Rodriguez, the Venezuelan foreign minister, said Monday that his government in recent days had "waited patiently for some kind of positive explanation from President Fox" about his public criticism of Chavez. When no explanation was forthcoming, Rodriguez said, "the necessary step was taken."
Chavez last week called Fox a U.S. "lapdog" working in favor of Washington's "imperialism."
The Caracas daily Tal Cual, a frequent critic of the Venezuelan leader, published a cover illustration Monday of Chavez drawing a pair of six-shooters. "Looking for a Fight," the headline said.
"This wouldn't have happened if Fox had been more diplomatic and hadn't said what he thought," said Rafael Fernandez de Castro, a leading analyst of Mexican foreign policy in Mexico City. "Fox threw a stone and Chavez replied with a brick," Fernandez said. "Chavez is thrilled. The more the problem escalates, the happier he is." .....***
The 250-page Peripheral Warfare and Revolutionary Islam was written by Spanish politician and academic Jorge Verstrynge and is being distributed on the personal orders of Army Chief Gen. Raúl Baduel, a long-time supporter of leftist Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez.
Baduel's office said he's not available for an interview until January. Armed Forces Inspector General Gen. Melvin López Hidalgo said he was unaware of the book but argued that its publication by the army should not be taken as ''tacit support for the opinions it contains.'' It's simply an example of ''freedom of expression,'' he added.
The book focuses on asymmetrical warfare, a term for ''David and Goliath'' conflicts between adversaries of vastly different capacities, such as the war between U.S. forces and Iraqi insurgents.
Verstrynge was a keynote speaker at a recent military conference in Caracas on asymmetrical warfare, which has been adopted by the Venezuelan military as a key defensive concept, based on a possible attack by U.S. forces to seize Venezuela's oil wealth or topple Chávez.
''For us, it would have to be a war of resistance,'' said Baduel in a speech last month.
Chávez, an anti-American populist who has vowed to build a revolutionary ''21st Century socialism'' in Venezuela, has repeatedly alleged that Washington plans to assassinate him and invade his country -- allegations strongly denied by the Bush administration.
Verstrynge, born in Morocco to Belgian and Spanish parents, was a leading member of Spain's right-wing Popular Party before switching to the ruling Socialists. A political-science professor at Madrid's Complutense University, he has authored a number of other books.
'It is unfair to attack `revolutionary Islam' '' and not ''U.S. religious extremism,'' he wrote, adding that Washington has plans to ''re-colonize'' the world that he called ``a danger never equaled in history.''................***