Abuse of SOFT POWER*: U.S. Wages Electonic Warfare on South America, No One Notices or Cares

Our beloved government feels so threatened by the new TeleSUR network--a TV station financed largely by Venezuela, but also supported by Uruguay, Cuba, and Argentina--that it is paying consultants and contractors up to $300 million for a "diplomacy effort" to discredit it.

TeleSUR is seen in a few different lights: a competitor to CNN Latin, a potential unifier of South America, and, of course, an "anti-American, anti-freedom" (according to a CNN "source") publicity machine driving yet another wedge between us and our oil. On the internet, its critics have labeled it "EL Jazeera."

Now we all [should] know that America hates Hugo Chavez (VENEZUELAN PRESIDENT) because Hugo Chavez hates America. He also sits on 15% of our oil--no joke, because the Venezuelan government fully owns Citgo.

And Chavez, always sounding like a justifiably paranoid schizophrenic, is repeatedly lashing out about the U.S. trying to overthrow him. He should be, because we are. This week he warned us about waging "electronic warfare" on his country: "If the U.S. government makes this move, our government would have to respond somehow. To every counterrevolutionary action, we will respond by deepening our revolution.

I'm not sure how deep anything is going to get. The U.S. Joint Psychological Operations Support Element (actual name) will spend millions on pro-American satellite broadcasts, and, according to the Washington Post article linked above, investigations into beaming pro-American pop-up ads and text messages at Venezuelans! Not unlike a nation run by corporations to have already discovered all the loopholes in Venezuelan broadcast war.

But until the War on Drugs crosses borders from Columbia to Venezuela, or the War on Revolutions succeeds the War on Terror, there should be little to worry about--until pro-American pop-up ads start attacking your computer.

*SOFT POWER will be the adorably relevant title of the multimedia project created by me and brother cMike.