stratfor bak
<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">see main 817 text capt</font><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"></font></div><div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/news/20131205/worst-case-scenario-oil-sands-industry-has-come-life-leaked-document-shows"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://insideclimatenews.org/news<b>/2013</b>1205/worst-case-scenario-oil-sands-industry-has-come-life-leaked-document-shows</font></a></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><div class="content" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><div class="field-items" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><p align="left" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">As environmentalists began ratcheting up pressure against Canada's <a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/topic/oil-sands" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold;">tar sands</a> three years ago, one of the world's biggest strategic consulting firms was tapped to help the North American oil industry figure out how to handle the mounting activism. <b>The resulting document, published online by WikiLeaks, offers another window into how oil and gas companies have been scrambling to deal with unrelenting opposition to their growth plans.</b></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The document identifies nearly two-dozen environmental organizations leading the anti-oil sands movement and puts them into four categories: radicals, idealists, realists and opportunists—with how-to's for managing each. It also reveals that the worst-case scenario presented to industry about the movement's growing influence seems to have come to life.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The <a href="http://www.documentcloud.org/documents/873021-33714-suncor-presentation-1210-6.html" target="blank" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold;">December 2010 presentation</a> by <a href="http://www.stratfor.com/" target="blank" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold;">Strategic Forecasting, or Stratfor</a>, a global intelligence firm based in Texas, mostly advised oil sands companies to ignore or limit reaction to the then-burgeoning tar sands opposition movement because "activists lack influence in politics." But there was a buried warning for industry under one scenario:<b> Letting the movement grow unopposed may bring about "the most significant environmental campaign of the decade."</b></font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><b>"This worst-case scenario is exactly what has happened,"</b> partly because opposition to tar sands development has expanded beyond nonprofit groups to include individual activists concerned about <a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/topic/climate-change" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold;">climate change</a>, said <a href="http://www.greenpeace.org/usa/en/media-center/experts/Mark-Floegel/" target="blank" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold;">Mark Floegel</a>, a senior investigator for Greenpeace. "The more people in America see Superstorm Sandys or tornadoes in Chicago, the more they are waking up and joining the fight."</font></p><div class="DV-container" id="DV-viewer-873021-33714-suncor-presentation-1210-6" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit;">
</div><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Since the presentation was prepared, civil disobedience and <a href="http://insideclimatenews.org/news/20130131/president-obama-john-kerry-keystone-xl-pipeline-oil-sands-tar-sands-climate-change-global-warming-transcanada" target="blank" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold;">protests against the tar sands have sprung up from coast to coast</a>. The movement has helped delay President Obama's decision on the <a href="http://insideclimatenews.org/topic/keystone-xl" target="blank" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold;">Keystone XL pipeline</a>—designed to funnel Canada's landlocked oil sands crude to refineries on the Gulf Coast—and has held up another contentious pipeline in Canada, the <a href="http://insideclimatenews.org/news/20120727/first-nations-british-columbia-northern-gateway-pipeline-oil-sands-dilbit-enbridge-canada-supreme-court-china" target="blank" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold;">Northern Gateway to the Pacific Coast</a>.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The Power Point document, titled "Oil Sands Market Campaigns," was recently made public by WikiLeaks, part of a larger release of hacked files from Stratfor, whose clients include the Departments of Homeland Security and Defense, Lockheed Martin, Raytheon and the American Petroleum Institute, the oil industry lobby</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">. It appears to have been created for Calgary-based petroleum giant <a href="http://www.suncor.com/default.aspx" target="blank" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold;">Suncor Energy</a>,<b> Canada's largest oil sands producer.</b></span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The company told InsideClimate News that it did not hire Stratfor and never saw such a presentation. Suncor is mentioned 11 times in the document's 35 pages and all of Stratfor's advice seems to be directed at the energy company</b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">. For example, one slide says, "Campaign ends quickly with a resolution along the lines Suncor had wanted." In several emails released by WikiLeaks,</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);"> Stratfor employees discuss a $14,890 payment Suncor owes the company for two completed projects, though no details were provided.</span></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The presentation is the latest in a series of revelations that suggest energy companies—which for most of their history seemed unfazed by activists—have been looking for ways to dilute environmentalists' growing influence.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Earlier this year, TransCanada, the Canadian energy company behind the Keystone XL, <a href="http://www.eenews.net/stories/1059982632" target="blank" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold;">briefed Nebraska law enforcement authorities</a> on how to prosecute demonstrators protesting the 1,200-mile project.<b> In 2011, Range Resources,</b> an oil and gas company, <a href="http://desmogblog.com/gas-fracking-industry-using-military-psychological-warfare-tactics-and-personnel-u-s-communities" target="blank" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold;">allegedly hired combat veterans</a> with experience in psychological warfare to squash opposition of natural gas drilling.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"The Stratfor presentation isn't a complete surprise," said <a href="http://understory.ran.org/author/sparki/" target="blank" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold;">Scott Parkin</a>, a senior campaigner for the Rainforest Action Network and volunteer organizer for Rising Tide North America, both grassroots environmental groups. "As opposition has grown, coal, oil and gas companies are all starting to put more money into responding—from surveillance to protection to public relations."</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px;"><strong style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Who Is Targeted</font></strong></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">For each of Stratfor's categories of environmental activist—radicals, idealists, realists and opportunists—the presentation explains how their campaigns are structured and how the fossil fuel industry could deal with them.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Three grassroots organizations—</span><a href="http://www.risingtidenorthamerica.org/" target="blank" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102); box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold;">Rising Tide North America</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">, </span><a href="http://priceofoil.org/" target="blank" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102); box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold;">Oil Change International</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> and the </span><a href="http://www.ienearth.org/" target="blank" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102); box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold;">Indigenous Environmental Network</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">—were labeled radicals. </span><a href="http://www.greenpeace.org/international/en/" target="blank" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102); box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold;">Greenpeace</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> and the </span><a href="http://ran.org/" target="blank" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102); box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold;">Rainforest Action Network</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> were classified as a cross between radicals and idealists. </span><a href="http://www.sierraclub.org/" target="blank" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102); box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold;">Sierra Club</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">, the nation's largest environmental group, </span><a href="http://www.amnesty.org/" target="blank" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102); box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold;">Amnesty International</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> and</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);"> <a href="http://www.cbecal.org/" target="blank" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold;">Communities for a Better Environment</a>, </span></font><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">among others, were labeled idealists. Several mainstream environmental groups, including the <a href="http://www.nwf.org/" target="blank" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold;">National Wildlife Federation</a>, <a href="http://worldwildlife.org/" target="blank" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold;">World Wildlife Fund</a>, <a href="http://www.nrdc.org/" target="blank" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold;">Natural Resources Defense Council</a> and <a href="http://www.ceres.org/" target="blank" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold;">Ceres</a>, a nonprofit that organizes businesses, investors and public interest groups, were called realists.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">It then lays out tactics the groups would use to push for change. They include holding demonstrations outside annual meetings and marketing events, generating fear of oil spills and other environmental disasters, targeting CEOs and their families, collaborating with other green groups, and splitting the fossil fuel industry on the issue by praising companies working with activists and publicly shaming those that aren't.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>The presentation says that while environmental groups are publicly fighting to stop the expansion of the oil sands, their "real demand" is for fossil fuel companies to adopt a "global code of conduct"—a set of best practices not required by law, but that take into consideration things like greenhouse gas reduction policies and human rights</b>.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>The Power Point also describes all the ways fossil fuel companies like Suncor could choose to react to green groups' campaign</b>s, such as limiting contact with the organizations, intentionally delaying negotiations, developing its own environmental initiatives to overshadow activists' demands, or simply not responding. It provides the pros and cons of each public relations decision, as well as the best- and worst-case outcomes for each.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">For example, Stratfor said that choosing not to respond could be useful because in 2010, "activists are not stopping oil sands' growth and they have no power in Alberta or Ottawa. Chance of success with U.S. government is slim." The best outcome from a no-response strategy, according to the presentation, is that green "groups move to fracturing [natural gas <a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/topic/fracking" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold;">fracking</a>] or some other venue to press for the first major code of conduct."</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Stratfor would not answer questions about the presentation because it has a policy not to comment on any of the WikiLeaks documents.</b></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Several environmental groups named in the Stratfor presentation said they weren't surprised by the consulting firm's assessment of their work, but were disappointed, especially by its assumption that all they wanted was a code of conduct.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"The environmental community has been very united in saying that we need to stop tar sands expansion and clean up the mess already made there," said <a href="http://www.nrdc.org/about/staff/susan-casey-lefkowitz" target="blank" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold;">Susan Casey-Lefkowitz</a>, director of the Natural Resources Defense Council's international program. "That's the only real path forward if we're going to protect not only the health of communities on the ground in the boreal forests near the tar sands region, but also around the world from the impacts of climate change. We're not looking for a code of conduct."</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">For many, the leaked presentation provided proof that their work was having an impact, boosting their confidence to keep protesting.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"Knowing that groups like Stratfor are targeting us, surveying us, and also analyzing us shows how powerful these movements have become," said Parkin of the Rainforest Action Network and Rising Tide North America. "Obviously this wasn't meant for public consumption, but this doesn't intimidate us. If anything, it emboldens us. It encourages us to push harder."</font></p></div></div></div></div><div class="tagged-with" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-transform: uppercase; margin-bottom: 1em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><label style="box-sizing: inherit; display: block; line-height: 1.2;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">PUBLISHED UNDER:</font></label><div class="field field-name-field-topics field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-hidden" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><div class="field-items" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><div class="field-item even" style="box-sizing: inherit; display: inline-block; padding-right: 0.5em;"><a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/topics/activism" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">ACTIVISM</font></a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-hidden" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><div class="field-items" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /><div class="field-item even" style="box-sizing: inherit; display: inline-block; padding-right: 0.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/topic/oil-sands" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none;">OIL SANDS</a></font></div> <div class="field-item odd" style="box-sizing: inherit; display: inline-block; padding-right: 0.5em;"><a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/topic/fracking" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none;">FRACKING</a></div> <div class="field-item even" style="box-sizing: inherit; display: inline-block; padding-right: 0.5em;"><a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/topic/climate-change" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none;">CLIMATE CHANGE</a></div></div></div></div></div><div><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></p></div></div><div><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">=</font></p><p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012%E2%80%932013_Stratfor_email_leak"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012%E2%80%932013_Stratfor_email_leak</font></a></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">The <b>2012–13 Stratfor email leak</b> is the public disclosure of a number of internal emails between geopolitical intelligence company <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stratfor" title="Stratfor" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Stratfor</a>'s employees and its clients, referred to by <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WikiLeaks" title="WikiLeaks" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">WikiLeaks</a> as the Global Intelligence Files. E-mails began appearing on WikiLeaks on February 27, 2012, with 5,543,061 emails published as of July 18, 2014.<sup id="cite_ref-1" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012%E2%80%932013_Stratfor_email_leak#cite_note-1" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[1]</a></sup></font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Stratfor is a security group based in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austin,Texas" title="Austin, Texas" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Austin, Texas</a>. On December 24, 2011, hackers took control of Stratfor's website and released a list of names, credit card numbers, passwords, and home and email addresses. Those listed were affiliated with organizations such as <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bank_of_America" title="Bank of America" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Bank of America</a>, the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Department_of_Defense" title="United States Department of Defense" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">United States Department of Defense</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M%C3%A9decins_Sans_Fronti%C3%A8res" title="Médecins Sans Frontières" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Médecins Sans Frontières</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_Martin" title="Lockheed Martin" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Lockheed Martin</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Los_Alamos_National_Laboratory" title="Los Alamos National Laboratory" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Los Alamos National Laboratory</a>, and the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations" title="United Nations" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">United Nations</a>.<sup id="cite_ref-2" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012%E2%80%932013_Stratfor_email_leak#cite_note-2" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[2]</a></sup> The hackers included <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeremy_Hammond" title="Jeremy Hammond" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Jeremy Hammond</a>, who worked with <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anonymous(group)" title="Anonymous (group)" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Anonymous</a> to release Stratfor's emails to WikiLeaks. The emails revealed Stratfor's surveillance of groups such as <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occupy_Wall_Street" title="Occupy Wall Street" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Occupy Wall Street</a> and protestors of the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhopal_disaster" title="Bhopal disaster" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Bhopal disaster</a>.<sup id="cite_ref-3" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012%E2%80%932013_Stratfor_email_leak#cite_note-3" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[3]</a></sup></font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">The e-mails claim to include client information, notes between Stratfor employees and internal procedural documentation on securing intelligence data.<sup id="cite_ref-4" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012%E2%80%932013_Stratfor_email_leak#cite_note-4" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[4]</a></sup> These communications date from July 2004 through to December 2011.<sup id="cite_ref-India_5-0" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012%E2%80%932013_Stratfor_email_leak#cite_note-India-5" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[5]</a></sup> WikiLeaks said it had obtained the e-mails from the hacker group <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anonymous(group)" title="Anonymous (group)" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Anonymous</a>, who <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stratfor#2011_hacking_incident" title="Stratfor" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">broke into Stratfor's computer network in 2011</a>.<sup id="cite_ref-AP1_6-0" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012%E2%80%932013_Stratfor_email_leak#cite_note-AP1-6" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[6]</a></sup> In an initial announcement, WikiLeaks stated that they opened up a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Database" title="Database" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">database</a> of the emails to two dozen media organizations operating in several countries, including <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_McClatchy_Company" class="mw-redirect" title="The McClatchy Company" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">the McClatchy Company</a>, <i><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%27Espresso" class="mw-redirect" title="L'Espresso" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">l'Espresso</a></i>, <i><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Repubblica" title="La Repubblica" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">la Repubblica</a></i>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARD(broadcaster)" title="ARD (broadcaster)" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">ARD</a>, the <i><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Russia_Reporter&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Russia Reporter (page does not exist)" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Russia Reporter</a></i>,<sup id="cite_ref-Reuters_7-0" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012%E2%80%932013_Stratfor_email_leak#cite_note-Reuters-7" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[7]</a></sup> and <i><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rolling_Stone" title="Rolling Stone" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Rolling Stone</a></i>,<sup id="cite_ref-AP1_6-1" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012%E2%80%932013_Stratfor_email_leak#cite_note-AP1-6" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[6]</a></sup> along with a "sneak preview" to <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Yes_Men" title="The Yes Men" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">the Yes Men</a>.<sup id="cite_ref-Reuters_7-1" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012%E2%80%932013_Stratfor_email_leak#cite_note-Reuters-7" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[7]</a></sup></font></p><div id="toc" class="toc" role="navigation" aria-labelledby="mw-toc-heading" style="border: 1px solid rgb(162, 169, 177); background-color: rgb(248, 249, 250); padding: 7px; display: table;"><ul style="list-style-image: none; margin: 0.3em 0px; padding: 0px; list-style-type: none;"><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-1" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012%E2%80%932013_Stratfor_email_leak#Email_content" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><span class="tocnumber" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0.5em;">1</span><span class="toctext" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit;">Email content</span></font></a><ul style="list-style-image: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 2em; padding: 0px; list-style-type: none;"><li class="toclevel-2 tocsection-2" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012%E2%80%932013_Stratfor_email_leak#Julian_Assange" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><span class="tocnumber" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0.5em;">1.1</span><span class="toctext" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit;">Julian Assange</span></font></a></li><li class="toclevel-2 tocsection-3" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012%E2%80%932013_Stratfor_email_leak#Governmental" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><span class="tocnumber" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0.5em;">1.2</span><span class="toctext" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit;">Governmental</span></font></a></li><li class="toclevel-2 tocsection-4" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012%E2%80%932013_Stratfor_email_leak#Companies" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><span class="tocnumber" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0.5em;">1.3</span><span class="toctext" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit;">Companies</span></font></a></li></ul></li><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-5" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012%E2%80%932013_Stratfor_email_leak#Responses" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><span class="tocnumber" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0.5em;">2</span><span class="toctext" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit;">Responses</span></font></a><ul style="list-style-image: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 2em; padding: 0px; list-style-type: none;"><li class="toclevel-2 tocsection-6" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012%E2%80%932013_Stratfor_email_leak#Official_response" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><span class="tocnumber" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0.5em;">2.1</span><span class="toctext" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit;">Official response</span></font></a></li><li class="toclevel-2 tocsection-7" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012%E2%80%932013_Stratfor_email_leak#Other_responses" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><span class="tocnumber" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0.5em;">2.2</span><span class="toctext" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit;">Other responses</span></font></a></li></ul></li><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-8" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012%E2%80%932013_Stratfor_email_leak#References" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><span class="tocnumber" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0.5em;">3</span><span class="toctext" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit;">References</span></font></a></li><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-9" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012%E2%80%932013_Stratfor_email_leak#External_links" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><span class="tocnumber" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0.5em;">4</span><span class="toctext" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit;">External links</span></font></a></li></ul></div><h2 style="margin: 1em 0px 0.25em; padding: 0px; overflow: hidden; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(162, 169, 177); font-weight: normal; line-height: 1.3; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span class="mw-headline" id="Email_content">Email content</span><span class="mw-editsection" style="user-select: none; margin-left: 1em; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1em; unicode-bidi: isolate;"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket" style="margin-right: 0.25em;">[</span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=2012%E2%80%932013_Stratfor_email_leak&action=edit§ion=1" title="Edit section: Email content" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none; white-space: nowrap;">edit</a><span class="mw-editsection-bracket" style="margin-left: 0.25em;">]</span></span></font></h2><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">One of the first items released was an email containing a glossary titled "The Stratfor Glossary of Useful, Baffling and Strange Intelligence Terms", which contained concise and sometimes humorously candid definitions, along with pointed assessments of U.S. intelligence and law enforcement.<sup id="cite_ref-8" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012%E2%80%932013_Stratfor_email_leak#cite_note-8" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[8]</a></sup></font></p><h3 style="margin: 0.3em 0px 0px; padding-top: 0.5em; padding-bottom: 0px; overflow: hidden; line-height: 1.6; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span class="mw-headline" id="Julian_Assange">Julian Assange</span><span class="mw-editsection" style="user-select: none; font-weight: normal; margin-left: 1em; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1em; unicode-bidi: isolate;"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket" style="margin-right: 0.25em;">[</span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=2012%E2%80%932013_Stratfor_email_leak&action=edit§ion=2" title="Edit section: Julian Assange" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none; white-space: nowrap;">edit</a><span class="mw-editsection-bracket" style="margin-left: 0.25em;">]</span></span></font></h3><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julian_Assange" title="Julian Assange" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Julian Assange</a> was a frequent topic of discussion in emails from Stratfor staff in the period 2010-2012. Emails from Fred Burton (Stratfor’s Vice-President for Counterterrorism and Corporate Security, and former Deputy Chief of the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Department_of_State" title="United States Department of State" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Department of State</a>) indicated that he knew in January 2011 about a United States Government secret indictment against Assange.<sup id="cite_ref-rs280212_9-0" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012%E2%80%932013_Stratfor_email_leak#cite_note-rs280212-9" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[9]</a></sup></font></p><h3 style="margin: 0.3em 0px 0px; padding-top: 0.5em; padding-bottom: 0px; overflow: hidden; line-height: 1.6; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span class="mw-headline" id="Governmental">Governmental</span><span class="mw-editsection" style="user-select: none; font-weight: normal; margin-left: 1em; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1em; unicode-bidi: isolate;"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket" style="margin-right: 0.25em;">[</span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=2012%E2%80%932013_Stratfor_email_leak&action=edit§ion=3" title="Edit section: Governmental" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none; white-space: nowrap;">edit</a><span class="mw-editsection-bracket" style="margin-left: 0.25em;">]</span></span></font></h3><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">An email involving a Stratfor analyst stated that it had been determined that up to 12 officials in Pakistan's <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inter-Services_Intelligence" title="Inter-Services Intelligence" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Inter-Services Intelligence</a> (ISI) agency knew of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osama_bin-Laden" class="mw-redirect" title="Osama bin-Laden" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Osama bin-Laden</a>'s safe house.<sup id="cite_ref-10" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012%E2%80%932013_Stratfor_email_leak#cite_note-10" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[10]</a></sup></font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><i><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ynetnews" class="mw-redirect" title="Ynetnews" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Ynetnews</a></i> reported that, according to internal emails between Stratfor employees, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel" title="Israel" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Israel</a> and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russia" title="Russia" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Russia</a> were engaged in an exchange of information in 2008. Israel gave Russia "'data link codes' for unmanned aerial vehicles that the Jewish state sold to <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgia(country)" title="Georgia (country)" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Georgia</a>" and that Russia gave "the codes for <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tor-M1" class="mw-redirect" title="Tor-M1" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Tor-M1</a> missile defense systems that Russia sold Iran". The emails also stated that, during the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_South_Ossetia_war" class="mw-redirect" title="2008 South Ossetia war" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">2008 South Ossetia war</a>, Georgia "realized that their UAVs were compromised and were looking for a replacement for the Israeli made drones".<sup id="cite_ref-11" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012%E2%80%932013_Stratfor_email_leak#cite_note-11" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[11]</a></sup></font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><i><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Business_Times" title="International Business Times" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">International Business Times</a></i> reported that Stratfor had found that several <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Europe" title="Central Europe" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Central European</a> countries, especially the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Czech_Republic" title="Czech Republic" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Czech Republic</a>, have been petitioning <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NATO" title="NATO" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">NATO</a> for missile defenses and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Dynamics_F-16_Fighting_Falcon" title="General Dynamics F-16 Fighting Falcon" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">F-16s</a> to use against Russia. The Czech Republic, according to an unknown Stratfor source, has stated that, if the talks with the US fail, then it will be breaking all ties with NATO and the US in general.<sup id="cite_ref-12" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012%E2%80%932013_Stratfor_email_leak#cite_note-12" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[12]</a></sup></font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><i><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_Insider" title="Business Insider" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Business Insider</a></i> reported that Israeli Prime Minister <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benjamin_Netanyahu" title="Benjamin Netanyahu" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Benjamin Netanyahu</a> was an intelligence source for Stratfor between 2007 and 2010. In emails, Fred Burton discussed his personal communications with Netanyahu. Burton stated by email that Netanyahu informed him of his success in consolidating power within the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Likud_party" class="mw-redirect" title="Likud party" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Likud party</a> ahead of regaining the position of prime minister, shared thoughts regarding his distrust of US President <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barack_Obama" title="Barack Obama" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Barack Obama</a>, threatened assassination of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hezbollah" title="Hezbollah" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Hezbollah</a> leader <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hasan_Nasrallah" class="mw-redirect" title="Hasan Nasrallah" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Hasan Nasrallah</a>, and declared intentions to unilaterally start a war against <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran" title="Iran" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Iran</a>.<sup id="cite_ref-13" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012%E2%80%932013_Stratfor_email_leak#cite_note-13" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[13]</a></sup></font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><i><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Akhbar(Lebanon)" title="Al Akhbar (Lebanon)" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Al Akhbar</a></i>, citing internal emails from the Stratfor hack, reported former <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academi" title="Academi" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Blackwater</a> director James F. Smith had a relationship with Stratfor and was for a time considered one of their major sources.</font></p><h3 style="margin: 0.3em 0px 0px; padding-top: 0.5em; padding-bottom: 0px; overflow: hidden; line-height: 1.6; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span class="mw-headline" id="Companies">Companies</span><span class="mw-editsection" style="user-select: none; font-weight: normal; margin-left: 1em; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1em; unicode-bidi: isolate;"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket" style="margin-right: 0.25em;">[</span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=2012%E2%80%932013_Stratfor_email_leak&action=edit§ion=4" title="Edit section: Companies" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none; white-space: nowrap;">edit</a><span class="mw-editsection-bracket" style="margin-left: 0.25em;">]</span></span></font></h3><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">As reported by <i><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Times_of_India" title="The Times of India" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">The Times of India</a></i>, some of the emails reveal that Stratfor was allegedly hired by <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dow_Chemical_Company" title="Dow Chemical Company" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Dow Chemical Company</a> to spy on protesters of the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhopal_disaster" title="Bhopal disaster" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Bhopal disaster</a>.<sup id="cite_ref-India_5-1" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012%E2%80%932013_Stratfor_email_leak#cite_note-India-5" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[5]</a></sup> Dow Chemical Company responded with a written statement that read: "Major companies are often required to take appropriate action to protect their people and safeguard their facilities," and that it had not broken any laws.<sup id="cite_ref-AP1_6-2" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012%E2%80%932013_Stratfor_email_leak#cite_note-AP1-6" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[6]</a></sup></font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">The released emails indicated that the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coca-Cola_Company" class="mw-redirect" title="Coca-Cola Company" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Coca-Cola Company</a> paid Stratfor to determine "to what extent will US-based <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PETA" class="mw-redirect" title="PETA" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">PETA</a> supporters travel to Canada to support activism" at the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_Olympics" class="mw-redirect" title="2010 Olympics" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">2010 Olympics</a>.<sup id="cite_ref-nbc280212_14-0" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012%E2%80%932013_Stratfor_email_leak#cite_note-nbc280212-14" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[14]</a></sup> The Coca-Cola Company responded to the emails with a statement saying that they "consider it prudent to monitor for protest activities at any major event we sponsor".<sup id="cite_ref-MST_15-0" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012%E2%80%932013_Stratfor_email_leak#cite_note-MST-15" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[15]</a></sup></font></p><h2 style="margin: 1em 0px 0.25em; padding: 0px; overflow: hidden; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(162, 169, 177); font-weight: normal; line-height: 1.3; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span class="mw-headline" id="Responses">Responses</span><span class="mw-editsection" style="user-select: none; margin-left: 1em; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1em; unicode-bidi: isolate;"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket" style="margin-right: 0.25em;">[</span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=2012%E2%80%932013_Stratfor_email_leak&action=edit§ion=5" title="Edit section: Responses" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none; white-space: nowrap;">edit</a><span class="mw-editsection-bracket" style="margin-left: 0.25em;">]</span></span></font></h2><h3 style="margin: 0.3em 0px 0px; padding-top: 0.5em; padding-bottom: 0px; overflow: hidden; line-height: 1.6; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span class="mw-headline" id="Official_response">Official response</span><span class="mw-editsection" style="user-select: none; font-weight: normal; margin-left: 1em; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1em; unicode-bidi: isolate;"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket" style="margin-right: 0.25em;">[</span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=2012%E2%80%932013_Stratfor_email_leak&action=edit§ion=6" title="Edit section: Official response" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none; white-space: nowrap;">edit</a><span class="mw-editsection-bracket" style="margin-left: 0.25em;">]</span></span></font></h3><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Around midnight on February 27, Stratfor released a statement saying that "the release of its stolen emails was an attempt to silence and intimidate it." It also dismissed rumors of CEO George Friedman's resignation.<sup id="cite_ref-Reuters_7-2" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012%E2%80%932013_Stratfor_email_leak#cite_note-Reuters-7" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[7]</a></sup></font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Stratfor stated that some of the leaked emails "may be forged or altered to include inaccuracies; some may be authentic", but that they would not confirm either possibility. They further stated that the emails represented candid internal language that would probably be ripe for misinterpretation.<sup id="cite_ref-Reuters_7-3" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012%E2%80%932013_Stratfor_email_leak#cite_note-Reuters-7" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[7]</a></sup></font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">WikiLeaks founder <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julian_Assange" title="Julian Assange" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Julian Assange</a> told <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reuters" title="Reuters" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Reuters</a> that his concerns with Stratfor stem from it being a private intelligence firm relying on informants from government agencies with dubious reputations, both from the U.S. and abroad, and especially its monitoring of activist organizations.<sup id="cite_ref-Reuters_7-4" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012%E2%80%932013_Stratfor_email_leak#cite_note-Reuters-7" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[7]</a></sup> He also called the company a "shadow CIA" (a term originally coined by Barron's magazine in a 2001 article about the quality of Stratfor's analysis, not any actual association with the CIA<sup id="cite_ref-16" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012%E2%80%932013_Stratfor_email_leak#cite_note-16" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[16]</a></sup>) and stated that the emails would "reveal Stratfor's web of informers, payoff structure, payment-laundering techniques and psychological methods."<sup id="cite_ref-17" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012%E2%80%932013_Stratfor_email_leak#cite_note-17" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[17]</a></sup></font></p><h3 style="margin: 0.3em 0px 0px; padding-top: 0.5em; padding-bottom: 0px; overflow: hidden; line-height: 1.6; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span class="mw-headline" id="Other_responses">Other responses</span><span class="mw-editsection" style="user-select: none; font-weight: normal; margin-left: 1em; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1em; unicode-bidi: isolate;"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket" style="margin-right: 0.25em;">[</span></span></font></h3><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Former <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Security_Agency" title="National Security Agency" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">NSA</a> Director <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bobby_Inman" class="mw-redirect" title="Bobby Inman" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Bobby Inman</a> stated that the leak would be damaging to Stratfor's business. He had previously stated that Stratfor was competent, delivering high-quality intelligence analyses.<sup id="cite_ref-MST_15-1" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012%E2%80%932013_Stratfor_email_leak#cite_note-MST-15" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[15]</a></sup></font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Max Fisher, the associate director of <i><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Atlantic" title="The Atlantic" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">The Atlantic</a></i>, argued that Stratfor has a poor reputation "among foreign policy writers, analysts, and practitioners" and that as a result Anonymous and Wikileaks have exaggerated the significance of the information they released. He also suggested that Assange may have targeted a relatively unimportant firm and over-hyped the results in order to "regain some of his former glory".<sup id="cite_ref-18" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012%E2%80%932013_Stratfor_email_leak#cite_note-18" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[18]</a></sup> <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_Broadcasting_Corporation" title="Australian Broadcasting Corporation" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Australian Broadcasting Corporation</a> foreign correspondent and Stratfor subscriber Mark Corcoran also wrote that the e-mails showed Stratfor's methods used to gather information are similar to those employed by journalists, though he wrote that the quality of its reports are often inferior to news reports.<sup id="cite_ref-19" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012%E2%80%932013_Stratfor_email_leak#cite_note-19" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[19]</a></sup></font></p><h2 style="margin: 1em 0px 0.25em; padding: 0px; overflow: hidden; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(162, 169, 177); font-weight: normal; line-height: 1.3; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span class="mw-headline" id="References"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">References</font></span></h2><div><span class="mw-headline"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">...</font></span></div><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"></font></p></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"></font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">new dept of public safety [their state fbi? texas rangers?]</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); padding: 0px 6px 0px 0px;"><a href="https://www.google.com/url?rct=j&sa=t&url=https://texasmonitor.org/seven-years-in-dps-offers-no-data-on-whether-millions-spent-on-surveillance-software-is-helping-fight-crime/&ct=ga&cd=CAEYAioUMTM5MDA5OTY2MDQyODE0OTkyMzUyGmE0M2ZlOThjZmEyMjYwMWE6Y29tOmVuOlVT&usg=AFQjCNHW8Zn9pp-7vs4772X6gAbGQI9B5Q" target="blank" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.google.com/url?rct%3Dj%26sa%3Dt%26url%3Dhttps://texasmonitor.org/seven-years-in-dps-offers-no-data-on-whether-millions-spent-on-surveillance-software-is-helping-fight-crime/%26ct%3Dga%26cd%3DCAEYAioUMTM5MDA5OTY2MDQyODE0OTkyMzUyGmE0M2ZlOThjZmEyMjYwMWE6Y29tOmVuOlVT%26usg%3DAFQjCNHW8Zn9pp-7vs4772X6gAbGQI9B5Q&source=gmail&ust=1575336781673000&usg=AFQjCNFgZ-J8vo8rlGTSBxLgK2jFRSfT1Q" style="display: inline; text-decoration-line: none; line-height: 20px;">Seven years in, DPS offers no data on whether millions spent on surveillance software is helping ...</a></span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div style="padding: 2px 0px 8px;"><div style=""><a>The Texas Monitor</a></div><div style="padding: 2px 0px 0px; line-height: 18px;">TrapWire was marketed through <b>Stratfor</b> to the state by Fred Burton, who has been chief security officer for <b>Stratfor</b> since 2004 but spent a brief time in ...</div></div></div></span></font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">NEW</font></div><div><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">omg</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></p><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><a href="https://www.mintpressnews.com/the-making-of-juan-guaido-how-the-us-regime-change-laboratory-created-venezuela-coup-leader/254387/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">https://www.mintpressnews.com/the-making-of-juan-guaido-how-the-us-regime-change-laboratory-created-venezuela-coup-leader/254387/</a></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></div><div style=""><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 28px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 700;"><a href="https://grayzoneproject.com/2019/01/29/the-making-of-juan-guaido-how-the-us-regime-change-laboratory-created-venezuelas-coup-leader/amp/?_twitter_impression=true" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s;">Project</a> —<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> </span></span><span class="amp-wp-inline-f62a86b1328cd4134bec55ddf6de989a" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Before the fateful day of January 22, <a href="https://twitter.com/venanalysis/status/1087447663153500166" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s;">fewer than one in five</a> Venezuelans had heard of Juan Guaidó. Only a few months ago, the 35-year-old was an obscure character in a politically marginal far-right group closely associated with gruesome acts of street violence. Even in his own party, Guaidó had been a mid-level figure in the opposition-dominated National Assembly, which is now held under contempt according to Venezuela’s constitution.</span></font></p><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 28px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><span class="amp-wp-inline-f62a86b1328cd4134bec55ddf6de989a" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But after a single phone call from US Vice President Mike Pence, Guaidó proclaimed himself as president of Venezuela. Anointed as the leader of his country by Washington, a previously unknown political bottom dweller was vaulted onto the international stage as the US-selected leader of the nation with the world’s largest oil reserves.</font></span></p><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 28px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><span class="amp-wp-inline-f62a86b1328cd4134bec55ddf6de989a" style="box-sizing: border-box;">Echoing the Washington consensus, the New York Times editorial board </span><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/24/opinion/venezuela-guaido-maduro.html" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s;">hailed </a><span class="amp-wp-inline-f62a86b1328cd4134bec55ddf6de989a" style="box-sizing: border-box;">Guaidó as a “credible rival” to Maduro with a “refreshing style and vision of taking the country forward.” The Bloomberg News editorial board </span><a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-01-25/guaido-s-bold-stroke-for-democracy-in-venezuela" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s;">applauded</a><span class="amp-wp-inline-f62a86b1328cd4134bec55ddf6de989a" style="box-sizing: border-box;"> him for seeking “restoration of democracy” and the Wall Street Journal <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/revolt-in-venezuela-11548289111" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s;">declared</a> him</span><span class="amp-wp-inline-f62a86b1328cd4134bec55ddf6de989a" style="box-sizing: border-box;"> “a new democratic leader.” Meanwhile, Canada, numerous European nations, Israel, and the bloc of right-wing Latin American governments known as the Lima Group recognized Guaidó as the legitimate leader of Venezuela.</span></font></p><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 28px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><span class="amp-wp-inline-f62a86b1328cd4134bec55ddf6de989a" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><b>While Guaidó seemed to have materialized out of nowhere, he was, in fact, the product of more than a decade of assiduous grooming by the US government’s elite regime change factories. </b>Alongside a cadre of right-wing student activists, Guaidó was cultivated to undermine Venezuela’s socialist-oriented government, destabilize the country, and one day seize power. Though he has been a minor figure in Venezuelan politics, he had spent years quietly demonstrated his worthiness in Washington’s halls of power</span>.</font></span></p><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 28px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><span class="amp-wp-inline-f62a86b1328cd4134bec55ddf6de989a" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>“Juan Guaidó is a character that has been created for this circumstance,” </b>Marco Teruggi, an Argentinian sociologist and leading chronicler of Venezuelan politics, told the Grayzone. “It’s the logic of a laboratory – Guaidó is like a mixture of several elements that create a character who, in all honesty, oscillates between laughable and worrying.”</font></span></p><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 28px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><span class="amp-wp-inline-f62a86b1328cd4134bec55ddf6de989a" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Diego Sequera, a Venezuelan journalist and writer for the investigative outlet, Mision Verdad, agreed: “Guaidó is more popular outside Venezuela than inside, especially in the elite Ivy League and Washington circles,” Sequera remarked to the Grayzone, “He’s a known character there, is predictably right-wing, and is considered loyal to the program.”</font></span></p><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 28px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><span class="amp-wp-inline-f62a86b1328cd4134bec55ddf6de989a" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>While Guaidó is today sold as the face of democratic restoration, he spent his career in the most violent faction of Venezuela’s most radical opposition party, positioning himself at the forefront of one destabilization campaign after another. His party has been widely discredited inside Venezuela, and is held partly responsible for fragmenting a badly weakened opposition.</b></font></span></p><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 28px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span class="amp-wp-inline-f62a86b1328cd4134bec55ddf6de989a" style="box-sizing: border-box;">“‘These radical leaders have no more than 20 percent in opinion polls,” <a href="http://www.caraotadigital.net/nacionales/luis-vicente-leon-la-oposicion-politica-venezolana-vive-su-peor-momento-historico/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s;">wrote</a> </span><span class="amp-wp-inline-f62a86b1328cd4134bec55ddf6de989a" style="box-sizing: border-box;">Luis Vicente León, Venezuela’s leading pollster. According to Leon, Guaidó’s party remains isolated because the majority of the population “does not want war. ‘What they want is a solution.’”</span></font></p><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 28px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><span class="amp-wp-inline-f62a86b1328cd4134bec55ddf6de989a" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But this is precisely why he Guaidó was selected by Washington: he is not expected to lead Venezuela towards to democracy, but to collapse a country that for the past two decades has been a bulwark of resistance to US hegemony. His unlikely rise signals the culmination of a two-decades-long project to destroy a robust socialist experiment.</font></span></p><h2 style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.2; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="">Targeting the “troika of tyranny”</font></span></h2><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 28px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><span class="amp-wp-inline-f62a86b1328cd4134bec55ddf6de989a" style="box-sizing: border-box;">Since the 1998 election of Hugo Chavez, the United States has fought to restore control over Venezuela and is vast oil reserves. Chavez’s socialist programs may have redistributed the country’s wealth and helped lift millions out of poverty, but they also earned him a target on his back. In 2002, Venezuela’s right-wing opposition briefly ousted him with US support and recognition before the military restored his presidency following a mass popular mobilization. Throughout the administrations of US Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama, Chavez survived numerous assassination plots before succumbing to cancer in 2013. His successor, Nicolas Maduro, has </span><a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/27/maduro-assassination-plot-venezuela_n_3820765.html" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s;">survived</a> <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/2344973.stm" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s;">three attempts</a><span class="amp-wp-inline-f62a86b1328cd4134bec55ddf6de989a" style="box-sizing: border-box;"> on his life.</span></font></p><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 28px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><span class="amp-wp-inline-f62a86b1328cd4134bec55ddf6de989a" style="box-sizing: border-box;">The Trump administration immediately elevated Venezuela to the top of Washington’s regime change target list, branding it the leader of a </span><a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/remarks-national-security-advisor-ambassador-john-r-bolton-administrations-policies-latin-america/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s;">“troika of tyranny.”</a><span class="amp-wp-inline-f62a86b1328cd4134bec55ddf6de989a" style="box-sizing: border-box;">Last year, Trump’s national security team </span><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/08/world/americas/donald-trump-venezuela-military-coup.html" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s;">attempted</a><span class="amp-wp-inline-f62a86b1328cd4134bec55ddf6de989a" style="box-sizing: border-box;"> to recruit members of the military brass to mount a military junta, but that effort failed. According to the Venezuelan government, the US was also involved in a plot codenamed Operation Constitution to capture Maduro at the Miraflores presidential palace, and another called </span><a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-06-27/inside-the-failed-plot-to-overthrow-venezuelan-president-nicolas-maduro" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s;">Operation Armageddon</a><span class="amp-wp-inline-f62a86b1328cd4134bec55ddf6de989a" style="box-sizing: border-box;"> to assassinate him at a military parade in July 2017. Just over a year later, exiled opposition leaders </span><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J71BT0stT3k" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s;">tried and failed to kill Maduro</a><span class="amp-wp-inline-f62a86b1328cd4134bec55ddf6de989a" style="box-sizing: border-box;"> with drone bombs during a military parade in Caracas.</span></font></p><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 28px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><span class="amp-wp-inline-f62a86b1328cd4134bec55ddf6de989a" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">More than a decade before these intrigues, a group of right-wing opposition students were hand selected and groomed by an elite, US-funded regime change training academy to topple Venezuela’s government and restore the neoliberal order.</font></span></p><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 28px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> </font></p><h2 style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.2; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Training from the “‘export-a-revolution’ group that sowed the seeds for a NUMBER of color revolutions”</font></span></h2><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 28px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><span class="amp-wp-inline-f62a86b1328cd4134bec55ddf6de989a" style="box-sizing: border-box;">On October 5, 2005, with Chavez’s popularity at its peak and his government planning sweeping socialist programs, five Venezuelan “student leaders” </span><a href="https://worldview.stratfor.com/article/venezuela-marigold-revolution" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s;">arrived</a><span class="amp-wp-inline-f62a86b1328cd4134bec55ddf6de989a" style="box-sizing: border-box;"> in Belgrade, Serbia to begin training for an insurrection.</span></font></p><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 28px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span class="amp-wp-inline-f62a86b1328cd4134bec55ddf6de989a" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The students had arrived from Venezuela courtesy of the <b>Center for Applied Non-Violent Action and Strategies, or CANVAS</b></span><b>.</b> This group is </span><a href="http://www.wrongkindofgreen.org/2013/01/14/breaking-desperate-for-destabilization-in-venezuela-us-funded-otpor-rears-its-ugly-head/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s;">funded</a><span class="amp-wp-inline-f62a86b1328cd4134bec55ddf6de989a" style="box-sizing: border-box;"> largely through the <a href="https://grayzoneproject.com/2018/08/20/inside-americas-meddling-machine-the-us-funded-group-that-interferes-in-elections-around-the-globe/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s;">National Endowment for Democracy</a>, a CIA cut-out that functions as the US government’s main arm of promoting regime change; and offshoots like the International Republican Institute and the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs. <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">According to leaked internal </span></span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><a href="https://wikileaks.org/gifiles/docs/17/1792423_information-on-canvas-.html" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s;">emails</a><span class="amp-wp-inline-f62a86b1328cd4134bec55ddf6de989a" style="box-sizing: border-box;"> from<b> Stratfor, an intelligence firm known as the <a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2013/12/15/stratfor-canadian-government_n_4449505.html" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s;">“shadow CIA,”</a> </b>“[CANVAS] may have also received CIA funding and training during the 1999/2000 anti-Milosevic struggle.”</span></span></font></p><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 28px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span class="amp-wp-inline-f62a86b1328cd4134bec55ddf6de989a" style="box-sizing: border-box;">CANVAS is a spinoff of Otpor, a Serbian protest group founded by </span><a href="http://www.williamengdahl.com/englishNEO1Oct2017.php" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s;">Srdja Popovic</a><span class="amp-wp-inline-f62a86b1328cd4134bec55ddf6de989a" style="box-sizing: border-box;"> in 1998 at the University of Belgrade. Otpor, which means “resistance” in Serbian, was the student group that gained international fame – and Hollywood-level </span><a href="https://vimeo.com/143379353" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s;">promotion</a><span class="amp-wp-inline-f62a86b1328cd4134bec55ddf6de989a" style="box-sizing: border-box;"> – by mobilizing the protests that eventually toppled Slobodan Milosevic. This small cell of regime change specialists was operating according to the theories of the late Gene Sharp, the so-called “Clausewitz of non-violent struggle.” Sharp had worked with a former Defense Intelligence Agency analyst, Col. </span><a href="http://peacemagazine.org/archive/v24n1p12.htm" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s;">Robert Helvey</a><span class="amp-wp-inline-f62a86b1328cd4134bec55ddf6de989a" style="box-sizing: border-box;">, to conceive a strategic blueprint that weaponized protest as a form of hybrid warfare, aiming it at states that resisted Washington’s unipolar domination.</span></font></p><div id="attachment_254388" class="wp-caption aligncenter" source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" width="width" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; max-width: 100%; margin: 0px auto 24px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font><p class="wp-caption-text" style="margin: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">[pix: A fence covered with posters of Slobodan Milosevic behind bars, titled “When?” and “People’s Movement Otpor” in Belgrade, Serbia, March 30, 2001. Darko Vojinovic | AP]</font></p></div><figure id="attachment_1809" class="wp-caption alignnone amp-wp-inline-086b83d24e4412010a175ea3dba11ca3" source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 1em 40px 12px; max-width: 100%;"><figcaption class="wp-caption-text" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span class="amp-wp-inline-f62a86b1328cd4134bec55ddf6de989a" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Otpor was supported by the National Endowment for Democracy, USAID and Sharp’s Albert Einstein Institute</span>. Sinisa Sikman, one of Otpor’s main trainers, once </span><a href="https://wikileaks.org/gifiles/docs/17/1792423_information-on-canvas-.html" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s;">said</a><span class="amp-wp-inline-f62a86b1328cd4134bec55ddf6de989a" style="box-sizing: border-box;"> the group even received direct CIA funding. According to a </span><a href="https://wikileaks.org/gifiles/docs/17/1713359_re-insight-venezuela-canvas-analysis-.html" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s;">leaked email</a><span class="amp-wp-inline-f62a86b1328cd4134bec55ddf6de989a" style="box-sizing: border-box;"> from a<b> Stratfor</b> staffer, after running Milosevic out of power, “the kids who ran OTPOR grew up, got suits and designed CANVAS… or in other words a ;export-a-revolution’ group that sowed the seeds for a NUMBER of color revolutions. They are still hooked into U.S. funding and basically go around the world trying to topple dictators and autocratic governments (ones that U.S. does not like ;).”</span></font></figcaption></figure><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 28px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><span class="amp-wp-inline-f62a86b1328cd4134bec55ddf6de989a" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Stratfor revealed that CANVAS “turned its attention to Venezuela” in 2005 after training opposition movements that led pro-NATO regime change operations across Eastern Europe.</font></span></p><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="margin: 0px 0px 28px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><span class="amp-wp-inline-f62a86b1328cd4134bec55ddf6de989a" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><b style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">While monitoring the CANVAS training program,</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);"> Stratfor</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> outlined its insurrectionist agenda in strikingly blunt language:</span></b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">“Success is by no means guaranteed, and student movements are only at the beginning of what could be a years-long effort to trigger a revolution in Venezuela, but the trainers themselves are the people who cut their teeth on the ‘Butcher of the Balkans.’ They’ve got mad skills. When you see students at five Venezuelan universities hold simultaneous demonstrations, you will know that the training is over and the real work has begun.”</span></font></span></p><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 28px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> </font></p><h2 style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.2; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Birthing the “Generation 2007” regime change cadre</font></span></h2><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 28px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><span class="amp-wp-inline-f62a86b1328cd4134bec55ddf6de989a" style="box-sizing: border-box;">The “real work” began two years later, in 2007, when Guaidó graduated from Andrés Bello Catholic University of Caracas. He moved to Washington DC to enroll in the Governance and Political Management </span><a href="http://sri.ucab.edu.ve/sites/default/files/Convenio%20UCAB-%20CAF%20George%20Washington%20University.pdf" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s;">Program</a><span class="amp-wp-inline-f62a86b1328cd4134bec55ddf6de989a" style="box-sizing: border-box;"> at George Washington University under the tutelage of Venezuelan economist Luis Enrique <b>Berrizbeitia</b>, one of the top Latin American neoliberal economists. Berrizbeitia is a </span><a href="https://www.caf.com/media/3571/resumenexecutive.pdf" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s;">former executive director</a><span class="amp-wp-inline-f62a86b1328cd4134bec55ddf6de989a" style="box-sizing: border-box;"> of the International Monetary Fund who spent more than a decade working in Venezuelan energy sector under the oligarchic old regime that was ousted by Chavez.</span></font></p><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 28px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><span class="amp-wp-inline-f62a86b1328cd4134bec55ddf6de989a" style="box-sizing: border-box;">That year, Guaidó helped lead anti-government rallies after the Venezuelan government </span><a href="https://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/2424" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s;">declined to</a></span><span class="amp-wp-inline-f62a86b1328cd4134bec55ddf6de989a" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> to renew the license of Radio Caracas Televisión (RCTV). This privately-owned station played a leading role in the 2002 coup against Hugo Chavez.</span> RCTV helped mobilize anti-government demonstrators, falsified information blaming government supporters for acts of violence carried out by opposition members, and banned pro-government reporting amid the coup. <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The role of RCTV and other oligarch-owned stations in driving the failed coup attempt was chronicled in the acclaimed documentary, The Revolution Will Not Be Televised.</span></span></font></p><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 28px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><span class="amp-wp-inline-f62a86b1328cd4134bec55ddf6de989a" style="box-sizing: border-box;">That same year, the students claimed credit for stymying Chavez’s constitutional referendum for a “21st century socialism” that </span><a href="https://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/2890" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s;">promised</a></span><span class="amp-wp-inline-f62a86b1328cd4134bec55ddf6de989a" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> “to set the legal framework for the political and social reorganization of the country, giving direct power to organized communities as a prerequisite for the development of a new economic system.</span>”</span></font></p><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 28px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><span class="amp-wp-inline-f62a86b1328cd4134bec55ddf6de989a" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">From the protests around RCTV and the referendum, a specialized cadre of US-backed class of regime change activists was born. They called themselves “Generation 2007.”</font></span></p><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 28px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><span class="amp-wp-inline-f62a86b1328cd4134bec55ddf6de989a" style="box-sizing: border-box;">The <b>Stratfor</b> and CANVAS trainers of this cell identified Guaidó’s ally – a <b>street organizer named Yon Goicoechea – as a “key factor” in defeating the constitutional referendum. </b>The following year, Goicochea was </span><a href="https://www.cato.org/friedman-prize/yon-goicoechea" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s;">rewarded</a><span class="amp-wp-inline-f62a86b1328cd4134bec55ddf6de989a" style="box-sizing: border-box;"> for his efforts with the Cato Institute’s Milton Friedman Prize for Advancing Liberty, along with a $500,000 prize, which he promptly invested into building his own Liberty First (Primero Justicia) political network.</span></font></p><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 28px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><span class="amp-wp-inline-f62a86b1328cd4134bec55ddf6de989a" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">[milton prize px]</font></span></p><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 28px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">no lnx pix</font></p><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 28px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> Goicoechea receives the Milton Friedman Prize for Advancing Liberty at the Waldorf-Astoria in New York, May 15, 2008. Seth Wenig | AP</font></p><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 28px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Friedman, of course, was the godfather of the notorious neoliberal Chicago Boys who were imported into Chile by dictatorial junta leader Augusto Pinochet to implement policies of radical “shock doctrine”-style fiscal austerity. And the<b> Cato Institute is the libertarian Washington DC-based think tank founded by the Koch Brothers, two top Republican Party donors who have become aggressive supporters of the right-wing across Latin America.</b></font></p><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 28px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Wikileaks published a 2007 email from<b> American ambassador to Venezuela William Brownfield</b> sent to the State Department, National Security Council and Department of Defense Southern Command praising “Generation of ’07” for having “forced the Venezuelan president, accustomed to setting the political agenda, to (over)react.” Among the “emerging leaders” Brownfield identified were Freddy Guevara and Yon Goicoechea. He applauded the latter figure as “one of the students’ most articulate defenders of civil liberties.”</font></p><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 28px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Flush with cash from libertarian oligarchs and US government soft power outfits, the radical Venezuelan cadre took their Otpor tactics to the streets, along with a version of the group’s logo, as seen below:</font></p><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 28px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Otpor | Venezuela px]</font></p><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 28px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“Galvanizing public unrest…to take advantage of the situation and spin it against Chavez”</font></p><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 28px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In 2009, the Generation 2007 youth activists staged their most provocative demonstration yet, dropping their pants on public roads and aping the outrageous guerrilla theater tactics outlined by Gene Sharp in his regime change manuals. The protesters had mobilized against the arrest of an ally from another newfangled youth group called JAVU. This far-right group “gathered funds from a variety of US government sources, which allowed it to gain notoriety quickly as the hardline wing of opposition street movements,” according to academic George Ciccariello-Maher’s book, “Building the Commune.”</font></p><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 28px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">While video of the protest is not available, many Venezuelans have identified Guaidó as one of its key participants. While the allegation is unconfirmed, it is certainly plausible; the bare-buttocks protesters were members of the Generation 2007 inner core that Guaidó belonged to, and were clad in their trademark Resistencia! Venezuela t-shirts, as seen below:</font></p><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 28px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Juan Guaido | Protest</font></p><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 28px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Is this the ass that Trump wants to install in Venezuela’s seat of power?</font></p><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 28px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">That year, Guaidó exposed himself to the public in another way, founding a political party to capture the anti-Chavez energy his Generation 2007 had cultivated. Called Popular Will, it was led by<b> Leopoldo López, a Princeton-educated right-wing firebrand heavily involved in National Endowment for Democracy </b>programs and elected as the mayor of a district in Caracas that was one of the wealthiest in the country. Lopez was a portrait of Venezuelan aristocracy, directly descended from his country’s first president. He was also the<b> first cousin of Thor Halvorssen</b>, founder of the US-based Human Rights Foundation that functions as a de facto publicity shop for US-backed anti-government activists in countries targeted by Washington for regime change.</font></p><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 28px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Though Lopez’s interests aligned neatly with Washington’s, US diplomatic cables published by Wikileaks highlighted the fanatical tendencies that would ultimately lead to Popular Will’s marginalization. One cable identified Lopez as “a divisive figure within the opposition… often described as arrogant, vindictive, and power-hungry.” Others highlighted his obsession with street confrontations and his “uncompromising approach” as a source of tension with other opposition leaders who prioritized unity and participation in the country’s democratic institutions.</font></p><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 28px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Leopoldo Lopez | Wealth</font></p><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 28px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Popular Will founder Leopoldo Lopez cruising with his wife, Lilian Tintori.]</font></p><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 28px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">By 2010, Popular Will and its foreign backers moved to exploit the worst drought to hit Venezuela in decades. Massive electricity shortages had struck the country due the dearth of water, which was needed to power hydroelectric plants. A global economic recession and declining oil prices compounded the crisis, driving public discontentment.</font></p><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 28px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Stratfor</span> and CANVAS – key advisors of Guaidó and his anti-government cadre – devised a shockingly cynical plan to drive a dagger through the heart of the Bolivarian revolution. The scheme hinged on a 70% collapse of the country’s electrical system by as early as April 2010.</b></font></p><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 28px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">“This could be the watershed event, as there is little that Chavez can do to protect the poor from the failure of that system,” the Stratfor internal memo declared. “This would likely have the impact of galvanizing public unrest in a way that no opposition group could ever hope to generate. At that point in time, an opposition group would be best served to take advantage of the situation and spin it against Chavez and towards their needs.”</font></p><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 28px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">By this point, the Venezuelan opposition was receiving a staggering $40-50 million a year from US government organizations like USAID and the National Endowment for Democracy, according to a report by the Spanish think tank, the FRIDE Institute. It also had massive wealth to draw on from its own accounts, which were mostly outside the country.</font></p><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 28px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">While the scenario envisioned by Statfor did not come to fruition, the Popular Will party activists and their allies cast aside any pretense of non-violence and joined a radical plan to destabilize the country.</font></p><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 28px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Towards violent destabilization</font></p><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 28px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">In November, 2010, according to emails obtained by Venezuelan security services and presented by former Justice Minister Miguel Rodríguez Torres, Guaidó, Goicoechea, and several other student activists attended a secret five-day training at the Fiesta Mexicana hotel in Mexico City. The sessions were run by Otpor, the Belgrade-based regime change trainers backed by the US government. The meeting had reportedly received the blessing of<b> Otto Reich,</b> a fanatically anti-Castro Cuban exile working in George W. Bush’s Department of State, and the<b> right-wing former Colombian President Alvaro Uribe.</b></font></p><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 28px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">At the Fiesta Mexicana hotel, the emails stated, Guaidó and his fellow activists hatched a plan to overthrow President Hugo Chavez by generating chaos through protracted spasms of street violence.</font></p><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 28px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Three petroleum industry figureheads – Gustavo Torrar, Eligio Cedeño and Pedro Burelli – allegedly covered the $52,000 tab to hold the meeting. </b>Torrar is a self-described “human rights activist” and “intellectual” whose younger brother Reynaldo Tovar Arroyo is the representative in Venezuela of the private Mexican oil and gas company Petroquimica del Golfo, which holds a contract with the Venezuelan state.</font></p><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 28px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Cedeño, for his part, is a fugitive Venezuelan businessman who claimed asylum in the United States, and <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Pedro Burelli a former JP Morgan executive and the former director of Venezuela’s national oil company, Petroleum of Venezuela (PDVSA). He left PDVSA in 1998 as Hugo Chavez took power and is on the advisory committee of Georgetown University’s Latin America Leadership Program.</span></font></p><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 28px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Burelli insisted that the emails detailing his participation had been fabricated and even hired a private investigator to prove it. The investigator declared that Google’s records showed the emails alleged to be his were never transmitted.</font></p><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 28px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Yet today Burelli makes no secret of his desire to see Venezuela’s current president, Nicolás Maduro, deposed – and even dragged through the streets and sodomized with a bayonet, as Libyan leader Moammar Qaddafi was by NATO-backed militiamen. </font></p><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 28px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">View image on TwitterView image on Twitter</font></p><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 28px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Pedro Mario Burelli</font></p><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 28px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">@pburelli</font></p><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 28px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> .@NicolasMaduro, jamas me has hecho caso. Me has fustigado/perseguido como @chavezcandanga jamás osó. Óyeme, tienes sólo dos opciones en las próximas 24 horas:</font></p><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 28px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">1. Como <b>Noriega: </b>pagar pena por narcotráfico y luego a @IntlCrimCourt La Haya por DDHH.</font></p><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 28px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">2. O a la <b>Gaddafi.</b></font></p><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 28px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Escoge ya!</font></p><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 28px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">1,051</font></p><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 28px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">10:09 PM - Jan 16, 2019</font></p><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 28px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">1,252 people are talking about this</font></p><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 28px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The alleged Fiesta Mexicana plot flowed into another destabilization plan revealed in a series of documents produced by the Venezuelan government. In May 2014, Caracas released documents detailing an assassination plot against President Nicolás Maduro. The leaks identified the <b>Miami-based Maria Corina Machado as a leader of the scheme</b>. A hardliner with a penchant for extreme rhetoric, Machado has functioned as an international liaison for the opposition, visiting President George W. Bush in 2005.</font></p><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 28px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">maria corina machado | george bush</font></p><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 28px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Machado and George W. Bush, 2005.]</font></p><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 28px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">“I think it is time to gather efforts; make the necessary calls, and obtain financing to annihilate Maduro and the rest will fall apart,” Machado wrote in an email to former Venezuelan diplomat Diego Arria in 2014.</font></p><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 28px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>In another email, Machado claimed that the violent plot had the blessing of US Ambassador to Colombia, Kevin Whitaker.</b> “I have already made up my mind and this fight will continue until this regime is overthrown and we deliver to our friends in the world. If I went to San Cristobal and exposed myself before the OAS, I fear nothing. Kevin Whitaker has already reconfirmed his support and he pointed out the new steps. We have a checkbook stronger than the regime’s to break the international security ring.”</font></p><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 28px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Guaidó heads to the barricades</font></p><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 28px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">That February, student demonstrators acting as shock troops for the exiled oligarchy erected violent barricades across the country, turning opposition-controlled quarters into violent fortresses known as guarimbas. While international media portrayed the upheaval as a spontaneous protest against Maduro’s iron-fisted rule, there was ample evidence that Popular Will was orchestrating the show.</font></p><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 28px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">“None of the protesters at the universities wore their university t-shirts, they all wore Popular Will or Justice First t-shirts,” a guarimba participant said at the time. “They might have been student groups, but the student councils are affiliated to the political opposition parties and they are accountable to them.”</font></p><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 28px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Asked who the ringleaders were, the guarimba participant said, “Well if I am totally honest, those guys are legislators now.”</font></p><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 28px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Around 43 were killed during the 2014 guarimbas. Three years later, they erupted again, causing mass destruction of public infrastructure, the murder of government supporters, and the deaths of 126 people, many of whom were Chavistas. In several cases, supporters of the government were burned alive by armed gangs.</font></p><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 28px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Guaidó was directly involved in the 2014 guarimbas. In fact, he tweeted video showing himself clad in a helmet and gas mask, surrounded by masked and armed elements that had shut down a highway that were engaging in a violent clash with the police. Alluding to his participation in Generation 2007, he proclaimed, “I remember in 2007, we proclaimed, ‘Students!’ Now, we shout, ‘Resistance! Resistance!’” </font></p><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 28px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Guaidó has deleted the tweet, demonstrating apparent concern for his image as a champion of democracy.</font></p><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 28px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">On February 12, 2014, during the height of that year’s guarimbas, Guaidó joined Lopez on stage at a rally of Popular Will and Justice First. During a lengthy diatribe against the government, <b>Lopez urged the crowd to march to the office of Attorney General Luisa Ortega Diaz. Soon after, Diaz’s office came under attack by armed gangs who attempted to burn it to the ground. She denounced what she called “planned and premeditated violence.</b>”</font></p><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 28px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Leopoldo Lopez | Juan Guaido</font></p><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 28px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Guaido alongside Lopez at the fateful February 12, 2014 rally. Photo | PanAm Post]</font></p><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 28px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In a televised appearance in 2016, Guaidó dismissed deaths resulting from guayas – a guarimba tactic involving stretching steel wire across a roadway in order to injure or kill motorcyclists – as a “myth.” His comments whitewashed a deadly tactic that had killed unarmed civilians like Santiago Pedroza and decapitated a man named Elvis Durán, among many others.</font></p><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 28px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">This callous disregard for human life would define his Popular Will party in the eyes of much of the public, including many opponents of Maduro.</font></p><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 28px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Cracking down on Popular Will </b></font></p><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 28px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">As violence and political polarization escalated across the country, the government began to act against the Popular Will leaders who helped stoke it.</font></p><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 28px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Freddy Guevara, the National Assembly Vice-President and second in command of Popular Will, was a principal leader in the 2017 street riots. Facing a trial for his role in the violence, Guevara took shelter in the Chilean embassy, where he remains.</font></p><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 28px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Lester Toledo, a Popular Will legislator from the state of Zulia, was wanted by Venezuelan government in September 2016 on charges of financing terrorism and plotting assassinations. The plans were said to be made with former Colombian President Álavaro Uribe. Toledo escaped Venezuela and went on several speaking tours with<b>Human Rights Watch, the US government-backed Freedom House, </b>the Spanish Congress and European Parliament.</font></p><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 28px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Carlos Graffe, another Otpor-trained Generation 2007 member who led Popular Will, was arrested in July 2017. According to police, he was in possession of a bag filled with nails, C4 explosives and a detonator. He was released on December 27, 2017.</font></p><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 28px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Leopoldo Lopez, the longtime Popular Will leader, is today under house arrest, accused of a key role in deaths of 13 people during the guarimbas in 2014. <b>Amnesty International lauded Lopez as a “prisoner of conscience”</b> and slammed his transfer from prison to house as “not good enough.” Meanwhile, family members of guarimba victims introduced a petition for more charges against Lopez.</font></p><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 28px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Yon Goicoechea, the Koch Brothers posterboy and US-backed founder of Justice First, was arrested in 2016 by security forces who claimed they found a kilo of explosives in his vehicle. In a New York Times op-ed, Goicoechea protested the charges as “trumped-up” and claimed he had been imprisoned simply for his “dream of a democratic society, free of Communism.” He was freed in November 2017.</font></p><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 28px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">View image on Twitter</font></p><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 28px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">@YonGoicoechea</font></p><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 28px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> Hoy, en Caricuao. Llevo 15 años trabajando con @jguaido. Confío en él. Conozco la constancia y la inteligencia con la que se ha construido a sí mismo. Está haciendo las cosas con bondad, pero sin ingenuidad. Hay una posibilidad abierta hacia la libertad</font></p><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 28px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">5:10 PM - Jan 19, 2019</font></p><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 28px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">136 people are talking about this</font></p><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 28px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">David Smolansky, also a member of the original Otpor-trained Generation 2007, became Venezuela’s youngest-ever mayor when he was elected in 2013 in the affluent suburb of El Hatillo. But he was stripped of his position and sentenced to 15 months in prison by the Supreme Court after it found him culpable of stirring the violent guarimbas. </font></p><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 28px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Facing arrest, Smolansky shaved his beard, donned sunglasses and slipped into Brazil disguised as a priest with a bible in hand and rosary around his neck. He now lives in Washington, DC, where he was handpicked by<b> Secretary of the Organization of American States Luis Almagro</b> to lead the working group on the Venezuelan migrant and refugee crisis.</font></p><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 28px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">This July 26, Smolansky held what he called a “<b>cordial reunion” with Elliot Abrams, </b>the convicted Iran-Contra felon installed by Trump as special US envoy to Venezuela. Abrams is notorious for overseeing the US covert policy of arming right-wing death squads during the 1980’s in Nicaragua, El Salvador, and Guatemala. His lead role in the Venezuelan coup has stoked fears that another blood-drenched proxy war might be on the way.</font></p><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 28px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">David Smolansky</font></p><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 28px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">@dsmolansky</font></p><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 28px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> Cordial reunión en la ONU con Elliott Abrams, enviado especial del gobierno de EEUU para Venezuela. Reiteramos que la prioridad para el gobierno interino que preside @jguaido es la asistencia humanitaria para millones de venezolanos que sufren de la falta de comida y medicinas.</font></p><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 28px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">10:46 AM - Jan 26, 2019</font></p><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 28px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">2,619 people are talking about this</font></p><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 28px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Four days earlier, Machado rumbled another violent threat against Maduro, declaring that if he “wants to save his life, he should understand that his time is up.”</font></p><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 28px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A pawn in their game</font></p><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 28px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The collapse of Popular Will under the weight of the violent campaign of destabilization it ran alienated large sectors of the public and wound much of its leadership up in exile or in custody. Guaidó had remained a relatively minor figure, having spent most of his nine-year career in the National Assembly as an alternate deputy. Hailing from one of Venezuela’s least populous states, Guaidó came in second place during the 2015 parliamentary elections,<b> winning just 26% of votes cast in order to secure his place in the National Assembly. Indeed, his bottom may have been better known than his face.</b></font></p><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 28px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><b>Guaidó is known as the president of the opposition-dominated National Assembly, but he was never elected to the position.</b> The four opposition parties that comprised the Assembly’s Democratic Unity Table had decided to establish a rotating presidency. Popular Will’s turn was on the way, but its founder, Lopez, was under house arrest. Meanwhile, his second-in-charge, Guevara, had taken refuge in the Chilean embassy. A figure named Juan Andrés Mejía would have been next in line but reasons that are only now clear, Juan Guaido was selected. </font></p><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 28px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">“There is a class reasoning that explains Guaidó’s rise,” Sequera, the Venezuelan analyst, observed. “Mejía is high class, studied at one of the most expensive private universities in Venezuela, and could not be easily marketed to the public the way Guaidó could. For one, Guaidó has common mestizo features like most Venezuelans do, and seems like more like a man of the people. Also, he had not been overexposed in the media, so he could be built up into pretty much anything.”</font></p><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 28px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><b>In December 2018, Guaidó sneaked across the border and junketed to Washington, Colombia and Brazil to coordinate the plan to hold mass demonstrations during the inauguration of President Maduro. The night before Maduro’s swearing-in ceremony, both Vice President Mike Pence and Canadian Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland called Guaidó to affirm their suppor</b>t.</font></p><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 28px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">A week later, Sen. Marco Rubio, Sen. Rick Scott and Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart – all lawmakers from the Florida base of the right-wing Cuban exile lobby – joined President Trump and Vice President Pence at the White House. At their request, Trump agreed that if Guaidó declared himself president, he would back him.</b></font></p><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 28px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Secretary of State Mike Pompeo met personally with Guaidó on January 10,</b> according to the Wall Street Journal. However, Pompeo could not pronounce Guaidó’s name when he mentioned him in a press briefing on January 25, referring to him as “Juan Guido.”</font></p><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 28px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> Embedded video</font></p><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 28px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Dan Cohen</font></p><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 28px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">@dancohen3000</font></p><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 28px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> Secretary of State Mike Pompeo just called the figure Washington is attempting to install as Venezuelan President "Juan Guido" - as in the racist term for Italians. America's top diplomat didn't even bother to learn how to pronounce his puppet's name.</font></p><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 28px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">1:58 PM - Jan 25, 2019</font></p><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 28px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">By January 11, Guaidó’s <b>Wikipedia page had been edited 37 times, highlighting the struggle to shape the image of a previously anonymous figure </b>who was now a tableau for Washington’s regime change ambitions. In the end, editorial oversight of his page was handed over to Wikipedia’s elite council of “librarians,” who pronounced him the “contested” president of Venezuela.</font></p><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 28px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><b>Guaidó might have been an obscure figure, but his combination of radicalism and opportunism satisfied Washington’s needs. “That internal piece was missing,” a Trump administration said of Guaidó. “He was the piece we needed for our strategy to be coherent and complete.”</b></font></p><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 28px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">“For the first time,” Brownfield, the former American ambassador to Venezuela, gushed to the New York Times, “you have an opposition leader who is clearly signaling to the armed forces and to law enforcement that he wants to keep them on the side of the angels and with the good guys.”</font></p><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 28px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">But Guaidó’s Popular Will party formed the shock troops of the guarimbas that caused the deaths of police officers and common citizens alike. He had even boasted of his own participation in street riots. And now, to win the hearts and minds of the military and police, Guaido had to erase this blood-soaked history.</font></p><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 28px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">On January 21, a day before the coup began in earnest, Guaidó’s wife delivered a video address calling on the military to rise up against Maduro. Her performance was wooden and uninspiring, underscoring the her husband’s limited political prospects.</font></p><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 28px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>At a press conference before supporters four days later, Guaidó announced his solution to the crisis: “Authorize a humanitarian intervention!”</b></font></p><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 28px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">While he waits on direct assistance, Guaidó remains what he has always been – a pet project of cynical outside forces. “It doesn’t matter if he crashes and burns after all these misadventures,” Sequera said of the coup figurehead. “To the Americans, he is expendable.”</font></p><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 28px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Top Photo | Venezuela’s self-declared interim leader Juan Guaido, center, greets supporters after a rally at a public plaza in Las Mercedes neighborhood of Caracas, Venezuela, Jan. 26, 2019. Fernando Llano | AP]</font></p><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 28px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Dan Cohen is a journalist and filmmaker. He has produced widely distributed video reports and print dispatches from across Israel-Palestine. Dan is a correspondent at RT America and tweets at @DanCohen3000.</font></p><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 28px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Max Blumenthal is the founder and editor of GrayzoneProject.com,</b> the co-host of the podcast Moderate Rebels, the author of several books and producer of full-length documentaries including the recently released Killing Gaza. Follow him on Twitter at @MaxBlumenthal.</font></p><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 28px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span class="amp-wp-inline-f62a86b1328cd4134bec55ddf6de989a" style="box-sizing: border-box;" /></font></p><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 28px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Source | GrayZone Project</font></p></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"></font></div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">2nd reformation in which nation states are less important than corp players?!</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">austin biz fluff</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“I guess the only dream was to survive,” he added.</font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></div><div>
</div><div>George Friedman, co-founder and chairman of Geopolitical Futures, has lots of international news sites bookmarked on his computer. His other passion is science fiction, and he has a lot of chat groups bookmarked that he visits regularly.</div><div>Enlarge</div><div>George Friedman, co-founder and chairman of Geopolitical Futures, has lots of… more</div><div>
</div><div>ARNOLD WELLS / ABJ</div><div>
</div><div>The young refugee from Hungary was well-versed in war, politics and the fragility of life by the time his family arrived in New York City.</div><div>
</div><div>Even when he was 16 — making his first dollar carrying books at the historic New York Public Library on 42nd Street — his aspirations were stunted. That is, until the head librarian told a young Friedman that anyone — even those without money — could go to college.</div><div>
</div><div>It was a pivotal conversation that led to a decades-long career as a respected entrepreneur and political scientist. Friedman announced this month that he has put his first Austin business, Stratfor, behind him to start a company called Geopolitical Futures. For almost 20 years Stratfor, incorporated as Strategic Forecasting Inc., has built a reputation for serving business and political clients with intel from abroad.</div><div>
</div><div>His new business won’t do consulting. Instead it will cater to the masses with digital newsletters about geopolitical events. About 10 people are behind him but he still seeks a general manager and chief operating officer.</div><div>
</div><div>Leaving your baby, Stratfor, after 20 years —was that difficult? It’s like seeing your kid go off to school. It’s starting its life on its own and doing well. Now it’s my time to do what I couldn’t do there.</div><div>
</div><div>Who was the first person you hired when it came time to start Geopolitical Futures? My wife Meredith. Or maybe she hired me. We founded Stratfor together, and we’ve founded this one together.</div><div>
</div><div>Any advice for others going into business with their spouse? Make sure you love each other and you both love what you’re doing. You each have to be doing something you love because at some point you’ll have tough times, and you won’t get through them if you’re only doing this for money.</div><div>
</div><div>In terms of peace and goodwill and stability, do you think the world is better today than it was 20 years ago? Twenty years ago we were living in a fantasy land. The Soviet Union was collapsed, and the fantasy was that the only thing that mattered was economics. That was until 2008, when Russians invaded Georgia and Lehman Brothers collapsed. Things changed, but they changed back to the normal. If you think of the Cold War, this time we’re in is not abnormal.</div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">bs</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Reva Bhalla </font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></div><div>STRATFOR's Vice President of Strategic Intelligence. Speaker on Middle East.</div><div>
</div><div>Reva Bhalla is STRATFOR's Vice President of Strategic Intelligence. Ms. Bhalla joined STRATFOR in 2004 and developed her expertise in the Middle East, South Asian and Latin American affairs. As a senior global analyst, Ms. Bhalla plays an integral role in applying a forward-looking, strategic lens to STRATFOR's coverage of global events.</div><div>
</div><div>Ms. Bhalla has been featured in and cited by numerous newspapers and broadcasts, including Bloomberg, CNN, The Associated Press, National Public Radio, Time Magazine, Al Jazeera, FOX News, Haaretz, The New York Times, RT, The Hindustan Times, Agencia Estado, Xinhua, Veja and Business Week. She also regularly represents STRATFOR at political and security conferences in the United States and abroad.</div><div>
</div><div>Ms. Bhalla has a bachelor's degree in political science from the University of Texas asnd a master's degree from the Security Studies program of the Shcool of Foreign Service at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C.</div><div>
</div><div>rebranded: Ms. Goujon joined Stratfor in 2004 and has been featured in numerous newspapers and broadcasts, including Bloomberg, National Public Radio, CNN, The Associated Press, National Public Radio, Time Magazine, Al Jazeera English, Fox News, Haaretz, The New York Times, The Hindustan Times, Agencia Estado, Xinhua, Veja and Business Week.</div><div>
</div><div></div><div>LI scrape</div><div>
</div><div><div>Lauren Goodrich</div><div>Stratfor, Senior Eurasia Analyst</div><div>
</div><div>Adriano Bosoni</div><div>Geopolitical Analyst</div><div>
</div><div>Emily Hawthorne</div><div>Middle East Analyst</div><div>
</div><div>George Friedman</div><div>Founder and Chairman at Geopolitical Futures</div><div>
</div><div>Mark Schroeder</div><div>Vice President, Enterprise Solutions for Stratfor</div><div>
</div><div>Allison Fedirka</div><div>Senior Analyst at Geopolitical Futures</div><div>
</div><div>John David Minnich</div><div>Doctoral Student in Political Science</div><div>
</div><div>Krystyna Speer</div><div>Director Of Operations at Central Intelligence Agency</div><div>
</div><div>Bob Dougherty</div><div>Retired CIA Operations Officer - Intelligence-based Strategic Consulting</div><div>
</div><div>Ilka Rodriguez-Diaz</div><div>Deputy Chief for Talent Acquisition, Central Intelligence Agency</div></div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">https://wikileaks.org/the-gifiles.hXXXtml</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 0.72em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Today, Monday 27 February, WikiLeaks began publishing The Global Intelligence Files – more than five million emails from the Texas-headquartered "global intelligence" company Stratfor. The emails date from between July 2004 and late December 2011. </span><b style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">They reveal the inner workings of a company that fronts as an intelligence publisher, but provides confidential intelligence services to large corporations, such as Bhopal’s Dow Chemical Co., Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Raytheon and government agencies, including the US Department of Homeland Security, the US Marines and the US Defense Intelligence Agency. The emails show </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Stratfor’s web of informers, pay-off structure, payment-laundering techniques and psychological methods, for example:</span></b></font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 0.72em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">"[Y]ou have to take control of him. Control means financial, sexual or psychological control... This is intended to start our conversation on your next phase" – CEO George Friedman to Stratfor analyst Reva Bhalla on 6 December 2011, on how to exploit an Israeli intelligence informant providing information on the medical condition of the President of Venezuala, Hugo Chavez. </font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 0.72em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The material contains privileged information about the US government’s attacks against Julian Assange and WikiLeaks and Stratfor’s own attempts to subvert WikiLeaks.</b> <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">There are more than 4,000 emails mentioning WikiLeaks or Julian Assange. </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The emails also expose the revolving door that operates in private intelligence companies in the United States. Government and diplomatic sources from around the world give Stratfor advance knowledge of global politics and events in exchange for money. The Global Intelligence Files exposes how Stratfor has recruited a global network of informants who are paid via Swiss banks accounts and pre-paid credit cards. Stratfor has a mix of covert and overt informants, which includes government employees, embassy staff and journalists around the world.</span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 0.72em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The material shows how a private intelligence agency works, and how they target individuals for their corporate and government clients. For example, Stratfor monitored and analysed the online activities of <b>Bhopal activists, including the "Yes Men", for the US chemical giant Dow Chemical</b>. The activists seek redress for the 1984 Dow Chemical/Union Carbide gas disaster in Bhopal, India. The disaster led to thousands of deaths, injuries in more than half a million people, and lasting environmental damage.[x]</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 0.72em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Stratfor has realised that its routine use of secret cash bribes to get information from insiders is risky. In August 2011, Stratfor CEO George Friedman confidentially told his employees: "We are retaining a law firm to create a policy for Stratfor on the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. I don’t plan to do the perp walk and I don’t want anyone here doing it either."</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 0.72em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Stratfor’s use of insiders for intelligence soon turned into a money-making scheme of questionable legality. The emails show that in 2009 then-Goldman Sachs Managing Director Shea Morenz and Stratfor CEO George Friedman hatched an idea to "utilise the intelligence" it was pulling in from its insider network to start up a captive strategic investment fund. CEO George Friedman explained in a confidential August 2011 document, marked DO NOT SHARE OR DISCUSS: "What <b>StratCap </b></span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">will do is use our Stratfor’s intelligence and analysis to trade in a range of geopolitical instruments, particularly government bonds, currencies and the like". The emails show that in 2011 Goldman Sach’s Morenz invested "substantially" more than $4 million and joined Stratfor’s board of directors. Throughout 2011, a complex offshore share structure extending as far as South Africa was erected, designed to make StratCap appear to be legally independent. But, confidentially, Friedman told StratFor staff: "Do not think of StratCap as an outside organisation. It will be integral... It will be useful to you if, for the sake of convenience, you think of it as another aspect of Stratfor and Shea as another executive in Stratfor... we are already working on mock portfolios and trades". StratCap is due to launch in 2012. </span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 0.72em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The Stratfor emails reveal a company that cultivates close ties with US government agencies and employs former US government staff. It is preparing the 3-year Forecast for the Commandant of the US Marine Corps, and it trains US marines and "other government intelligence agencies" in "becoming government Stratfors</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">". Stratfor’s Vice-President for Intelligence, Fred Burton, was formerly a special agent with the US State Department’s Diplomatic Security Service and was their Deputy Chief of the counterterrorism division. Despite the governmental ties, Stratfor and similar companies operate in complete secrecy with no political oversight or accountability. Stratfor claims that it operates "<b>without ideology, agenda or national bias", yet the emails reveal private intelligence staff who align themselves closely with US government policies and channel tips to the Mossad </b>– including through an information mule in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, Yossi Melman, who conspired with Guardian journalist David Leigh to secretly, and in violation of WikiLeaks’ contract with the Guardian, <b>move WikiLeaks US diplomatic cables to Israel. </b></span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 0.72em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Ironically, considering the present circumstances, Stratfor was trying to get into what it called the leak-focused "gravy train" that sprung up after WikiLeaks’ Afghanistan disclosures: </font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 0.72em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"[Is it] possible for us to get some of that ’leak-focused’ gravy train? This is an obvious fear sale, so that’s a good thing. And we have something to offer that the IT security companies don’t, mainly our focus on counter-intelligence and surveillance that Fred and Stick know better than anyone on the planet... Could we develop some ideas and procedures on the idea of ´leak-focused’ network security that focuses on preventing one’s own employees from leaking sensitive information... In fact, I’m not so sure this is an IT problem that requires an IT solution."</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 0.72em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Like WikiLeaks’ diplomatic cables, much of the significance of the emails will be revealed over the coming weeks, as our coalition and the public search through them and discover connections. Readers will find that whereas large numbers of Stratfor’s subscribers and clients work in the US military and intelligence agencies,</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);"> <b style="">Stratfor gave a complimentary membership to the controversial Pakistan general Hamid Gul, former head of Pakistan’s ISI intelligence service,</b> who, according to US diplomatic cables, planned an IED attack on international forces in Afghanistan in 2006.</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> Readers will discover Stratfor’s internal email classification system that codes correspondence according to categories such as ’alpha’, ’tactical’ and ’secure’. The correspondence also contains code names for people of particular interest such as ’Hizzies’ (members of Hezbollah), or ’Adogg’ (Mahmoud Ahmedinejad).</span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 0.72em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Stratfor did secret deals with dozens of media organisations and journalists – from <b>Reuters</b> to the Kiev Post.</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The list of Stratfor’s "Confederation Partners", whom Stratfor internally referred to as its "Confed Fuck House" are included in the release. While it is acceptable for journalists to swap information or be paid by other media organisations, because Stratfor is a private intelligence organisation that services governments and private clients these relationships are corrupt or corrupting.</span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 0.72em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">WikiLeaks has also obtained Stratfor’s list of informants and, in many cases, records of its payoffs, including <b>$1,200 a month paid to the informant "Geronimo"</b> , handled by Stratfor’s Former State Department agent Fred Burton. </font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 0.72em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">WikiLeaks has built an investigative partnership with more than 25 media organisations and activists to inform the public about this huge body of documents. The organisations were provided access to a sophisticated investigative database developed by WikiLeaks and together with WikiLeaks are conducting journalistic evaluations of these emails. Important revelations discovered using this system will appear in the media in the coming weeks, together with the gradual release of the source documents.</font></p></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="http://heavy.com/news/2013/09/wikileaks-stratfor-informants-occupy-wall-street-spying/">http://heavy.com/news/2013/09/wikileaks-stratfor-informants-occupy-wall-street-spying/</a></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">doc from informant]</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" /><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Wallstreet Movements Across the Country</font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></div><div>
</div><div>By Matthew Guariglia Sep 12, 2013 at 3:53pm</div><div>
</div><div>
</div><div>Transparency advocates Wikileaks have been leaking over 5 million internal emails from the private “global intelligence” agency Stratfor. According to Wikileaks, the emails demonstrate Stratfor’s, “web of informers, pay-off structure, payment laundering techniques and psychological methods.” A new batch arrived today.</div><div>
</div><div>
</div><div>The emails, ranging from July 2004 to December 2011, chronicle the concern the intelligence company had over the Occupy Wall Street movement which began at cities across the country in September 2011. The emails also demonstrate the company’s infiltration of the movement and hint at a large network of informants.</div><div>
</div><div> </div><div>Read More From Heavy</div><div>
</div><div>Wikileaks Release Emails From Intelligence Contractor Stratfor</div><div>The emails below show messages to and from people with Stratfor.com email addresses. Below, an email from an informant gives the global intelligence company a “heads-up” about Occupy demonstrations in San Francisco.</div><div>
</div><div>Startfor Emails wikileaks</div><div>
</div><div>Below: Stratfor employees compare environmental activists associated with Occupy Austin with Nazis. Later they discuss their “contacts” within the Occupy Austin movement and their evaluation of a militant environmentalist group that is having caused a rift within the movement. Read the whole email thread over at Wikileaks.</div><div>
</div><div><a href="https://search.wikileaks.org/gifiles/?viewemailid=5203461">https://search.wikileaks.org/gifiles/?viewemailid=5203461</a></div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><div class="meta after-title" style="clear: both; font-style: italic; margin-bottom: 0px;"><span class="submitted" style="font-style: normal;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> Data Team - Tue, 2012-03-20 21:35- <a href="http://english.al-akhbar.com/blog/strat4dummies" class="blog-title" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Strat4Dummies</a></font></span></div><div class="content" style=""><div class="content-wrap clearfix" style="zoom: 1; display: inline; float: left; margin-left: 10px; margin-right: 10px; line-height: 1.5; width: 940px;"><p style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The “GI Files” paint a decidedly unflattering portrait of Stratfor Vice-President for Intelligence Fred Burton, a man considered one of the US’ top counter-terrorism experts.</font></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Not only is he short-tempered, a “tyrant” according to Director of Analysis Reva Bhalla (<a href="http://english.al-akhbar.com/gi-files/59630peter-please-read" style="text-decoration-line: none;">doc-id 59630</a>), and "paranoid" (his own words), he also employs unabashedly racist language, regularly referring to Arabs as “towel heads” (<a href="http://english.al-akhbar.com/gi-files/224103private-meetingluncheon-governor-saudi-general-investment-authority" style="text-decoration-line: none;">doc-id 224103</a>), “camel jockies” or “sleezy arsehole ragheads” (<a href="http://english.al-akhbar.com/gi-files/1227888humint-mossad-covert-assistance-saudi-intelligence-0" style="text-decoration-line: none;">doc-id 1227888</a>), and Pakistanis as “Pakis” (<a href="http://english.al-akhbar.com/gi-files/5280688fwd-re-pls-fwd-fred-0" style="text-decoration-line: none;">doc-id 5280688</a>).</font></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Even more sinister than his flippant bigotry, Burton appears to favor racial profiling and locking up minorities. Forwarding a Daily Telegraph article in 2007, which alleges that MI5 has been infiltrated by Al Qaeda sympathizers, Burton writes “note Paki cops” in the subject line, and remarks that it's “time for internment camps.”</font></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Stratfor analyst Kamran Bokhari, himself a Pakistani national who can’t gain entry to the US because of his suspected ties to the ISI, demurely replies, “This thing needs to be handled delicately and you need the right people involved.” (<a href="http://english.al-akhbar.com/gi-files/1227700al-qaeda-supporters-working-strategic-sites-note-paki-cops" style="text-decoration-line: none;">doc-id 1227700</a>)</font></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Before joining Stratfor, Burton enjoyed a long career as a counter-terrorism official with the US Diplomatic Security Service, during which he investigated high-profile cases, such as the Lockerbie bombing (<a href="http://english.al-akhbar.com/gi-files/376053pan-am-103" style="text-decoration-line: none;">doc-id 376053</a>), the assassination of Israeli PM Yitzhak Rabin, and the World Trade Center attack in 1993.</font></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>A</b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><b>t Stratfor, Burton continues to groom contacts in the private intelligence and security industry that proliferated after 9/11 in Israel and the US (<a href="http://english.al-akhbar.com/gi-files/1951845spiegel-dubai-assassinatino" style="text-decoration-line: none;">doc-id 1951845</a>), and occasionally returns to work for the US government</b>, including as an advisor on border security issues to <b>Texan governor Rick Perry in 2007. He calls on his friends in the FBI for favors</b>, (<a href="http://english.al-akhbar.com/gi-files/1633006tactical-code-name-planesman" style="text-decoration-line: none;">doc-id 1633006</a>) but is convinced that “the [Central Intelligence] Agency doesn’t like us” (<a href="http://english.al-akhbar.com/gi-files/368368what-day" style="text-decoration-line: none;">doc-id 368368</a>).</span></font></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Burton’s contempt isn’t reserved for Pakistanis and Arabs – he is also suspicious of African Americans (<a href="http://english.al-akhbar.com/gi-files/1265938ct-new-panthers-war-whites" style="text-decoration-line: none;">doc-id 1265938</a>), predicting race riots and declaring the country “finished” ahead of the 2008 US presidential election (<a href="http://english.al-akhbar.com/gi-files/1265938ct-new-panthers-war-whites" style="text-decoration-line: none;">doc-id 1265938</a>).</font></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">few days after Obama’s electoral victory, he informs other analysts that the Republicans have a “smoking gun” to smear the president for taking donations from unsavory foreign sources, and claims that “black Dems” committed election fraud in Ohio and Pennsylvania </span>(<a href="http://english.al-akhbar.com/gi-files/339396insight-dems-dirty-tricks-internal-use-only-pls-do-not-forward" style="text-decoration-line: none;">doc-id 339396</a>).<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> It is unclear from the email whether Burton himself was involved in plotting “how and when to ‘out’” the president.</span> In another email thread, Burton attributes the fact that Nigerian oil pipeline bombers reportedly obtained American visas to the president’s race by saying “Obama… it’s a black thing.” (<a href="http://english.al-akhbar.com/gi-files/5416134tactical-nigeria-us-grants-34-ex-nigerian-militants-visasforprofessional-training" style="text-decoration-line: none;">doc-id 5416134</a>)</font></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>But Burton’s greatest hostility is undoubtedly reserved for the Chinese</b>. During a company-wide email outage in January 2010, he inquires if it was a “ChiCom attack”– short for Chinese Communist (<a href="http://english.al-akhbar.com/gi-files/3452549mail-server-outage-530p-cdt-roughly-till-8pm-cdt-no-data-loss-just-delayed-email-del" style="text-decoration-line: none;">doc-id 3452549</a>). He generally refers to Chinese as ChiComs, complaining that he “can’t keep these Chinamen staright [sic].” (<a href="http://english.al-akhbar.com/gi-files/1633006tactical-code-name-planesman" style="text-decoration-line: none;">doc-id 1633006</a>)</font></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Chiming in on a discussion about the March 2008 winter storms, which destroyed hundreds of thousands of homes in the Guangdong province, Burton says, “Who cares if these ChiComs all croak?" (<a href="http://english.al-akhbar.com/gi-files/3538243discussion-1-china-situation-guangdong" style="text-decoration-line: none;">doc-id 1633006</a>) Clearly obsessed with the “ChiCom Menace,” (<a href="http://english.al-akhbar.com/gi-files/1618981tactical-chicom-menace" style="text-decoration-line: none;">doc-id 1618981</a>) Burton also predicts that the Chinese are going to eventually “shu[t] us [Stratfor] down one day.” (<a href="http://english.al-akhbar.com/gi-files/3481100fwd-pgp-quote-and-killing-stratfor-communication-encryptionissues-big-stick" style="text-decoration-line: none;">doc-id 3481100</a>)</font></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">We can only speculate which race Burton suspects behind the Stratfor email hack.</font></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Anonymous are everywhere, Fred, and they are legion.</font></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></p></div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div></div><div><table style="text-align: justify; box-sizing: inherit; border-collapse: collapse; border-spacing: 0px; max-width: 100%; width: 740px; margin-top: 10px; border-width: 1px; border-style: solid; border-color: rgb(170, 170, 170);"><tbody style="box-sizing: inherit;"><tr style="box-sizing: inherit;"><th style="box-sizing: inherit; font-weight: normal; text-align: left; border-width: 1px; border-style: solid; margin: 0px; padding: 10px; border-color: rgb(170, 170, 170);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="box-sizing: inherit;">Email-ID<span style="box-sizing: inherit;" /></span></font></th><td style="box-sizing: inherit; border-width: 1px; border-style: solid; margin: 0px; padding: 10px; border-color: rgb(170, 170, 170);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="box-sizing: inherit;">5502750<span style="box-sizing: inherit;" /></span></font></td></tr><tr style="box-sizing: inherit;"><th style="box-sizing: inherit; font-weight: normal; text-align: left; border-width: 1px; border-style: solid; margin: 0px; padding: 10px; border-color: rgb(170, 170, 170);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="box-sizing: inherit;">Date<span style="box-sizing: inherit;" /></span></font></th><td style="box-sizing: inherit; border-width: 1px; border-style: solid; margin: 0px; padding: 10px; border-color: rgb(170, 170, 170);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="box-sizing: inherit;">2009-12-22 20:07:14<span style="box-sizing: inherit;" /></span></font></td></tr><tr style="box-sizing: inherit;"><th style="box-sizing: inherit; font-weight: normal; text-align: left; border-width: 1px; border-style: solid; margin: 0px; padding: 10px; border-color: rgb(170, 170, 170);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="box-sizing: inherit;">From<span style="box-sizing: inherit;" /></span></font></th><td style="box-sizing: inherit; border-width: 1px; border-style: solid; margin: 0px; padding: 10px; border-color: rgb(170, 170, 170);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="box-sizing: inherit;">Anya.Alfano@stratfor.com<span style="box-sizing: inherit;" /></span></font></td></tr><tr style="box-sizing: inherit;"><th style="box-sizing: inherit; font-weight: normal; text-align: left; border-width: 1px; border-style: solid; margin: 0px; padding: 10px; border-color: rgb(170, 170, 170);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="box-sizing: inherit;">To<span style="box-sizing: inherit;" /></span></font></th><td style="box-sizing: inherit; border-width: 1px; border-style: solid; margin: 0px; padding: 10px; border-color: rgb(170, 170, 170);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="box-sizing: inherit;">burton@stratfor.com<span style="box-sizing: inherit;" /></span></font></td></tr></tbody></table><div style="text-align: justify; box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><span style="box-sizing: inherit;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Re: ACORN</span><br style="box-sizing: inherit;" /><br style="box-sizing: inherit;" /><br style="box-sizing: inherit;" /><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">I think </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Patrick Gaspard is still there. Director of Political Affairs. <br style="box-sizing: inherit;" />He's closely affiliated with <b>ACORN</b> and all sorts of labor unions, SEIU etc</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">.</span><br style="box-sizing: inherit;" /><br style="box-sizing: inherit;" /><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">On 12/22/2009 1:47 PM, Fred Burton wrote:</span><br style="box-sizing: inherit;" /><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">> Who is the ACORN liaison to the WH? </span><br style="box-sizing: inherit;" /><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">> </span></span></font></div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">chic tribune rachel marsden</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x6lr5rJihuw">
</a></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x6lr5rJihuw">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x6lr5rJihuw</a> 6 min</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">turk for min and energy dept?</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><div id="watch-uploader-info" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; background: rgb(255, 255, 255);" youtube="YouTube" noto="Noto" roboto="Roboto" arial="arial" sans-serif="sans-serif"><span class="watch-time-text" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; background: transparent; vertical-align: middle;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Published on Feb 29, 2012</font></span></div><div id="watch-uploader-info" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; background: rgb(255, 255, 255);" youtube="YouTube" noto="Noto" roboto="Roboto" arial="arial" sans-serif="sans-serif"><span class="watch-time-text" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; background: transparent; vertical-align: middle;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></span></div><div id="watch-description-text" class="" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; background: rgb(255, 255, 255);" youtube="YouTube" noto="Noto" roboto="Roboto" arial="arial" sans-serif="sans-serif"><p id="eow-description" class="" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; background: transparent;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">An update on the Wikileaks Stratfor story is discussed by Cenk Uygur. Who Stratfor is selling intelligence to and some quotes from emails are also discussed</font></p></div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">http://www.vancouverobserver.com/environment/worst-case-scenario-tar-sands-coming-life-leaked-documents-show</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In the Austin, Texas-based office of global intelligence firm <a href="http://www.stratfor.com/" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.15s, border 0.15s, background-color 0.15s;">Stratfor</a>, the <a href="http://www.democracynow.org/2012/2/28/wikileaks_leaked_emails_expose_inner_workings" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.15s, border 0.15s, background-color 0.15s;">"Shadow CIA"</a>, a curious string of names from BC were being mentioned as part of an oil sands <a href="http://insideclimatenews.org/news/20131205/worst-case-scenario-oil-sands-industry-has-come-life-leaked-document-shows" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.15s, border 0.15s, background-color 0.15s;">presentation.</a> West Coast Environmental Law. Dogwood Initiative. <b>The presentation was ostensibly for Suncor,</b> although the company<a href="http://insideclimatenews.org/news/20131205/worst-case-scenario-oil-sands-industry-has-come-life-leaked-document-shows" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.15s, border 0.15s, background-color 0.15s;"> denies having ever seen the document </a>despite the company's name being mentioned 11 times. </font></div><div><p align="left" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5rem;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Dogwood and WCEL were among 24 groups identified by Stratfor as leaders in the anti-tar sands push. </font></p><p align="left" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5rem;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5em;">The </span><a href="http://www.documentcloud.org/documents/873021-33714-suncor-presentation-1210-6.html" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.15s, border 0.15s, background-color 0.15s; line-height: 1.5em;">PowerPoint presentation</a><span style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5em;"> was prepared by Stratfor in 2010, when North America's oil industry was mulling over how to deal with the growing anti-tar sands movement. It was leaked by</span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5em;"> WikiLeaks, the same group that published emails from Stratfor last year suggesting that th</span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5em;">e Enbridge Northern Gateway pipeline could </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5em;"><a href="http://www.vancouverobserver.com/blogs/politicaljunkie/enbridge-northern-gateway-pipeline-cost-could-easily-go-above-15-billion" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.15s, border 0.15s, background-color 0.15s; line-height: 1.5em;">end up costing $15 billion </a></span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5em;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">instead of the proposed $5.5 billion. </span> <br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /></span></span></font></p><p align="left" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5rem;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Stratfor lays out several engagement options for companies in dealing with them. One option is to simply ignore them, since activists "have no power in Alberta or Ottawa" and have little chance of success with U.S. government. </font></p><p align="left" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5rem;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In the best case scenario, the activists give up and move on to other causes. But in the worst case, the opposition could get out of hand, Stratfor warns. </font></p><p align="left" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5rem;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"Campaign becomes the most significant environmental campaign of the decade as activists on both sides of the border come to view the industry as arrogant. Code of conduct demands strengthen, downstream activism intensifies."</font></span></p><p align="left" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5rem;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5em;">"This worst-case scenario is exactly what has happened," Greenpeace senior investigator <a href="http://www.greenpeace.org/usa/en/media-center/experts/Mark-Floegel/" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.15s, border 0.15s, background-color 0.15s;">Mark Floegel</a> said in an interview with <em style="box-sizing: border-box;"><a href="http://insideclimatenews.org/news/20131205/worst-case-scenario-oil-sands-industry-has-come-life-leaked-document-shows" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.15s, border 0.15s, background-color 0.15s;">Inside Climate.</a> </em></span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5em;">"The more people in America see Superstorm Sandys or tornadoes in Chicago, the more they are waking up and joining the fight."</span></font></p><p align="left" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5rem;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><img src="http://www.vancouverobserver.com/sites/vancouverobserver.com/files/resize/images/article/body/no-action-worst-case-500x372.PNG" alt="" width="500" height="372" style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; max-width: 100%; height: auto; vertical-align: bottom;" /></font></p><p align="left" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5rem;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="">Slide from 'Oil Sands Market Campaigns' </font></span></p><p align="left" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5rem;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The presentation pointed to past activist campaigns, and highlighted the "real demand" underlying a "public demand" made by activist groups. In the case of<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> tar sands opponents,</span> Stratfor said the "real demand" was to introduce a code of conduct for the industry, which is now the fastest growing source of greenhouse gas emissions in Canada. </font></span></p><p align="left" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5rem;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In one of the slides, Stratfor suggests that Suncor develops its own strong environmental initiatives to overcome activists' criticism. </font></p><p align="left" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5rem;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><img src="http://www.vancouverobserver.com/sites/vancouverobserver.com/files/resize/images/article/body/real-demand-public-demand-500x373.PNG" alt="" width="500" height="373" style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; max-width: 100%; height: auto; vertical-align: bottom;" /></font></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5rem;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>The presentation divided groups into categories of "radicals" "idealists" "realists" and "opportunists" </b>and outlined how to engage with them. <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><a href="http://www.risingtidenorthamerica.org/" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.15s, border 0.15s, background-color 0.15s;">Rising Tide North America</a>, <a href="http://priceofoil.org/" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.15s, border 0.15s, background-color 0.15s;">Oil Change International</a> and the</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);"> <a href="http://www.ienearth.org/" target="blank" style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.15s ease 0s, border 0.15s ease 0s, background-color 0.15s ease 0s;">Indigenous Environmental Network</a> were labeled as radicals.</span> <a href="http://www.sierraclub.org/" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.15s, border 0.15s, background-color 0.15s;">Sierra Club</a> and <a href="http://www.amnesty.org/" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.15s, border 0.15s, background-color 0.15s;">Amnesty International</a> were among groups called idealists, while groups including Pembina and the <a href="http://worldwildlife.org/" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.15s, border 0.15s, background-color 0.15s;">World Wildlife Fund</a> were called realists.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5rem;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Some of the groups mentioned have recently been the targets of surveillance in Canada coordinated by the federal energy regulation board, the National Energy Board</span>. </font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5rem;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">cf <a href="http://www.nationalobserver.com/2017/05/05/news/spies-our-midst-rcmp-and-csis-snoop-green-activists">http://www.nationalobserver.com/2017/05/05/news/spies-our-midst-rcmp-and-csis-snoop-green-activists</a></font></p><p align="left" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5rem;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><img src="http://www.vancouverobserver.com/sites/vancouverobserver.com/files/resize/images/article/body/idealists-stratfor-500x373.PNG" alt="" width="500" height="373" style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; max-width: 100%; height: auto; vertical-align: bottom;" /></font></span></p><p align="left" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5rem;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Stratfor would not respond to questions about the presentation due to its policy not to comment on WikiLeaks documents.</font></span></p><p align="left" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5rem;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"<span style="box-sizing: border-box;">If their worst case scenario is people coming together to stand up for our province in the face of reckless oil tanker expansion plans, then yes, that's where we are today," Dogwood Initiative director Will Horter said.</span></font></span></p><p align="left" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5rem;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"But the fact that these energy companies view peaceful organizing and use of the democratic process as a 'worst-case scenario' is telling. These companies are out of touch with everyday Canadians, and they're not addressing the real and legitimate concerns people have about their projects."</font></span></p></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">==</font></div></div>