[Marxism] Republican calls Rice out for her statements on Chavez

["Charlie Parks" <jcparks5550@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Republican Lincoln Chafee calls Rice out for her attacks on the Chavez
government. In the process, Chafee launches one of the most radical
critiques of the hypocrisy of US foreign policy to be heard in the Senate in
recent memory (at least in *my* recent memory).  Expect nothing of the sort
from our pusillanimous, rubber-stamp "opposition" party, whose members in
the Senate, with a few exceptions, are busy delivering sycophantic praise of
Rice and making smarmy, premature assurances that she will be confirmed as
Secretary of State. Transcript from Democracy Now!:

AMY GOODMAN: At her confirmation hearings yesterday, Dr. Condoleezza Rice
reserved some of her harshest language for Chavez, calling his rule, quote,
?very deeply troubling.? While a number of Senate democrats questioned Rice
about Venezuela, the most interesting exchange came from republican Senator
Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island.

     SENATOR LINCOLN CHAFEE: It seems to be a hypocritical approach to our
foreign policy in some ways, in particular how we deal with some of those
democracies such as Russia, Senator Biden said, uneven or undemocratic or
some of the Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, even Musharraf, President
Musharraf, and then on the other hand have a completely different view of,
say, Iran, as Senator Biden was saying. It seems to magnify our differences
on one hand and on the other hand, we magnify our similarities. In
particular after having just come back from South America and meeting with
President Chavez. Here he has gone before his people, high, high turnout.
Just had a referendum, and as one of the people from our embassy said, they
cleaned their clocks and kicked their butts. It seems to me to say
derogatory things about him may be disrespectful to him, but also to the
Venezuelan people. How do you react to that?

     CONDOLEEZZA RICE: Well, I have nothing but good things to say about
the Venezuelan people. They are a remarkable people, and if you notice,
Senator Chafee, I was not making derogatory comments, I was simply
recognizing that there are unhelpful and unconstructive trends going on in
Venezuelan policies. This is not personal.

     SENATOR LINCOLN CHAFEE: And there aren?t in Tajikistan, Uzbekistan --

     CONDOLEEZZA RICE: And we --

     SENATOR LINCOLN CHAFEE: -- and Russia and --

     CONDOLEEZZA RICE: And we speak out about those.

     SENATOR LINCOLN CHAFEE: Pakistan?

     CONDOLEEZZA RICE: We speak out about those as well, but some of this
is a matter of trend lines and where countries have been, and where they are
now going.

     SENATOR LINCOLN CHAFEE: Are their governments unconstructive?

     CONDOLEEZZA RICE: Well, the Russian government is not unconstructive
in a lot of areas. It's quite constructive in many areas. It's been more
constructive on Iran in recent years. It is constructive on -- to a certain
extent in trying to deal with the kind of Nunn-Lugar issues that we have
talked about. It's been constructive in Afghanistan. It's constructive on a
number of areas, but that doesn't excuse what is happening inside Russia
where the concentration of power in the Kremlin, to the detriment of other
institutions, is a real problem. And we will continue to speak to the
Russians. I think we do have to remember that it is also not the Soviet
Union. The Russians have come quite a long way from where the Soviet Union
was, and we need to always keep that in mind when we judge current policies,
but where they're going is simply not very good. It is something to be
deeply concerned about, and we will speak out. Countries are going to move
at different speeds on this democracy test. I don't think there's any doubt
about that. But what we have to do is that we have to keep the agenda --
keep this item on the agenda. We have to continue to press countries about
it. We have to support democratic forces and civil society forces wherever
we can. I would just note that Ukraine, I visited in 2001, not long after I
had become National Security Adviser, and I frankly when this happened in
Ukraine was pretty stunned by how effective civil society was and how
effective the Ukrainian people were in making their voices known. Some of
that is because we and the E.U. and others have spent time developing civil
society, developing political opposition, working with people, not to have a
specific candidate in any of these countries, but to have a political
process that's open. And we have to do more of that. We're going to spend
some $43 million this year, I believe that's the number, on Russian
institutions, trying to help the development of civil society there. We need
to do more of that kind of thing, because while we put it on an agenda,
while we confront the governments that are engaged in non-democratic
activities, we also have to help the development of civil society in
opposition.

     SENATOR LINCOLN CHAFEE: You and Senator Boxer were having a little bit
of a debate over credibility, and to me, it seems as though trust is built
with consistency. Is it possible for you to say something positive about the
Chavez administration?

     CONDOLEEZZA RICE: It's pretty hard, Senator, to find something
positive. Let me say this.

     SENATOR LINCOLN CHAFEE: I don?t understand that, after Tajikistan --

     CONDOLEEZZA RICE: Let me say this.

     SENATOR LINCOLN CHAFEE: -- Pakistan, Russia. It seems as though, as I
say, magnifying our differences to some countries and magnifying our
similarities with others. And as I said, I think trust is built with
consistency, and I don't see consistency in some of your comments.

     CONDOLEEZZA RICE: The state of behavior in the western hemisphere, the
sate of affairs in the western hemisphere, is such that we have had
democratic revolutions in all of these places, and we don't want to see them
go back. We have some places where the democratic revolution is still to
take place. We just have to understand that there are differences in that
regard. But I have said, we hope that the government of Venezuela will
continue to recognize what has been a mutually beneficial relationship on
energy and that we can continue to pursue that. We certainly hope that we
can continue to pursue counter-drug activities in the Andean region, and
Venezuela participates in that. But I have to say that for the most part,
the activities of the Venezuelan government in the last couple of years have
been pretty unconstructive.

     SENATOR LINCOLN CHAFEE: Well, thank you very much. I'll go back to
what I said earlier. It seems disrespectful to the Venezuelan people. They
have spoken.



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