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

Category: Hugo Chavez

  • Spineless foreign policy

    So what happened this weekend? While the US was immersed in the useless-ass Michael Jackson news and doing their best to ignore the fact that we’ll all  be broke by the end of the year paying our new backdoor taxes on our energy needs, the rest of the world continued to turn.

    Did you hear that Iran had seized several British Embassy employees? No, of course not. I think it was nine that were detained by Iranian police for inciting the rallies against the government. Five were released yesterday and four more remain in custody according to CNN;

    British Foreign Secretary David Miliband on Sunday protested the arrests, calling them “harassment and intimidation of a kind which is quite unacceptable.”

    Iran’s intelligence minister has blamed Western powers for stirring up protests over its disputed presidential election, singling out Britain and saying the British Embassy in Tehran “played a heavy role in the recent disturbances.”

    North Korea seems to be upset that we’ve moved missile defense assets to Hawaii. They, somehow, think that we’re moving defense systems to attack North Korea – kinda like the Murtha plan to defend the Iraqi government from Guam, I suppose. This from Australian Associated Press;

    “Through the US forces’ clamorous movements, it has been brought to light that the US attempt to launch a pre-emptive strike on our republic has become a brutal fact,” the North’s main Rodong Sinmun newspaper said on Monday.

    The paper also accused the US of deploying nuclear-powered aircraft and atomic-armed submarines in waters near the Korean peninsula, saying the moves prove “the US pre-emptive nuclear war” on the North is imminent.

    The commentary, carried by the official Korean Central News Agency, said the North will bolster its nuclear arsenal in self-defence.

    I also wrote yesterday a few times about the removal of Leftist president Manuel Zelaya from his position in Honduras. He awoken early yesterday morning and sent to Costa Rica by the Honduran Army, apparently under the orders of the Honduran Congress and the Supreme Court. The Obama Administration called the act a “coup” while the Honduran Supreme Court claims it was completely legal since the Army was only defending their constitution from a domestic threat.

    Apparently the Obama administration had their fingers in several attempts to remove Zelaya in preceding weeks according to the Washington Times;

    The official, who spoke on the condition that he not be named, said the U.S. Embassy in Honduras was “consistently and almost constantly engaged in the last several weeks working with partners” and that U.S. officials were “in contact with all Honduran institutions, including the military.” However, the military stopped taking the embassy’s calls since the coup attempt, the official said.

    Hmmm, they stopped taking the Obama administration’s calls, huh? Probably because they weren’t being helpful. The OAS, the UN, Chavez’ ALBA members have all condemned the removal of Zelaya from office, but actually, two branches of the Honduran government, the Judicial and Legislative, both arrived at the conclusion that Zelaya was trying to change the government of Honduras, like Chavez changed the Venezuelan government to suit his own selfish purposes. It’s an internal issue.

    The rest of the world has decided that they’re going to let Iran kill it’s own citizens, let North Korea fire off missiles anywhere they want while imprisoning US citizens, but they’re not going to let the Honduran government come to conclusions about the way it’s governed?

    Oh, and Chavez said yesterday that he’s ready to return Zelaya to office with the use of the Venezuelan Army. And the world is hoping he will, apparently.

    I thought Obama was going to change the way the world looked at us. Apparently he did – the world thinks the West are a bunch of pussies now that American foreign policy doesn’t have room to defend the innocent now. This administration is too intent on grinding our economy into the dust to pay attention to the rest of the world.

  • Blame-storming Honduras

    Hoping something will stick to the United States, the International left is throwing fingers at the US for the coup in Honduras. I wrote earlier that Chavez blamed the US, but Honduran President Manuel Zelaya tells a different story. Apparently the US thwarted a coup on Friday (Reuters link);

    “Everything was in place for the coup and if the U.S. embassy had approved it, it would have happened. But they did not … I’m only still here in office thanks to the United States,” he said in the newspaper interview published on Sunday.

    “Last (Friday) morning, at around 1 or 2 a.m., Congress was passing a decree to incapacitate me and the armed forces were mobilized. But phone calls were made — I can’t say by who or from where — but these calls stopped the coup,” he said.

    Funny how that isn’t a headline across every banner on the internet, isn’t it?
    (more…)

  • Honduras ignites

    r1702921191
    The President of Honduras found himself on the way to Costa Rica this morning after being rousted from his presidential chambers in his pajamas by the army. In what the president later referred to as a “brutal kidnapping”, the army rolled tanks through the streets and put Honduran President Manuel Zelaya on the next plane for Costa Rica. If he could talk about it later, it doesn’t seem to have all that brutal, to me, remembering other coups in the area over the years.

    It seems the president got on the wrong side of everyone in the country by attempting a Chavez-inspired rewriting of the Constitution. According to the Baltimore Sun he was all by himself;

    Zelaya, a leftist allied with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, was arrested shortly before polls were to open in a referendum on whether to change the constitution. The Supreme Court ruled the referendum illegal and everyone from Congress to members of his own party opposed it. Critics said Zelaya wanted to remove limits to his re-election.

    Of course, President Obama voted “not present” on the issue of a neighbor in our hemisphere;

    “I call on all political and social actors in Honduras to respect democratic norms, the rule of law and the tenets of the Inter-American Democratic Charter,” Obama said in a statement.

    “Any existing tensions and disputes must be resolved peacefully through dialogue free from any outside interference.”

    Well, if you want to talk about democratic norms, the Honduran Supreme Court seems to come down on the Army’s side;

    The Supreme Court said it supported the military action, which it said was aimed at defending the constitution.

    Reuters reports that Chavez isn’t being as shy as Obama about this coup;

    Venezuela’s President Hugo Chavez on Sunday put his troops on alert over a coup in Honduras and said he would respond militarily if his envoy to the Central American country was attacked or kidnapped.

    Chavez said Honduran soldiers took away the Cuban ambassador and left the Venezuelan ambassador on the side of a road after beating him during the coup against Honduran President Manuel Zelaya, his close ally.

    Speaking on Venezuelan state television, Chavez said he would do everything necessary to “abort” the coup.

    The commie suck wads at Venezuelanalysis are claiming that Chavez said the US is behind the coup. And he ain’t being shy about what his reaction will be;

    The president of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, Hugo Chavez Frias, manifested his rejection, this Sunday, of the kidnapping of the president of Honduras, Manuel Zelaya, by that nation’s military, and said that North American imperialism and the extreme right are behind this act.

    “Soldier, empty out your riffle [sic] against the oligarchy and not against the people,” he said, adding, “These solders are going to know what the people are when the people start to go out into the streets.”

    Lemme see, now, that’s Iran, North Korea and Venezuela all accusing us of interfering in their business in the space of two weeks. North Korea is threatening Hawaii with missiles and Chavez is threatening the US and Honduras. Iran is just taking their belligerence out their own people for the time being. Until the concoct some reason to start a war with us, too.

    In the meantime, we can rest assured that our President is concerned about all of this.

    Added: El Universo writes that Chavez threatened the Honduran Army (in my Calle J translation);

    President Hugo Chavez said that he won’t recognize any president who takes an oath in Honduras instead of Manuel Zelaya, who was removed from the country Sunday by the military on the day that was going to realize a referendum on the possibility of the presidential re-election.

    “If they administer an oath to Micheletti (Roberto Micheletti, president of the Congress of Honduras), or to Peleletti or Gafetti or Goriletti we will overthrow, it. We will overthrow it, I say” , Chávez said, reported Reuters.

    “We will make all whole which is what we must do so that Manuel Zelaya is returned to his office”….

  • Alo Presidente

    Hoping to cuddle with the new president, ABC News has decided to do an infomercial for the Administration on June 24th, according to the Drudge Report. They’ll film a live prime time special from the White House on the president’s health care plan without offering any opposing voices. Kinda like Hugo Chavez’ weekly rants on Venezuelan TV.

    Drudge reprints the RNC protest that ABC isn’t giving a fair airing of the opposition view. ABC, in turn answers on their web presence. It’s really rather humorous – ABC outraged that Republicans think they’re biased. DrewM at Ace of Spades summarized ABC response; “…shut up you f***ing whack jobs, we are the deciders.”

    But here’s the quote from ABC;

    Like any programs we broadcast, ABC News will have complete editorial control. To suggest otherwise is quite unfair to both our journalists and our audience.

    Yeah, I’m sure it’ll be a huge audience. On a June night, several hours long, the only folks watching will be bloggers looking for that one slip that will propel them into the ionosphere overnight. I can’t picture families huddled around their TVs taking notes.

    Other than the fact that ABC has decided to jump straight into the bag for Obama, there’s really no story here. What could this possibly accomplish? It’s not like there’s going to be a referendum on socialized health care (although, there really should be – the wonks might be surprised).

    It’s all just that feel-good ownership bull sh*t that won Obama the election. We all know that every damn Democrat is going to vote for this economy-killer and they’re in the majority. And the Democrats will vote for it for no other reason than to buy the votes of the ignorant, pliant masses who think government health care is the answer to overpriced medical treatment.

    I don’t know how ABC even thought this was a good idea – it just illustrates how stupid these TV execs are these days. I wonder how long before NBC, CBS or CNN offer Obama three hours every week in his red shirt and beret. Maybe The Sniper can give us a preview of how that’d look.

  • Worst case of projection ever

    I came across a link at Don Surber‘s place this morning to a HuffPo piece by Rachel Weiner (I don’t know if it’s pronounced “weener” or “whiner” but either would be appropriate, i suppose) entitled Right-Wing neocons Rooting for Ahmadinejad Win. It’s a pretty sad display of projection. here’s the screen capture;
    huffpo-vs-neocons
    Don did an excellent job of knocking Weiner down a few pegs. But I’d like to add that the American Left has been rooting for Ahmadinejad for six years. they’ve been rooting for Ahmadinejad’s new buddy Hugo Chavez for ten years.

    Remember when Ahmadinejad spoke to the National Press Club for lunch? And how the Left apologized to Ahmadinejad for the crude neocons treatment of him? I remember The Nation’s piece charging the exact same neocons that Weiner says root for Ahmadinejad of provoking him. In fact, I remember Code Pink defending Ahmadinejad last year.

    But we had a different president then so everything is different now, huh?

  • Chavez weekend antics

    Apparently, Hugo Chavez backed away from a weekend debate with Peruvian Vargas Llosa and broke his promise of a four-day-log marathon installment of “Alo, Presidente”, according to AFP/Breitbart;

    For Saturday, a debate had been scheduled between Chavez and conservative Peruvian author Mario Vargas Llosa, a novelist who ran for president in 1990.

    But by late Friday Chavez was backtracking.

    “I can help by moderating, but the debate is between intellectuals and I am simply a president, a soldier,” he said. The dialogue should be with “revolutionary and socialist” thinkers, he said.

    Vargas Llosa and other Latin American intellectuals in Caracas for a separate event on democracy said they were not interested in debating other thinkers.

    Our buddy Kate sends this cartoon which might explain why the debate was cancelled – Chavez was ill-equipped for intellectual give-and-take apparently;

    caricatura_grande1

    (In the cartoon, Llosa is saying “I said debate, imbecile” – “debate” and “bat” sound similar in Spanish)

    Meanwhile, the New York Times reports that Chavez is rounding up dissident military officers – among them, his old friend Raul Baduel;

    They say prison life can be lonely, but not for Raúl Isaías Baduel, Venezuela’s former army chief and once one of President Hugo Chávez’s confidants, who was detained last month.

    Mr. Baduel is held with other former officers in Los Teques.

    Among his cellmates in the Ramo Verde military prison here are a former admiral, Carlos Millán, and Wilfredo Barroso, a onetime general arrested along with Mr. Millán on charges of conspiring to oust Mr. Chávez.

    Since February, Mr. Chávez has moved against a wide range of domestic critics, and his efforts in recent weeks to strengthen his grip on the armed forces have led to high-profile arrests and a wave of reassignments.

    So who is surprised that Chavez promised yet another thing he couldn’t deliver – a simple four day broadcast cut short. Criticism against Chavez increases as the oil prices fall. The only thing Chavez intends to deliver to Venezuelans is “Chavismo”.

    Oh and the word is that Chavez wants to give Obama another book – this time by Lenin. He can save his money, I’m sure Obama already has a dog-eared copy in his library.

  • Obama’s North Korea/Iran test

    This morning, North Korea decided that, since the world hasn’t made an active response to their missile launches and nuclear tests, they’d abrogate the 1953 armistice that ended the hot war on the intra-Korean frontier (CNN link).

    “Our revolutionary armed forces … will regard” South Korea’s participation “in the [the 6-year-old Proliferation Security Initiative] as a declaration of war …” the North’s official news agency said.

    Pyongyang also announced it was no longer bound by the 1953 armistice that ended the Korean War.

    “The Korean Peninsula is bound to immediately return to a state of war from a legal point of view, and so our revolutionary armed forces will go over to corresponding military actions,” North Korea said through its news agency.

    Sweet. It’s the 1950s all over again. But that’s not the extent of the dangers we now face because the Obama Administration wouldn’t take the lead in shutting down North Korea’s nuclear program. Israel has discovered that Bolivia and Venezuela are supplying Iran with uranium (CBS News link);

    “There are reports that Venezuela supplies Iran with uranium for its nuclear program,” the Foreign Ministry document states, referring to previous Israeli intelligence conclusions. It added, “Bolivia also supplies uranium to Iran.”

    The report concludes that Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is trying to undermine the United States by supporting Iran.

    So hugging Hugo Chavez did Obama a lot of good, didn’t it? Of course, if you read this blog in December 2007, you’d have got a whiff of the uranium connections, when a suitcase full of cash was discovered on an airstrip in Bolivia’s uranium-mining region.

    Since there was supposedly collusion between the North Koreans and Syrians on Syria’s own nuclear program, we can probably assume that the North Koreans lent aid to the Iranians – so it’s come full circle.

  • 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?