.With these two goons not wearing batting helmets where's a 100 mph Nolan Ryan fastball when ya need one ?
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 makes him dangerous to himself.
If we are so imperialistic and horrile and corrupting, why doesn't he just give us back our F16's? After all, would YOU accept a gift from someone you hated and thought was corrupt?
.With these two goons not wearing batting helmets where's a 100 mph Nolan Ryan fastball when ya need one ?
FANTASTIC! Target practice!
If he thinks CNN spends 50% of its time spreading capitalism, then he really is totally insane.
They try flying over the South and them boys will be duck hunting!
Hey Edith! You best get out the big pot for hog rendering! I got me a BIG Eagle!
Works for me!
How about we do like we did in Cuban missle crisis? He sends those aircraft to Cuba, we stop it as an act of war. He won't nuke us like Russia had the ability to do.
Sounds like Pat Robertson's idea may not have been as half baked as it sounded eh? LOL!
When did it EVER sound half-baked?
The key to any weapons platform is not the physical platform as much as the targeting aquisition equipment, ECM and other electronics on board.
The planes they purchased in 1983 were inferior to our systems then, can you imagine now.....
Maybe Chavez can get China knock-off spare parts. Or maybe Venezuelan F-16 pilots with their knock-off spares would be willing to meet American pilots in F-22s in a little air-to-air? It's one thing to have one of the greatest fighters in the world while it is quite another to use it properly.
FYI
I hope we still have the back door scuttle codes.
loose nut behind the steering wheel down south
Methinks F-16 sales to such have a built in poison pill that will soon fry the electronics and render them inoperable.
I was about to post virtually the same thing, but thought I'd scroll down to see if some like-minded person had already done so.
So I'll just say "Dittos".
I was about to post virtually the same thing, but thought I'd scroll down to see if some like-minded person had already done so.
So I'll just say "Dittos".
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