PHOTO: Leon Panetta's daughter with Hugo Chavez and Daniel Ortega! (Unsubstantiated, unconfirmed)

This photo shows Chavez with his arm around
Linda Panetta, while former Sandinista junta leader
Daniel Ortega smiles on, at left. You saw it here first.

If the adult daughter of a CIA Director-designate hangs out with sworn enemies of the United States, it's a matter for the United States Senate to probe aggressively. And so the Senate really has to ask some very pointed questions about Linda Panetta, daughter of President-Elect Obama's pick to lead the CIA, and her ties to Sandinista leader Daniel Ortega and Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez.

Linda Panetta is a noted anti-military activist who has accused the US military of teaching Latin American officers how to torture. She has also been close to causes hostile toward the United States and friendly to the old Soviet Union, and the regimes in Cuba, Venezuela and Iran.

As a leader of School of the Americas Watch, Panetta urged Chavez to cancel Venezuela's participation in the US military school for Latin American officers in Fort Benning, Georgia. Chavez agreed, and promptly did so. As such, Compañera Panetta helped sever an important link between the US and the Venezuelan officer corps. This is a big blow to US intelligence efforts in the hemisphere.

Perhaps Linda Panetta is a clever ploy to infiltrate the Chavez regime. Somehow I really doubt it. It looks more like the other way around.

This photo shows Chavez with his arm around Linda Panetta, while former Sandinista junta leader Daniel Ortega smiles on, at left. You saw it here first.

This says a few things about CIA Director-designate Leon Panetta. While a parent can't necessarily be blamed for his wayward children, we think senators should ask the nominee to be the next CIA chief about his daughter's support for sworn enemies of the United States. As a congressman, Panetta was pretty soft on the communist FMLN guerrillas in El Salvador, and Daniel Ortega's Marxist Sandinista regime in Nicaragua. So father and daughter's views do coincide somewhat.

Certainly any prospective CIA intelligence analyst would be grilled pretty hard before getting a security clearance if it was known that his or her sister or daughter was an anti-US militant who aided and abetted Chavez and the Sandinistas. And even then he might not get a very high clearance. It's only fair to hold Leon Panetta to at least the same standards that apply to ordinary CIA analysts and operators.

The Senate has an obligation to nail down this problem when it considers confirming Leon Panetta to lead the CIA.

From The American Spectator...
Panetta's Daughter
By Philip Klein, Jan 14, 2009

J. Michael Waller argues that Linda Panetta's ties to Daniel Ortega and Hugo Chavez deserve more scrutiny as the Senate considers the nomination of her father, Leon Panetta, to be CIA director. I'm generally not too fond of making children into an issue, and am uncomfortable with the suggestion Waller makes here: "Perhaps Linda Panetta is a clever ploy to infiltrate the Chavez regime. Somehow I really doubt it. It looks more like the other way around." With that said, Waller does make a good point about at least asking questions about the relationship:

From: "Michael Lindberg" Date: Sun Feb 4, 2007 3:56 pm Subject: [Fwd: Fw: Upcoming event- L. Panetta, Social Justice in Contemporary Society] condormarca3 Offline Offline
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---------- Original Message ----------
Subject: Fw: Upcoming event- L. Panetta, Social Justice in Contemporary Society
From: ldavis@...
Date: Thu, February 1, 2007 9:34 pm
To: MichaelLindberg@...
condormarca@...
Michaelannb@...
--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Please be aware of an upcoming event in Marsh Memorial Chapel at Springfield College. United Campus Ministry and Spiritual Life and the Springfield College Newman Community welcome Linda Panetta, photographer, social activist and daughter of former White House Chief of Staff Leon Panetta, on February 12 at 7:30 pm. She will discuss her ongoing documentary and activist work in Central America and the Middle East.

Folks, that's the daughter of our next CIA Chief in the arms of socialist dictator, enemy of the United States, Hugo Chavez!-ETL _____________________________________________________________________________

From National Public Radio (NPR), August 29, 2006:
"Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has been visiting countries such as China, Iran and Russia as part of an effort to build a 'strategic alliance' of interests not beholden to the United States. He considers the United States his arch enemy.":
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5729764
_____________________________________________________________________________

From CBS-News, July 29, 2006
"Chavez pledged that his country would 'stay by Iran at any time and under any condition,' state television reported. Ahmadinejad said he saw in Chavez a kindred spirit." "'We do not have any limitation in cooperation,' Ahmadinejad was quoted as saying. 'Iran and Venezuela are next to each other and supporters of each other. Chavez is a source of a progressive and revolutionary current in South America and his stance in restricting imperialism is tangible.'":
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/07/29/world/main1847331.shtml
_____________________________________________________________________________

From the Russian News and Information Agency, July 27, 2006
"'I am determined to expand relations with Russia,' Chavez, known as an outspoken critic of what he calls the United States' unilateralism, told the Russian leader, adding that his determination stemmed from their shared vision of the global order.":
http://en.rian.ru/russia/20060727/51913498.html
_____________________________________________________________________________

Venezuela Set to Develop Nuclear Power With Russia
September 29, 2008
CARACAS, Venezuela — President Hugo Chavez said Sunday that Russia will help Venezuela develop nuclear energy — a move likely to raise U.S. concerns over increasingly close cooperation between Caracas and Moscow.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,429441,00.html
_____________________________________________________________________________

Venezuela's Chavez welcomes Russian warships
Nov 25, 2008
LA GUAIRA, Venezuela – Russian warships arrived off Venezuela's coast Tuesday in a show of strength aimed at the United States as Moscow seeks to expand its influence in Latin America. The deployment is the first of its kind in the Caribbean since the Cold War and was timed to coincide with President Dmitry Medvedev's visit to Caracas — the first ever by a Russian president.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081125/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/lt_venezuela_russia;_ylt=Aubowfbe9_MUlOufaFqMD.OMwfIE

"In April 1985 [Leon] Panetta joined with 13 of his leftist congressional colleagues — including Ron Dellums, Don Edwards, George Miller, Christopher Dodd, and Les Aspin — in sponsoring a 20th anniversary fund-raising gala for the pro-Marxist Institute for Policy Studies (IPS), which had been described by Brian Crozier, director of the London Institute for the Study of Conflict, as the "perfect intellectual front for Soviet activities which would be resisted if they were to originate openly from the KGB." The IPS was originally funded with millions of dollars from the Faberge perfume magnate and Communist Party member Samuel Rubin and his wife."

"Readers who recall the movement to impeach Bill Clinton remember that one of the charges raised by Clinton's critics was the conflict of interest created when individuals connected with the Chinese Overseas Shipping Company (COSCO) — such as John Huang, Charles Trie, and James and Mochtar Riady — helped funnel contributions to the Clinton reelection campaign. Afterwards, the Clinton administration lobbied for granting COSCO a 10-year lease on the former Long Beach Naval Shipyard in California.

During a March 1997 edition of CNBC's Equal Time program, California Republican State Senator Dick Mountjoy noted that COSCO-linked arms dealer Wang Jun had been granted personal access to President Clinton, and that Wang's business associates had smuggled illegal assault weapons into California for delivery to street gangs by making use of a ship owned and operated by COSCO.

Mountjoy then stated:

The next thing you know, (then-Chief of Staff) Leon Panetta is down here negotiating that port for the Chinese.

There is much more to the COSCO-Long Beach connection than we have room for here, but a good summary of the threat the arrangement made to U.S. security may be found in an item inserted into the Congressional Record by Rep. Gerald B.H. Solomon on May 20, 1997.

Even the most unbiased of observers may legitimately ask: Why on Earth is an individual who helped negotiate the turnover of the Long Beach Naval Shipyard to the communist Chinese, thereby creating the threat to U.S. national security described in the Washington Times article by Rowan Scarborough and inserted into the Congressional Record by Rep. Solomon, being considered for a top position at one of our nation's most critical intelligence agencies?"

http://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/election/655

__________________________________________

From David Horowitz's FrontPageMag.com/DiscoverTheNetworks.org:
Profile: Institute For Policy Studies (IPS)

IPS’s [Institute For Policy Studies] Washington, DC headquarters quickly became a resource center for national reporters and a place for KGB agents from the nearby Soviet embassy to convene and strategize. Cora Weiss headed one of the IPS's most successful forays -- into Riverside Church in Manhattan. She was invited there in 1978 by the Reverend William Sloane Coffin to run the church's Disarmament Program, which sought to consolidate Soviet nuclear superiority in Europe -- in the name of "peace." In 1982 Weiss helped organize the largest pro-disarmament demonstration ever held. Staged in New York City, the rally was attended by a coalition of communist organizations. During her decade-long tenure at Riverside, which became home to the National Council of Churches, Weiss regularly received Russian KGB agents, Sandinista friends, and Cuban intelligence agents. Weiss became infamous for her role in the psychological warfare conducted against U.S. prisoners of war held in the infamous "Hanoi Hilton" during the Vietnam War.

The Liberation News Service, which is a news source for hundreds of "alternative" publications nationwide (with antiwar, Marxist-oriented perspectives), was founded in 1967 with IPS assistance."

[lots more at link...]

http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/groupProfile.asp?grpid=6991

_________________________________________________________

This is from the Marxist think tank Institute For Policy Studies itself
(Hillary mentioned the 2009 Summit of the Americas during the recent hearing):

Obama’s Agenda for Change and the 2009 Summit of the Americas

excerpt:

'Yes We Can' — Change for the Americas Coming from Below

Hemispheric resistance to the first attempt by the U.S. to force the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) on every nation on this continent led to its eventual defeat at the IV Summit of the Americas, held in Argentina in 2005. The organizers of the April 2009 V Summit of the Americas had hoped to focus on a social agenda of providing a decent living for all those who call the “Americas” their home. The emergence of the PPA, or Bush’s Plan B for the FTAA, represents a threat to the urgent need of having all nations in the hemisphere focus on tackling the disparities that make the region the most unequeal in the world.

According to Obama, “what's good for the people of the Americas is good for the United States.” Among the specific proposals Obama has made (political freedom and democracy; freedom from fear and security; freedom from want and opportunity) in the “New Partnership for the Americas” document, he says that “it’s time for a new alliance of the Americas” that leaves behind “eight years of failed policies” and “top down reforms”, and puts forward instead an “agenda that advances democracy, security, and opportunity from the bottom up”. For Obama to make good on his vision for a new "partnership" in the Americas, the divisive Bush PPA initiative must be laid to rest well before the April V Summit of the Americas gets underway.

The 2009 IV Peoples’ Summit in Trinidad and Tobago

On April 17-19, 2009, the IV Peoples Summit will be taking place in Port of Spain, Trinidad (while heads of state are simultaneously meeting at the V Summit of the Americas).The message of a "change agenda" for the hemisphere will be brought to the island nation by social movements coming from all points in between Alaska and Tierra del Fuego. A key focus for discussions during the People’s Summit will be the economic meltdown hitting the capitalist system, and the opening that this provides for the implementation of a peoples’ agenda promoting sustainable development, social justice, equity, and peaceful coexistence.[ie, communism/socialism -etl]

In conjunction with the Hemispheric Social Alliance, social movements present in Trinidad and Tobago will be providing a "change agenda" that, in large measure, will likely be echoed by representatives from many of the newly elected governments in Latin America and the Caribbean. The V Summit of the Americas will be an ideal setting for Obama to signal a new respectful and consultative role for the US in the Americas as well. Will Obama avail himself of the opportunity to take this courageous step forward? Ojalá!

http://www.ips-dc.org/articles/933

The following was posted on FR on Oct 28, 2001...

Democratic Socialists of America Convention
Democratic Socialists of America ^ | None | None
Posted on Sunday, October 28, 2001 11:43:06 AM by Lockbox

Democratic Socialists of America Convention
November 9-11, 2001

Philadelphia, PA

Featuring:

Bill Fletcher
Co-Convenor, Black Radical Congress

Harold Meyerson
Executive Editor, American Prospect

Linda Panetta
Director, School of the Americas Watch, NE

Cornel West
Theologian, author and activist
Honorary Chair
Democratic Socialists of America

The Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) is the largest socialist organization in the United States, and the principal U.S. affiliate of the Socialist International. DSA's members are building progressive movements for social change while establishing an openly socialist presence in American communities and politics.

At the root of our socialism is a profound commitment to democracy, as means and end. We are activists committed not only to extending political democracy but to demanding democratic empowerment in the economy, in gender relations, and in culture. Democracy is not simply one of our political values but our means of restructuring society.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/558394/posts

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