Chavez is crazy

[rideit]

Its not a first amendment issue, more a common courtesy.........

.

Another vote for this point of view. You have the *right* to say your mother in law is a psycho, but you don't say it at thanksgiving dinner.

[Spats]

Care to back that up with some facts?

That's too easy. Care to back up your glib empty rhetoric?

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/inter...688071,00.html

The US has been busily toppling populist leaders and installing or supporting puppet dictators for the last century. Somoza (Nicaragua), Pinochet (Chile), Stroessner (Paraguay), Batista (Cuba), Noriega (Panama), Franco (Spain), both of the Duvaliers (Haiti), Marcos (Phillipines), Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi (Iran), Saddam Hussein (Iraq), Trujillo (Dominica), endless Marine incursions in support of the United Fruit Company...

[MeatPuppet]

Its not a first amendment issue, more a common courtesy.........

He is just trying to help Dem's cover their asses as some of what Chavez is saying sounds very similar to what dem leadership as been saying for the last for years. Rangel and Dem leadership would rather the US voting public did not align the democratic party with a guy like Chavez.

Bingo.


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[MeatPuppet]

The US has been busily toppling populist leaders and installing or supporting puppet dictators for the last century.

Sometimes it is better to cut off the head of a snake before it grows fangs. We didn't do this with Hitler in the late 1930s. We paid a very heavy price for our inaction. We forget this lesson at our own peril.

[Cono Este]

That's too easy. Care to back up your glib empty rhetoric?

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/inter...688071,00.html

The US has been busily toppling populist leaders and installing or supporting puppet dictators for the last century. Somoza (Nicaragua), Pinochet (Chile), Stroessner (Paraguay), Batista (Cuba), Noriega (Panama), Franco (Spain), both of the Duvaliers (Haiti), Marcos (Phillipines), Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi (Iran), Saddam Hussein (Iraq), Trujillo (Dominica), endless Marine incursions in support of the United Fruit Company...

It wasnt the first time someone tried to kill that clown. I'm sure you can link GW to the 97 attempt as well. Your article is pure speculation. "someone visited the whitehouse before" hardly the trail that Nixon and Kissenger left behind in Chile for example.

All this proves is that you guys will embrace anyone who hates Bush, at any cost. At least some of the ranking Democrats are more selective in who they endorse to sling the mud.

[PNWbrit]

It wasnt the first time someone tried to kill that clown. I'm sure you can link GW to the 97 attempt as well. Your article is pure speculation. "someone visited the whitehouse before" hardly the trail that Nixon and Kissenger left behind in Chile for example.

All this proves is that you guys will embrace anyone who hates Bush, at any cost. At least some of the ranking Democrats are more selective in who they endorse to sling the mud.

There's lots more than that Guardian article and you know it . The evidence against U.S. involvement is just denial from this White House. Do you still really want to put any weight behind what those guys say? About anything?

Who's embracing him? I admire his balls for saying what most of the rest of tha planet think about Bush - as is his absolute right in the UNGA. He may not be the best thing that could be happening to his country and certainly he doesn't help U.S. commercial interests but he is hardly a Hitler in the making. Judged against any number of other Latin American heads of state he comes out surprisingly well. No death squads, DINA or Operation Condor happening under him yet..... as there did with your boy Pinochet?

Once again we seem to be making and provoking enemies that we don't need to have. I'd have thought that at the moment we should be doing everything we can to avoid confrontation like this for no other reason than it provides yet more propoganda for those trying to recruit & pervert young minds in the Middle East. Of course that supposes that this Orwellian fuck up isn't exactly what the neo-cons really crave.

[Spats]

CE: Stop putting words in my mouth. I never said I supported Chavez. I demand an apology from you.

To be clear: what I am saying is that there are links between the Administration and the coup (Elliot Abrams is a big, obvious fish), and that past US policy is consistent with support for a coup against a populist leader.

MeatPuppet: Equating someone like Salvador Allende with Hitler shows that you are completely ignorant of any and all facts in this area. Therefore your opinion is meaningless.

[Jer]

It's interesting to try to defend Chavez. It puts you in the same situation faced by the Bushwas: defending an incompetent, divisive, foggy-headed ideologue-cum-authoritarian with a penchant for making absurd pronouncements.

[cj001f]

Sometimes it is better to cut off the head of a snake before it grows fangs. We didn't do this with Hitler in the late 1930s. We paid a very heavy price for our inaction. We forget this lesson at our own peril.

Chavez = Hitler? He has wet dreams of matching the successes of this 3rd rate mustachiod dictator:

[Cono Este]

Sorry, no more words in mouth.

I just think this is all apart of his game. It will be interesting to see everyone's reaction to his crap, or his, when we have a democrat in office.

PNW, PInochet is not my "boy", I know what happened, I was there for part of it. I just recognize that when he left, voluntarily if I might add, Chile was the jewel of SA. And that is a fact. (not that it excuses him for the brutality associated with his/our coup, and the yrs. that followed) I doubt Chavez will be able to make the same claim

[rideit]

Were any of your family resigned to leave as the result of Pinochet's policies?
Many expats (and the concurrent brain drain) were the result of attempting to avoid the brutal zeitgeist.

Just sayin'.


Pinochet both created AND destroyed the interim progress that embodied Chile at the time....complicated stuff, for sure.

[skiing-in-jackson]

He is POTUS, however, and you better respect that.

getting in very late...

Respect for the office is a very important concept. Thank you for clarifing the issue Tippster. Bush will be gone one day, and in our sharply divided system, the Office will remain.

It is important that we Americans, as well as other countries practicing democracy, recognize that there are people who care little for the freedoms we enjoy.

I will again enter a political thread in 3.567 months. I enjoy this forum too much .

[summit]

I think Chavez is adept at critizing Bush because he sees so much of himself in Bush even though they are ideological enemies when it comes to economics... in another world they'd be running mates...

[PNWbrit]

Chile was the jewel of SA. And that is a fact.

To use your phrase "care to back that up with some facts" . To me this jewel is still tarnished with blood of those he tortured and killed. Once again I'll remind you I've seen the scars he left and the tears he still causes...

[MeatPuppet]

CE: Stop putting words in my mouth. I never said I supported Chavez. I demand an apology from you.

MeatPuppet: Equating someone like Salvador Allende with Hitler shows that you are completely ignorant of any and all facts in this area. Therefore your opinion is meaningless.

I never equated Allende with Hitler. Maybe I should be demanding an apology from you?

Your post was addressing the long standing policy, by the US government, to support(or even participate in) the overthrow of leaders of countries who the US deamed to be a threat to it's interest's. I was supporting that policy, and pointing to a well known(albeit overused) example of a leader who, had he been overthrown soon after he came to power, would not have been able to cause the death of tens of millions of people.

If you want to discuss individual cases of US intervention in other nation's internal affairs, we can do that. If you want to discuss when it is, or is not, appropriate for the US to engage in such activities, we can do that as well. But neither of these was the subject of your post, nor was it what I was addressing in my response to it.

[MeatPuppet]

Chavez = Hitler? He has wet dreams of matching the successes of this 3rd rate mustachiod dictator:

heh

.....

[MeatPuppet]

Freedom of speech is a two edged sword. We are free to say whatever we want, but there might be consequences.

7 Eleven Drops Citgo

[Tippster]

What will he do with all that oil/gas that 7-11 won't be selling?


Oh yeah, the rest of the motherfucking world will buy it.

[Tin Woodsman]

It's interesting to try to defend Chavez. It puts you in the same situation faced by the Bushwas: defending an incompetent, divisive, foggy-headed ideologue-cum-authoritarian with a penchant for making absurd pronouncements.

David - We don't agree on much (WPG etc...) but truer words were never spoken. Both of these guys are clowns running countries that would be much better off w/o them. I fear for the future of the Venezuelan people when the music stops, the oil price drops, and the party ends quickly. All that will be left is the drunk girl in the corner, and a mess of an economy.

[summit]

What will he do with all that oil/gas that 7-11 won't be selling?


Oh yeah, the rest of the motherfucking world will buy it.

Particularly, China

He's been wanting to sell more oil to China and less to the USA. Now he can do that without seeming like he is cutting US supply. 7-11 just gave him precisely what he wanted.

[Jer]

Glad we agree on something, Woodsman. It's hard to get too upset about internet wrangling - kind of amusing to play trolls & n00bs, predictable as clockwork ...

... but it's damn depressing when leaders of nations play the same idiotic games. With the lives of millions.

[Al Qaeda terrorists] piloted the explosives-laden boat alongside the USS Cole, made friendly gestures to crew members, and detonated the bomb.
...
Back in Afghanistan, Bin Ladin anticipated U.S. military retaliation.
...
There was no American strike. In February 2001, a source reported that an individual whom he identified as the big instructor (probably a reference to Bin Ladin) complained frequently that the United States had not yet attacked. According to the source, Bin Ladin wanted the United States to attack, and if it did not he would launch something bigger.

[Cono Este]

Particularly, China

He's been wanting to sell more oil to China and less to the USA. Now he can do that without seeming like he is cutting US supply. 7-11 just gave him precisely what he wanted.

Its not a good thing for him, that attitude is kinda like him throwing out the exapts over the yrs, very short sighted.

Should the Chinese economy slow down at all, not only will global demand for oil drop dramatically, but Chavez will have bet on China increasing its consupmtion vs. our mkt which is established.

In short, swapping us for China, is a Texas Hedge.

He is gambling with the vast resources of Venezuela, it could pay off big, and it could also explode in his face.

[yentna]

I don't think gambling on China is that risky. Even if their economy slows, their demand for oil will still increase dramatically, just slower. They are going to be very oil hungry...

[cj001f]

I don't think gambling on China is that risky. Even if their economy slows, their demand for oil will still increase dramatically, just slower. They are going to be very oil hungry...

Especially when Chavez wants arms. Or maybe he'd like some satellite blinding equipment?
http://www.defensenews.com/story.php...1111&C=america

[Cono Este]

I don't think gambling on China is that risky. Even if their economy slows, their demand for oil will still increase dramatically, just slower. They are going to be very oil hungry...

Yes overtime you are probably right. But the Asian economy is hardy a smooth ride, the Asian Crisis in sept 1998 sent oil to 12 bucks a barrel.

China can only go so far without drastic changes in banking, and regulatory functions. IT WILL NEVER BE A SMOOTH RIDE.

A modest slowdown in the Chinese economy would have a profound effect on crude prices. It will bury Chavez.