Those will supplement those 50 MiGs?
I think the US military could stand to be bolstered significantely. However, that said, I doubt those 50 Migs would last much longer than 50 seconds if Chavez got the wrong guy in DC pissed off to much.
The article calls him a populist and he certainly has Jimmy Carter's approval.
How can the media let him get away with spending all that money on the military instead of the people? Oh that's right, he's not a Republican.
Venezuela's F-16s are not that old that they need to be retired -I think the problem is lack of spares from the US.
Anyway the Mig-29SMT they are buying will carry pretty much the best Russian weaponry on offer-well atleast that's what they say!!
As a Venezuelan citizen (wich lets face it, I can probably have more freedom on another country as an illegal immigrant) I just wish to say that I do read and watch the news from time to time. First of all Chavez has probably been the worst president of this south american nation. In which "democratic" nation has the goverment taken in to their hands the job of supplying food to the people. The "mercales" or popular markets created by Chavez take away opportunities and money from the private industry in Venezuela, plus most of the foodstuff that they sell comes from large roberies done to commercial containers from the private industry. Also the fact the this president is removing the autonomies that the public universities have here. In the ULA University of Los Andes which most of the careers are on the education level there is english education. Our president has posted a bill to remove this career and replace it with native idioms of our native americans here. I dont have a problem with the career of native idioms but why remove english education it takes away many opportunities to venezuelans who may want to or can leave the country to seek other job or life experiences, aside from this there is also the inclusion of doctrinage of the college students to the bolivarian and chavez and/or castro ideas of how to live which is being applied to al education careers in this country now imagine those teachers graduating from those curriculums will have to teach with a revised and upgraded curriculum that includes doctrinage from the kindergarden level (hows about that?) Also the fact that he is taking the land of anyone with a moderately sized farm or state. He seems to be demostrating the fact that whoever is succesful o rich is BAD and whoever is poor and maybe not totally instructed or enlightened is GOOD. I have known many prominent businessmen here in San Cristobal Tachira which is where I live and you can see that after he came into presidency almost overnight everything took a dive to the worst. There is talk of a law that will prohibit people under 18 to leave the country plus another bill to prohibit people under 30 from leaving the country also that from the year 2000 to now anyone born here doesnt only belong to their parents they also belong tho the state so suppose that the couple decides to separate the custody would be up for grabs between the father the mother and the sovereign state. Also he seems to hipnotize the people who follow him with his idiotic ideas if you could see the murals made to make the US look like a terrorist state and they depict the people of Venezuela fightihg out against the USA. its increidible the kind of power this dude has. Another, if its something I recognize is the fact that President Bush does not hesitate to attack a country if he sees fit to it. And we have this orangutan of a president screaming out loud that united states is this and that and that the american goverment is planning the assasination of Chavez, This paranoia is unheard of. Well thats all I can think of but I wish you could see how the people here that follow him act so stubornly plus the fact that they believe that the people in Cuba are in a paradise but I will leave that for later I will find a way for people interested to see pictures of those murals. My email es astro_33324@yahoo.com