Posted on 03/06/2006 10:53:36 AM PST by presidio9
At a rural military base on the outskirts of Caracas, officers have started classes in unconventional warfare to repel an invasion that President Hugo Chávez has hinted that Washington is planning.
Snipers and civilian reservists with knives, catapults, and handguns crawled out of a hidden tunnel in a mock demonstration as an instructor lectured officers on resistance tactics.
Captains joined lieutenants straining behind a cordon to see a camouflaged soldier as he fired a bow and peppered a dummy target with arrows.
''If no one comes, then that's fine; we can continue as the free and sovereign country we are, but we cannot permit that any foreign force tries to invade," the instructor, Lieutenant Colonel Antonio Benavides, said as gunfire cracked from a range.
''All Venezuelans, the state and civil society, have a joint responsibility to defend the nation," he said over the weekend.
Chávez is building up civilian reservists against a more powerful foreign force. About 500,000 civilian reservists and territorial guard volunteers will start four-month basic training nationwide at weekends, said retired Colonel Hector Herrera, a reservist adviser.
Washington dismisses Chavez's charges that it plans to remove him to control the world's number-five oil exporter. The United States has dismissed his invasion talk as saber-rattling to stir up nationalism before elections in December.
-snip-
The United States and Venezuela last month expelled diplomats after Chávez accused a US naval attaché of spying and the former soldier has stepped up threats to cut off US oil shipments. Since surviving a 2002 coup, he has often accused US officials of trying to topple him.
Speaking on his regular Sunday television program, Chávez accused Washington of planning to kidnap him, and of supporting opposition attempts to force the secession of western Zulia state where much of the country's oil is located.
(Excerpt) Read more at boston.com ...
They couldn't repel my Grandma.
We could send in our Salvation Army and kick their a$$.
They have no idea that we wouldnt set foot upon their homeland until after days of relentless airstrikes to destroy all their infrastucture. LOL catapults and bows. I laugh at thee Hugo.
Chavez's thug army will melt like butter on a hot griddle in the face of US Marines and armed civilian Venezuelans.
Things must be pretty bad down there, if Hugo is pulling out this old trick. Focus the poeple on an outside aggressor, to take their minds off the fact that you have your boot across their neck.
I have no idea why. I mean, they're pretty repellent already.
Looks like Sen. Chris Dodd's favorite Latin American dictator is turning what was previously the most democratic nation in Latin America into a militaristic pariah.
I find Hugo rather repelling. :^)
That being said, they have no idea of the hell that would be unleashed on them.
Here, the Fist passes in review after the completion of yet
another glorious mission.
Are you kidding? Over the course of six movies I saw storm troopers fire their weapons in anger hundreds of times without hitting anything. If we go to war, I'm not sure I want them on my side.
I understand they're using old copies of "Red Dawn", re-dubbed into Spanish as training manuals.
p,
Actually you know what's missing from this article? The part where the media describe the opposing force like they're 10 feet tall and breathe fire.
I mentioned that on another thread earlier today, about how media in Desert Shield portrayed Saddam as having a million-man battle hardened army of experienced desert warriors.
I'm surprised there wasn't something about Chavez' hard core elite Republican Guard or whatever, or allude that it would take thousands of American casualties to fight there. Oh, and that it would be another Vietnam and a quagmire, can't forget that.
If your officer's dead and the sergeants look white,
Remember it's ruin to run from a fight:
So take open order, lie down, and sit tight,
And wait for supports like a soldier.
Wait, wait, wait like a soldier . . .
When you're wounded and left on Afghanistan's plains,
And the women come out to cut up what remains,
Jest roll to your rifle and blow out your brains
An' go to your Gawd like a soldier.
on CNN in the weeks leading up to our invasion of Afganistan. Initial casualty predictions were in the tens of thousands.
Don't bring a knife to a missle fight.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.