Posted on 02/15/2005 5:46:32 PM PST by wagglebee
"A danger to democracy is brewing right here in our backyard," writes U.S. News and World Report publisher Mortimer B. Zuckerman in his recent column.
By "backyard" Zuckerman is referring to Venezuela and its Castroite president, Hugo Chavez.
For years conservatives have been worried about the growing menace of Chavez.
But Zuckerman, a centrist Democrat, adds weight to their concerns.
Zuckerman blames the situation on "an ill-judged intervention by former President Jimmy Carter," which allowed Chavez to narrowly survive a recall election and enabled him to accelerate "his subversion of Venezuela's democracy by a scummy deal with Fidel Castro. ..."
Carter, he writes, "compromised the hopes of Venezuelans in the recall election by prematurely endorsing the vote that Chavez did not earn or deserve."
According to Zuckerman:
* Carter's people counted votes at fewer than 1 percent of the polling stations, which, instead of being selected at random, as originally anticipated, were selected by Venezuelan officials.
Even then, only 76 of the previously agreed 192 ballot boxes were counted, with either opposition witnesses or international observers present at only 26 out of the 76 boxes reviewed.
* The Chavez-controlled National Electoral Council (CNE) forbade access to the tallying centers, not only to Carter's people but also to representatives of the opposition, and even to the two members of the CNE who opposed Chavez.
* Two professors from Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology issued a report concluding that there was at least a 99 percent chance the election was a fraud. The audited sample (Carter's) was simply not a random sample, the professors concluded.
Various independent exit polls showed that Chavez had lost the vote by 59 percent to 41 percent, instead of Chavez's contention that he had won by that margin.
"Jimmy Carter, in effect, provided a seal of approval for a left-wing demagogue intent on destroying democracy in Venezuela even as he seeks to extend his ideology to other parts of Latin America," Zuckerman charged. "Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was correct when she pointed out that Chavez is a danger not just to Venezuela but to much of Latin America. Very soon, we must translate those wise words into an effective policy."
Zuckerman cites a story in Miami's El Nuevo Herald, which reported that Chavez has granted Cuban judicial and security forces extensive police powers within Venezuela.
The paper also reminds us that Cubans are already running the intelligence services and indoctrinating and training the military.
Zuckerman predicts that Venezuela will become almost a fiefdom of Castro's Cuba.
He says Castro's thugs "will effectively bypass what is left of Venezuela's judicial system when they exercise new powers to investigate, seize, detain, and interrogate Venezuelans and Cubans living in Venezuela, with the right to extradite them to Cuba and try them there. This threatens the safety of some 30,000 Cubans in Venezuela."
Chavez's attack on democracy is "reducing state institutions to mere shadows with only ceremonial powers," says Zuckerman. He reports that Chavez has: # rewritten Venezuela's constitution to enhance his powers;
* purged critics in the military;
* set up legislation to pack the Venezuelan Supreme Court;
* intimidated the media by threatening the expropriation of the licenses of private television stations that supported the opposition; and
* given succor to thousands of Castro's military and intelligence officers, along with many social and medical workers, while tens of thousands of young Venezuelans have been sent to Cuba for indoctrination.
In return, Chavez provides his Communist mentor Castro "with 80,000 barrels a day of essential oil. Venezuela's rich flow of oil revenues has enabled Chavez to buy the support of sectors of Venezuelan society and assert himself as the leader of what he calls a 'jihad' against American imperialism."
And if you want proof of the degree to which Chavez is intimidating his opponents and harassing dissidents ...
A new criminal law that Chavez pushed through the legislature states, "Any individual who creates panic in the community or makes it restless by disseminating false information via print media, radio, TV, phone, electronic mail, or pamphlets will be punished with two to five years in prison."
The U.S. News editor laments, "Even the most popular form of political protest," the inncocuous "banging pots and pans," which is done in the presence of members of Chavez's own government, will get you three months in jail.
Carter is possibly the most incompetent and dangerous American in modern times, he should be tried for treason. His corruption is so transparent that even the leftists at Harvard and MIT can't ignore it.
We will pay for his mistaken philosophy long after he is dead unfortunately.
Neb
Stop attacking my hero...you...you...fascist, right wing, conservative pig!
:) Hehehe! More sarcasm for your evening's enjoyment,w.
Shouldn't you be writing a review of motorcycle helmets or something equally unimportant? :)
I agree. He should be tried for treason--along with Dillbo, Shrillery, Scuba Teddy, . . . . and a host of others.
Either they are utter idiot, mindless, selfish traitors in their own unright . . . or they are complicit with the puppet masters. Methinks, it's the latter.
No. I'm doing offroad accessories this month. Strictly dirt bikes. My colleague is doing apparel. Now that's exciting stuff there.
Nah, spark plugs and chains. Can you get good deals on Harleys?
Carter's international career needs to be ended, now. His other big accomplishment is the non-proliferation deal with North Korea, which North Korea intentionally violated.
The number one foreign policy fiasco of all time occurred in 1979. Carter ignored requests from the Shah of Iran who was the biggest ally the US ever has had in the Middle East. Carter betrayal allowed Iran to become an Islamofascist theocracy and alerted the Islamic world to the fact that America would not defend its allies. Later that year, Carter did nothing as Jihadists took 52 Americans hostage for 444 days. Beyond question, this has to rank as the most anti-American policy ever undertaken by a US president.
Nope. We only cover Harley stuff a couple of times per year. Otherwise, we usually cover all metric stuff.
So you work for a bunch of unpatriotic leftists.
No. The owner isn't a lefty. It's just the market he got started in.
However, the managing editor is: Some of the famous comments include:
1) What are you doing today? Listening to the right wing attack machine.
2)I support our troops but we're bogged down in Iraq.
3)We're going to have to raise taxes. We just can't afford this war.
4)I don't know why I voted for Kerry. We just had to have something different.
You just never know when he's going to say something else stupid. It's rather amusing.
jimmuh has been an outstanding success in furthering his socialist agenda. he has damaged the US even more than the Bent One, and the left has rewarded him with the Nobel "Peace" Prize, which of course is this age substitutes for the Lenin Peace Prize.
anyone who accuses Carter of mere incompetence misses how evil this man really is, and gives him too much credit for having "good intentions"
Bump for later. (this should be good)
Well .. Sarbanes and Dodd were over the top in accusing Dr. Rice of being out of line with her statements about Chavez.
Maybe Zuckerman should have a little talk with Sarbanes and Dodd.
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