This ain't Hell, but you can see it from here

Category: Foreign Policy

  • Venezuela’s economy failing, plan to seize more foreign assets

    Just as an illustration of how twisted and confusing this whole big government concept is, take a look at Venezuela as it’s run by Hugo Chavez. Last year Chavez seized much of the oil and gas industry from foreign investors when oil was selling at $4/gallon here in the US. Now that the price has fallen to half of that, Venezuela is suffering from that decision according to the Washington Times;

    The price of Venezuelan crude has shrunk by 55 percent during the past year, and the debt accumulated by government-run oil enterprise PDVSA has grown by 146 percent.

    “The oil price is very low; about half the price we budgeted. That is hard and difficult for Venezuela,” said Mr. Chavez.

    The National Assembly passed a law Friday allowing the government to take over oil-service contractors, including several American and British firms that are owed up to a year in back fees.

    Last week they seized a Tulsa-based company’s assets in Venezuela;

    Petroleos de Venezuela SA, the state oil company known as PDVSA, said Monday it took over three gas-compression facilities from Tulsa-based Williams Cos. on May 8, one more than Williams had previously announced.

    PDVSA will absorb 163 workers at the facilities, it said Monday in a statement.

    The plants, two of which pump natural gas into the ground to increase oil output, are “associated” with about 500,000 barrels of oil production a day, PDVSA said.

    Also last week, the rubber-stamp legislature authorized Chavez to take over more industries in addition to the sugar, milk and lumber industries he’s nationalized since last year.

    The 39 companies currently providing services to state-run Petroleos de Venezuela SA will be brought under government control under a resolution that took effect Monday after being published in the Official Gazette, the official Bolivarian News Agency reported.

    It said the companies affected include Zulia Towing and Barge Company, Gusteca, Premeca, Seatech, and Terminales Maracaibo. The companies provide transport boats and other oil-related services on Lake Maracaibo in western Venezuela.

    Chavez claims that taking over these companies will allow him to cut energy costs – the government taking over industries doesn’t cut costs for consumers, which Chavez should have learned by taking over the oil industry. Of course he blames Venezuelans for the failure of the oil industry to turn a profit, so he fires them and brings in foreign labor;

    Mr. Chavez ordered his military to seize paralyzed installations, and he brought in oil workers from India, Libya and Iran to restart drilling rigs and refineries as he fired more than 17,000 PDVSA employees.

    While Bloomberg reports that Venezuelan bond prices fall. That should be helpful for the economy – he’ll pay foreigners low wages while Venezuelans sit on unemployment lines. In the meantime, the rhetoric continues. At Flopping Aces, Curt posts a video of Chavez telling a crowd of laborers that “The rich are evil….The rich aren’t human. The rich are animals in human form.”

    The way things are going, the only rich in Venezuela will be Chavez and his inner circle. Oh, and did I mention that Hezbollah has a presence in Venezuela? And that presence includes running some of the drug trade in the area?

  • American Legion takes on ACLU’s FOIA

    This is exactly why I joined the American Legion last week. David Rehbein, the national commander of the American Legion writes a fiery missive in the Wall Street Journal today in regards to the ACLU’s FOIA filing for photographs of alleged abuse of detainees at the hands of US forces in Iraq. Mr. Rehbein’s piece is titled “Photos that could cost lives“;

    Releasing photographs of alleged or actual detainee abuse in the War on Terrorism is not worth the life of a single American. Of course, as some have noted, the incidents at Abu Ghraib have already endangered our troops. So did any orders and policies that may have led to those incidents. But what is to be accomplished by continuing to provide ammunition and provocation to the enemy?

    ACLU’s filing is nothing more than a transparent attempt to turn the world against us. That world that riots at the sight of political cartoons and unfounded rumors about Korans flushed down the toilet. Al Qaeda claimed that their beheading of Nick Berg was in retaliation for the last photos that were released in regards to supposed torture. Two American soldiers held captive were also beheaded in retaliation. How many lives is ACLU willing to sacrifice for the next round of scandal?

    Mr Rehbein continues;

    I was deeply disturbed by the images of Abu Ghraib. The military, however, has investigated the abuses and punished those involved. Moreover, the photographs that are now about to be released are already being used for investigative purposes. Other than self-flagellation by certain Americans, riots and future terrorist acts, what else do people expect will come from the release of these photographs?

    At least the American Legion is willing to stand up for troops and says what needs to be said. In fact, the American Legion has led the VSOs in standing up for the troops since the war against terror began, they’ve been especially vigilant over the last few months when we’ve need them most. Mr Rehbein explains why;

    As commander of the nation’s largest veterans service organization, I have had the honor to present Blue Star Banners to military families, with the Blue Star signifying the deployment of a service member. It is always a moving experience. But it is the Gold Star Banner, the star that signifies the death of a service member in war, that I never hope to present. I fear that there will be many Gold Stars as a result of this misbegotten policy.

    Next month, I proudly join the ranks of Blue Star families as my only son gets deployed to Afghanistan and it’s reassuring to know that the folks at the American Legion are checking his six.

  • Obama the war monger

    Oh, how the Left fell hard for Obama – he repeated all of the anti-war slogans they wanted to hear and the protest groups generally sat quietly through the election process last year with their hands folded on their laps. But, as reality has slapped the Obama Administration, it also slaps the anti-war movement. Last year, Code Pink was relegated to DuPont Circle for their annual Mothers Day protest, nine blocks from the White House, when in previous years they’d had the free run of Lafayette Park across the street. This year they’re back in Lafayette Park promising to not raise children that are raised to not kill other mothers’ children;

    Yeah, that should be an easy promise to keep since no one wants to procreate with the hags who are all either lesbians or post-menopausal. Now if they could get the Muslim population to promise the same….

    After Downing Street, the far Left anti-Bush anti-war group founded by members of the Revolutionary Communist Party quotes the Al Jazeera article I wrote about the other day as proof that our troops are engaged in a war against Islam.

    Torture, religion, democracy, God. They’re all part of the mixed-up, horrific business that George Bush unleashed in the Middle East and Central Asia, and that Barack Obama is struggling to control and rationalize. As the words above demonstrate, the 12th century is striving mightily to join hands with the 20th in the U.S. military: Unbridled religious arrogance is forging a link with high-tech weaponry and an unlimited defense budget.

    The possibility that we are — not officially, of course, but in the minds of many American soldiers and officers — waging a religious war that parallels the secular one, an Ann Coulter war, if you will (“We should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity,” Coulter wrote on Sept. 12, 2001), is both deeply disturbing and utterly appropriate. The arrogance required for both efforts is so similar, I can understand if the line blurs for many of the participants.

    The Zionist Anti-Communist notices that the anti-war barking heads are coming together against Obama;

    It seems that Infowars.com is taking a page from the hard Leftist groups such as PuppetGov.com, literally taking a page from CodePink that Obama’s the obvious warmonger and war criminal if he doesn’t not only end the war in Iraq, but also the war in Afghanistan. Apparently, it seems 9/11 “Truthers” could agree with Code Pink that the USA should have no right to be in Afghanistan to go after a certain Osama bin Laden which the Taliban failed to hand over.

    Nice Deb notices the same trend and reminds us of the Obama quote about our troops “air raiding villages” and yet he continues air raiding villages himself, according to After Downing Street;

    And indeed, U.S. airstrikes this week in a densely populated area in western Afghanistan’s Farah Province, during a battle between Afghan soldiers and the Taliban, may have killed as many as 100 civilians, according to the New York Times. The Red Cross, the United Nations and the Afghan government are all expressing shock at the death toll, but our government will only acknowledge that it is “investigating the reports of civilian deaths,” which is the standard, meaningless comment that reporters work into such stories, seemingly with no obligation to follow up. This lets us forget about it and move on.

    It must be nice to just pontificate about peace without offering real, substantial solutions – solutions other than putting daisies in rifle barrels.

  • You knew somehow the flu epidemic is our fault

    See how easy it is to blame America for everything;

    I think you’re going to see over the next four years, we’re going to be blamed for a lot of things that happen in the world when the world gets a whiff of the possibility of some of our taxpayer dollars. Those Democrats love to throw our money at stuff that’s not our fault to assuage their own guilt.

    I guess it’s too much to blame the people in Mexico who caught the flu from the pigs in the first damn place.

  • Governments “race” to deal with Swine flu

    I have to laugh. This swine flu “epidemic” has been bubbling beneath the surface of the news for months and now that it’s reached a private prep school in New York City, the media has finally paid attention which means the government thinks they can make it a political issue while they “race” into the spotlight. Yeah, they have access to the vaccine, so that gives them some power, but “racing”? Hardly. No more than the coroner’s meat wagon “races’ to the scene of an automobile accident to police up remains in the aftermath.

    Does anyone honestly think that the government will take responsibility for their part in the spread of the illness? Nope, but they’ll take credit in a heartbeat when it stops being a threat. Gateway Pundit writes that even this won’t make Janet Napolitano take border security seriously.

    It’s amazing to me that people continue to think that government can solve all of the world’s problems when government has consistently failed to solve almost every problem. Allahpundit writes that CDC has already given up on containing the flu virus to Mexico.

    Susan Collins, the pretend Republican from Maine, can take comfort in the fact that even though she’s helped Democrats pass their Treasury-busting budgets, she’s still going catch the blame for this flu virus from the moonbats because they’re saying she took the emergency funding out of the budget on orders from Dick Cheney;

    Makes you wonder if Susan Collins was in contact with Dick Cheney before the stimulus vote and he told her, “Hey Susie-Q, make sure to take out the pandemic flu part, because me and Rumsfeld are planning a huge one. Now would be the time to invest on the stock market in flu medicines & vaccines. Just a tip for ya! Now go get ‘em Susie! We’re gonna be rich once again!”? Wouldn’t surprise me.

    The swine flu appears to be here, but that’s okay, Sen. Susan Collins wants us all to know that she did the right thing in making sure there was no money for this sort of pandemic flu.

    Sweet Georgia Brown! She should have at least put funding in the budget to treat Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld Derangement Syndrome.

    Oh, and crackpots are everywhere on the spectrum these days;

    Of course, there is a silver lining to every tragedy. If this disease continues to spread in Mexico, it could substantially reduce our illegal immigration problem. Perhaps that is God’s goal. The Lord does work in mysterious ways.

    Tiffany

  • Now THAT’S the Fidel we know

    President Obama learned why we’ve frozen out Cuba from US relations for the last five decades. On Sunday, Obama sent a message to Raul Castro announcing his plans to lift some aspects of the embargo against the communist nation (McClatchey link);

    If Castro wants to start a dialogue with the United States, he should start by releasing political prisoners and lowering the steep fees the Cuban government charges on money sent from abroad, Obama said.

    In the meantime, his administration will examine what other steps can be taken toward ending decades of isolation between Washington and the hemisphere’s last communist nation.

    So today, Fidel responds (Fox News/AP link);

    Fidel Castro said Tuesday that President Barack Obama “misinterpreted” his brother Raul’s sentiments toward the United States and bristled at any suggestion Cuba should free political prisoners or reduce official fees on money sent to the island from the U.S.

    How dare the US dictate policies to the Castros? In other words, they have no intention of ever allowing any meaningful measure of freedom. They want to continue with business as usual – stealing the bounty of the labor of everyday Cubans PLUS steal money from their relatives in the US, and they feel no compunction to abide by any deals with the US.

    Damn, this is harder than just making campaign promises, isn’t it?

  • What did they expect?

    Chavez Ahmadinejad

    After Obama spent the weekend sucking up to the terrorist-supporting gang in Trinidad and Tobago, his administration seems surprised that Ahmadinejad went off on a tear today about Israel;

    Addressing a UN conference against racism, Ahmadinejad criticized the creation of a “totally racist government in occupied Palestine” in 1948, calling it “the most cruel and racist regime.”

    The remarks by Ahmadinejad — who has in the past denied the Holocaust — prompted 23 European Union delegations to walk out of the Geneva conference room in protest.

    The United States and Israel were among countries which had already boycotted the meeting, refusing to attend at all due to its anticipated tone regarding the Jewish state.

    So what did they expect? Obama spent the weekend glad handing with Daniel Ortega who ranted for 50 minutes about the US “aggression” in the last century. So what were the reactions of Obama and his staff? Hillary Clinton said “I thought the cultural performance was fascinating.”


    Obama? Well, he’s just glad that Ortega only ranted about the US and not Obama specifically, “To move forward, we cannot let ourselves be prisoners of past disagreements. I’m grateful that President Ortega did not blame me for things that happened when I was three months old.”

    Yeah, that’s our president, boys and girls. Only things that are directed at him are important. So Obama tells Israel that they need to withdraw from Jerusalem before the US gets involved in Iran’s nuclear program. So what does Ahmadinejad do? Takes full advantage of the weakling in the White House.

  • Suggest this

    Yeah, I remember Ronald Reagan suggesting that Gorbachov tear down the Berlin Wall;

    Here’s an idea, how about telling the Castros that he won’t let any remittances into Cuba until they release their political prisoners and lower the amount they tax residents on remittances? How about that?

    And why is Obama stooping and bowing to Chavez when Chavez is on the ropes. He’s squandered his windfall profits from oil on weapons and submarines instead of spending it on his people – and now he needs the US. Chavez should been stooping and bowing to the US.

    Our buddy, John, an American living near the Costa Rican frontier with Panama sends us this cartoon from Nicaragua;

    It’s Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez, Nicaragua’s Daniel Ortega, Bolivia’s Evo Morales and Cuba’s Raoul Castro as monkeys. The sign Chavez is holding says “Cuba is the Paradise of Democracy”.  John writes that the artist of this cartoon is in hiding in Florida because of threats towards his family.
    ADDED: This is why I screen capture AP headlines these days. They seem to change;