How Fitting That Michael Deibert Lauds Rory Carroll’s book about Hugo Chavez

by Joe Emersberger

Is there anything more heartwarming than to see one dishonest corporate journalist applaud another?

Michael Deibert is a former Reuters journalist and author of “Notes from the Last Testament”, a long winded and mendacious whitewash of the US-led coup that ousted Haiti’s democratically elected president, Jean Bertrand Aristide, in 2004.

Justin Podur fully exposed Deibert when they debated years ago.

In this exchange that I had with Deibert on Truthdig’s website, Deibert made the bizarre claim that I belonged to a political current that tried to deny former Haitian president Rene Preval his 2006 election victory. [1] When I asked Deibert how in the world he could justify such nonsense (which was the exact opposite of the truth) he went silent – of course, because he made it up.

Deibert once strongly insinuated that Jeb Sprague, author of a recent book about Haiti, had a criminal background. It appears that slandering former Haitian political prisoners (in particular So Ann) produced habits that he unwisely directed at people much better able to respond.

It was not at all surprising to see Deibert praise Rory Carroll’s book. Hugo Chavez distinguished himself by being an outspoken opponent of the 2004 coup in Haiti that Deibert has worked so hard to whitewash.

Between 2006-2012, Rory Carroll supplied about 75% of the “left leaning” UK Guardian’s output about Venezuela. Carroll churned out article after article claiming that Venezuela’s democracy and economy were on the verge of total collapse.  It would be hard to improve on this joint effort by Venezuelanalysis.com and News Unspun that demolished one of his most recent outbursts.

In 2009, Carroll proclaimed that “austerity is inevitable” in Venezuela.  Sadly for Carroll, it clearly wasn’t inevitable then and isn’t now.

In 2010, Carroll attempted to use a Wikileaks document to substantiate his claims:

 “Venezuela's tottering economy is forcing Hugo Chávez to make deals with foreign corporations to save his socialist revolution from going broke” Carroll insisted.  

As I discussed here, Carroll twisted what the US Embassy cable actually said in order to conclude that the foreign investors had the Chavez government by the throat. At the same time, Carroll contradicted himself by claiming that foreign investors were afraid to let on that they had Chavez by the throat.  

In 2011, Carroll shamefully distorted an interview he did with Noam Chomsky about Venezuela. In that case, the flak the Guardian received at least compelled them to publish the transcript and amend the headline.

In 2011, the Guardian also published a petition protesting the Guardian’s Venezuela coverage. It was signed by Noam Chomsky, John Pilger and many others.  Carroll (perhaps at the insistence of his editors, perhaps not) refused to report on the plight of hundreds of Chavista peasants murdered in crimes that strongly implicate wealthy landowners vehemently opposed to Chavez. The story casts a tremendous amount of doubt on everything Carroll had reported about the supposedly cowed Venezuelan judiciary that took marching order from Chavez. Both Carroll, and his editors, therefore had ample incentive to ignore it.

Before anyone wastes money on Carroll’s book, I strongly suggest they read output of his that is available for free online. Many of the unanswered emails I sent to him over the years are available online as well. For laughs (and edification) I also recommend that people watch Rory Carroll desperately tread water in this Al Jazeera segment.

NOTE

[1] In fact, in a post to the Bob Corbett's Haiti List dated Feb 20, 2007 Deibert wrote 

"As to the Znet articles Mr. Emersberger cites, I actually alluded to them (as well as the efforts of the political current Mr. Emersberger belongs to in denying René Préval his rightful place at the ballot box) here"