront the empire on its own military terms hehehe)
6. Number of external and internal conflicts fought: 2000-05
Venezuela - 2
USA - 3
(Venezuela's number would have been lower if we had withdrawn from Afghanistan a couple of years before)
7. Electoral Process
Venezuela - 6.6
USA - 8.8
(Oh yes... that transparent electoral system they have over there. We should bring in some advisers from the state of Florida)
8. Political participation
Qualitative assessment of voter participation/turn-out for national elections, citizens' engagement with politics. Ranked 1- 10 (very low to very high)
Venezuela - 5.6
USA - 7.2
(And I thought politics was Venezuela's national sport, but hey... I was wrong)
9. Political culture
Qualitative assessment of the degree of societal consensus and cohesion to underpin a stable, functioning democracy; score the level of separation of church and state. Ranked 1- 10 (very low to very high)
Venezuela - 4.4
USA - 8.8
(No comments on this one)
9. Corruption perceptions (CPI score: 10 = highly clean, 0 = highly corrupt)
Venezuela - 2
USA - 7.2
(You were referring to this on the post, right?)
10. The extent of regional integration
Venezuela - 3
USA - 4
(mmm... Last time I counted the number of regional political allies gave me a different figure, but I guess EIU analysts know better)
11. Willingness to fight
Venezuela - 4
USA - 2
(hahahahaha man, this is too ridiculous. It reffers to a "Qualitative assessment of the willingness of citizens to fight in wars. Ranked 1- 5 (very low to very high) by EIU analysts.")
12. Number of paramilitary personnel per 100,000 people
Venezuela - 0
USA - 0
(These guys have never heard of Blackwater or KBR?)
I will let you make your own conclusions on government spending as a percentage of GDP, unemployment rates, school enrolement ratios, and all the rest of the crap.
And then they expect us to believe they are fair, objective and that they do this for the sake of world peace... and yeah, that the United States is a more peaceful country than Venezuela.
I don't know about that index, I know about the murder rates in Venezuela and the rest of the world. Since Hugo The Irreplaceable is in power (since Feb 1999à the murder rate in Venezuela has nearly tripled.
http://
commentisfree.guardian.co...parency_in.html
Thanks for that link.
There, courtesy of some fine research by Calvin Tucker, we see the likely answer to why T.I. screwed this up so badly.
Uribe is legally fufilling the democratic will of the people to be free of the terror of the FARC. In the tradition of the great liberator, forces that seek to divide Colombia will be obliterated.
Uribe is Colombia, Colombia is Uribe.
1. Number of jailed population per 100,000 people
Venezuela - 1301
USA - 5
(Does that mean that there are only 15000 inmates in the whole US and there are around 350000 in Venezuela? nice)
This is a minor error you should have spotted using common sense. Whereas the information for almost all countries is the inmates/100000 (and not he 1 to 5 score corresponding to it), for the US its the score it has on that point, namely 5 (Peace Index scores from 1 to 5 where 1 = most peaceful.)
And that's for ow an especially Flanker:
Ecoanalítica calcula en 72,5% la sobrevaluación del bolívar
http://www.eluniversal.com/2008/
...la_872642.shtml
Sire, don't think you'll get an arguement from me.
I know it is way overvalued.
BTW, in the Wall Street Journal they had an interesting article on a major study that just came out on economic development. They studied the 25 countries that have done the best in terms of development and growth rates over the past 50 years.
The basic findings:
You need to integrate with the world market.
Tarrifs can and probably should be used to protect local industries.
Government should actively try to assist start up industries.
Very high levels of investment are needed but it doesn't have to be foriegn investment.
Sounds a lot like the South Korean model.
Anyways, maybe you can look for the article or better yet the report. It was some Nobel Prize winning economist from Stanford that headed the committee.
The article then had economists from the World Bank criticizing its findings
I know, but as you two are obsessed with devaluation, my mentioning of both. It's becoming more and more urgent.
Care to share the WSJ link?
I agree with:
- You need to integrate with the world market.
- Very high levels of investment are needed
I don't agree with:
- Tarriffs can and probably should be used to protect local industries: subsidies are much more efficient, as these ensure that domestic industries face competition. Otherwise, you'll end up protecting inefficient industries by tariffs while consumers face higher prices and lower quality; an exmpale is Brazil's auto industry.
- Government should actively try to assist start up industries: I prefer the market to pick winners, instead of the government. If it's done, then as described above, not with tariffs.
- Very high levels of investment are needed but it doesn't have to be foreign investment: Most countries will not be able to renounce foreign investment, as they do not have sufficient capital themselves. Also, foreign investment can bring other benefits, such as technology transfers, make local suppliers more competitive, etc. What you cannot do without for sure is PRIVATE (domestic) investment - and that's exactly what Chavismo seems to think.
You could always go the route of Peru ... just put them all out of the country.
Nice artice and comments. I would like to link to this, in one of my pages. Hope you don not mind.
Commenting by HaloScan
