Nikolas Kozloff over at Counterpunch has managed to fall for the classic trap of believing somebody else's bullshit, just because it's written down. Kozloff's latest column is all about the "story" that Chávez thinks the Haiti earthquake was caused deliberately by the USA and some secret nefarious doomsday device used by its military command. Here's how his stuff starts:
"...Chávez has another zinger: the United States intentionally created the earthquake in Haiti through means of a secret weapon.Chávez seemingly believes he’s in the middle of the Mel Gibson movie, Conspiracy Theory. According to Spanish paper ABC Chávez has joined the ranks of the truly paranoid, declaring that the earthquake was the result of an insidious U.S. naval test. Ultimately, Chávez believes, Haiti served as a test case for further U.S. machinations.."
Unfortunately, as explained to the world by two far better and more diligent bloggers, first broken by duderino over at Abiding and then by the all-conquering Borev, the whole story was total bullshit from start to finish, created as somebody's flight of fancy and then picked up by others in a global version of the telephone game.
"This all sounds fishy, so I did some more Googling, but luckily for me I speak Mexican so I ran across this piece which had an image of the original conspiracy theory article in question.And as Borev says.
"The conspiratorial article happens to have been briefly be posted on Venezuelan community participatory TV's website under the anonymous byline "Patria Grande". As the posting on Rebelion explains, the rightwing Spanish ABC news agency then wrote up a story claiming Chavez had made the conspiratorial claim, which then got picked up by Fox News (among others) and ended up being posted on my blog by some anonymous anti-Evo wingnut.
"Hugo Chavez said nothing of the kind. Spanish ABC news simply lied and others followed. You will remember ABC news from other such lying fiascos like when they made up the existence of a shadowy conspiracy behind the Bolivian and Venezuelan constitutions, which was later repeated by the Washington Post." continues
"1. Some Venezuelan blogger wrote a weird story about the U.S. causing the Haiti earthquake with some sort of earthquake weapon.2. A website operated by a Venezuelan state TV channel included a link to the post in their roundup of Haiti coverage from all over the country.
3. Some right-wing newspaper in Spain published a story about the link, referring to it as a Venezuelan state "press release."
4. Fox News reports the Spanish story, saying the earthquake weapon claim comes from "Hugo Chavez' mouthpiece."
5. Randomly, Vladimir Putin's English language teevee channel Russia Today claimsall over thefucking place, Drudge sirens!! that Chavez himself made the statement. This video report is picked up
6. Right wing news "analysts" opine about what level of threat this represents to the United States." continues
