Posted on 05/17/2006 6:23:04 AM PDT by pissant
Venezuela has allowed its intelligence service to become a clone of Cuba's while it shelters groups with ties to Middle East terrorists and allows weapons from its official stockpiles to reach Colombian guerrillas, a senior U.S. official said yesterday.
Those were the principal reasons why the Bush administration blacklisted Venezuela on Monday, saying it has failed to fully cooperate on counterterrorism, Thomas A. Shannon, assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere affairs, told editors and reporters at The Washington Times.
"It's our hope now that we've gotten their attention," he said of the Venezuelans, who are banned from purchasing U.S. weapons because of the listing. "We hope that we are going to be in a position where we can talk with them and look for how we can improve [our] cooperation."
An immediate impact of the decision is that Venezuela will be unable to buy spare parts from the United States to maintain its aging fleet of U.S.-made F-16 fighter jets. A senior military adviser to President Hugo Chavez said yesterday that Venezuela might now sell the planes to another country, possibly Iran.
It was not clear what Iran might do with the planes, because it is also subject to U.S. sanctions.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtontimes.com ...
Yep. Good thing I never make such mistakes. LOL
El Salvador has a growing insurgency and crime problem, Nicaragua also has growing problems of internal unrest.
All three are happily exporting there poorer population to America.
And China, is extending her influence through economics.
The old ways of coups and covert ops to destabilize opponents is being replaced by the new economic war.
America may one day wake up to find that she has lost much of her influence to China.
This is very much the case with Africa, poverty stricken but rich in resources needed by a modern growing market.
And WHO has not signed a number of economic agreements with China? Chile has alot of economic ties to the US and has for quite some time.
El Salvador & Nicaragua have ALWAYS had problems, as have most countries in the region. The question is do we allow enemies of our country to run those places. During the Cold War, the answer was unequivocally NO. And my preferred policy NOW is the same. You see the mischief that Chavez is stirring up. He needs to go. We should not deal with madmen. That's why Castro will continue to be isolated until he kicks the bucket.
You all miss the point; it's Bush's fault.
This is laughable. They already have socialism.
That's why they're poor.
Yep. Aids in Africa, the Tawain-China tensions, terrorism...it's ALL Bush's fault.
No they don't, what they have is a system of government, that favours a few that is steeped in corruption which strangles any intitative and allows any wealth to be harvested by a ruling elite. Africa springs to mind.
Going straight to a free market modal does not work as you need a educated work force. And the Free Market is in wealth creation and education is seen as the responsibility of the government not private enterprise.
The Modals I am looking at our East Europe and India, which are moving quite successfully from socialism to free market.
In both cases they have a young well educated workforce freed from the fetters of socialism, and ready to put that education to good use.
China has a habit of using economics to extend her influence, I am not saying that they have any designs on gaining a foothold in South America but they use real or imagined fears of the States as bargaining chips.
About time we applied some leverage to Captain Blowhard's plums.
Spain's Zapatero should be held to account for his strong support of Chavez and thus of terrorism.
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