The NYT Lying Machine on Venezuela
by Stephen Lendman (stephenlendman.org – Home – Stephen Lendman)
The Times consistently deceives readers in reporting on virtually all major world and national issues, especially relating to nations on the US target list for regime.
Venezuela is in the eye of its storm, supporting the Trump regime’s coup plot to eliminate the hemisphere’s preeminent social democracy.
The Bolivarian Republic spends most of its revenues for social services available to all its people. The US prioritizes militarism, its empire of bases, endless wars of aggression, and other hostile actions to colonize and control sovereign independent states worldwide.
Close Venezuelan President Maduro confidant Tareck El Aissami serves as Minister of Industries and National Production, a key Bolivarian Republic figure.
A Times propaganda piece turned truth on its head, calling him “a hard-liner (sic) who has put down protests (and) confronted rebels (sic).”
So-called “rebels” are US enlisted thugs allied with imposter Guaido for regime change, involved in violence and other hostile actions.
The Times lied, falsely accusing Aissami of “ties to the criminal underworld,” a US specialty, especially its intelligence community, working with drug cartel bosses and henchmen in facilitating the illicit trade.
Major US banks profit hugely from laundering dirty money. Since at least the early 1950s, the CIA has been involved in drugs trafficking for a significant amount of its revenues.
Heroin, cocaine, and other illicit drugs produce hundreds of billions of dollars in annual revenues – a US government-supported bonanza, facilitated by corrupt officials, the CIA, organized crime, US and Western financial institutions, as well as other corporate interests.
The Times and other US media suppress information on this illicit activity. The US is the world leader in the proliferation of illegal drugs — Venezuela actively combatting their distribution.
Not according to the Times, inventing what it called “a secret dossier compiled by Venezuelan agents (sic),” falsely accusing “Aissami and his family (of) help(ing) (to) sneak Hezbollah militants (sic) into the country, go(ing) into business with a drug lord (sic), and shield(ing) 140 tons of chemicals believed to be used for cocaine production (sic) — helping make him a rich man (sic).”
The above accusations are bald-faced Big Lies. The Trump regime targeted Aissami in federal court, falsely accusing him of involvement with drug lords.
The Times lied, falsely claiming Venezuelan intelligence officials compiled information about his so-called involvement in drugs trafficking. Accusations against him are fabricated, part of the Trump regime’s coup plot to topple Maduro and destroy Venezuelan social democracy.
Claims about Hezbollah’s involvement in Latin America were discredited long ago. So is calling the group a terrorist organization — in deference to Israel, the Middle East’s main state terrorist organization along with the US presence, representing an unparalleled axis of pure evil.
The so-called “dossier” the Times claimed exists about illicit Aissami activities is fake, the Times report about it and him utter rubbish.
The self-styled newspaper of record admitted no charges on drugs trafficking or corruption were filed against him in Venezuela — because he was earlier involved in combatting these crimes, not enriching himself from them.
The Trump regime lied claiming Aissami oversaw illicit drug shipments, laundering dirty money from it.
The Times: US “prosecutors never revealed the evidence in their case” against him — because none exists, the broadsheet failed to explain.
Aissami earlier responded in detail to fake accusations against him. I quoted his remarks in a previous article, repeated below in their entirety to counter the Times’ fake news. He said the following:
“When I headed the public security corps of my country, in 2008 — 2012, our fight against drug cartels achieved the greatest progress in our history and in the western hemisphere, both in terms of the transnational drug trafficking business and their logistics structures.”
“During those years, the Venezuelan anti-drug enforcement authorities under my leadership captured, arrested and brought 102 heads of criminal drug trafficking organizations not only to the Venezuelan justice but also to the justice of other countries where they were wanted.”
Bush/Cheney officials falsely accused Venezuela of non-cooperation against narco-trafficking the US supports worldwide.
Annually since then, Washington falsely claimed Venezuela hasn’t fulfilled its obligations under international narcotics agreements.
The Treasury Department sanctioned around two dozen Venezuelan nationals and over two dozen entities – falsely accusing them of narco-trafficking, including Aissami.
In response to false charges against him, he also wrote a public letter to US Treasury Secretary Mnuchin, saying in part:
US “interest groups not only lack any evidence to demonstrate the extremely serious accusations against me, but they also have built a false-positive case in order to criminalize – through me – the Government of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, a country that is decidedly waging a war on transnational drug trafficking business.”
Dozens of “captured drug lords… were promptly deported to the USA (and) Colombia, in accordance with the requests made by the authorities of each country and in compliance with the international agreements on the fight against organized crime, facts formally acknowledged by the US and Colombian authorities.”
“…Venezuela has always been recognized by the United Nations as a territory free of drug production…(C)onnections between (the US) Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) (and) criminal drug organizations (are) very well documented…”
“The extraordinary progress made by the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela in the fight against drug trafficking – which I directed in my capacity as head of the public security corps – was acknowledged by (the UN, and other) international organizations…”
Venezuelan efforts in combatting illicit drugs trafficking are recognized “in the archives of the judicial bodies of the United States and Colombia, which also acknowledged the efforts that I headed against organized crime, which is unprecedented in our hemisphere.”
Venezuelan law mandates interdiction of drugs-trafficking aircraft in the nation’s airspace. Its efforts “destroyed, disabled or brought down over 100 aircraft belonging to the drugs transport structure from Colombia and neighboring countries illegally flying over our territory,” Aissami explained, adding:
“Venezuela is waging an all-out war against drugs because it is a cross-border crime against humanity…”
“Venezuela also fights drug cartels because our country and our people are victims of drug trafficking, particularly of the powerful Colombian illegal drug industry, the main supplier of the drugs that flood the streets of the United States and Europe” – facilitated by the nation’s narco-terrorist authorities at the highest levels.
“Today more drugs are brought into the United States than ever before, while a corrupt and legal powerful financial structure legitimizes and recycles dirty money from this international illegal activity, which deprives thousands of American young people of their life and future.”
The US is ground zero for the illicit drugs trade. Venezuela is the hemisphere’s leader in combatting it, including by Aissami when he was directly involved — refuting the Times’ fake news about him.
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