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

Category: Foreign Policy

  • Venezuela’s students don’t let up pressure (Updated)

    (Photo from Venezuela Llora, Venezuela Sangra)

    Even though the media has pretty much ignored events in Venezuela this week, Venezuela Llora and Venezueal News and Views reports that protests continued yesterday. From Venezuela Llora;

    Professors, workers and the students of the UCV (Universidad Central de Venezuela) had called upon a march on Tuesday, the students from all the other houses of study answered. However the goverment refused to allow them to march that day, so the date was switched to Wednesday. Once again the goverment tried to not allow the march to happen, however this time the students decided that theyre were going to march.

    Daniel at Venezuela News and Views writes that the Venezuelan police tried to stop bus loads of students from entering Caracas;

    …now that we are under a not that veiled military regime, some stupid Captain, thinking he had more power than he really did took upon himself to stop buses coming up to Caracas full of students wanting to join the march. So, this lout thought he would scare students but these just decided that if they could not go up to Caracas no one else could. Soon, as the ARC was falling into a deadly lock everyone was allowed to Caracas. I wonder what that Captain learned today: democracy or shooting first? And that sad scene repeated at many exits of the ARC. Funny detail: Iris Varela claims that the students were sabotaging, “esos niñitos” she said, while Globovision showed the Nazional Guard trucks blocking highway access! Then again Varela has been living in a parallel universe for quite a while.

    This photo is from Venezuela News and Views. The sign reads “Please excuse the inconvenience, we’re working for your liberty”

    The Devil’s Excrement has videos and narratives of yesterday’s events. 

    Mary Anastacia O’Grady explained in an article entitled “The Young and the Restless” from Monday’s Wall Street Journal why it’s so significant that students are protesting;

    Until now, students have not played a role in anti-Chávez activism. Eight years of property confiscations, the jailing of government adversaries and the manipulation of voter rolls and elections prompted almost no student response at all. But the attack on free speech hit a nerve and sent them to the streets. This has captured the attention of the nation because student resistance movements have an important history in Venezuela. In recent days many have been recalling that it was an uprising from the universities that precipitated the fall of dictator Marcos Pérez Jiminez in 1958.

    Still, it is not clear that this is a grassroots movement that will run Mr. Chávez out of town. It is true that the students who are out in the streets attend the large state-run schools and therefore probably do not come from Venezuela’s elite families. But they are not from the nation’s most destitute families either, where Mr. Chávez finds his strongest support. It is safe to say that they mostly represent the country’s middle and lower-middle income sectors. Yet it is notable that the protests have spread beyond wealthy Caracas to include public universities in poorer parts of the country where student bodies tend to be even more humble.

    What is also new, and even more interesting, about this resistance movement is its focus on “freedom” and calls to end “the dictatorship.” Mr. Chávez’s beloved Revolution may have once claimed the moral high ground by asserting that its enemies plotted a nondemocratic coup on April 11, 2002. But now the president and his chavistas seem to be the ones on the defensive, with polls showing more than 70% of Venezuelans opposed to the closing of RCTV. This suggests that the dissatisfaction does indeed cut across economic classes.

    Please read these articles in their entirety, the writings of people on the scene and the very knowledgable Ms. O’Grady (who has been warning us for years about Chavez in the pages of the Wall Street Journal) are all we’re going to get on this important story, apparently. I’m disappointed that the Administration isn’t doing more to stop this two-bit thug – just like I’m disappointed that Congress won’t lift a finger to condemn Chavez.

    Associated Press (by way of Fox News) writes that Chavez is calling for a Latin American socialist defense bloc;

    President Hugo Chavez called for the creation of a common defense pact between Venezuela, Cuba, Nicaragua and Bolivia, while the leftist Latin American bloc announced the creation of a development bank to finance joint projects.

    Chavez said Wednesday that the four-nation Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas, or ALBA, which began as a socialist-leaning trade group, should cooperate militarily to become more independent of U.S. influence.

    “It seems to be the moment to establish a joint defense strategy,” Chavez said. He called for joint military aid as well as intelligence and counterintelligence cooperation “to prepare our people for defense so that nobody makes any mistake with us.”

    I guess that way Chavez doesn’t have to worry about using Venezuelan troops to put down the protests in his own country, he can use the police and armed forces of other countries against his own people in the model of Robert Mugabe.

    Chavez also called the failed US call for an investigation of the Venezuelan government’s closing of RCTV “a great defeat for the empire” according to AP; 

    President Hugo Chavez said Wednesday that the United States suffered a humiliating defeat in its move to condemn Venezuela internationally for forcing an opposition-aligned TV station off the airwaves.

    Chavez began a news conference by playing a video of heated debate between his foreign minister and U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice at an Organization of American States meeting in Panama on Tuesday. The OAS declined to adopt a U.S. request to investigate his government’s removal of Radio Caracas Television from the air.

    “A great defeat for the empire,” said Chavez, who said OAS member countries had refused “to play (Washington’s) game” and instead backed his government.

    “It was the greatest defeat _ a moral defeat, a political defeat,” said Chavez, who maintains the government made a proper legal decision not to renew the channel’s license.

    Since the OAS can’t summon the testicular fortitude to stand up to this pompous shrimp, it is a defeat for all of the people of Latin America – their weak-kneed tacit approval of the silencing of Chavez’ opposition can only embolden Ortega, Correra and Morales to crush dissent in their own countries. Ultimately, it’s liberty that has been defeated.

    And at least some Cubans in the United States see the parallels between their plight and that of Venezuelans.

    Speaking of Cubans, I found this on Babalu Blog;

    Cuban workers are also the only ones working at that mysterious “city” that is being built near Carayaca. Those Cuban workers should be the concern of the local criollo unions.

    With the complicity of the Chavez Government they are being subjected to a truly savage exploitation, of the pre-capitalist savage style, a feudal savage style, which would make you laugh at the neoliberal type. They do not contract the workers; the Cuban state does it from them.

    They receive as payment less than the Venezuelan minimum salary and the Cuban Government charges for each worker US$ 600, of which the worker and his family in Cuba, see nothing but US$ 20, in pesos.

    I guess that’s what Venezuelans have to look forward to from the Chavez government. How long before Chavez starts exporting his opponents to work in Cuba to prop up that collapsing regime?  

    UPDATE: Daniel at Venezuela News and Views recounts today’s events at the National Assembly – the studaents had to be transported out by armored car for their own protection from the chavezistas – reminicient of Noriega’s Dignity Battalions.

  • Condie vs. Hugo

    (Photo from Venezuela Llora, Venezuela Sangra) 

    In my favorite city in the world (Panama, RP), my favorite Secretary of State dueled with my favorite villains, the Venezuelan government according to Carmen Gentile in the Washington Times;

      Miss Rice hurled the first salvo, saying freedom of speech is not a “thorn in the side of democracy,” a direct reference to the shutdown of RCTV by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez because of critical reports about his government.
        “Freedom of speech, freedom of association and freedom of conscience are not a thorn in the side of government. They are the beginning of justice in every society,” Miss Rice said during her opening remarks to OAS foreign ministers.
        “Disagreeing with your government is not unpatriotic and most certainly should not be a crime in any country, especially in a democracy,” she said.
        Venezuelan Foreign Minister Nicolas Maduro struck back, saying, “Venezuela demands respect for its sovereignty.”
        He sought to turn a critical eye on the United States, saying the OAS should conduct an investigation of how the United States treats detainees at U.S. Naval Base Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, instead of concerning itself with the closure of a Venezuelan TV station.
        After his address to OAS leaders, Miss Rice asked for and received an opportunity to rebut the Venezuelan minister’s remarks.
        “As to issues in the United States of human rights, of how we fight the war on terror, the detention of unlawful combatants at Guantanamo, on immigration policy, on any issue, I am quite certain that it would be difficult for any commission to debate more fully, to investigate more fully, to criticize the policies of the United States government then is done every night on CNN, on ABC, on CBS, on NBC and on any number of smaller channels in the United States,” Miss Rice said.

    Now, Ms. Rice should’ve mentioned Chavez’ prisons and the conditions there as compared to the facility at Guantanamo and she shouldn’t have walked out so that the Venezuelan could describe Guantanamo unchallenged;

    The Venezuelan foreign minister said Guantanamo was akin to”something monstrous, only comparable to the Hitler era.”

    I’m pretty sure that any of Chavez’ political enemies aren’t as well-treated as the monsters in Guantanamo. I’d like Chavez to prove otherwise – like where are the 200 demonstrators he arrested last week being held and in what condition?

    According to the Associated Press (via Washington Post), Rice called for the OAS to get involved;

    At the meeting, she urged the OAS to send its secretary-general, Jose Miguel Insulza, to Venezuela to look into the closing of the station and deliver a full report on his findings.

    Maduro struck back, waving a couple of red herrings, like the Left tends to do;

    Maduro, speaking after Rice, reacted angrily, saying her comments were an “unacceptable intervention is the internal affairs of a nation, and that is why we reject it.”

    “Venezuela is asking for respect,” he said. “We demand respect for our sovereignty.”

    Maduro defended the decision not to renew RCTV’s license as “democratic, legal and fair” and accused the United States of repeated violations of human rights, including at the U.S.-Mexico border where immigrants “are chased and hunted like animals” and at Guantanamo Bay, where he said terrorism suspects are being “held hostage.” 

    Too bad Nancy Pelosi was busy trying to decide how to keep her fellow Democrats out of jail or she could’ve taken the opportunity to support Venezuelans.  

    In the meantime, I learned from Pheistyblog that RCTV has three daily news broadcasts on YouTube. It’s the #1 subscription on YouTube for the week – #2 for the month at this writing.

    In the meantime Daniel at Venezuela News and Views reports that Chavez’ forces are denying entry into Caracas of bus loads of young people, while students have taken to the High Court to defend their right to protest Chavez. from Daniel’s link to El Universal;

    Thousand university students walked Monday up to the Supreme Tribunal of Justice (TSJ) to file a petition in the collective interest, on behalf of their rights to demonstrate.The students planned to request TSJ to ensure their right to hold demonstrations across the whole city. Last Friday they were not allowed to go to the National Assembly (AN), downtown Caracas.”The idea is to secure the right to protest. And we asked also the opportunity to take the floor at the Parliament. Sovereignty resides in people and people delegate it to the National Assembly,” said Stalin González, the president of the Federation of University Student Councils (FCU) at Central University of Venezuela (UCV), AFP quoted.

    Unfortunately, the courts have no power over Chavez since the Venezuela Legislature gave him unlimited power to rule by decree back in January as we were warned by Fausta Wertz.

    In other news from Latin America, the Today Show is broadcasting from Havanna this week and the Babalu Blog has a Blog Burst going on for questions Matt Lauer should be asking the Cuban government while he’s there. Henry “Conductor” Gomez also critiques Wolf Blitzer’s interview with Ricardo Alarcon, Cuba’s president of the National Assembly pronouncing Wolf Blitzer a dolt. So I guess it’s unanimous now.

  • JFK terror plot was Bush’s fault, of course

     

    As soon as I heard about the busted terror plot this last weekend, I shot over to Yahoo and searched for news stories. The only national network that had anything on the internet was CBS (shiver), but I went over to read the details. At the end of the story were readers’ comments. Every comment was about how this was a story planted by “BushCo” to scare the American people into submission. I should have screen-shot the article, but I figured “Well, it’s just a fringe”. People remember 9-11 sort of, these writers were just lunatics. I mean, someone must take these stories seriously besides Republicans, right?

    But, SisterToldja reports that the LA Times says that the plot wasn’t a big deal anyway. So the terrorists that BushCo didn’t really catch in the act, weren’t going to be successful anyway. Bloodthirsty Liberal takes the NY Times to task for similar treatment of the story.

    See, here’s the way I see it. Yeah, these four dimwits and the Dix Six were pretty incompetent and borderline retarded in their planning, but the fact remains that they were committed to killing scores, if not thousands of Americans on our own soil. Left to their own devices, sooner or later they would have been successful. Maybe not as successful as they’d have liked, but somewhat successful. Even one life lost would have been one too many.

    So why are these acts being marginalized in the media? Lord help me, the media still brags about Clinton’s awesome success at stopping the Millenium LAX bombing – which was just as half-assed as any of these. And Eric Rudolph’s Atlanta, Georgia bombing at the Olympics still killed 2 and injured 111 people – again a half-assed attempt by an incompetent moron. 

    Even the Murrah Building bombing was accomplished by a gaggle of want-wits who didn’t have a plan more complicated than the old infantryman’s demolition math (P=Plenty, for the uninitiated) and parking a truck in front of the target and skee-daddling. McVeigh couldn’t even do that right – driving down the interstate with no license plate on his car.

    All criminals are stupid – that’s why they’re criminals.

    And yesterday I heard rumors about John Murtha blaming Bush for these terrorists, but I wanted to see it for myself (I’ll be damned if I’m going to waste my Sunday morning staring at that idiot George Stephanopolis and his ridiculous 12-year-old schoolboy haircut).

    So this morning, sure as it rains, I find the video at Newsbusters and Flopping Aces. Murtha claims that if President Bush hadn’t attacked Iraq, those terrorist plotters wouldn’t have been tempted to bomb JFK airport (not that it would have been successful or that the terrorists really existed in the first place).

    One of them had been in this country, working and retired for 30-fricken-years. He just decided in 2003 that we needed to be attacked? And how about the attack in 1993? Was that because we attacked the Iraqi Army in 1991 while they barbequeing in Kuwait? How about the embassy bombings in Africa, the Khobar Towers bombing, the attack on the USS Cole – did those attacks happen because of something we had done?

    Murtha is cranky old fool and the Democrats had better put a lid on him before he becomes the face of their party. Or before someone takes a swing at his wrinkled old mug.

    Makes me agree with Brit Hume when he said a few months ago;

    Even the “Washington Post” noted [Murtha] didn’t seem particularly well informed about what’s going on over there, to say the least. Look, this man has tremendous cachet among House Democrats, but he is not — this guy is long past the day when he had anything but the foggiest awareness of what the heck is going on in the world.

    And that sound bite is naivete at large, and the man is an absolute fountain of such talk, and the fact that he has ascended to the position he has in the eyes of the Democrats in the House and perhaps Democrats around the country tells you a lot about how much they know or care about what’s really going on over there.

    Maybe if we put Murtha’s office in Okinawa he’ll have a better idea of what’s happening in the world.

    But, put him in the group of idiots like one of my own crackpots who emails me (because I won’t let him post here) this morning that since 17 of the 9-11 hijackers were Saudis we should have attacked Saudi Arabia instead of Iraq. That’s just simplistic and naive – can you imagine what the Democrats would be saying if we’d attacked Saudi Arabia?

    It also demonstrates the childishness of these morons. They’re convinced that our foreign policy should be based on pure, simple revenge – an emotion – instead of reasoned insight about who are our enemies and who wishes us ill because of who we are. The Saudis are fighting the same groups that we’re fighting – for the same reasons we’re fighting them. How does it make sense that we’d turn on the Saudis?

    But no one has ever accused the Left of being reasonable people. 

  • Putin and his missile fantasies

     

    Last week Russia’s president Vlad Putin declared that the Soviets had developed a hypersonic missile that could evade any missile defense system in the world. According to Breitbart;

    “Russia … has tested missile systems that no one in the world has,” the ITAR-Tass, Interfax and RIA Novosti news agencies quoted him as saying at a news conference. “These missile systems don’t represent a response to a missile defense system, but they are immune to that. They are hypersonic and capable of changing their flight path.”

    Faster than the speed of light, Vlad? Because that’s how fast a laser travels. I guess that since we’ve acted like we believe that Iron Age North Korea has developed a nuke, Putin figures he can try to convince us of Russia’s technological advantages over our own systems. Actually it’s a trick – a trick to convince the Left in the US that developing a missile defense will only lead to an arms race. The US Left being the gullible group of suggestable idiots that they are.

    So after making this big announcement about these fantastic missiles the Russians have developed (even though they can’t make a decent toaster), this week he announces that he’ll point his missiles at Europe, according to Gregory White of the Wall Street Journal;

    President Vladimir Putin’s threat to retarget Russia’s missiles toward Europe ratchets up already simmering East-West tensions just as the U.S. and Europe were seeking to cool them.

    Mr. Putin said in an interview ahead of a summit this week of the world’s major powers that Russia would take the action if Washington went ahead with plans to install an antimissile shield in some former Soviet bloc countries. Coming just days before Mr. Putin meets with President Bush and other leaders from the Group of Eight industrialized nations in Germany, the comments underscore the dilemma Western leaders face in dealing with a Russia that is increasingly intolerant of dissent at home and blunt in its economic and foreign relations.

    So where were they aimed before? At the polar ice cap? Probably at Western Europe – gotta point ’em somewhere, right?

    Does Putin really think that there’s more of a threat from Europe than from his Eastern neighbors? Even the Russians can’t be that ignorant. It’s just bluster designed to keep the Left from funding and deploying a missile shield without Putin expending anything more than air.

    From the London Daily Telegraph, via the Washington Times;

    In comments that seemed calculated to cause consternation and division at Wednesday’s meeting in Germany, the Russian leader said U.S. plans to erect a missile-defense shield in Eastern Europe had left him with no choice but to retaliate.
        “It is obvious that if part of the strategic nuclear potential of the United States is located in Europe, we will have to respond,” he told reporters from G-8 countries in Moscow over the weekend.
        “What kind of steps are we are going to take in response? Of course, we are going to acquire new targets in Europe.”
        Mr. Putin’s anti-Western rhetoric has grown more strident since Washington confirmed plans to put 10 interceptor missiles in Poland and a radar station in the Czech Republic by 2012 — a project he says is directed at Russia.

    So he’s saying that NATO doesn’t have the right to defend itself – five years from now? I’m pretty sure if the US or Europe had designs on overrunning Russia, they would have done long before now. Like when there was so much political turmoil after the break up of the Soviet Union, or when the old Soviet Union was embroiled in Afghanistan.

    In fact, the US says the missiles are intended to defend against Iran – which may indeed have nukes in five years;

       The United States says privately that the program is designed to stop one or two missiles fired by Iran, which continues to develop a nuclear program despite mounting international pressure.
        In a defiant speech yesterday, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said: “Even if all the world powers are slitting their own throats, the Iranian people are invincible and will remain invincible.
        “Iran is not trying to make aggression against other countries. It only wants that its right be accepted and will not accept the injustice of the great powers,” he said.

    That certainly seems more reasonable. of course, Putin would prefer to use the West as a boogeyman to frighten the Russians into submission. He’ll probably succeed in frightening Congress into submission, too.

  • Chavez supporters get benefit of media coverage

    (Photos from Venezuela Llora, Venezuela Sangra)

    Jose Ferero from the Washington Post (in a story that I can’t find in the Post, by the way – oops, here it is; h/t VZ News and Views), writes that the anti-Chavez movement is picking up steam;

    But press-freedom groups note that the [RCTV television] station has not been officially sanctioned, nor have its owners or managers been charged with conspiracy against the state. Other private stations that were harshly anti-Chávez but have toned down critical coverage avoided the same fate, as communications Minister William Lara readily acknowledged in an interview broadcast Friday on CNN’s Spanish-language service.

    Polls show that 65 to 80 percent of Venezuelan respondents disagreed with the government’s decision to end RCTV’s concession, though many were simply upset that they wouldn’t be able to see some of their favorite soap operas.

    The widespread dissatisfaction has re-energized an opposition movement that lost much of its momentum after its efforts to recall Chávez were defeated in 2004 and after its decision to boycott parliamentary elections in 2005 left it without representation in the National Assembly.

    60-85% is a pretty significant number in anyone’s book. But to read the news reports today, one might believe the opposite is true. Here is all Deutche Welle reports this morning;

    Tens of thousands of people took to the streets of Venezuela’s capital Caracas Saturday in a show of support for President Hugo Chavez. The march follows the president’s controversial closure of an opposition television station, which back in 2002 had openly called for the president’s removal from office. The country’s telecommunications Minister Jesse Chacon said the president was democratizing the country’s broadcast spectrum. The country’s political opposition views the move as a gross violation of press freedoms.

    The protest against Chavez last week happened in every major city in Venezuela, but this support for Chavez was concentrated in Caracas – the capitol. DW merely parrots the Chavez line and calls it news. AFP goes a step beyond the German press and counts “hundreds of thousands”;

    Hundreds of thousands of President Hugo Chavez’s backers Saturday marched in a show of support for his controversial closure of an opposition television station, now an international scandal.

    Supporters of the leftist president marched under his slogan of “democratizing television and radio,” one day after students surprised the government with large anti-Chavez demonstrations demanding freedom of expression.

    “Starting today, the (pro-government) counterattack must be maintained across the country,” Chavez rallied the throng, claiming that a “destabilizing maneuver was afoot to carry out a gentle coup” and topple his government. He did not offer details.

    “If the Venezuelan oligarchy … does not accept this call to live together in peace that we are making, if it keeps on attacking using the things it still controls, it will keep losing those things one by one,” Chavez warned.

    (Editor Note: I noticed APF just changed the story to read “tens of thousands” Odd, huh?)

    I guess “Venezuelan oligarchy” is code for “vast right wing conspiracy”. Associated Press toned down the numbers even further;

    Earlier Saturday, reggaeton music blared and fireworks crackled as thousands of “Chavistas” gathered at an opposition stronghold in wealthy eastern Caracas before converging with other marches in the capital.

    Information Minister Willian Lara said the march would “demonstrate before the world that the non-renewal of (RCTV’s license) … is a democratic conquest,” claiming the private media has been “held ransom by a small economic group.”

    A democratic conquest. Get that? When you can silence your opposition, that’s democratic. From the invisible Washington Post story;

    Michael Shifter, a senior analyst for the Inter-American Dialogue, a policy group in Washington, D.C., that closely follows Venezuela, said he didn’t think [Chavez attacks on the “oligarchy”] would get much traction this time.

    “All of his previous attacks were on the corrupt capitalists, but this goes way beyond that and it touches on Venezuela’s cultural identity,” Shifter said of Chávez. “It’s very hard for him to talk of the rancid oligarchy here. These are university students protesting, not part of the old order.”

    If students took to the streets to protest their president silencing the opposition anywhere else in the world, they’d have the support of the media and the Left here in the US. Just like that first picture above – a single man, shirtless, weaponless holding back the tide of government forces while others rush to his aid – would have been on every frontpage and magazine cover as a symbol of the popular stuggle against a totalitarian government, if only it’d been taken in a protest against a more conservative government.

    APF went on to say that the incident may have isolated Chavez somewhat from anothe Leftist ally;

    However, the struggle now jeopardizes relations with at least one of Chavez’s fellow leftist leaders in South America.

    Brazil’s Senate formally requested on Wednesday that Chavez reconsider his decision to close RCTV.

    Chavez retorted, “The Brazilian Congress should worry about Brazil’s problems,” and accused it of being Washington’s “subordinate.”

    Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva defended Brazilian lawmakers and told Chavez to mind his own business, a position welcomed in the Brazilian press.

    Lula “did what he had to do to defend Brazil’s independent and democratic principles,” Folha de Sao Paulo editorialized Saturday.

    Ratcheting up the pressure, Lula asked his foreign ministry to call in Venezuela’s Ambassador to Brazil to have him explain Chavez’s response.

    I guess we all have these little victories to cling to for awhile. RDTV (India) published this AP story;

    ”We don’t accept interferences from anybody about internal Venezuelan matters. Absolutely from nobody,” Chavez said to thousands of red-clad supporters on Saturday.

    He also warned that if the ”bourgeoisie of Venezuela” continued their undermining of the ”Bolivarian people of Venezuela, they will continue losing their possessions one by one. One by one,” he said to a roaring crowd.

    Large, sometimes violent protests by students warning of a threat to freedom of expression erupted after his decision to take RCTV off the air.

    Chavez says the outcry is being fomented by government opponents trying to topple his administration.

    He has warned other broadcasters, radio stations and newspapers covering the protests of unspecified sanctions if they continue to ”incite” instability.

    Saturday’s warning took that a step further, warning the private media he could abruptly end their licenses at any moment. 

    He’s threatening the middleclass and the remaining private broadcasters. We probably can’t trust much that comes out of Venezuela in the near future.

    The US Left has been mostly silent on Venezuela. Nancy Pelosi wrote a letter to Chavez announcing her “concern”,  but the Daily Kos had a long post by heathlander describing the Leftist party line (I won’t link to it because Kos doesn’t need my comparably pitiful traffic) in case anyone is tempted stray from the plantation over this loss of civil rights for Venezuelans;

    RCTV, together with three other private media corporations (Globovision, Venevision and Televen), which together control some 90% of the TV market, played a leading role in instigating and supporting the 47-hour coup. These private stations, owned by anti-Chavez billionaires and businessmen, have led an unceasing anti-Chavez campaign since the day he was elected.

    So why didn’t Chavez prosecute those billionaires and businessmen five years ago after he defeated this supposed “coup attempt”? Why did he just let their license expire instead of taking the case through his administrative law judges and jerking their license with proof that they had supported the coup? In our system (admittedly not the Venezuelan system), we don’t deprive citizens of their property without their day in court. The Left constantly tells us that we should use our system of justice and rights to other nations’ citizens (as in Guantanamo) so why aren’t they for imposing our legal protections on Venezuela? If George W. Bush shut down a TV network comparable to RCTV, or let their license expire without a hearing, and defended his actions by claiming the network had plotted his demise, the Left would be apoplectic. So why doesn’t the Left care about this particular group of brown people?

    Well, that’s because Chavez is the next best hope for the Left to re-establish a successful communist dictatorship, since all they’ve had up to this point is Cuba and North Korea – two miserable failures that are starving their inhabitants and are punchlines in more jokes than Brittany Spears. Chavez has the benefit of petro-dollars to finance his workers’ paradise. Although I don’t understand why a truly socialist society would need money – isn’t that th whole point of socialism?

    And besides we all know who’s behind those rich media guys in Venezuela;

     

    The good news, according to VivirLatino is that RCTV is still broadcasting – on the internet.

    I’ve been getting email from readers asking why I’m so focused on this story – because I think we need to support this anti-Chavez movement until they are successful and they get their government back. It’s a cinch that our own government will do nothing, given our history in the region and the fragility of our reputation. Latin America has been so inundated with anti-US propaganda for decades (I’ve watched and read alot of it while studying modern history there and in my travels) that anything we do, as a government, would be labeled “imperialist”. We should encourage Venezuelans to restore Venezuela themselves, though – they have the power and the wherewithall to accomplish this. They just need to know that we support them.

  • Mini-Chavezes work against liberties, too

    More Chavez news as opposition leaders call for the release of protesters from the past weeks’ demostrrations against Venezuela’s government crack down on oppostion media outlets. From the Associated Press today;

    Former presidential candidate Manuel Rosales said protests over the government’s move to halt the broadcasts of Radio Caracas Television show that “freedom cannot be negotiated nor bargained.”

    Protesters have filled the capital’s plazas and streets since the opposition-aligned channel went off the air at midnight Sunday. Chavez refused to renew its broadcast license, and police have clashed with angry crowds hurling rocks and bottles.

    A total of 182 people — mostly university students and minors — have been detained in nearly 100 protests since Sunday, Justice Minister Pedro Carreno said late Tuesday. At least 30 were charged with violent acts, prosecutors said, but it was unclear how many remained behind bars.

    Manuel Rosales also pointed out that Globovision, Chavez next target, is running some disturbing home videos;

    Rosales noted that a home video broadcast on the Globovision network showed unidentified men in the doorway of a government office — apparently Chavez allies — firing guns at unseen targets. “For that there is no justice?” he said.

    Meanwhile, the Bolivian Senate is condemning Chavez publicly for interferring in that country according to El Universal.com;

    The Bolivian Senate, with a majority of opponents of President Evo Morales, accused Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez of interfering with Bolivian domestic affairs, and demanded the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to make the relevant protest.

    The Washington Times’ Martin Arostegui reports today that Evo Morales and Rafael Correa of Equador also have plans to shut down their opposition media outlets;

        Bolivian President Evo Morales and Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa both announced steps to crack down on independent broadcasters within days of Mr. Chavez’s closure on Sunday of Venezuela’s main independent television station, RCTV.
        Speaking before an international gathering of leftist intellectuals in Cochabamba last week, Mr. Morales proposed creating a tribunal to oversee the operations of privately owned press and broadcast outlets. Mr. Correa announced over the weekend that he would order a review of the broadcasting licenses of opposition news channels in his country.
        Both leaders have drawn support and inspiration from Mr. Chavez’s increasingly authoritarian government since coming to power in the past 18 months, and both are drafting new constitutions that would greatly increase their own powers.
        Mr. Correa has ousted 51 opposition deputies from his nation’s Congress and Mr. Morales this week ordered the arrests of four high court judges after they issued rulings that challenged his government.
        “The main adversaries of my presidency, of my government, are certain communications media,” Mr. Morales said at the Fifth World Conference of Artists and Intellectuals in Defense of Humanity, a Venezuelan-backed group supporting “the process of change in Latin America.”
        Appearing alongside Cuba’s minister of culture, Abel Prieto, Mr. Morales suggested “drawing on the experience of our friends in Venezuela and Cuba” to establish closer controls over the press.

    And why wouldn’t they? What price has the international community foisted upon Chavez for his stunning moves in the last few months? He promises to aid terrorist-enabling Iran, supports Iran’s nuclear program, pays for the election of Chavez-friendly dictators in nearby Bolivia, Equador and Nicaragua and cavorts with the Cubans-arguably the worst human rights offenders in the hemisphere. And the world stands by, shaking it’s collective head.

    From the WashTimes piece;

       “Morales identifies his enemies,” read a banner headline in the Santa Cruz newspaper El Mundo, which pictured a newsroom in the cross hairs of a telescopic rifle.
        Mr. Morales tried to deflect mounting protests on Sunday by saying that he had no immediate plans to close down any TV station and that his criticism was aimed at owners of news organizations and not at individual journalists.

    And Correa targets Equadorian media;

     In Ecuador, meanwhile, Mr. Correa issued a statement saying that “radio and TV frequencies have been granted in ways that are frequently dark and it’s time to analyze the matter.”
        He accused owners of major news outlets of using political influence to get their broadcasting licenses and using the press “to defend private interests that are often corrupt.” He also announced legal action against Ecuador’s opposition newspaper La Hora.

    Spain, in the meantime, is negotiating for the release of political prisoners in Havana. This link is a few days old from my guilty pleasure Uncommon Sense.

    And still, the American Left remains silent on the civil rights of brown people.

  • That’s what we get

    On this morning’s front page of the Washington Post, reporter Jon Ward Anderson announces that “US, Iran Open Dialogue“;

    The United States and Iran held their first official high-level, face-to-face talks in almost 30 years Monday to discuss the deteriorating security situation in Iraq, and officials emerged generally upbeat about the renewed dialogue, suggesting additional meetings were likely.

    Yay! We did what the Iraq Study Group said was crucial for ending the war in Iraq.

    This morning, Charles Johnson at Little Green Footballs calls it the “Worst Idea of the Year” and the Iranians waste no time proving Johnson right. According to AP, by way of Fox News Channel;

    U.S. academic Haleh Esfandiari and two other Iranian-Americans have been “formally charged” with endangering national security and espionage, Iran’s judiciary spokesman said Tuesday.

    “Esfandiari has been formally charged with endangering national security through propaganda against the system and espionage for foreigners,” Judiciary spokesman Ali Reza Jamshidi told reporters. “She has been informed of the charges against her. The complainant is the Intelligence Ministry.”

    So that’s what we get. To us Westerners, negotiating is just the civilized thing to do – discussing our differences is reasonable. But to 7th century throwbacks like the Iranians, it’s a sign of weakness. This just an attempt to see if they can push us even further than they’ve already pushed us.

    In fact, on the main issue, that of Iranians supplying anti-government forces in Iraq, the Iranians were evasive and downright mocking in their tone;

    The American envoy called the meeting “businesslike” and said at “the level of policy and principle, the Iranian position as articulated by the Iranian ambassador was very close to our own.”

    However, he said: “What we would obviously like to see, and the Iraqis would clearly like to see, is an action by Iran on the ground to bring what it’s actually doing in line with its stated policy.”

    Speaking later at a news conference in the Iranian Embassy, Kazemi said: “We don’t take the American accusations seriously.”

    They don’t take our accusations seriously is probably the understatement of the year. Mainly because no one in the West has the cajones to stand up to the goat ropers of Iran because we’re hamstrung by the anti-Bush/anti-US Democrats and the “Peace at any cost” Euro-weenies. And the Iranians are fully aware of it – these talks are just attempts at running out the clock on their nuclear program. In addition, any fingers they can stick in our eye are just frosting on the cake. 

    More here from a relative expert.

  • Jimmy, Cindy, Joe and Hugo (Updated 5-29)

    Fox News is broadcasting that Adam Housely (who live blogged the protest), on the scene in Caracas, Venezuela is reporting that the crowds fairly peacefully protesting Chavez’ decision to shut down the popular, dissenting RCTV television station are being fired upon by federal troops with rubber bullets, tear gas and shot guns are being fired over their heads. The reporter also said that the crowd wasn’t budging – which means that if Chavez intends to squelch this dissent he will have to ratchet up his response.

    Chavez claims were that RCTV was engaged in “subversive” activities. How many times have we heard that phrase used in the last 50 years?

    Housley made the point that international media is the only way to get word out about Chavez now because he’s shut down the last dissenting media voice in Venezuela. Housley also displayed what appeared to an expended low-base 12-guage shotgun shell he claims he recovered from the ground after federal troops fired it in the air (the video of Housley appeared to be via cell phone).

    There’s nothing to link here yet, just some background in a generic AP story on Fox News;

    Inside the studios of RCTV — the sole opposition-aligned TV station with nationwide reach — disheartened actors and comedians wept and embraced in the final minutes on the air.

    They bowed their heads in prayer, and presenter Nelson Bustamante declared: “Long live Venezuela! We will return soon.”

    Chavez says he is democratizing the airwaves by turning the network’s signal over to public use.

    Germany, which holds the European Union presidency, expressed concern that Venezuela let RCTV’s license expire “without holding an open competition for the successor license.” It said the EU expects that Venezuela will uphold freedom of speech and “support pluralism.”

    I’m sure Chavez is quaking in his stumpy little boots having seen the Euro-weenies “expect” all kinds of civilized behavior in the last few years.

    My question is how do Jimmy Carter, Cindy Sheehan and Joe Kennedy feel about their pal, Hugo now? Will they rush out to condemn, not only the poor treatment of protesters, but the silencing of opposition – which is a basic human right according to our own traditions. 

    I’d guess not. The Left in the United States kept silent about Stalin, Mao Tse Tung, Ho Chi Minh, Pol Pot, Fidel Castro, even North Korea for several decades. I’m waiting for evidence that our own administration has done things worse than Chavez has done. I guess the authors of the Black Book of Communism will be able to write a Hugo Chavez chapter, now. And Joe, Jimmy and Cindy will go down in history as Chavez’ enablers.

    Because, why should the Left acknowledge that socialism is a morally bankrupt philosophy that runs counter to basic human rights?

    A-ha! found the story at that CNN place. Must be new network, I’ve never heard of CNN before.

    National Guard troops fired tear gas and rubber bullets Monday into a crowd of protesters angry over a decision by President Hugo Chavez that forced a critical television station off the air.

    University students blocked one lane of a major highway hours after Radio Caracas Television ceased broadcasting at midnight and was replaced with a new state-funded channel. Chavez had refused to renew RCTV’s broadcast license, accusing it of “subversive” activities and of backing a 2002 coup against him.

    Two students were injured by rubber bullets and a third was hit with a tear gas canister, said Ana Teresa Yepez, an administrator at Caracas’ Metropolitan University. She said about 20 protesters were treated for inhaling tear gas.

    The new public channel, TVES, launched its transmissions with artists singing pro-Chavez music, then carried an exercise program and a talk show, interspersed with government ads proclaiming, “Now Venezuela belongs to everyone.”

    Got news for ya, pal. Venezuela only belongs to Chavez. Criticize him and see for yourself.

    With her usual clarity, The Anchoress picks apart the media’s coverage of Chavez’ “liberation” of the Venezuelan people from the truth.

    Update: Apparently, Chavez is in the process of tossing out the international press, too, according to AP:

    Venezuela said Monday it was filing charges against US cable network CNN for linking President Hugo Chavez to Al-Qaeda, and against a Venezuelan TV network for encouraging Chavez’s assassination.

    I guess it was only a matter of time.

    Not surprisingly, we read at the Daily Kos, (via Little Green Footballs) that the American Left – who like to call themselves “liberals” and “progressives” and the true defenders of human and civil rights, the inheritors of the Jeffersonian legacy – support Chavez’ actions of the type Thomas Jefferson had the foresight to preempt in the very first amendment.

    I guess the Left forget that our Constitution’s Bill of Rights was written to protect the minority from the heavy-handed majority in just such circumstances. And that the Constitution protects all citizens from government. It’s not to protect government from criticism – and the Declaration of Independence was a universal declaration for the liberty of all people, not just those living in the English colonies, to exercise the rights and protections given us by our Creator.

    It’s not a multiple choice test which has fluctuating correct answers depending on the season or culture.