Posted on 04/28/2005 5:27:04 AM PDT by FlyLow
A few weeks ago, I noted in this space that the United States is beginning to shift its focus — away from al-Qaida and away even from the ongoing violence in Iraq, back to pre-9/11 dynamics. This week, we have seen further evidence of this shift with a new response by Washington to an old bete-noir, Hugo Chavez.
Under normal circumstances, it would be easy to dismiss the Venezuelan president's consistent anti-U.S. rhetoric, were it any less voluble or entertaining. For the past three years, since surviving a brief coup, Chavez has been claiming, first, that the United States was set on toppling his regime and, more recently, that U.S. leaders now seek his assassination. Meanwhile, he has been pursuing some fairly provocative leftist policies — especially for the leader of a country the United States relies on as a significant source of oil supplies.
Whatever warmth there may have been in these chilly relations now appears to be dissipating altogether. In recent days, Chavez has scuttled a 35-year-old military exchange program with the United States, claiming that U.S. soldiers were "waging a little campaign" that included bad-mouthing his presidency and otherwise slighting their host country. Meanwhile, he also has charged that several Americans were caught taking pictures of such things as oil refineries and military facilities, saying this shows that Washington is stepping up its intelligence operations against his government.
Washington, which has categorically denied the claims that any Americans were arrested, would be much more likely to task satellites than human spies with such a mission — if there was much value in photographing oil refineries and military bases to begin with, which there isn't. All of which would again make Chavez's statements easy to dismiss — except for an April 26 story in The New York Times.
(Excerpt) Read more at jewishworldreview.com ...
What a bunch of bull. Bush would not intentionally leak such a story to the NYT, true or not. Sounds like State Department hooligans to me.
"Washington is considering a program of destabilizing Venezuela, which could include financing institutions and political groups that oppose Chavez."
Yeah, it worked so well with Castro, and he didn't have massive amounts of oil to sell. Chavez is going to be around for a looong time.
Agreed. This is likely the work of rogue employees at State.
We'll see. Leaders who screw around with oil tend to wear out their welcome fairly quickly, and Chavez is too wrapped up in his own mistique to not use the oil club at first opportunity.
He's already confiscated large tracts of private land and redistributed it amongst poor farmers. Some English royal just lost a huge piece of land his family had legally owned since around 1830. He's making the US an enemy and positioned himself as the hero, becoming a 'man of the people.' He seems to be playing his cards well.
Yeah...Chavez also claims that Condi has dreams about him, LOL! The NY Slimes is feeding Chavez's paranoia. If we wanted to take him out, we would have done so already.
Bump!
The difference between Peres Jimenez and Chavez is the emergence of a middle class.
The days of Juan Vincente Gomez are long gone!
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