[blam]

We import 60% of Venezuela's oil output which is 14% of our total oil imports.

[CrawDaddyCA]

It's OK, the USS George Washington and her escorts will be there shortly.

[cripplecreek]

We should have pulled our ambassador out the night Sluggo "won" the election.

[jazusamo]

Ping

[Brilliant]

Why do we have an ambassador?

[Migraine]

They egged a Nixon motorcade there when he was VP. They must not be starving.

[marron]

A number of my colleagues are Venezuelan emigres.

Good bunch of guys. The good ones are leaving if they can.

The problem with that is that Chavez is a Venezuelan problem. If they don't take him out, he isn't going. Most of these guys were involved in the civic action to push him out of office. He finessed that by getting them to agree to midterm elections, and then buying the company that ran the elections.

They all know that the next step is surrender, bloodshed, or exile. A lot of people are choosing exile.

Everyone who signed the petitions against Chavez, is listed in a database. When you go to transact any business the person dealing with you already knows if you are "with" them or against them. This is the dark side that computers have made possible.

As a side note, these databases have been downloaded and made public, and you can by a copy in the street for a buck.

[stboz]

tick, tick, tick......

[kevin_in_so_cal]

...by supporters of Hugo Chavez.


"American activist Cindy Sheehan kisses Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez during a conference of the World Social Forum in Caracas."

Hmmm, I wonder.

[Unam Sanctam]

Brownshirted thugs.

[Billthedrill]

Reminds me quite a bit of the Panamanian "dignity battalions" who finally went too far and killed people. I wonder how Noriega's doing these days?

[potlatch]

The ambassador's convoy was pelted with eggs, onions and tomatoes and chased by motorbikes for some miles by supporters of President Hugo Chavez.

Does that concoction sound familiar?

[piasa]

2004 : (VENEZUELA : CHAVEZ PACKS THE SUPREME COURT) Chavez packed the Supreme Court with pliant judges and pushed through a TV and radio law that could lead to media self-censorship. ----- "Bashing U.S. works for Venezuelan leader," by JOHN OTIS Houston Chronicle South America Bureau, Houston Chronicle, March 27, 2005

[piasa]

2004 early : (VENEZUELA & WMD) Spain's Europa Press news agency reports reports that Venezuela purchased "biological and nerve agents" as well as dual-use materials from Spain sometime during the first half of 2004. According to a report about defense expenditures obtained by Europa Press, Venezuela was the only country listed under the category of "states to which chemical warfare agents and radioactive materials were sold." ...The amount of biological or nerve agents probably isn't large --
...Europa Press sets the purchase price at 30,000 Euros, which isn't out of line with the price of a single kilogram of South American heroin. I'm not familiar with the going rates on the WMD black market, but hopefully doomsday weapons are scarcer and therefore more expensive than heroin. (A further 500,000 Euros was spent on the dual-use materials which might be legitimately destined for the petroleum and leather-tanning industries.) But any amount of WMD in the hands of the Castroite Chavez regime is too much.
...President Chavez may be a thuggish autocrat, but he isn't stupid enough to use chemical or biological weapons against American civilians, at least directly. He may see them as insurance against the possibility of an American invasion; however, the United States demonstrated in Iraq that threats of chemical retaliation will not deter us should we decide to invade.
A more likely scenario is the use of these WMD's for international extortion against South American governments. Chavez's alleged links to Colombia's narcoterrorist FARC and to Evo Morales's cocaleros in Bolivia suggest he could find a vector for the weapons should he need one. The implicit threat of arming insurgent groups with WMD's may compel these governments -- especially the precarious democracy in Bolivia -- to accommodate Venezuela's policies or to reject ours. --------- "Remember the Maine?," By Clinton W. Taylor, Published 4/11/2005 12:06:51 AM , http://www.americanprowler.com/dsp_article.asp?art_id=8010

[piasa]

The second concern is Chávez support for the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and the smaller National Liberation Army (ELN). For years Castro has been giving their troops medical care in Cuba. But now Chávez is providing safe haven to them just across the Colombian border....
---------The 'Cubanization' of Latin America -- John Bolton's concerns about Castro are being legitimized Wall Street Journal ^ | April 29, 2005 | MARY ANASTASIA O'GRADY

[piasa]

* Hakim Mamad Ali Diab Fattah : Venezuelan of Arab descent. He had been the subject of international surveillance because he had taken lessons at two New Jersey flight schools attended by Hani Hanjour, who crashed American Airlines Flight 77 into the Pentagon on Sept. 11, 2001.
The FBI had arrested Fattah in the US after discovering that he also had talked about blowing up an airliner and had used forged identity documents. Information about him was requested from Venezuela's internal security service, Direccion de Inteligencia Seguridad y Prevencion (DISIP). But little was forthcoming other than psychiatric records showing that he was a diagnosed schizophrenic who had failed to attend therapy for more than a year. He was returned to Venezuela on March 8, 2002.
----- "Terror Threat from Venezuela: Al Queda Involved," by Martin Arostegui, Militares Democraticos, December 27, 2002

* Nasser Mohammed al-Din : A powerful entrepreneur and a close personal friend of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, at whose home in Margarita the Venezuelan president stays on his frequent visits to the resort island, which is also a favored venue for his private meetings with Castro.
Margarita Island appears to be the center of an extensive terrorist financial network stretching throughout the Caribbean to Panama and the Cayman Islands, where three Afghanis traveling on false Pakistani passports were caught entering from Cuba with $200,000 in cash in August 2001.
According to British colonial authorities, efforts to launder the money through Cayman banks also involved a group of Arab businessmen.
-------- "Terror Threat from Venezuela: Al Queda Involved," by Martin Arostegui, Militares Democraticos, December 27, 2002