The Coming Venezuela Missile Crisis

RealClearPolitics ^ | December 22, 2010 | Jed Babbin

[neverdem]

The next Israeli crisis is being manufactured in South America. As unimaginable as it is for the byzantine politics of Latin America to become more complicated, a metastasized Middle Eastern "peace process" has produced just that result...

--snip--

Chavez's close relationship to the world's principal sponsor of terrorism isn't new, but it is a quantum leap in escalation of his enmity to America and his threat to South American democracies.

The 1962 Cuban missile crisis was the closest the United States came to a nuclear war. With Soviet medium range missiles in Cuba, capable of carrying nuclear warheads to any American city, JFK's demands that they be withdrawn were accompanied by the threat that we would remove them ourselves. An Air Force U-2 reconnaissance aircraft was shot down over Cuba raising tensions close to war. A naval blockade of Cuba was about to engage and turn back a Russian convoy when the Russians backed down.

Chavez's Venezuela was, for a time, Castro's Cuba on steroids. His new "socialist" revolution is bankrupting the nation, but Chavez is working diligently - with Iranian and Russian help - to do what his idol, Fidel, failed to do.

Unless President Obama acts decisively to stop the Iranian missiles and the Iranian base from being set up in Venezuela, Ahmadinejad will have succeeded where Kruschev failed. With Chavez in thrall to Iran, the terrorist nation will have gained a foothold in our hemisphere, proving able to do in South and Central America what it has done in the Middle East and Afghanistan.

If the first two years of the Obama administration are any guide, odds are that Israel will be alone in dealing with the Palestinian-manufactured crisis with Brazil and Argentina. But how will President Obama deal with the coming Venezuelan Missile Crisis?

[lentulusgracchus]

As for Castro, remember that Castro and Guevara were too close to taking control over the Soviet missiles and launching them.

I was alive at the time, and I never heard that one. Everyone thought that control of the SS-4's and -5's the Sovs were trying to install would be tight, preclusive, and all-Soviet.

As to this article, has Dinnerjacket concluded some sort of agreement with Chavez for exporting Iranian missiles?

[Always Independent]

Republican. Across the board.

[happygrl]

Every time that they say “Launch” the workers stop and go get something to eat.

bada-Boom!

[happygrl]

Every time the power goes off, I worry that THAT has happened.

[Cementjungle]

The Soviets left troops in Cuba purportedly to keep control of the launch capability. The story I remember was that the soccer fields constructed for the Soviet troops was what alerted the U.S. to take a closer look.

It makes me wonder about the stadium China is building for Costa Rica (in San Jose, next to La Sabana park). They're nearly finished building it, all with Chinese labor. All materials, equipment, even the food for the workers is brought in from China.

It's a completely "no strings attached" gift from China to Costa Rica.

[neverdem]

It's a completely "no strings attached" gift from China to Costa Rica.

Why Costa Rica?

Here’s a preview of the $83 million national soccer stadium to hold 35,000 fans being built and donated by China.

Last I remembered, Costa Rica has no military. Zero, zilch, nada, only police!

[Cementjungle]

Here's a picture of the Chinese stadium in Costa Rica I shot in October:

And some Costa Ricans learning to play American football in Sabana Park, next to the stadium: