Posted on 08/01/2004 11:58:17 PM PDT by neverdem
Not long ago, in the middle of one of the four-hour talkathons he stages weekly on national television, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez grabbed a baseball bat and made the following declaration: "Fidel: Look out! The home run will go precisely over the city of Havana. This will happen on Aug. 15. I am going to hit [it] so hard that it will land in the gardens of the White House!"
Here is an incoming missile that few in the Bush administration, or Washington, are expecting, because so little attention has been paid to Latin America since Sept. 11, 2001. It may well be coming nonetheless: a political crisis that could draw Washington into a Latin conflict for the first time since the 1980s.
The protagonist is Chavez, who faces an Aug. 15 recall referendum that threatens to cut short the "Bolivarian revolution" he claims to have launched in Venezuela, a country of 24 million people that supplies the United States with 13 percent of its oil. As his rant suggests, Chavez sees himself as another Castro standing up to U.S. imperialism. Only his motivation is less ideological than psychiatric: For years this former military coup-plotter has had grandiose visions of himself as a second Simon Bolivar -- and a dangerous paranoia about his "enemies" at home and abroad.
In fact, for all his frothing about the "devil" who he has said occupies the White House, Chavez has drawn only modest attention from the Bush administration. For a while President Bush, like Bill Clinton before him, ignored the man entirely. Then the White House foolishly welcomed a short-lived coup against him in April 2002. Since then the administration has sheepishly followed Venezuela's unraveling from a distance, while supporting dogged efforts by the Organization of American States and the Carter Center to broker a democratic remedy.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
oh boy. here we go again.
Imagine Marion Barry crossed with Castro and you have Hugo Chavez.
The only good thing to come out of the Chavez regime it the escalation in South Florida real estate prices as wealthy Venezuelans bid up the property in Key Biscayne, Coral Gables and Weston.
If anything, our response was foolishly weak. We made no military move and did nothing to shore up the opposition even after Chavez had physically left the palace.
Our actions actually show that our foreign policy is NOT bound inexorably to oil; the premise of Moore and the hypocritical French.
does every weeathly hispanic migrate to florida?
Mention the Carter Center and I begin to envision hostages and a burnt helicopter and C 130. And the retreat that followed basted with ..."a grand malaise...". Jimmah, legacy and all that shit. Chavez is a boil that needs lancing though.
Seems that way- we seem to be overrun this summer with wealthy non-Cuban hispanics. I'm about to take a baseball bat to their kids' boomboxes if they keep bringing those hideous things out to my favorite once-quiet and very natural beach. (Wish they would keep the music down in Tampa/St. Pete or on the other side of the state- if they keep it up I'll get a boombox and counterblast them with talk radio.)
Lived in Miami for three years. Loved it for the above reason...
"Our actions actually show that our foreign policy is NOT bound inexorably to oil; the premise of Moore and the hypocritical French."
Good point. This also shows Bush's focus on the war against terror. Chavez hasn't acted like a threat to us before today.
Too bad we have to depend on these clowns for oil when the enviro-wackos here at home seem to be working for them. Does Chavez contribute to US enviro-wacko groups, I wonder?
I think we can easilly solve this problem with intelligence, a few navy seals, bunker busting bombs on his missile silos, red herrings in front of the bombers, and a bullet in the brain. However, we should coordinate this with the same kind of plan for North Korea at the same moment. We also need a way to make them think that there's a commercial plane off-course or something until it's too late to launch. FReegards....
I agree. The correct thing to do would have been either to kill him, or to get him on the plane out of VZ right afer that coup. They had him at the airport and in fact were going to do that (one military person had had his pistol out to kill him but then changed his mind), and if we had provided just a little more encouragement, Chavez would be history now. Or at any rate, he'd be sitting in Havana sipping coco locos with his beloved Fidel and wouldn't be causing all the trouble he's bringing to VZ and Latin America in general.
I hope if we are ever again presented with a similar opportunity, we know what to do with it.
"Our actions actually show that our foreign policy is NOT bound inexorably to oil; the premise of Moore and the hypocritical French."
I think the opposition was completely unprepared for the possibility that chavez would have folded so quickly. They took a gift and completely bungled it, and look where they are now.
"Chavez would be history now. Or at any rate, he'd be sitting in Havana sipping coco locos with his beloved Fidel and wouldn't be causing all the trouble he's bringing to VZ and Latin America in general"
If he had left but stayed in exile in cuba, he would have done his best to stir up trouble back home. He would have had some support from some or many poor people. I think some FR people don't understand that in CA/SA, poor doesn't mean a color tv, cable, AC, etc.; it means subsidience living with minimal opportunities, vocational, educational, or otherwise. These people really have no reason NOT to support chavez...they will get nothing from the parties representing the venezuelan upper and middle (if any) class.
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