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Posted on 10/03/2002 7:48:40 PM PDT by Tumbleweed_Connection
WASHINGTON – According to the latest polls, Sunday’s presidential election in Brazil will advance a candidate who is allied with Fidel Castro and wants to collaborate with the communist Chinese in developing nuclear weapons.
Part of the blame, in the view of seasoned observers, goes to Voice of America, which has canceled broadcasts to that country at this critical juncture, and the fact that the Bush administration may be getting bad advice on the situation.
"This is the revenge of the Sandinistas,” declared Faith Whittlesey, veteran of the Reagan administration’s battles to win the Cold War.
In an interview with NewsMax.com, Whittlesey, who heads the Institute of World Politics, said she was appalled that VOA would turn its back on Brazil just when ultraleftist Luis Inacio "Lula” da Silva appears to be successfully wooing the voters of that largest Latin American country with his anti-American rhetoric.
Kenneth Tomlinson, relatively new to his job as chairman of the Board of Broadcasting Governors (BBG), which oversees VOA, says he wants to restart broadcasts to Brazil. But he is not optimistic about getting the money for it. Of course, even if he does get the cash he needs, it will be too late to get accurate information to Brazilians before they vote.
If da Silva fails to win a majority Sunday, there will be a runoff. The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday that "Brazilian business people are increasingly resigned to the prospect of a victory by the left-wing front-runner.”
In an article in the Washington Times on Tuesday, Whittlesey further notes that the person in charge of "Brazil problems” for the National Security Council (NSC) has made no apparent complaint about the VOA's action, or rather inaction.
In both cases – the Broadcasting Board of Governors and the advice the Bush administration may be getting on the matter – Clinton holdovers are involved.
NewsMax.com has noted the actions of Clintonites on the BBG. Add to that Whittlesey’s report that John Maisto, who is on Condoleezza Rice’s NSC staff, has as his responsibility the oversight of "all of Latin America.”
Clintonista Likes Castroite
This is the same John Maisto who, according to syndicated columnist Robert Novak, was formerly Bill Clinton’s ambassador to Venzuela. At that time, says Novak, Maisto "privately advised Congress not to worry about accession of the leftist Hugo Chavez to that nation’s presidency.” Since taking over, Chavez has firmly allied himself and his nation with Cuban dictator Fidel Castro.
"Mr. da Silva calls Chavez ‘an example to emulate,’” Whittlesey writes. "Col. Chavez calls Mr. da Silva ‘a great man.’”
Reports indicate that, true to his word, da Silva’s followers are emulating Chavez. Just as the Venezuelan strongman is inserting Marxism into textbooks in schools in his country, so too is da Silva’s Workers Party doing the same thing in the Brazilian state government of Rio Grande do Sul, which it already controls.
Condoleezza Rice enjoys high confidence at the White House. Observers who respect her, but are nervous by the presence of Maisto on her staff, hope that she will not be listening to his reported effort to direct policy toward "normalization of relations with Cuba.”
He told Congress a few years ago not to worry about Chavez, and Chavez now "provides a $2 billion petroleum subsidy to Fidel Castro and allies his country with countries like Iran, Iraq, and communist China,” according to Whittlesey.
Whittlesey, who served as special assistant to President Ronald Reagan and then ambassador to Switzerland, recalled in her NewsMax interview the work she and other soldiers in the Reagan revolution did to help bring down the communist Sandinistas in Nicaragua.
"We fell on our swords and took the heat,” she told NewsMax.
Now, she said, the pro-terrroist, pro-communist movement is making its return to this hemisphere, on the march once again in Latin America.
Never Say Never
"Some of my Swiss banker friends said, ‘Oh no, it’ll never happen.’”
But Whittlesey says if Brazil ends up teaming with Cuba and Venezuela in an alliance against the United States, it will be "the revenge of the Sandinistas.”
If that happens, it may be in no small measure the result of the work of Clinton holdovers at VOA and at least one Clintonite within the Bush administration itself.
That President Bush’s efforts are constantly under assault from leftovers within its own ranks and in government agencies, one veteran observer notes, might suggest the revenge of the Clintonistas.
laf
Oh, were we talking about Brazil? I was talking about the United States under campaign finance "reform."
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