Posted on 08/26/2005 8:38:16 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
CARACAS, Venezuela - President Hugo Chavez declared Friday that if anything happens to him it will be President Bush's fault.
Chavez brought up Robertson's remarks while addressing supporters at the presidential palace, saying "he has expressed the desire of the elite that governs the United States."
"If something happens to me, the responsible one will be George W. Bush," said Chavez, who has repeatedly accused the Bush administration of plotting to overthrow him.
The United States has repeatedly denied having any intentions to try to topple Chavez or harm him.
Chavez's comments were his sharpest since Robertson called for his assassination Monday on his TV show "The 700 Club," saying the United States should "take him out" because Chavez poses a danger to the region.
Robertson later issued an apology, saying he spoke out of frustration. U.S. State Department spokesman Sean McCormack on Tuesday called Robertson's remarks "inappropriate," but stopped short of condemning them.
Posted on Tue, Apr. 19, 2005
LATIN AMERICA
The Chávez- 'banana left' alliance
BY CARLOS ALBERTO MONTANER
www.firmaspress.com
Military leaders in Brazil are uneasy about Hugo Chávez. It is not comfortable to coexist with a neighbor intent on creating a militia with a million armed men.
The most benign hypothesis is that the militia is actually an occupation force devoted only to throttling the Venezuelans and controlling and patrolling a national dictatorship more or less patterned after the Cuban model.
The most worrisome theory believes that, in addition to oppressing the Venezuelans, a military apparatus of that size will end up developing international operations against the neighboring countries.
Brazilians are not unaware that when the Cuban army became the largest in Latin America it ended up invading Angola and Ethiopia with tens of thousands of soldiers, who -- from 1975 to 1989 -- fought in Africa the longest war ever waged by a foreign force: 14 years.
The military brass in Chile is just as uncomfortable. They sense that Chávez's growing militarism will metastasize throughout the continent, so they're starting a costly program of rearmament.
Nobody believes the tale that the million militiamen have been summoned to repel the United States. It's peculiar that two socialist governments are watching with the greatest concern the upsurge in Latin America of a militaristic left, inevitably destined to attack its neighbors. This phenomenon has spawned a new expression, conceived to describe the chavista trend: the banana left.
Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva's Workers Party recently declared its willingness to maintain fiscal austerity, control inflation and improve its relations with the world's financial center. It does not wish to be mistaken for chavismo.
In Chile, President Ricardo Lagos' Socialists, who today resemble Tony Blair more than Salvador Allende, also wish to distance themselves from the Venezuelan lieutenant colonel.
Chávez is the quintessence of the banana left. The banana left, forever angry and on a constant war footing, is Marxist, anti-West, authoritarian, irresponsibly populist, an enemy of the market, and on an apostolic mission to create a phantom revolution, rescued from the wreckage of the Cold War.
Neither Lula nor Lagos is like that. Probably, Uruguayan President Tabaré Vázquez and Argentine President Néstor Kirchner are not, either. Furthermore, the moderate left is not unaware that the banana wing of its own political family is a more-dangerous potential foe than its traditional adversaries.
• In Nicaragua, the banana left, represented by Daniel Ortega, has viciously harassed the former Sandinista mayor Herty Lewites, something it did once before to Sergio Ramírez.
• In El Salvador, as brilliantly denounced by former guerrilla leader Joaquín Villalobos, Shafik Handal has assumed the role of implacable banana enforcer against anyone who attempts to challenge his leadership from a reasonable democratic position.
• In Mexico, the colorful Subcomandante Marcos, noted for supporting ETA's Basque terrorists and denouncing the Spanish monarchy, has gone from being an icon of the left to becoming an embarrassing fellow traveler.
• Something similar is happening to the left in Bolivia, where coca farmers' leader Evo Morales has pulverized the social democrats' space, dangerously polarizing society into two halves separated by an abyss.
There is yet an additional danger. The banana left is not just an ideological space; it is also a political franchise for adventurers hungry for power, who seek an easily identifiable label. Thus, when the ineffable ''madman'' Abdalá Bucaram returned to Ecuador after his long exile in Panama, he insinuated that he had become a born-again chavista.
Several decades ago, in the midst of the Cold War, former communists such as Arthur Koestler and Nobel laureate Czeslaw Milosz predicted that the final battle would be waged between them and those who remained faithful to Stalinism. In fact, things developed otherwise, but in Latin America today it is possible to predict something similar: The war confronting moderate socialism is against the banana left. That's where its most dangerous enemies grow and multiply.
What's he going to do. Bring a wrongful death lawsuit? Where is Ramsey Clark when you need him?
Cool.
Though G.W.B. might be a little preoccupied with the Parade we give him to respond immediately to your Ghost.
LOL
Sheehanism is rampant and on the upswing, yaknow.
at least, that is what the MSM would have us believe.
Has anyone created shirts on cafepress.com that are emblazened with "Bush's FAULT"? It'd be a great seller amongst both conservatives and liberals. By conservatives because of satire and by liberals because they are stupid.
Pat Robertson's fault.
We'll know his time is about up if he starts having Jesse Jackson hold his shirt.
OTOH. . .in the 'Court of Public Opinion' where the Leftstream reigns. . .it could work.
This is really good Chavez; not for you, but for your enemy. . .whose name is not George Bush. . .
Castro will probably whack him and blame us. Then he'll "help" run Venezuela to protect them from the evil empire.
LOL... Picture of the Day! darkwing104
Who owns that kitten...Pat Robertson?
Ok i need some quick help... that " you dont speak for me cindy" group..
anyone have links to the discussion about these people? and how their think tank is rove all all that mess? thanks!
ROTF!! It's ROVES fault!
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