{"id":46386,"date":"2019-05-26T07:03:24","date_gmt":"2019-05-26T12:03:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=46386"},"modified":"2019-05-26T07:03:27","modified_gmt":"2019-05-26T12:03:27","slug":"canadas-meddling-in-venezuela","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=46386","title":{"rendered":"Canada\u2019s Meddling in Venezuela"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.counterpunch.org\/2019\/05\/24\/canadas-meddling-in-venezuela\/\">Canada\u2019s Meddling in Venezuela<\/a><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Why does the dominant media pay so much attention to Russian \u201cmeddling\u201d in other countries, but little to Canada\u2019s longstanding interference in the political affairs of nations thousands of kilometres from our borders?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The case of Ben Rowswell illustrates the double standard well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The current Canadian International Council President has been the leading non-governmental advocate of Ottawa\u2019s quest to overthrow Venezuela\u2019s government. In dozens of interviews, op-eds, tweets and ongoing speaking tour the former ambassador has put a liberal gloss on four months of naked imperialism. But, Rowswell has been involved in efforts to oust Nicolas Maduro since 2014 despite repeatedly&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/benrowswell\/status\/1088642975054393344\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">claiming<\/a>&nbsp;the president\u2019s violation of the constitution two years ago provoked Ottawa\u2019s recent campaign.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A March 2014 Venezuela Analysis story suggested the early adopter of digital communications was dispatched to Caracas in the hopes of boosting opposition to a government weakened by an economic downturn, the death of its leader and violent protests. Titled \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/venezuelanalysis.com\/analysis\/10489\">New Ambassador<\/a>\u00a0Modernizes Canada\u2019s Hidden Agenda in Venezuela\u201d, the story pointed out that Rowswell immediately set up a new embassy\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/EmbCanVenezuela\">Twitter account<\/a>, soon followed by another titled\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/SeHablaDDHH?src=hash\">SeHablaDDHH<\/a>\u00a0(Let\u2019s Talk Human Rights), to rally \u201cthe angry middle classes on Twitter.\u201d The article noted that \u201cRowswell is the best man to encourage such a \u2018democratic\u2019 counterrevolution, given his pedigree\u201d in digital and hotspot diplomacy. According to a March 2014\u00a0<em>Embassy<\/em>\u00a0story titled \u201c<a href=\"http:\/\/www.embassynews.ca\/2014\/03\/05\/canada-dispatches-digital-diplomacy-devotee-to-caracas\/45228\">Canada dispatches<\/a>\u00a0digital diplomacy devotee to Caracas\u201d, just before the Venezuela assignment \u201cOttawa\u2019s top digital diplomat \u2026 helped to establish a communications platform for Iranians and Iranian emigrants to communicate with each other, and occasionally the Canadian government, beyond the reach of that country\u2019s censors.\u201d Previously, Rowswell was\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/ottawacitizen.com\/news\/local-news\/ben-rowswell\">charg\u00e9 d\u2019affaires<\/a>\u00a0in Iraq after the 2003 US invasion and headed the NATO Provincial Reconstruction Team in Kandahar during the war there. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&nbsp;\u2026click on the above link to read the rest of the article\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Canada\u2019s Meddling in Venezuela Why does the dominant media pay so much attention to Russian \u201cmeddling\u201d in other countries, but little to Canada\u2019s longstanding interference in the political affairs of nations thousands of kilometres from our borders? The case of Ben Rowswell illustrates the double standard well. The current Canadian International Council President has been [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,6],"tags":[25958,103,25959,5493,851,7937],"class_list":["post-46386","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-geopolitics","category-liberty","tag-ben-rowswell","tag-canada","tag-canadian-international-council","tag-counterpunch","tag-venezuela","tag-yves-engler"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46386","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=46386"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46386\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":46387,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46386\/revisions\/46387"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=46386"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=46386"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=46386"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}