According to internal company emails published by WikiLeaks, Austin-based intelligence firm Stratfor’s Vice President stated that in the past Washington would have assassinated the Presidents of Bolivia and Venezuela.
“Back in the day, we would have been planning his (and Chavez’s) helicopter ‘accident,’” wrote VP Fred Burton, a former deputy chief of the State Department’s counter terrorism division, in an email regarding Bolivian President Evo Morales. “Guess I’m getting old.”
Stratfor provides intelligence for corporations such as Coca-Cola, Bhopal’s Dow Chemical Co., Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Raytheon, as well as to US government agencies. Their analysts are cited in major media outlets around the globe.
In the same email thread regarding a State Department source’s “take on [Bolivian President Evo] Morales,” Stratfor operative Korena Zucha calls Morales a “4th grade educated, narco-trafficking, murderous thug” whose actions are protected by the “left-leaning MSM [Mainstream] media.”
“His rhetoric is anti-US and anti-Capitalism, so he is the darling to the ultra-left and self-hating US citizens (Danny Glover, Sean Penn, Oliver Stone, etc.)…his ‘Mother Earth’ Summit [aka, vehement anti-US, anti-Capitalism (specifically targeting Coca Cola), anti-UN, pro-coca (sic cocaine) and narco-trafficking platform that was embraced by 22,000 anti-US, left-wing anarchists in attendance].”
In a December 2011 email thread on Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez between Stratfor’s founder and CEO George Friedman and Stratfor’s Director of Analysis, Friedman explains how she should handle a Venezuelan source “working with Israel.”
“If this is a source you suspect may have value, you have to take control od (sic) him,” writes Friedman. “Control means financial, sexual or psychological control to the point where he would reveal his sourcing and be tasked.”
The initial email Stratfor’s analyst sent suggests that Venezuela’s military elite, given Chavez’s deteriorating health, can be bribed.
“These guys have been living the good life. They love women…lots of women. They love booze. They love bora bora. They are easy to bribe…We’ve seen a lot of these military elite reach out to us lately, trying to insulate themselves in a post-Chavez scenario,” the email document Wikileaks posted states.
Stratfor’s Middle East analyst Bayless Parsley, in an email chat exchange with the company’s Director of Analysis, suggests that she is having sex in exchange for information and jokingly stated she should be thankful she wasn’t sent to Africa because the “risk of AIDS is too high.”