December 13, 2004 -- VHeadline.com guest commentarist Arthur Shaw writes: The (April 6, 2002) CIA Senior Executives Intelligence Brief is one of the most revealing of seven documents obtained and published by Eva Golinger under the US Freedom of Information Act relating to the 2002 overthrow of the Venezuelan government.

Here's my take on the content of five of the seven sentences the brief contains, excluding the censored portions.

"DISSIDENT MILITARY FACTIONS, INCLUDING SOME DISGRUNTLED SENIOR OFFICERS AND A GROUP OF RADICAL JUNIOR OFFICERS, ARE STEPPING UP EFFORTS TO ORGANIZE A COUP AGAINST PRESIDENT CHAVEZ..."

Here, the CIA describes the most significant plotters on the military side of the April 2002 act of treason. The CIA highlights the roles of two of the factions -- "some disgruntled senior officers" and "a group of radical junior officers." Probably there were other military factions which went unmentioned, for example, junior officers who were less than radical.

In any case, according to the CIA brief, the two factions singled out for special attention combined to form the core the "dissident military factions."

In its references to the two factions, the CIA refers directly or indirectly to the extent of each faction's support among its peers, the intensity of the faction's support for the proposed act of treason, and, obviously, the rank of the faction.

The "some" in the term "some disgruntled senior officers" suggests either that some senior officers were not disgruntled or that some disgruntled senior officers were not stepping up efforts to organize the overthrow of Venezuelan government.

If the former ... some senior officers were not disgruntled ... is the case, then the plot seems rash, even for a bunch of traitors, going ahead, as they did, without the involvement of other senior officers who were not even disgruntled.

This implies that the CIA pushed the dissident military factions to step up their efforts to overthrow their government because the CIA itself was under heavy pressure from the White House to destroy Venezuelan democracy.

If the latter ... some disgruntled senior officers were not stepping up their efforts to organize the overthrow of their government ... is the case, this implies that the disgruntled senior officers who WERE involved in the act of treason were divided among themselves over, among other things, whether their efforts should be stepped up.

If so, what divided them?

Was it a disagreement over the plan for the treason?

Was it a clash of egos by the most senior of the disgruntled senior officers?

Was it a venal squabble over how the millions of dollars the CIA provided for the overthrow was to be cut up?

The CIA refers to a "group of radical junior officers." Note that the US spies didn't say that the junior officers were radical as a group. The US spies in their brief gave no hint about any dissension within the group of radical junior officers. The US spies didn't inform the 200 imperialist US executives in Washington, D.C. who received their brief, what percentage of Venezuelan junior officers the "group" represented.

The CIA gauges the intensity of the two factions' support for treason ... the group of junior officers is "radical," but some senior officers seem only "disgruntled."

Presumably, the plotters who are radical were more in favor of stepping up efforts to organize the overthrow of their government than those who are disgruntled.

This implies that the CIA's strategy for the overthrow of the Venezuelan government was chiefly the seduction of the junior officers or the hotheads.

This language "stepping up efforts to organize a coup" doesn't sound just right.

What are the efforts?

Does "stepping up" mean just working faster?

The plan calls for two broad efforts. First effort requires the massacre of dozens of innocent, but duped demonstrators against the government. Second effort requires the arrest or killing of the head of state and top government officials.

The dissident military factions seemed primarily responsible for the second effort.

Is that what they stepped up?

I hope the 'democratic' press will find a senior or junior officer who will talk and tell how they stepped up their efforts.

"THE LEVEL OF DETAIL IN THE REPORTED PLANS TARGETS CHAVEZ AND 10 OTHER SENIOR OFFICIALS FOR ARREST."

The CIA therefore knew on April 6 not only, in general or in rumor, about a conspiracy to overthrow the Venezuelan government, but also, in specific, about the plans for the overthrow which had been "reported" to the US spies with a certain level of detail.

From the April 6 CIA brief, it is evident that the principal players in the conspiracy were some disgruntled senior officers ... a group of radical junior officers ... and the CIA.

There can be no doubt that at least these three groups of players were privy to the plans for the conspiracy.

For reasons of tact ... or perhaps something else ... the CIA desired to convey the impression to the 200 senior executives of the regime in Washington, D.C. who read its April 6 intelligence brief that the plans for the conspiracy had been merely "reported" to it and not the impression that the CIA prepared or ... at least ... had a hand in the preparation of the plans.

With a group of radical "junior" officers serving as the backbone of the conspiracy, it's highly unlikely that the CIA would have deferred to junior officers in planning the overthrow a government, a specialty of the imperialist spies. As a matter of fact, it's unlikely that the CIA would defer to some disgruntled senior officers in the CIA's specialty.

According to the brief, the plans for the conspiracy target Chavez and 10 other senior officials for arrest. This implies that not only Chavez, but also the 10 other senior officials were under intimate physical surveillance from at least April 6 to the overthrow on April 11.

These 10 other senior officials must know who was around them during this time.

To target only Chavez and 10 other senior officials suggests that the CIA, some disgruntled senior officers and the group of radical junior officials believed that Chavez ... almost alone ... gave depth and breadth to democracy in Venezuela and that the removal of Chavez would destroy the democracy.

This is like believing that the capture of Saddam will end the armed resistance of the Iraqi patriots.

"CHAVEZ IS MONITORING OPPONENTS INSIDE AND OUTSIDE THE MILITARY."

And Chavez should have been...  Within the context of the April 6 brief, what this statement amounts to is that Chavez was monitoring, among others, some disgruntled senior officers, a group of radical junior officers, and, of course, the CIA. But none of these three opponents was outside the military.

If Chavez was monitoring his opponents, then how did his opponents get to him on April 11?

Evidently, Chavez' monitoring wasn't very good ... for among the opponents the CIA brief mentions, it was the disgruntled senior officers who got to Chavez on April 11.

Perhaps Chavez monitored his opponents outside the military more and better than those inside of it.

Who were the source of the CIA intelligence about Chavez' monitoring activities ... the opponents who spotted Chavez' monitors or Chavez' monitors?

In either case, again, Chavez' monitoring wasn't very good.

And why would the CIA want to supply the 200 senior executives of its imperialist regime with this piece of information about Chavez' monitoring activities?

A likely reason is that the CIA wanted to explain to the senior imperialist executives why the disgruntled senior officers and the group of radical junior officers were stepping up their efforts to organize the overthrow of the Venezuelan government. The opponents of Chavez knew by this time that Chavez was watching or monitoring them, and it was only a matter of time before Chavez learned about their plans for the conspiracy. So, the opponents could either step up their efforts or abandon them. They chose to step up their efforts.

If so, Chavez' monitors, however inapt, helped to save Venezuelan democracy.

"TO PROVOKE MILITARY ACTION, THE PLOTTERS MAY TRY TO EXPLOIT UNREST STEMMING FROM OPPOSITION DEMONSTRATIONS SLATED FOR LATER THIS MONTH."

The CIA sure has a knack for euphemisms.

By "military action," the spies mean the actual overthrow of the Venezuelan government. But it's duplicitous to say that the exploitation of opposition demonstrations "provokes" this action because both the military action and the exploitation are arranged, as parts of the same conspiracy to overthrow the government. The military action merely follows the exploitation of the demonstrations.

So, it's no coincidence that Ari Fleischer (the former US White House press secretary) and Philip Reeker (the US State Department spokesperson) in their April 12 responses to the overthrow of the Venezuelan government, stated that Chavez "provoked" his own overthrow. The two bureaucrats merely echoed the line the CIA had fed them as senior executives, in its April 6 brief, only six days earlier.

By "exploit unrest stemming from opposition demonstrations," the US spies mean massacre of anti-government demonstrators by anti-government conspirators and blame the bloodbath on Chavez.

If this operation had worked, it would have certainly intensified the unrest.

But for it to work, the full cooperation of the lying Venezuelan press was essential so that the media wouldn't cast doubt and suspicion on Chavez' falsely alleged responsibility for the massacre.

As for the term "plotters," whom does it include?

To be sure, it includes the dissident military factions -- some disgruntled senior officers, a group of radical senior officers, and the CIA. Since a successful "exploitation" of the opposition demonstration implies the full cooperation of the lying Venezuelan press, it must include also the so-called media.

This means that the low down, dirty, lying press in Venezuela KNEW that a lot of innocent people would be massacred on April 11 ... and failed to warn them.

The despicable Venezuelan press supported the bloodthirsty conspiracy to "exploit unrest." And, if the press were one of the plotters as the April 6 CIA brief implies, then this so-called press had a WHOLE FIVE DAYS to warn the demonstrators (its would-be allies) of their fate on April 11.

The presence of the CIA among the plotters implicates George W. Bush, the commander-in-thief of the 2004 US presidential election, in the deaths of dozens of Venezuelan demonstrators ... and it also implicates Bush in the deaths of others who were not demonstrators but who nonetheless died as a result of the seditious conspiracy.

Given the balance of power between the United States and Venezuela, it is probably rash and irresponsible of the Venezuelan government to institute judicial proceeding in its own judiciary against 'Bush and his imperialist regime,' as the United States did against the Panamanian president, Manuel Noriega, in a US District Court in Miami, Florida in 1989.

But it would be neither rash nor irresponsible for the relatives of the demonstrators and of the non-demonstrators who were slain as a result of US complicity in the conspiracy to overthrow the Venezuelan government to institute judicial proceeding in Venezuela to recover a judgment for monetary damages against Bush, personally, and the United States.

Bush may have assets in Venezuela or it other Latin American countries that can satisfy the judgment if the litigants should win.

Most of the discussion so far on the release of the 7 CIA documents relating to the April 2002 overthrow of the Venezuelan government has focused on the prior knowledge of the regime in Washington, D.C. of the overthrow and not of its prior knowledge of the massacre the preceded the overthrow.

Perhaps a more balanced approach would be more helpful.

Since many of the demonstrators tend to grovel before US imperialism, it is frankly doubtful whether they care more about their relatives slain on April 11, 2002, than their imaginary duty to grovel. But this skepticism doesn't apply to the relatives of the non-demonstrators slain on April 11, 2002.

Probably, the biggest obstacle to this proposed course of action is that one of the few lawyers who had the guts and the brains to win this type of case, Danilo Anderson, was himself slain recently by an element of the same scumbags who perpetrated the April 11 massacre.

By "slated for later this month," the CIA means April 11, 2002, because the date of the demonstration was already known by April 6, the date of the CIA brief. Clearly, the phase "later this month" is a big hint to the 200 senior executives in the Washington, D.C. regime about when the planned overthrow of the Venezuelan government would occur.

"CIVILIAN GROUPS OPPOSED TO CHAVEZ POLICIES, INCLUDING THE CATHOLIC CHURCH, BUSINESS GROUPS, AND LABOR, ARE BACKING AWAY FROM EFFORTS TO INVOLVE THEM IN THE PLOTTING, PROBABLY TO AVOID BEING TAINTED BY AN UNCONSTITUTIONAL MOVE AND FEAR THAT A FAILED ATTEMPT COULD STRENGTHEN CHAVEZ'  HAND."

Here the CIA brief, for the first and only time, supplies its 200 senior executives with at least a partial list of Chavez' opponents outside of the military ... the catholic church, business groups and labor.

The lying Venezuelan press and the Caracas police are the most notable omissions.

Perhaps the press was omitted from the list because it wasn't backing away from efforts to involve it in the plotting, although it was a civilian group that opposed Chavez's policies.

Perhaps the Caracas police wasn't mentioned because it also wasn't backing away and because it wasn't a civilian group although it's outside of the military.

The Caracas Metropolitan police seemed to have the primary responsibility for the "first effort" in the conspiracy, the massacre of the antigovernment demonstrators.

The CIA brief, as a whole, suggests that two opposite processes were underway on April 6. On the one hand, there was a stepping up of efforts to organize the overthrow. On the other, a backing away from efforts to organize the overthrow.

Why were the catholic church, the business groups, and labor backing away from efforts to involve them in the plotting?

The CIA offers two possible explanations ... first, the civilians groups didn't want an unconstitutional taint on them and, second, they feared that a failed overthrow would strengthen Chavez.

The first possible explanation of the CIA ... an unconstitutional taint ... is obviously without merit. The three civilian groups didn't see the overthrow of the Venezuelan government as unconstitutional. They saw the overthrow of their government as the restoration of the constitution. So, for them, no taint would have resulted from their involvement in the overthrow of their government.

If the three civilian groups desired to avoid a taint, then the taint had to relate to something other than unconstitutionality.

The second possible CIA explanation ... cold feet ... probably had something to do with the backing away from efforts to involve them in the plotting.

Note that the CIA didn't say that the three civilian groups were turning against the plot, only that they were backing away from efforts to involve them in the plotting. So, if the plot failed, the three civilian groups could argue "I wasn't involved in the plotting."

As mentioned earlier, the plot or the conspiracy to overthrow the Venezuelan government and to destroy Venezuelan democracy consisted of two broad efforts ... first, the massacre of anti-government demonstrators by anti-government plotters and, second, the arrest or the killing of Chavez and his senior government officials.

The three anti-government civilian groups ... catholic church, the business groups, and labor ... may not have felt tainted by their involvement in the massacre of anti-government demonstrators.

But still it's at least possible they felt a degree of distaste for the plotting after they learn that the CIA wanted and planned to massacre antigovernment demonstrators ... catholics, business people, and laborers.

So, they backed away ... a little bit.

But they knew about the massacre and they let the demonstrators walk right into it.

Why was the "first effort" -- the massacre -- necessary?

Why didn't the plotters just overthrow the government, without a preliminary massacre and be done with it?

This shows that the US regime prepared the plans for the conspiracy.

USA ... not the Venezuelan traitors ... needed and wanted its standard US lie used to justify the overthrow of foreign governments ... "We overthrew them to set up democracy."

Venezuela was a problem because it was already a democracy ... so, the standard US lie didn't seem to work.

Nobody would believe that the USA overthrew a democracy to set up another democracy.

USA wanted a massacre so it could say that the democracy "provoked" the overthrow of the democracy.

That made sense to USA imperialism.

Arthur Shaw

belial4444@aol.com