Posted on 11/01/2005 5:11:17 PM PST by kingattax
CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) - President Hugo Chavez offered to share Venezuela's U.S.-made F-16 fighters with Cuba and China on Tuesday, accusing Washington of breaching a supply contract for jet parts and calling it the sort of U.S. "imperialism" he will challenge at an upcoming Summit of the Americas.
Chavez said he would take the message that Washington's "capitalist, imperialist model" was responsible for exploiting developing economies and ruining the global environment to this week's summit in Argentina, also to be attended by U.S. President George W. Bush.
"We don't need American imperialism to live," Chavez said at a ceremony announcing Venezuela's plan to launch a telecommunications satellite with the help of China.
Chavez accused the U.S. of breaking a contract to supply parts for Venezuela's fleet of 21 F-16 fighters and pressuring other countries from helping to maintain them. Israeli media reported last month that Israel canceled a lucrative deal to upgrade the warplanes under American pressure.
"We can do whatever we want with the planes. Maybe we'll send 10 to Cuba, or maybe to China so that they can see the technology. I say with whatever country that can use them," said Chavez, a close ally of Cuban leader Fidel Castro.
Venezuela originally purchased its fleet of F-16s in 1983 for US$615 million. Until Chile acquired a fleet in 2003, Venezuela was the only Latin American country to possess the warplanes made by Lockheed Martin.
Chavez said he would remind leaders from other Latin American and Caribbean countries at the summit in Mar del Plata of other threats posed by the U.S.
"In Mar del Plata, I will say that Venezuela is free," Chavez said. "The capitalist, imperialist model threatens to destroy life on this planet ... it destroys waters, rivers, lakes, seas, contaminates the environment. It's a system that generates misery, poverty, death."
He also criticized U.S.-backed free-trade policies that he said make poor nations poorer while keeping them trapped in cycle of crippling debt payments.
"They make us slaves," said Chavez, pledging to oppose the U.S. plan for a Free Trade Area of the Americas and saying it would be "buried" at the summit.
Chavez, who says he is leading a socialist "revolution," has used Venezuela's oil wealth to push for regional solidarity, offering fuel with preferential financing to various Caribbean and Latin American countries.
Venezuela has also bought US$950 million (euro791.14 million) this year in Argentine bonds in what Chavez has called a step toward creating a so-called Bank of the South to help provide financing to the region. Chavez said he would be pushing that banking initiative again at the two-day summit, which opens Friday.
Chavez warned of U.S. cultural domination through Hollywood films and the news.
"CNN spends 50 percent of its time on spreading ideas about capitalism and the free market," Chavez said, accusing the Atlanta-based broadcaster of "bombarding" Latin American people with false ideas about the benefits of U.S.-trade policies.
He contrasted that to Telesur, the new Latin American TV station which he once proposed and which went live with news broadcasts Monday. Venezuela has provided more than half of the startup capital for the channel, intended as an alternative to corporate media outlets.
It's tempting to say that if Chavez hates CNN and Hollywood that much, he can't be all bad. But in fact he is all bad, and becoming increasingly dangerous. He really does need to be taken out, and soon.
Good--let him sell his jets. It'll be all the easier to obliterate his a$$ when the time comes.
"Chavez accused the U.S. of breaking a contract to supply parts for Venezuela's fleet of 21 F-16 fighters and pressuring other countries from helping to maintain them. Israeli media reported last month that Israel canceled a lucrative deal to upgrade the warplanes under American pressure."
1. Hopefully our deals have an escape clause in the event of the purchasing country turning into a socialist dictatorship.
2. Israel shouldn't have to be pressured - they should know better.
...and the horse you rode in on, buddy.
Maybe this is the start of the Left coming out AGAINST Hollywood. Wouldn't that be a conundrum?
hmmmm......let's see.... a turd rate dictator sends planes we built (you know they're not the top of the line stuff), with no combat experience pilots having minimum air time to another turd world country to threaten combat experienced pilots in top of the line fighters who know every nut and bolt on their opponents aircraft. Oh yeah some threat.
Dear Hugo: Please do it. We would like to level Castro's palaces and fish him up from his spiderhole and be done with it. We are sick of the bearded beast. Please ... just do it.
Yeah. Doesn't that idiot know we could own him if wanted to, TODAY. Why doesn't he just stfu, and leave well enough alone??
He's talking about communism, right?
Chavez is a lunatic. He's a lunatic with an inferiority complex and he keeps feeling ignored. Dunno if that makes him dangerous or not.
Whenever we sell military hardware to ANYONE, it should be equipped with a hidden self destruct feature that we (our military, that is) can activate. Otherwise we are likely to end up facing equipment as good as our own!
I'm sure they will be able to get parts also./sarcasm
I always thought that we should put in a fail-safe system with all the planes we sell so that they can be disabled in situations like this....anyone listening?
I'll bet the electronics have a secret back door that will allow our military to disable them if the need ever arose.
I wonder if that batch included the "remote destruction" option.
If I didn't know Chavez was an insane megalomaniac before now, this delusional thinking would clue me in pretty quick.
I'm shaking in my boots.
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