The Straight Dope

When something's smelly, blame a Kelly

2003-08-05T16:46:00.000Z

Has the government taken leave of their senses, asks the BBC. Well they've certainly parted company from what remains of their integrity and credibility, so quite possibly they have also misplaced their political compass.

Having first clung like a drowning man to the official nonsense that the BBC misrepresented the statements of the late Dr Kelly, the government has, with breathtaking cynicism, performed an astonishing about-face and smeared the previously saint-like Kelly as "fantasist and a Walter Mitty figure". Ironically, Downing Street first tried to deny that Mr Tom Kelly, the mud slinging spin doctor who briefed the Independent and other papers, had uttered any such words. The now familiar tune from Number 10 was that the Indy, just like the BBC before it, had simply made the whole thing up.

Of course the Independent had done no such thing, and Tom Kelly was forced read out a humiliating public apology to Dr Kelly's grieving family, whilst laughably claiming that his carefully timed character assaassination merely reflected his own private musings and was no indication of government policy. The spin doctor then slipped away into the shadows whilst reporters were distracted by the sight of a large pink animal flying past the window.

In the meantime, Tony Blair continues to insist, rather like the Elvis fan who clutches his 1000/1 William Hill betting slip and dreams of his hero’s Jesus-like return from the dead, that the fictitious weapons of mass destruction will somehow be found. And his spin-doctors dare to call Dr Kelly a Walter Mitty fantasist.

Holidays

2003-07-25T17:50:00.000Z

The editor will be away for a few days. Normal business will resume on his return.

Molotov

Campbell may drown in his own soup...

2003-07-25T17:37:00.000Z

...as this BBC story implies but the real culprit has yet to be nailed. To watch as Alistair Campbell's head is placed under the guillotine and to hear the swish of the blade as it descends towards his neck will indeed be a deeply satisfying experience. But my thirst for blood will only be fully quenched when Mr Campbell's slippery boss meets a similar fate.

The central issue is that the British Government (in cahoots with the Bush administration) concocted a fictional tale of WMDs which, we were told, posed an imminent threat to our national security that was deemed so serious it justified a pre-emptive war. This conspiracy (what other word for it is there?) wasn't led by the forces loyal to Tony Blair. It was organised by the man the forces are loyal to. The unmistakable message from Blair to his ministers, advisors and the intelligence services was: "Mr Bush and I have decided on war so please go away and come up with some "evidence" to back it."

Precisely which Blairite toad it was who inserted this or that piece of rubbish in the dodgy dossier or pressured intelligence officials to twist the evidence is important only in so far as it helps us to arrive at the truth. And the truth is that the war was not based on faulty evidence. Rather the reverse: the faulty evidence was based on the decision to go to war. A decision which was taken well before the Iraq crisis was engineered at the UN and well before the entry into Iraq of Hans Blix and his team of inspectors.

It is simply not credible to single out Campbell, Hoon or Straw as the one or more bad apples in the barrel, although they each played their part in lying to parliament and the public. The whole barrel is rotting from the top down. Blair was not misled by dodgy evidence. On the contrary, Blair was the chief misleader. And everything we are now seeing, incl. Dr Kelly's apparent suicide, flows from that.

BBC recording confirms the Straight Dope's analysis of Kelly's death

2003-07-23T10:02:00.000Z

Dr Kelly was the source and he did tell the BBC that Alastair Campbell sexed up the dodgy dossier. And having been outed as the mole by his bosses at the Ministry of Defence, he tried to save his career by misleading the Foreign Affairs Committee as to the content of his discussions with various BBC reporters. Faced with the realisation that the truth would eventually come out, he sadly took his own life.

That's the long and the short of it, as BBC journalist Andrew Gilligan's contemporaneous notes and this tape recorded interview with another reporter will show. All other suggested versions of what transpired are complete hogwash and obviously so.

In a few weeks time almost everybody will accept the unglamorous truth behind Kelly's suicide. We at the Straight Dope will have been proved 100% right. And then the heat will be back where it belongs: On Tony Blair and his dodgy government.

Calvin

2003-07-22T01:09:00.000Z

The transcript of Dr Kelly's evidence to the Foreign Affairs Committee is now available on the web. A close reading reinforces the BBC claim that Andrew Gilligan's report of his meeting with Kelly was factually correct. Here's Kelly trying to explain why he couldn't remember telling Andrew Gilligan that Campbell tried to sex up the dossier:

Q170 Mr Hamilton: ...Just for the record, can you tell me absolutely whether you named or otherwise identified Alastair Campbell or did you say anything which Mr Gilligan might reasonably have interpreted as identifying Mr Alastair Campbell as wanting to change the dossier or "sex it up" in any way or make undue reference to the 45 minute claim?

Dr Kelly: I cannot recall that. I find it very difficult to think back to a conversation I had six weeks ago. I cannot recall but that does not mean to say, of course, that such a statement was not made but I really cannot recall it. It does not sound like the sort of thing I would say.

Did Dr Kelly lie?

2003-07-21T14:20:00.000Z

To my mind it looks increasingly likely that he did. Forget the media overkill, the partisan dissembling of the evidence and the reluctance to speak ill of the dead. Look instead at the available facts.

We know that Kelly, a Ministry of Defence weapons expert, met BBC journalist Andrew Gilligan in a London hotel. And we now know that Kelly was the single source for Gilligan’s story fingering the Prime Minister’s communications chief, Alistair Campbell, as the man who “sexed up” with false and misleading information the British Government’s now infamous ‘dodgy dossier’ on the non-existent threat from Iraq. Gilligan is standing by his story. Kelly denied he said any such thing. Clearly both parties can’t be telling the truth. The question is: Who is lying?

Yesterday I watched on satellite television the entire footage of the foreign affairs committee examination of Kelly. Two things struck me. The first was that, contrary to press reports that Kelly was verbally bullied, he was in fact treated more like an expert witness than a dodgy defendant. The second was that whenever Kelly was asked a specific question about what exactly he did say to Gilligan, his answers were evasive and unconvincing. Kelly displayed the classic body language of a person lying under pressure: extreme discomfort, staring at the floor and replying in barely audible whispers.

If Kelly was the source, then he had every reason to deny it. At stake were his career, his pension and his reputation. Having told one lie, he had to tell another and another. There was, for Dr Kelly, no reverse gear. If he lied to his Ministry of Defence bosses to save his job, then he had to continue lying to the foreign affairs committee and to the media.

Gilligan on the other hand, had few reasons to lie. He was a senior journalist for a serious news organisation. Both he and the BBC have professional reputations to uphold. Twisting the facts is one thing. Making them up altogether is quite another. It is certainly possible that Gilligan could have fabricated the whole story to get at Campbell and the Blair government. But is it likely? And why would Gilligan risk everything for a barefaced lie? The conspiracy over weapons of mass destruction was and is real enough, both here in London and in Washington. Gilligan didn’t need to embellish the evidence; the truth was bad enough. Someone at the very top in the government machine deliberately set out to mislead the British public into accepting an unpopular war. Someone plagiarised a student thesis and presented it as intelligence. Someone based the chilling fiction of an imminent Iraqi nuclear threat on crudely forged documents. Someone created the discredited evidence that Iraq could strike at us within 45 minutes. And if that someone was not Alistair Campbell, then who was it? And whoever it was, on whose orders were they acting? These are the questions Tony Blair stubbornly refuses to answer.

But why would Dr Kelly take his own life? Middle-aged professional civil servants of sound mind aren’t known for topping themselves because someone asks them a tough question at a committee hearing. Wrongly accused sources don’t usually walk into the woods and cut their wrists, and certainly not straight after being cleared by the investigating committee. Kelly’s suicide seems inexplicable. Unless, of course, he was the source and Gilligan did quote him accurately. Kelly may well have concluded that it would then only be a matter of time before the truth came out and with it his inevitable downfall. If so, Dr Kelly’s last lonely walk in the woods begins to make perfect sense.

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Weapons inspectors never went to Iraq - it was all a hoax!

2003-07-17T20:25:00.000Z

Well, according to Mr Bush it was anyway. Apparently, Hans Blix and his team have been officially erased from history. This is from a White House press release, dated 14 July:

The President: "The larger point is, and the fundamental question is, did Saddam Hussein have a weapons program? And the answer is, absolutely. And we gave him a chance to allow the inspectors in, and he wouldn't let them in. And, therefore, after a reasonable request, we decided to remove him from power, along with other nations, so as to make sure he was not a threat to the United States and our friends and allies in the region. I firmly believe the decisions we made will make America more secure and the world more peaceful."

Who said satire is dead?

Perhaps you should give a toss

2003-07-17T11:44:00.000Z

Wankers of the World can relax. According to a team of American researchers, regular masturbation really is good for you. Not only doesn't it make you go blind, it actually reduces the chances of you developing prostate cancer in later life.

The BBC report explains: "The researchers suggest that ejaculating may prevent carcinogens accumulating in the prostate gland." In other words, the more often you bash the bishop the faster you get rid of these nasty poisons.

All of this reminds me of my first sex education lesson, way back in....well, it was a long time ago anyway. The unfortunate soul who got lumbered with the task of talking sex to a bunch of barely adolescent 12 year old boys was Mr McGillvery, a young and very proper Scottish biology teacher. McGillvery began well enough, drawing a series of boring and rather complicated diagrams on the blackboard. But then the subject of masturbation came up and the class was transfixed. Some of the boys smiled a knowing smile. Others, like me, stared straight ahead with a look of total horror and disgust on our faces.

This must have been the first time Mr McGillvery had ever talked intimately about anything to anybody. And it showed. "Surveys indicate that 97% of people admit to masturbating", he said, his high-pitched effeminate Edinburgh accent creaking with embarrassment. I swear to God he used to do the voiceovers for Miss Jean Brodie. "And the other 3% are liars", he concluded.

"Sir", I piped up innocently. "Can you tell the class which category you are in?"

The poor bastard went a deep shade of pink and sort of physically crumpled before our eyes. It was excruciatingly funny, but at the same time I couldn't help feeling a little guilty about having reduced the good man to a nervous wreck. Anyway, if by any chance you are reading this, Mr Gillvery, can I offer you my sincere apologies. And I hope your prostate is doing fine too.

Molotov

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Cuban hijackings - what's going on?

2003-07-16T12:37:00.000Z

The BBC is reporting that 3 hijackers have been killed in a shootout, possibly during an argument amongst themselves. Another group hijacked a ferry and sailed it to the Bahamas. But these are no ordinary hijackings. What lies behind them is the sinister machinations of a US administration intent on provoking an immigration crisis with Cuba serious enough perhaps to provide the pretext for an intervention.

Suppose you are a Haitian or a Columbian or a Jamaican and you wanted to escape poverty by moving to the USA. You would have two options: One legal, one illegal. You could fill in the required paperwork and hope your application would be successful. Or alternatively you could find your way into the United States and decide to stay on without authorisation. If caught you would of course be deported to your country of origin as an economic migrant.

But suppose instead you are a Cuban who wanted to move to the richest country in the world. All you need do is set foot in the USA and you will be granted automatic residency and declared a political refugee fleeing from evil Castro-communism. Cue the TV cameras and cue the anti-Cuban propaganda. The ridiculous law that makes this charade possible is called the Cuban Adjustment Act. It's purpose is obvious: To encourage illegal immigration from Cuba and foster the illusion that everyone is trying to escape from communism.

But what if you wanted to take the legal route to the land of milk and honey? Amazingly you would find that the country that claimed it wanted you so much it was even prepared to welcome you as an illegal would in all probability refuse you a visa to enter legally. Despite a bilateral agreement with Cuba to allow for 20,000 visas to issued annually, so far this year the US has issued a paltry 505.

So what happens to a Cuban who hijacks a boat or a plane and makes it to the USA? In theory, he's supposed to be given a heavy sentence and then deported. In practice he knows that the US will bend over backwards to let him stay, find him innocent or let him off with a light sentence. The US government will also seize the hijacked boat or plane. But instead of it being returned to its rightful owners in Cuba it will be sold and the proceeds given to various right wing loonies in Miami, such as the lady who claimed she was raped by the government of Cuba!

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Freedom of speech for the poor under attack in Venezuela

2003-07-15T15:31:00.000Z

Vheadline.com is reporting that the main community television station broadcasting to the shanty town residents of Caracas has been closed down by order of the right wing mayor of Caracas, Mr Alfredo Pena.

A quick search on google reveals that the US and British corporate media have absolutely nothing to say about this flagrant attack on freedom of expression. Not a squeak out of the BBC, CNN, Fox News, the New York Times, or even the liberal Guardian. But perhaps we should not be too surprised. This is, after all, the same media that during the brief US inspired coup in April 2002 described the armed kidnapping of the elected president as a "resignation".

But our free Western press look like angels of objectivity when compared to the antics of Venezuela's corporate media monopoly. When the short-lived dictatorship was being overthrown in the streets the propaganda TV stations imposed a news blackout and played repeats of Brazilian soap operas. Now, I've nothing per se against Brazilian soap operas (in fact some of the sexual scandals can be rather gripping). But if, like me, you imagined that a popular uprising against your own country's ruling class was marginally more news worthy than the fictional infidelities of someone else's, well, you'd be wrong.

Calvin

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Who is attacking US and British forces in Iraq?

2003-07-12T18:26:00.000Z

This was the question I asked two exiled Iraqi women who had recently returned from visiting relatives in Iraq. They were speaking at a meeting called by the UK branch of the Iraqi Women's League, which was founded in 1952.

Their answers were fascinating. One of the speakers recounted a conversation she had with residents of her former home town. During the war, the residents told her, when the US forces approached the outskirts of the town Saddam's supporters ran away and left the ordinary people and non-Ba'athist soldiers to defend the town. "Saddam's people are cowards", the residents insisted. The speaker added that resentment against the US occupying forces was increasing, and that she believed that the armed resistance was coming mainly from political forces not associated with the deposed regime. "Cowards would not be attacking the US", she said.

In conversations with other exiles who had been in Iraq since the war ended, the view was that the attacks were coming from a combination of Ba'ath Party supporters and non-aligned former soldiers angry at the house to house searches, shootings of demonstrators, and the occupation in general. They added that the situation was "extremely confused" and that no one knew for certain who was behind the resistance or whether it was centrally planned. Most exiles I spoke to expected the resistance to intensify over the forthcoming weeks and months.

The unanimous view of the exiles was that the main problems facing ordinary Iraqis were security, lack of electricity and basic services, unemployment, unexploded bombs and depleted uranium. On a video shot by the Iraqi Women's League which was shown at the meeting, school teachers were filmed trying to teach without books. The electricity supply was not working and an open sewer was running through the playground which was littered with cluster bombs and other military debris. The teachers said they had not been paid for three months.

Molotov

Concentration camp victim sues US

2003-07-11T13:13:00.000Z

The BBC has reported that one of the prisoners who was released from the American concentration camp in Guantanamo last November, is to sue the US government for compensation. The claimant, Mohammed Sagheer, a Pakistani preacher, was released last November after 10 months in illegal captivity.

Meanwhile, back in Britain, over 200 MP's have signed a parliamentary motion to secure the return of two British captives who are due to be tried in front of a rigged US military tribunal. Under US procedures the suspect's lawyers are to be selected by the camp authorities. Once charged, the defendants would then be given the choice of 20 year sentences if they agreed to confess their guilt or the death penalty if they refused and were convicted.

Tony Blair is coming under increasing domestic pressure to demand that the US release the British captives. However, the Americans are reluctant to do so without an assurance that the prisoners will be tried in Britain. There is more to this than mere spite. If the prisoners were to simply walk free, the fiction that there was ever any credible evidence linking them to September 11 would be hopelessly undermined, as would the already flimsy legal basis for their detention.

Conversely, if they were to fall under the jurisdiction of English Law, they would be entitled to due process. Notwithstanding political pressure, the decision to prosecute would be determined at least in part on its merits. Evidence would be required that indicated there was a realistic chance of conviction. Yet it is doubtful that such evidence exists. If it did then why did the US authorities deem it necessary to set up a concentration camp in the occupied part of Cuba where the prisoners could be stripped of their basic legal rights?

Of course, the whole disgraceful spectacle is a travesty of justice and international law. The Geneva Convention, of which the US is a signatory, is quite clear. The victorious party is required to release POW's once hostilities have ended.

Shock Revelation: Non-existent weapons "unlikely to be found"

2003-07-10T10:22:00.000Z

As this BBC story indicates, the great weaponsofmassdestruction retreat has now begun. Tony Blair's claim that actual operational WMDs would be found in Iraq has now been subtly watered down to a belief that "WMD programmes" would be discovered.

In other words, we no longer expect to find the bombs that "posed an imminent threat to British security". A threat, you will recall, that was judged to be so serious that it justified a pre-emptive attack on Iraq. Instead, Mr Blair assures us, we are going to find a piece of paper (or perhaps a student thesis) that will contain a diagram of a bomb. Curiously Mr Blair did not explain why it should prove so much easier to find a sheet of A4 paper than it is to locate rather more substantial items such as chemical weapons factories.

However, I have no reason to doubt the Prime Minister's sincerity in this matter, or that he may eventually find what he is looking for. We British are actually quite good at coming up with incriminating pieces of paper when the need arises. After all, we managed to find paperwork which proved that Iraq tried to buy nuclear materials from Niger. And the Daily Telegraph (together with the Christian Science Monitor) unearthed official letters proving that anti-war Labour MP, George Galloway, took cash from Saddam Hussein. Inexplicably both sets of documents turned out to be forgereies.

Molotov

President Hugo Chavez on the offensive

2003-07-08T15:06:00.000Z

In this exclusive in depth analysis of the Venezuelan crisis, Calvin Tucker, a staff writer for the British monthly Straight Left, explains what's really going on in this strife torn South American country. A shorter version was published in Zmag, in English and in German.

President Hugo Chavez on the offensive

It is one of life’s little ironies that the recent reopening of that symbol of American capitalism, McDonalds Hamburgers, which had joined the doomed business strike against the Venezuelan government, was hailed as a victory for President Chavez and his self-styled Bolivarian Revolution. But perhaps we should not be too surprised.

This is, after all, the country where everything seems the wrong way round and language is being continually reinvented. In Venezuela, the word "democracy" has come to mean the overthrow of the elected President. Bosses organise the strikes and corrupt union leaders complain about the government defending workers’ legal rights. And the military, armed with cement mixers and bricks, invade the shanty towns to build houses, not to destroy them.

In the midst of this struggle for the future of Venezuela is an increasingly confident Hugo Chavez, who, having seen off a US backed coup attempt in last April last year, has now banged the last nails into the coffin of the two month long strike of managers in the state owned oil company, the PDVSA.

OIL PRIVATISATION

The strike was a showdown between the right wing opposition and the Government over the control of the country’s vast oil reserves, which provide Venezuela with more than two thirds of its export earnings. Since Chavez’s first election win in 1998, he has strictly adhered to OPEC quotas on the production of oil. Quotas keep the price of oil advantageous for exporting countries and limit the profits of foreign companies which have investments in oil.

Privatisation of the PDVSA oil company, which is the hidden agenda of Venezuela’s elite and the US government, would cede control of the country’s oil to American companies and undermine OPEC’s attempts to maintain quotas. An end to the quota system would benefit oil importers like the USA at the expense of oil exporters like Venezuela, throwing into doubt OPEC’s ability to continue to effectively represent its members.

Wresting control of the PDVSA from the old pro-American management, who have run it as a personal fiefdom and are advocates of privatisation, is pivotal to Chavez’s ability to deliver on his promises of homes, health and education for the poor. Just as the failure of the April 2002 military coup allowed Chavez to purge the military of right wing generals, the slow defeat of the strike in the PDVSA, has afforded Chavez the opportunity to dismiss nearly 18,000 anti-government executives and alleged saboteurs, and press ahead with the long overdue reform of the company.

DESTABILISATION

Thus far, the tactics of the Venezuelan opposition bear a remarkable and uncanny similarity to those which successfully overthrew Salvador Allende’s government in Chile in 1973 and which led to Michael Manley’s defeat at the ballot box in Jamaica in 1980.

In each case there was an organised attack on the legitimacy of the Government, led by the big business owned media monopoly. Each of the country’s leaders was subjected to a vicious campaign of character assassination, and labelled a tyrant, a liar and an incompetent.

Each government was declared "undemocratic" and "communist" and lies and misrepresentations abounded. In turn, this created an atmosphere of hysteria in which political violence would be seen as aimed not at the destruction of democracy, but at its preservation.

In all three cases, the Government was accused of taking orders from Fidel Castro and of hiding thousands of Cuban troops in the country. Two of the three leaders were also accused of arming and financing "terrorists". Allende was said to training communist guerrillas, and Chavez was alleged to have been financing both the Colombian rebel movement, FARC, and even more ludicrously, al Qaeda. No credible evidence was offered in support of these allegations.

Each of the three governments were victims of a sustained campaign of economic destabilisation, which, in turn, precipitated the flight of capital abroad. The use of the strike weapon by employers, sometimes in alliance with corrupt trade union leaders, was a critical component in each of the respective conflicts. In Chile, the 1973 coup was preceded by an employers’ strike. In Jamaica, Manley’s 1980 election defeat was preceded by an employers’ strike. And in Venezuela, last April’s coup was preceded by an employers’ strike.

At the time, the United States issued categorical denials that the CIA was behind the attempts at destabilisation and coups in any of the countries, or had ever financed and advised government opponents. The US later admitted their complicity in the planning and execution of the Chilean coup, but only after the mountain of evidence had became so overwhelming that involvement could no longer be plausibly denied.

COKE & REVOLUTION

Chavez appears to have learnt the lessons of Chile and Jamaica. In a move to head off the prospect of counter-revolution, Chavez has been busy shoring up support in those areas and institutions which are crucial to the maintenance of political power.

Firstly, Chavez has secured his base in the military. Renegade officers who participated in the April coup have been court-marshalled or sidelined and replaced by officers loyal to constitutional government, greatly reducing the prospect of another coup attempt. Throughout the current crisis, the military have remained firmly and actively behind the Government. In January, an army unit led a successful operation to "liberate" a Coca-Cola bottling plant where soft drinks were being illegally hoarded by their big businesses owners.

Secondly, the Government has set up over 130,000 grassroots neighbourhood organisations in the slums, called Bolivarian Circles. These are self help groups of between seven and eleven persons, which represent and organise the local population and act as a communication channel between the populace and the Government. The opposition claim that the Bolivarian Circles have been supplied with weapons by the Government, but have so far failed to provide any convincing evidence to back this up. However, illegal firearms circulate freely inside the country and handguns can be bought on the black market for as little as $50.

Thirdly, providing the Government is able to successfully restructure the PDVSA oil company, Chavez will have access to a steady and reliable source of hard currency revenue from which he can continue to finance existing social programmes for the working class and poor.

Fourthly, the Government has begun action against the opposition’s media monopoly (which includes three of the four TV stations and all of the national papers) and against prominent opposition leaders who are alleged to have been involved in coup attempts. Legal documents have been served on the private TV stations threatening them with closure if they continue to participate in attempts to unlawfully overthrow the Government. And in early spring two key opposition leaders, Carlos Fernandez, head of the Fedecamaras business federation, and Carlos Ortega, head of the pro-business CTV union federation, choose political asylum abroad rather than face criminal charges of sabotage at home.

The message to the domestic opposition and their US backers could not be clearer: Chavez is here to stay and he does not intend to share the fate of Salvador Allende or Michael Manley.

OPPOSITION BOXED IN

The opposition, having already played their two strongest cards - military coup and economic destabilisation - are looking increasingly boxed in. International mediation attempts by ‘The Friends of Venezuela’, a group of six countries which includes the US and Brazil, have so far failed to produce a solution acceptable to both sides.

Chavez, whilst officially welcoming efforts to promote dialogue between the Government and opposition moderates, is in no mood to compromise on the opposition’s demands for early elections. He insists that any solution to the crisis must be within the framework of constitutional legality, and refuses to negotiate with those involved in attempts to violently unseat him.

The United States, currently pre-occupied with its occupation of Iraq and still smarting from the embarrassment of having recognised last years short lived military dictatorship, has been forced to publicly declare that they won’t recognise another unconstitutional government or directly intervene. Provided that that remains the US position, the opposition is left with scheduled elections as the only viable means of unseating Chavez.

Venezuela’s constitution allows a binding referendum on Chavez’s presidency to be held in August, which is the mid point of his six year term. However, in order to trigger a vote, the opposition must first collect the verified signatures of at least 20% of registered electors. To unseat the President, the opposition must not only win the referendum, but also attract a larger number of actual votes than Chavez received when he was re-elected in 2000 with 57% support. The opposition is not confident they can reach this target, hence their strategy to force out the President by illegitimate means.

The opposition’s difficulties are further compounded by internal divisions over strategy and tactics and the absence of a credible leader who can unify the various disparate factions. The opposition is united in their desire to dislodge Chavez, but agrees on little else. One group of disgraced former army generals, who have been camped out in a Caracas city square since last November, are demanding the assassination of the President and another military coup, whilst more moderate oppositionists are calling for negotiations.

Neither is there any consensus on who should replace Chavez or what policies would be pursued in the event that the opposition emerges victorious, although it is clear that a pro-US and neo-liberal agenda would eventually prevail, whatever some of the more naive members of the opposition might like to believe. Leaked reports from meetings of the Democratic Co-ordinator, which is the umbrella organisation behind the failed business strike, suggest that their sessions routinely descend into screaming matches and personal recriminations.

POLLS APART

In public, the opposition is trying to put on a brave face. They point to widely publicised opinion polls, which allegedly show popular support for Chavez at only around 30% to 35%. However, serious question marks remain over the objectivity and methodology of the two main domestic polling organisations which conduct these surveys. The director of Datanalisis, Jose Gil Yepes, was recently quoted in the LA Times as calling for "the killing of Chavez". And Alfredo Keller of Keller and Associates has spoken of a "fight to the death" between an "authoritarian socialism with a spirit of revenge against a democracy which is open to the market".

Where an interviewee is aware of the bias of the pollster, the data gathered cannot be considered a reliable and authentic guide to voting intentions. In such cases there will be a tendency for interviewees to hide their true opinions, especially where they believe that their viewpoint is controversial or not what they think the person asking the question wants to hear. The credibility of the polling data is further undermined by the reluctance of the pollsters to venture into the city slums and countryside, which is where most of Chavez’s support lies.

Mid-term opinion polls, even legitimate ones, also tend to understate support for an incumbent president because electors are more inclined to express their dissatisfaction when the choices on offer are abstract. When voters have to make a real choice and consider the alternatives, they are often more circumspect. Neither is public opinion static. It reflects, at any given moment, a whole range of factors. One of these factors is 'momentum', which is something the government now has in droves and which the opposition has squandered by virtue of the failure of their business strike.

CHANGING FORTUNES

It would be wrong, however, to write off the opposition as a spent force. They still retain the backing of the wealthy parts of the country, domestic big business, the transnational companies and the broadcast and print media. In early February the opposition Democratic Co-ordinator claimed that 4.3 million of Venezuela’s 12 million registered voters had signed a nation-wide petition demanding early elections. Although this claim is almost certainly an exaggeration, it does, at the very least, demonstrate that the opposition is capable of mobilising its constituency and getting out its vote when it counts.

But powerful as the opposition still are, their public support is slowly ebbing away. Senior opposition leaders are now admitting that they are facing a backlash from ordinary workers, particularly from those who have lost their jobs as a result of bankruptcies brought about by the business strike. The majority of trade union affiliates to the pro-business CTV have announced the setting up of a rival pro-worker union federation. At the gas stations, irate motorists queuing for scarce petrol are no longer to be heard blaming the government for the shortages. And in some parts of the country car stickers are appearing bearing the inscription, "Opposition supporter turned Chavista".

Chavez is wisely refocusing attention onto his core constituency of impoverished Venezuelans, whose support is essential if he is to win August’s proposed referendum. He has, for example, announced a new series of price controls and subsidies on basic goods to protect the poor as well as new health and education programmes. And in late January, up to a million mainly indigenous and darker skinned Venezuelans from the city slums and the countryside marched through the capital, Caracas, in a huge show of support for the Government and the Bolivarian Revolution. The opposition’s counter demonstration, held a few days later, managed to attract only about seventy thousand mostly white middle class protesters. Previous opposition protests had been supported by much larger numbers of people.

Chavez’s strategy of drawing his opponents into the open and giving them just enough rope to hang themselves is paying off. The longer the opposition are made to wait for scheduled elections the less, it would seem, are their chances of winning them.

Calvin Tucker writes for the British monthly, Straight Left. In November 2001, Tucker correctly predicted a US inspired coup attempt against the Chavez government after returning from a fact finding mission to Venezuela.

"Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez is crazy"

2003-07-08T14:28:00.000Z

In this hard hitting article for vheadline.com Greg Palast, a BBC television investigative reporter, takes a look at the corporate media bias against Venezuela's Bolivarian Revolution:

"By the next month, when the New York Times printed a photo of anti-Chavez marchers, they had metastasized. The Times reported that 600,000 had protested against Chavez. Once again, the larger pro-Chavez demonstrations were, as they say in Latin America, "disappeared." I guess they didn't fit the print.

"Look at the Chronicle/AP photo of the anti-Chavez marchers in Venezuela. Note their color. White. And not just any white. A creamy rich white. I interviewed them and recorded in this order: a banker in high heels and push-up bra; an oil industry executive (same outfit); and a plantation owner who rode to Caracas in a silver Jaguar.

"And the color of the pro-Chavez marchers? Dark brown. Brown and round as cola nuts ... just like their hero, their President Chavez. They wore an unvarying uniform of jeans and T-shirts."

Meanwhile, as the deadline for August's referendum on Chavez's presidency approaches, Venezuela's increasingly desperate right wing opposition is playing the Cuba card for all that it's worth. The latest reported outrage against democracy is the announcement that Cuba is to send another thousand medics to provide free health care to the poor who live in the shanty towns.

One engraged reader responded to this story by writing a letter to VHeadline.com suggesting that the Cubans were only pretending "to help the poor people" and that their real mission was "infiltrating non-medical help into the population" who would later be "killing Venezuelans".

Cooking the evidence

2003-07-07T12:48:00.000Z

As the pillow fight between the Blair government and the BBC rumbles on, the real issues about the Iraq war are being conveniently side-stepped. The central and most damning charge against Blair - that he took Britain to war on the basis of a lie about WMDs - remains unanswered.

As Robin Cook, a former Foreign Secretary who resigned over the war, put it in an interview in today's Guardian:

"We are not now going to find a credible weapon of mass destruction that poses a current and serious danger to Britain, as was the phrase used in the debate on Iraq before the war. Such a weapon requires quite a large industrial infrastructure, a large workforce. It is inconceivable that such factories exist in Iraq and we've not found them. There is no part of the globe that has been more managed by aerial surveillance. It is also inconceivable that anybody working on that programme hasn't come forward to tell us where it is: we've had the top people under interrogation for weeks now."

How the raffle was fixed

2003-07-07T09:46:00.000Z

In this delightful short story set in wonderful, crazy Cuba, a Straight Dope writer recounts how he became tangled up in a web of crime and corruption - but still got the girl.

How the raffle was fixed

It was August 21st 1996, the sun was high up in the sky, round and perfect. It beat down on us like a merciless tyrant, clearing the streets of people more effectively than a platoon of riot police could ever hope too. Children stopped playing ball, adults sheltered inside their houses, workers stopped working, and hustlers stopped hustling. Those with fans, fanned themselves. Those with showers, showered. Even by Cuba’s oppressive standards this was hot.

"Only mad dogs and Englishmen, go out in the mid-day sun..." wrote the celebrated playwright Noel Coward, a century ago. But that was before mad dogs became sane, before the English discovered skin cancer... and before the Germans discovered the package holiday.

At mid-day in Santiago all was quiet. The mad dogs slept, the English sat indoors drinking mojitos and the streets belonged, almost exclusively, to the Germans. Almost, but not quite. August 21st was my birthday and I planned on having a party, whatever the weather.

"Hey, Stevie, how are you man?" shouted my Cuban friend Adrian, as he greeted me with the high fives.

"I'm hot", I replied. "Anyway, what are still doing in this fucking hotel? You're the only Cuban I know who's stupid enough to still be working in this heat. Take the day off, it's my birthday".

"I can’t, you idiot, I'm the entertainment’s manager and my job is to EN-TER-TAIN. Comprende? And today we're going to have a grand raffle by the pool", quipped Adrian in perfect English. "Why don’t you help me sell some tickets to these crazy Germans? The first prize is a crate of Havana Club".

It was then that the thought struck me. I was broke, Adrian was broke, it was my birthday and we both wanted a party.

"Pssst, Adrian, listen man, I’ve got an idea".

After a few conspiritorial whispers he handed me a full book of raffle tickets and grinned mischievously.

"Hello, are you a German? You are?...Wonderful...How did I know?...It must be your sense of style, Gerhard... May I interest you in a raffle ticket?, Only a dollar....You'll take two?...Excellent...Thank you Greta and auf weidesein...Wonderful football team you have, by the way..."

The barmaid stepped up to the rostrum. Her perfect black skin shimmered sensuously in the heat and her ass protruded outwards at right angles to her back. Her skirt was short and black. "What is your name?" asked Adrian, knowing full well what her bloody name was – he lived next door to her after all!

"Mi nombre es Maria", replied Maria, with uncharacteristic honesty.

"Please put your hand in the hat and draw out a ticket", Adrian instructed her.

She did as she was instructed and handed the ticket to him.

"The third prize of one bottle of Havana Club rum, aged 3 years, goes to ticket number 72", said Adrian, holding the mike to his lips.

After a suitable pause, I rose from my seat to faint applause (and a single light hearted German cry of fix), walked to the front and collected my prize. Adrian, you bastard, I said to myself, I thought you'd at least of got me the second prize.

After a suitable pause, Maria drew out the second ticket and Adrian shouted out the winning number. This time the prize was two bottles of Havana Club, aged 5 years. The Germans carefully checked their tickets but not one of them stood up to claim the prize.

"Who-has-ticket-number-46?" repeated Adrian in a slow deliberate voice, looking straight at me. I stared stupidly back.

After a moment or two I realised why Adrian was looking at me. I unravelled my ticket, flushed red and rose uncertainly out of my chair to collect my second prize. This time there was no applause and a little group of Germans were getting quite agitated. "FIX, FIX, FIX", they chanted in unison. I walked slowly back to my table, added the two new bottles to one I already won, and sat down. The heat was beginning to give the proceedings a distinct air of unreality.

The first prize, a whole crate of rum, sat invitingly on a small plastic table by the pool-side bar. Maria pulled out the final ticket. The pool went quiet. Coming from somewhere far away, could be heard the unmistakable tones of El Commandante en Jefe, Senor Fidel Castro, crackling on a TV set. "We will NEVER surrender to corruption", the Maximun Leader was saying with conviction. "Forward to Victory, SOCIALISMO O MUERTE!" Muerte…Muerte…Muerte, the last word echoed around the pool. I wiped the sweat from my brow. A hundred German eyes were on me.

Adrian cheerfully read out the number. It was 21, the day of my birthday. A nice touch you son of a bitch, I muttered under my breath. I slowly unravelled my third and final ticket and without looking at it stood up and walked with the unmistakable gait of a guilty man to the front of the pool.

"FIX, FIX, FIX", a hundred angry Germans were chanting menacingly. "We're not standing for this, get the Police", one of them shouted.

After a short delay, Roberto, the hotel policeman appeared at the side of the pool, his revolver shining brightly in the sun. The reflected rays from the gun caught my eyes, forcing me to squint. The sweat started pouring from my face, but Adrian looked strangely calm for one about to be sacked and then carted off to jail as an enemy of the people.

A representative of the mob angrily recounted the afternoon’s unlikely events. Officer Roberto listened politely and then turned to Adrian. After a brief and unintelligible discussion in fast Cuban slang, he clasped Adrian’s hand and shook it warmly. Maria then kissed Roberto on both cheeks and passed him the mike. "I adjudge the raffle to have been perfectly fair", he crisply announced to cries of Germanic disbelief, "Please enjoy your holiday".

Amidst much hissing, Adrian duly presented me with the six bottles of Havana Club, aged 7 years, bringing our corrupt and ill-gotten little haul up to a total of nine bottles of the best rum in the world. Maria sqeezed my hand and smiled a naughty smile.

I don't remember much about the party. But I know it went on late into the hot Cuban night and I recall that the rum flowed freely. At some point in the evening Maria shot me a delicious Cuban glance out of the corner of her eyes and my heart turned a somersault. There was something about that girl that took my breath away. Adrian’s too. But she belonged to me now. Oh yeah, I nearly forgot. Roberto the policeman also dropped in on us. Oddly, he didn’t seem at all threatening any more. More like an old friend really. Or perhaps a business partner.

"You don't mind do you Stevie?" asked Adrian, as he slipped Officer Roberto one of the bottles of seven-year-old. And no, I didn't mind. In fact, I didn't mind at all.

Another US soldier killed in Iraq today

2003-07-06T22:26:00.000Z

It was entirely predictable that the colonialists (or should we say "forces loyal to George Bush"?) would be met with armed resistance. History teaches us that foreign troops are rarely welcomed anywhere, particularly when the subjugated population realises that they are there to rob them of their independence and natural resouces.

We entered this adventure on the basis of a lie about Iraq posing an imminent threat to to US and British security. We then were ludicrously told that the Iraqis would welcome us with flowers and would be dancing in the streets. The unglamourous truth is that there are no WMDs and no dancing. And the only flowers are those destined for the graves of Iraq, British and American fighters. But there are plans to hand ownership and control of oil and basic services to the occupiers, irrespective of the wishes of Iraqi people.

The daily attacks on US and British forces will continue and increase in intensity and extent until the colonialists go home. That much is obvious.