COHA OPINION: DRUG WARS: BUSH LAUNCHES ATTACK ON VENEZUELAN ANTI-DRUG EFFORTS

Scandalous Absence Of Any Evidence Justifying U.S.Charge

While many in Washington were still choking on the sulfurous fog
seeping down from New York, the White House's extraordinarily
inappropriate report condemning Venezuela for failing "demonstrably"
to meet international counter-narcotics agreements quietly slipped
past the attention of the media, as well as the general public.The
drug report, an alarmingly tendentious document relying on misleading
evidence and innuendo, is little more than a deeply politicized
anti-Hugo Chavez treatise than a professional inventory of Venezuelan
drug policy.In other words, it is little better than a bogus
indictment of a country where anti-drug performance falls well within
the middle range of Latin American nations.

The Presidential Determination on Major Drug Transit or Major Illicit
Drug Producing Countries, released September 15, purports to show
that Venezuela and Burma stand out amongst the 23 nations identified
as problem countries, and merit their own unique category of being
"demonstrated" failures.Venezuela, in particular, has displayed a
"continued lack of action against drug trafficking within and through
its borders," according to the presidential statement.The question
that this report poses is whether a compelling case that reflects the
integrity of the anti-drug process in fact exists, or whether the
White House issuance is nothing more than a manufactured rant meant
to defend a previously decided thesis with spurious data.

When asked to provide evidence for their charges, the State
Department's Office of the Americas Program, Bureau of International
Narcotics & Law Enforcement Affairs sent a newspaper article which
cites a handful of corrupt Venezuelan officials who have helped
rather than hindered drug flow from the South. The report
irresponsibly points to an example taken from the right-wing and
virulently anti-Chavez daily /2001/, a Caracas newspaper noted for
its highly controversial inside /reportage /on the 2002 coup. The
July /2001 /article notes that several policemen in Guacara,
Carabobo, seized and re-sold nearly 8,000 kilograms of cocaine. The
Bush document also fails to note that 1,500 kilos of the seizure were
incinerated.

TEXAS: THE DRUG CAPITOL OF NORTH AMERICA?

The Bush administration's drug researchers found in their scarcely
more than one page of analysis - in a truly /dicto secundum quid ad
dictum simpliciter fashion/ - that this one specific example can be
extrapolated to establish a general rule of corruption throughout the
Venezuelan anti-drug enforcement network Had the Bush researchers
applied such bizarre reasoning to a strikingly similar case here in
the U.S., they would have been surprised to find that the president's
own home state too "fails demonstrably" in international
counter-narcotics efforts. On September 21, a former police officer
also facing drug charges managed to escape from the East Hidalgo
Detention Center in La Villa, Texas. But of course no one would
seriously suggest that this single corrupt man, and perhaps a few bad
seeds in the facility who may have conspired with him, could possibly
reflect the status of the prevailing drug policy for the entire
nation. And neither does the Guacara scandal, nor any other of the
highly exiguous evidence cited here, justify condemnation of the
Venezuelan government.

FACT CHECK: CORRUPT OFFICIALS ALREADY CAUGHT

Setting aside the fact that this form of reasoning is an absurd
fallacy of converse accident, White House researchers failed to
follow up with what actually happened in their Carabobo example,
which was apparently the major piece of evidence used in the case
against Venezuela. A quick fact check would have proved that
Venezuelan officials have in fact followed up on this case. Since
July, two police officers have been detained for their alleged
involvement. The Attorney General of the State of Carabobo, Delia
Pacheco, is actively leading an investigation into whether anyone
else is implicated in the crime. For a nation supposedly "enabling
and exploiting" drug traffic, this highly publicized crackdown by
Venezuelan authorities seems an odd choice.

POLITICAL SMOKESCREEN

Rather than offer additional statistics to bolster this thin gruel of
condemnation, the Bush report then changes topic, with the
administration's drug researchers attempting to support their claim
by raising questions of the state of Venezuelan democracy.

The Bush researchers now move on to ideological grandstanding. They
write: "The United States is very concerned about the continued
deterioration of democratic institutions in Venezuela as reflected in
the increased executive control over the other branches of
government, threats to judicial independence and human rights, and
attacks on press freedoms and freedoms of expression."

There are many responses to such a statement. One could argue from a
factual standpoint that the situation in Venezuela is far better than
the White House's bleak assessment. Chavez was, in fact, elected
democratically and is, by a massive margin, quite likely to be
reelected in December. The Venezuelan media, which chronically
complains of a lack of freedom in the country are largely run by
Chavez's political opposition, and the mere fact that they can
grumble loudly says something of their freedom. While executive
control has indeed increased over the Venezuelan courts - although no
more so than in Washington-allied Colombia - few can point to
concrete evidence of any presidential wrong-doing.

IRRELEVANT POLITICAL TACTIC

A discussion of democracy in a report supposedly proving that
Chavez's government has "failed" in the war on drugs is an utterly
irrelevant political tactic focused more on fabricating a case
against the Venezuelan president than generating authentic proof that
Caracas sanctions narcotics trafficking. And in fact, that is what
this document essentially does. It was released at the zenith of
Caracas-Washington tensions over the upcoming UN General Assembly
vote on the non-permanent Latin American seat on the Security
Council. In its own way, the Bush report seeks retribution for
Chavez's over-the-top, "Mr. Danger," sulfurous fumes, "ruler of the
world" rhetoric that has long characterized the Manichaean
relationship between the two leaders.

BEHIND THE HYPE

Behind the name-calling and the apocryphal report lurks a strained
relationship between Washington and Caracas. Cooperation between the
U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency and its Venezuelan counterpart has
dramatically deteriorated over the past two years, due less to acts
of violation by the DEA than to the White House's determination to
defame Chavez's rule in Venezuela. Starting back in 2005, Chavez
began to oust DEA inspectors from his country, accusing them of using
their privileged position to spy on his government. Bush responded by
labeling Venezuela as "failing demonstrably" in its anti-drug war in
the 2006 fiscal year report. The Venezuelan Embassy in Washington has
released a statement that its government was willing to renegotiate
an agreement with the DEA: that is, before the 2007 fiscal year
report defaming Presidential Determination came out on September 15.

It is worth noting that the White House's assessment is not shared
elsewhere in Washington. The State Department's 2006 International
Narcotics Control Strategy Report, released in March, suggests that
Venezuela's drug seizures have improved since 2004. The same agency
also released a favorable report in 2005, which stated that between
1998 and 2004 - the period in which, coincidentally, Chavez was in
office - Venezuelan drug seizures actually rose from 8.6 tons to
19.07 tons. This year alone, Venezuela has confiscated 35.6 tons of
illicit drugs. Based on numbers rather than Bush administration hype,
Venezuela is quite clearly doing better than Bush's political report suggests.

WHAT ABOUT MEXICO AND COLOMBIA?

In the contest for the worst drug trafficking country in the South,
two top contenders were conveniently left out of the Bush
administration's report. Neither Mexico nor Colombia even came close
to being rewarded with the apogee of condemnation that was poured on
Venezuela. Considering the standards applied to Venezuela, Mexico
should receive the most damning indictment. Over the years, Mexico's
lame anti-drug war has repeatedly provided fertile grounds for
criticism -- the head of their DEA equivalent was arrested for drug
trafficking and, in one infamous incident, the Mexican police fought
a pitched battle against the military over the possession of drugs.
Under the pressure of serving as a logical layover between Colombia,
the world's largest cocaine producer, and the U.S., the world's
largest drug consumer, Venezuela is playing a relatively praiseworthy
role in its counter-narcotics efforts.

The Bush administration would be factually more accurate in
condemning Colombia and Mexico in not doing their part in fully
cooperating in the war against drugs. But a largely baseless report
stemming from scandalously scant evidence and driven more by ideology
than fact, would have been better left unwritten.