As was obvious at the time (CounterSpin, 11/21/19), the OAS claims held as much water as Trump's fantasies about nationwide electoral fraud. However, only seven months later well after the dust had settled and AÃ ±ez was ensconced in power did the Times (6/7/20) acknowledge the OAS report to be flawed. But even after that, the paper (9/17/20) continued to carry water for AÃ ±ez's regime, euphemistically claiming she came to power in a "surprising" fashion after a "chaotic" election and presided over a "stormy year in power." It's an unhelpful description of a ruler who came to power in a military coup and oversaw shootings of her political opponents, with only a nationwide uprising forcing her to finally concede to an election, in which her rule was comprehensively repudiated.
Imagine trying to describe an elephant without ever using the word "elephant." Only writers of prodigious talent could do so convincingly. Likewise, refraining from using the word "coup" where it is obviously appropriate takes huge effort, but appears to be Times policy, the word barely arising in a year of coverage, except as an accusation in the mouths of supporters of Morales (FAIR.org, 11/11/19, 7/8/20, 10/23/20), a man long demonized as an authoritarian. Writing about the coup, it is difficult to avoid constant repetition of that word in every paragraph, so not mentioning it at all is a serious achievement.
Even as Morales returned to Bolivia last week after the landslide election that dispatched AÃ ±ez and saw the return of the Movement to Socialism Party, the Times (11/9/20) was still attempting to gloss over the fact of the coup, laughably describing it as Morales' "failed attempt to keep power" that "tore the nation apart and sent him into exile." Morales' return, the Times informed its readers, "worried" Bolivians, who were "anxious to move beyond the political turmoil unleashed by his divisive bid for a fourth presidential term." Perhaps the heightened political tension had more to do with the far-right coup, the massacres that followed it, the repression of critical media, expulsion of foreigners and the suspension of elections and basic rights little of which even avid Times subscribers would know about, unless they were skilfully reading between the lines.
Coups are good, actuallyVenezuela and Bolivia are far from isolated cases. In fact, a study done by Adam Johnson (Truthdig, 1/29/19) found that the New York Times editorial board has explicitly supported 10 of the 12 American-backed coups in Latin America since 1954.
For example, two days after a military coup in Brazil which ended the liberal reformist era of Joà £o Goulart and installed over 20 years of fascist dictatorship, the Times' editorial board (4/3/64) endorsed the "peaceful revolution" against a figure who "had almost no supporters." Refusing to use the word "coup," they concluded, "We do not lament the passing of a leader who had proved so incompetent and so irresponsible."
One month later, the board (5/8/64) wrote of Brazil's supposed "widespread feeling of deep relief and of optimism" that the "far leftist" "regime" of Goulart was over, and announced that the "nation appears to have been yearning" for a "political clean-up" of "extremists," while applauding the widespread imprisonment of liberal government officials on the grounds that they were "communists."
And like with Morales, the New York Times (9/12/73) also blamed Chilean president Salvador Allende for his own overthrow in 1973. "No Chilean party or faction can escape some responsibility," it wrote.
But a heavy share must be assigned to the unfortunate Dr. Allende himself. Even when the dangers of polarization had become unmistakably evident, he persisted in pushing a program of pervasive socialism for which he had no popular mandate.
The editorial board also casually gaslighted its own audience, insisting that
there is no evidence that the Nixon administration seriously considered the maneuvers against Dr. Allende". It is essential that Washington meticulously keep hands off the present crisis, which only Chileans can resolve. There must be no grounds whatsoever for even a suspicion of outside intervention.
(The nongovernmental National Security Archive in DC, as it happens, just released a trove of documents relating to the Nixon administration's strenuous efforts to overthrow Allende.)
Ultimately, for the New York Times, the legitimacy of crying election fraud is not based on whether it actually happened, but comes down to its political utility. While the Times denounces Trump's attempts to overturn the results of the election, when it comes to enemy countries, any accusation, no matter how baseless, is treated with respect and deserving of amplification. The final insult is that the paper accuses legitimate governments trying to defend themselves against anti-democratic coups of deploying the same tactics as the man trying to overthrow them.
*This article was originally published on fair.
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