Article

2005-02-20 Caribbean-Latin America

Hugo Chavez's Threat to U.S. Security and Regional Stability

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Posted by TMH 2005-02-20 12:53:59 PM|| || Front Page|| [3 views since 2007-05-07] Top

#1 Use great caution when reading news articles from and about Venezuela. There are very limited news service resources in country that provide info for the US, in past as little as a single AP correspondent who was adamantly opposed to Chavez and willing to distort the news or even fabricate news items. Their national papers are also controlled by the opposition, so often are terribly biased. Last but not least, for many years now the Republicans have had a blind spot in central and South America in their otherwise brilliant foreign policy. This is a cabal of about half a dozen individuals whose ideology would be comfortable with the likes of Pinochet, Somoza, and Diaz. They, more than anything else, have driven Chavez away from the US by openly supporting his opposition; by openly sponsoring at least four crude and buffoonish attempts to violently overthrow his government; and by trying to scare the hell out of him with rhetoric, rather than by dealing with him rationally. Hell, if they had treated Arnold that way, he would be trying to make friends with Castro. I met a "second-tier" member of this aforementioned cabal and was appalled at the man, a US Ambassador, who was clearly clinically insane (paranoid). Now, I don't mind if there are true believers in government, but I object if they want to steer the US away from our best national interest because voices in their head tell them to. Six kooks should not be able to screw up foreign policy for an entire continent.

Posted by Anonymoose 2005-02-20 1:31:23 PM|| 2005-02-20 1:31:23 PM|| Front Page Top

#2 As a Venezuelan whose entire family is living there, I can tell you that the article is not exaggerating.
Moreover, US policy toward Chavez did not drive him away. Please read how this asshole rose to power and what his intentions were from the beginning.
By your logic, if Nixon (then Vice-president) who have been more helpful when he met Fidel, the latter would not be the tyrant he is today, right?

Posted by TMH 2005-02-20 1:41:57 PM|| 2005-02-20 1:41:57 PM|| Front Page Top

#3 Something else....

Would you give the name of the terrible biased AP reporter? I would really, really want to know. Thanks!

I assume that you read Spanish fluently to be bold enough to make the following statement: "Their national papers are also controlled by the opposition, so often are terribly biased." Have you read the Government owned newspapers, Venpress for example?

Posted by TMH 2005-02-20 1:49:19 PM|| 2005-02-20 1:49:19 PM|| Front Page Top

#4 Here is a little history for you:

"Hugo Chavez was elected president of Venezuela in December of 1998. Almost immediately, he took his first steps towards consolidating all of the power of the Venezuelan state into his own hands. He organized a series of referenda. The first authorized re-writing the Venezuelan constitution. The second selected delegates to a Constitutional Assembly, distinct from his country's legislature, to do the re-writing. The rules governing the election of the Constitutional Assembly featured a few non-standard items. Although no candidates -- neither Chavez's supporters nor his opposition -- were allowed to run under party banners, Chavez used state funded media to campaign for the election of his supporters. This, combined with Chavez's personal popularity, allowed Chavez supporters to win 120 of the 131 assembly seats.
The Constitutional Assembly, with the backing of Chavez, moved beyond re-writing Venezuela's Constitution. In August of 1999, the assembly set up a "judicial emergency committee" with the power to remove judges without consulting any other branch of government. The New York Times quoted the judicial emergency committee chairman as saying, "The Constitutional Assembly has absolute powers. The objective is that the substitution of judges will take place peacefully, but if the courts refuse to acknowledge the assembly's authority, we will proceed in a different fashion."
In the same month, the assembly declared a "legislative emergency." A seven-member committee was created to perform congressional functions, including law-making. The Constitutional Assembly prohibited the Congress from holding meetings of any sort. In a national radio address quoted in the Times, Chavez warned Venezuelans not to obey opposition officials, stating that "we can intervene in any police force in any municipality, because we are not going to permit any tumult or uproar. Order has arrived in Venezuela."
The new constitution -- increasing the President's term of office by one year, increasing the power of the president in general, and placing new government restrictions on the media, among other things -- was approved in a referendum held in December of 1999. Elections for the new, unicameral legislature were held in July of 2000. During the same election, Chavez stood for election again -- restarting the clock on his Presidential term of office. Though Chavez supporters won about 60% of the seats in the new unicameral assembly, Chavez still did not feel that he had enough power. In November of 2000, he pushed a bill through the legislature allowing him to rule by decree for one year.
In December of 2000 there was another set of elections. During elections for local officials, Chavez added a referendum on dissolving Venezuela's labor unions. Though it is unclear what authority was invoked, he attempted to consolidate all Venezuelan labor unions into a single, state controlled "Bolivaran Labor Force."

I like this analogy:

"Put this sequence of events into perspective. Imagine, after winning the October 2003 election for Governor of California, Governor Elect Arnold Schwarzenegger called a second election for a constitutional convention to replace the state constitution with a new document increasing the power of the governor, then called a third election to replace existing California legislature with a new unicameral legislature, then called a fourth election to grant himself another full term of office, then called a fifth election to oust the labor union leadership in California, all within the space of two years. Would these be considered legitimate democratic practices because they involved elections?"
http://www.techcentralstation.com/041304B.html

Sources to verify the above:
http://www.asambleanacional.gov.ve/ns2/index.asp
http://www.gobiernoenlinea.gob.ve/misc/index.html

Posted by TMH 2005-02-20 2:16:42 PM|| 2005-02-20 2:16:42 PM|| Front Page Top

#5 TMH, that analogy looks pretty attractive to a lot of Caliphornians because the legislature runs the state in a fashion Chavez of which would approve. And Ahnuld is increasing the power of the Governor relatively, by taking the power for redistricting out of the hands of the legislature. I believe he has also cut the power of the plaintiffs bar, which supports the Democrat party in Caliphornia.

Posted by Mrs. Davis 2005-02-20 2:23:04 PM|| 2005-02-20 2:23:04 PM|| Front Page Top

#6 Mrs, Davis,

Are you saying that Californians want the Governor to have absolute power through a General Assembly packed with his supporters?

Posted by TMH 2005-02-20 2:31:36 PM|| 2005-02-20 2:31:36 PM|| Front Page Top

#7 If it gets the Democrats, the prison guards' union, the teachers' union, the trial attorneys and Hollywood stars out of power, they might find it worth considering. That is why poor Governor Davis was thrown out of office. Or was it the energy crisis? Or the car tax? or the Air Resources Board Or...

Posted by Mrs. Davis 2005-02-20 2:43:37 PM|| 2005-02-20 2:43:37 PM|| Front Page Top

#8 TMH,

I am being somewhat humorous, but Caliphornia did have a lot of one party rule problems that did lead to Arnold coming to power, and right about now, he can do just about whatever he wants as far as I can tell.

Posted by Mrs. Davis 2005-02-20 2:45:57 PM|| 2005-02-20 2:45:57 PM|| Front Page Top

#9 Anonymoose: There are very limited news service resources in country that provide info for the US, in past as little as a single AP correspondent who was adamantly opposed to Chavez and willing to distort the news or even fabricate news items. Their national papers are also controlled by the opposition, so often are terribly biased. Last but not least, for many years now the Republicans have had a blind spot in central and South America in their otherwise brilliant foreign policy. This is a cabal of about half a dozen individuals whose ideology would be comfortable with the likes of Pinochet, Somoza, and Diaz.

Actually, Pinochet, Somoza and Batista were pretty nice guys compared to the opposition. All you have to do is compare the body counts. (Note that Allende expropriated private industry and the press. What would they call GWB if he did that?) One of the things you have to remember is that our guys weren't perfect, but they really weren't our guys in the sense of being our hand puppets. We had *some* leverage, but they got to power the old-fashioned way by bribing and killing off the opposition. Despite the fantasies of left-wing white supremacists who think that black, brown and yellow Third World leaders are all controlled by white Yankees pulling the strings, Uncle Sam is just one player out of many - after all, these leaders have the resources of entire nations at their fingertips. Latin American strongmen could just as easily have sided with the Soviets, just as Saddam and Assad did, providing bases for further subversion throughout Latin America.

Posted by Zhang Fei 2005-02-20 4:57:47 PM|| [http://timurileng.blogspot.com] 2005-02-20 4:57:47 PM|| Front Page Top

#10 ZF: Latin American strongmen could just as easily have sided with the Soviets, just as Saddam and Assad did, providing bases for further subversion throughout Latin America.

Note that Iraq and Syria used to be Soviet client states, and they were really Nazi-style fascist autocracies, rather than communist countries ruled by committee. If the Soviets could do business with Arab fascists, you can bet they could do business with Latin American strongmen, whatever their ideology. All that jockeying around during the Cold War was in order to get a better position on the strategic chessboard. In planning for potential war, geography and natural resources matter - one does not win by drinking from the cup of moral vanity alone.

Posted by Zhang Fei 2005-02-20 5:09:44 PM|| [http://timurileng.blogspot.com] 2005-02-20 5:09:44 PM|| Front Page Top

#11 It must be recognized that neither the right or the left in Latin America are anything like they are in the US. Both are extremes historically populated with brutalitarians, and we should refuse to accept the notion of "a lesser of two evils". I refuse to choose Somoza over the Sandinistas: both are reprehensible, as were Diaz and Poncho Villa. And this is where our problem lies in the regional foreign policy. From the very beginning, Chavez should have been constructively engaged. Positively and negatively US foreign policy should have surrounded him up to his ears. But instead, they ignored him, and tried to wish him away by embracing his enemies. We don't much care for Putin, either, but we don't ignore him and cotton up to his rivals--that would be stupid. But in the case of Chavez, we have *neither* confronted him to his face, *nor* have we tried to get on his good side. I do not embrace Chavez, but I do suggest that trying to make a silk purse out of the sows' ears that are his opponents is a waste of time. For further, and one-sided, information about how the whole situation has been bungled up: http://tinyurl.com/5jzur

Posted by Anonymoose 2005-02-20 7:12:40 PM|| 2005-02-20 7:12:40 PM|| Front Page Top

#12 Anonnymoose,

"From the very beginning, Chavez should have been constructively engaged.."

Can you please elaborate on how does one constructively engage a man that from 1992 (year he staged his coup against presidente Carlos Andres Peres) has had in mind to establish a "democracy" a la Castro?

Posted by TMH 2005-02-20 7:49:08 PM|| 2005-02-20 7:49:08 PM|| Front Page Top

#13 Anonymoose: I refuse to choose Somoza over the Sandinistas: both are reprehensible, as were Diaz and Poncho Villa.

We don't choose them. They choose themselves. Much as you'd like to think a great white Yankee hand put this guy in place, the reality is that he emerged out of a handful of men with large numbers of troops willing to follow him. Like every other Latin American strongman, Chavez has had a bee in his bonnet from the beginning. He's not our guy - he's his guy. He cooperates with us when he feels like it, or not when he chooses not to. Note that Noriega was supposed to be our lapdog, but it took an invasion to oust him. I think people need to rid themselves of the notion that these guys are our guys - if we decided not to have diplomatic relations with folks like this, 5/6 of the UN would be off-limits. They rise or fall on the basis of their efforts, not because of Uncle Sam.

Posted by Zhang Fei 2005-02-20 7:58:40 PM|| [http://timurileng.blogspot.com] 2005-02-20 7:58:40 PM|| Front Page Top

#14 Good debate here. I think Anon. is wrong, Chavez should be isolated, not engaged, depending on how pro-Commie and pro-Terrorist he wants to be. Note: Short of open/direct support for Jihad, I do not think he should be overthrown.

I think Anon. does have a point or 2 about avoiding repeating the blunders of the past. Conservatives in the US and in Latin America have blown chances to improve things over the past decade (Peru's Fujimori was the ultimate missed opportunity for wasting all that he had achieved when he overreached and clouded all his successes - fighting terrorism and economic development, etc. - in disgrace). The Venezuelan opposition still needs to appeal more to the poor and peel off a significant chunk of Chavez's base of support. The failed military coup was a grade A disaster. L. America must kick the coup d'etat habit and embrace democracy and rule of law, even when the bad guys win.

My Peruvian friends are so militantly pro-Fujimori that they would acccept him as President-for-Life. They can't understand that this willingness to sacrifice the democratic ideal to ideological gain is their achilles heel. You need a strong robust system that can withstand the vagarities of a bad administration. The U.S. is strong because we can survive someone like Jimmy Carter.

No matter how strong and just the opposition to Chavez is, I still see no indication that they have a majority - yet. Time to learn from mistakes and play your cards right. Chavez now has the winning hand and so we'll have to wait a while and rebuild our own hand while he overplays his. Trying to kick over the table just acknowledges that you're a loser.

In the long run, I think the U.S. has the strong hand and Chavez can only lose by trying to challenge us. With time, that will become clear.

Posted by John in Tokyo 2005-02-20 11:07:44 PM|| 2005-02-20 11:07:44 PM|| Front Page Top

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