- George Bush's operatives have plans to
jigger with the upcoming elections. I'm not talking about the November
'06 vote in the USA (though they have plans for that, too). I'm talking
about the election this Sunday in Mexico for their Presidency.
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- It begins with
an FBI document marked, "Counterterrorism" and "Foreign
Intelligence Collection" and "Secret." Date: "9/17/2001,"
six days after the attack on the World Trade towers. It's nice to know
the feds got right on the ball, if a little late.
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- What does this
have to do with jiggering Mexico's election? Hold that thought.
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- This document
is what's called a "guidance" memo for using a private contractor
to provide databases on dangerous foreigners. Good idea. We know the 19
hijackers came from Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and the Persian Gulf Emirates.
So you'd think the "Intelligence Collection" would be aimed at
getting info on the guys in the Gulf.
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- No so. When we
received the document, we obtained as well its classified appendix. The
target nations for "foreign counterterrorism investigation" were
nowhere near the Persian Gulf. Every one was in Latin America - Argentina,
Venezuela, Mexico and a handful of others.
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- Latin America?!
Was there a terror cell about to cross into San Diego with exploding enchiladas?
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- All the target
nations had one thing in common besides a lack of terrorists: each had
a left-leaning presidential candidate or a left-leaning president in office.
In Venezuela, President Hugo Chavez, bete noir of the Bush Administration,
was facing a recall vote. In Mexico, the anti-Bush Mayor of Mexico City,
Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador was (and is) leading the race for the Presidency.
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- Most provocative
is the contractor to whom this no-bid contract was handed: ChoicePoint
Inc. of Alpharetta, Georgia. ChoicePoint is the database company that created
a list for Governor Jeb Bush of Florida of voters to scrub from voter rolls
before the 2000 election. ChoicePoint's list (94,000 names in all) contained
few felons. Most of those on the list were guilty of no crime except Voting
While Black. The disenfranchisement of these voters cost Al Gore the presidency.
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- Having chosen
our President for us, our President's men chose ChoicePoint for this sweet
War on Terror database gathering. The use of the Venezuela's and Mexico's
voter registry files to fight terror is not visible - but the use of the
lists to manipulate elections is as obvious as the make-up on Katherine
Harris' cheeks.
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- In Venezuela,
leading up to the August 2004 vote on whether to re-call President Chavez,
I saw his opposition pouring over the voter rolls in laptops, claiming
the right to challenge voters as Jeb's crew did to voters in Florida. It
turns out this operation was partly funded by the International Republican
Institute of Washington, an arm of the GOP. Where did they get the voter
info from?
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- In that case,
access to Venezuela's voter rolls didn't help the Republican-assisted drive
against Chavez, who won by a crushing plurality.
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- In Mexico this
Sunday, we can expect to see the same: challenges of Obrador voters in
a race, the polls say, is too close to call. Not that Mexico's rulers need
lessons from the Bush Administration on how to mess with elections.
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- In 1988, the
candidate for Obrador's Party of the Democratic Revolution (PDR), who opinion
polls showed as a certain winner, somehow came up short against the incumbent
party of the ruling elite. Some of the electoral tricks were far from subtle.
In the state of Guerrero, the PDR was leading on official tally sheets
by 359,369. Oddly, the official final count was 309,202 for the ruling
party, only 182,874 for the PDR. Challenging the vote would have been dangerous.
Two top officials of Obrador's party were assassinated during the campaign.
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- Crucial to the
surprise victory of the ruling party was the introduction of computer voting
machines and the centralization of voter databases. Observer Andrew Reding
of the Council on Hemispheric Affairs reported that ruling party operatives
had special access codes denied the opposition.
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- Whether the US
"War on Terror" lists will find a use in Sunday's election, we
cannot know. But the use of American government resources to interfere
in south-of-the-border campaigns is an open secret. The GOP's International
Republican Institute has run training sessions for the PAN youth wing,
funded by US taxpayers through the "National Endowment for Democracy."
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- Foreign - that
is, American - interference in political campaigns is a crime. That didn't
stop Team Bush. However, when the theft of its citizen files was discovered,
Argentina threatened to arrest ChoicePoint contractors until the company
returned the tapes - and Mexico's attorney general did in fact arrest the
ChoicePoint data thieves to avoid his party from looking too much the stooge
of its Washington patron. Whether George Bush gave back his copy, no one
will say.
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- Wholesale theft
is expected on Sunday in forms both subtle and brutal. How the US' purloined
"counterterrorism" lists will be used, we don't know. We are
certain however, that the Administration did not siphon off these Latin
voter files to fight a War on Terror. It appears, rather, part of the Bush
Administration's and GOP's hemispheric War on Democracy - along a battle
line which runs from Florida to Ohio to Juarez.
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- For as-it-happens
reporting on the Mexican election, check www.GregPalast.com for dispatches
from our team investigator Special Correspondent Matt Pascarella with video
journalist Rick Rowley in Mexico City.
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- Special thanks
to the Electronic Privacy Information Center, Washington. DC, which received
and passed on to our team the FBI ChoicePoint files and other foreign intelligence
documentation.
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- Greg Palast is
the author of the New York Times bestseller, ARMED MADHOUSE: Who's Afraid
of Osama Wolf?, China Floats Bush Sinks, the Scheme to Steal '08, No Child's
Behind Left and Other Dispatches From the Front Lines of the Class War.
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- Get your copy
of Palast's new book, Armed Madhouse, at www.GregPalast.com.
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