What I (Almost) Learned in Venezuela

I arrived home from a week in Caracas, Venezuela just in time to catch the latest episode of the Manifest Destiny Variety Show, starring George “The Liberator” Bush and his much-anticipated plans for renewal in Iraq. And let me tell you, it was a mammoth relief to sit down in my air-conditioned TV room at 8 pm on Tuesday and discover that my Commander-in-Chief hasn't missed a beat in the War on Terror. Because for a second there, the men and women I met during my time in Caracas came pretty close to convincing me otherwise.

I was particularly soothed by Bush's assertion that “we're hunting down the terrorists,” since several Venezuelans had questioned me on this very point, inquiring as to why the U.S. currently harbors the primary suspect in the 1976 bombing of a Cubana Airlines flight that killed 73 people--a Cuban émigré and anti-Castro explosives expert named Luis Posada Carriles. Although Posada qualifies as an international terrorist by every known definition of the term, the Bush Administration has refused to meet the Venezuelan government's request to extradite the ex-CIA agent, who escaped from prison in Caracas almost twenty years ago and landed illegally on the shores of Miami last month in search of asylum.

Luckily, I will now be able to send my Venezuelan friends an email expounding on George Bush Jr.'s commitment to fighting the terrorists wherever he may find them. Sure beats trying to rationalize my President's blatant violation of international law just because a U.S.-trained assassin committed a bombing that jibed with a major goal of the Bush Administration--the ousting of Fidel Castro.

But that wasn't the only travel-induced wrinkle that Bush Jr.'s speech ironed out for me. The people of Venezuela also had me raising an eyebrow when I sat down to watch their state-run news program, on which I witnessed--FOR THE FIRST TIME SINCE THE OCCUPATION OF IRAQ BEGAN--a televised sequence of Iraqi victims: a young girl whose face had been bombed into a shiny pink goop; an older man whose shrapnel-filled guts lined the street. What's more, I finally saw the corpses of U.S. troops, who have thus far appeared to me only in the occasional form of yearbook photos sandwiched between staged statue-topplings and “Mission Accomplished” Kodak moments. It was enough to make me wonder: as quotidian as charred flesh and crushed skulls have become in Iraq, why do I have to travel more than 2,000 miles to view this devastating footage?

Fortunately, thanks to Bush Jr.'s address, I now recall that occupying another nation is hard work, and that “the best way to honor the lives that have been given” in Iraq is not to allow these deaths to be publicly mourned, but rather to keep sending fresh young blood over there to kill and be killed.

Perhaps it's also worth mentioning that the men and women of Venezuela had me raising an eyebrow on yet another occasion, when a friend and I took a tour of La Vega--a Venezuelan barrio in which the nation's oil wealth is being reinvested in social programs such as Mission Barrio Adentro (a massive public health plan that provides free, 24-hour medical services in areas that previously had no access to basic healthcare) and Mission Robinson (an adult education initiative that has taught more than 1,500,000 Venezuelans how to read and write). Visiting a free, community-run Internet cluster, a nascent health clinic, and a grassroots media collective in the heart of this sprawling shantytown got me thinking: what might the slums of my own country look like if our President redirected the $200 billion Iraqi occupation budget into healthcare, education, housing, and food security programs, much like Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez has done?

There was a fleeting moment when I mistook myself for feeling extremely, pee-in-my-pants envious of these people whose revolutionary imaginations have yet to be dulled or disenchanted, despite the tremendous obstacles they face. These people who form vibrant neighborhood collectives to fight against government bureaucracy and assert their visions for social change. These people who share the pride of brandishing bite-sized blue copies of their Bolivarian Constitution in their pockets--a document they helped to craft that includes such innovative provisions as Social Security for stay-at-home moms and various mandates for participatory democracy. These people who feel profoundly nourished by the words of their President when he addresses them on TV every Sunday evening, and who take to the streets on the rare occasions when they do not.

Hence, my relief when Bush Jr. was finally able to give my exclamation-weary eyebrows a break on Tuesday night, in his first presidential address to the nation since who-remembers-when. Assuaging my doubts about the efficiency (not to mention integrity) of pouring billions of dollars into the Iraqi occupation, he pointed out that "we're advancing freedom in the broader Middle East." Rectifying my misperception that the U.S. troops are blindly bombing the bejesus out of the Iraqi people, he informed me that we are, in fact, “laying the foundation of peace for our children and grandchildren.” Quelling my concerns about the impunity he has gifted to the self-confessed bomber Luis Posada Carriles, he reminded me who the REAL terrorists are (you know, those Arabs around every corner who hate freedom, tolerance, little old ladies, chocolate sprinkles, me, you, etc.).

Gone is the momentary but terrible terror of doubting the War on Terror. Of course, if I lived in a country like Venezuela, I might have to entertain the possibility that the respite wouldn't last more than a precious hour or two; that my fellow citizens would be out marching in the streets against such Orwellian inversions and empty cheerleading; that the military men and women who are returning home from Iraq would cry out for their lost limbs and their forfeited sanity; that the uncensored newsreels of what's REALLY happening over there might yank the tidy ribbon off of Operation Iraqi Freedom.

But here in America, I needn't worry about such things. And so, when I finally get around to unpacking my suitcase this afternoon, I promise to pause for a moment as I slip my U.S. passport back into my desk drawer, tossing up a “Thank-you-Jesus” that I'm an heiress of the liberty-lovin', darkeness-dispellin' Lucky Sperm Club.