Pat And Hugo

[Nbadan]

For BBC Television and the Guardian newspapers of Britain, Greg Palast has conducted two award-winning investigations of both Pat Robertson and Hugo Chavez, President of Venezuela. To understand who these guys are -- why Robertson would shoot at Chavez, and why Chavez would laugh at Robertson, read on …

WHY DICK CHENEY WON'T PLAY IN HUGO CHAVEZ' BAND


There's so much BS and baloney thrown around about Venezuela that I may be violating some rule of US journalism by providing some facts. Let's begin with this: 77% of Venezuela's farmland is owned by 3% of the population, the 'hacendados.'

I met one of these farmlords in Caracas at an anti-Chavez protest march. Oddest demonstration I've ever seen: frosted blondes in high heels clutching designer bags, screeching, "Chavez - dic-ta-dor!" The plantation owner griped about the "socialismo" of Chavez, then jumped into his Jaguar convertible.

Palast interviews Pres. Chavez, Caracas [BBC TV Newsnight]

That week, Chavez himself handed me a copy of the "socialist" manifesto that so rattled the man in the Jag. It was a new law passed by Venezuela's Congress which gave land to the landless. The Chavez law transferred only fields from the giant haciendas which had been left unused and abandoned.

This land reform, by the way, was promoted to Venezuela in the 1960s by that Lefty radical, John F. Kennedy. Venezuela's dictator of the time agreed to hand out land, but forgot to give peasants title to their property.

But Chavez won't forget, because the mirror reminds him. What the affable president sees in his reflection, beyond the ribbons of office, is a "negro e indio" -- a "Black and Indian" man, dark as a cola nut, same as the landless and, until now, the hopeless. For the first time in Venezuela's history, the 80% Black-Indian population elected a man with skin darker than the man in the Jaguar.

So why, with a huge majority of the electorate behind him, twice in elections and today with a nearly two-to-one landslide victory in a recall referendum, is Hugo Chavez in hot water with our democracy-promoting White House?

Maybe it's the oil. Lots of it. Chavez sits atop a reserve of crude that rivals Iraq's. And it's not his presidency of Venezuela that drives the White House bananas, it was his presidency of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, OPEC. While in control of the OPEC secretariat, Chavez cut a deal with our maximum leader of the time, Bill Clinton, on the price of oil. It was a 'Goldilocks' plan. The price would not be too low, not too high; just right, kept between $20 and $30 a barrel.

But Dick Cheney does not like Clinton nor Chavez nor their band. To him, the oil industry's (and Saudi Arabia's) freedom to set oil prices is as sacred as freedom of speech is to the ACLU. I got this info, by the way, from three top oil industry lobbyists.

Why should Chavez worry about what Dick thinks? Because, said one of the oil men, the Veep in his bunker, not the pretzel-chewer in the White House, "runs energy policy in the United States."

And what seems to have gotten our Veep's knickers in a twist is not the price of oil, but who keeps the loot from the current band-busting spurt in prices. Chavez had his Congress pass another oil law, the "Law of Hydrocarbons," which changes the split. Right now, the oil majors - like PhillipsConoco - keep 84% of the proceeds of the sale of Venezuela oil; the nation gets only 16%.

Chavez wanted to double his Treasury's take to 30%. And for good reason. Landless, hungry peasants have, over decades, drifted into Caracas and other cities, building million-person ghettos of cardboard shacks and open sewers. Chavez promised to do something about that.

And he did. "Chavez gives them bread and bricks," one Venezuelan TV reporter told me. The blonde TV newscaster, in the middle of a publicity shoot, said the words "pan y ladrillos" with disdain, making it clear that she never touched bricks and certainly never waited in a bread line.

But to feed and house the darker folk in those bread and brick lines, Chavez would need funds, and the 16% slice of the oil pie wouldn't do it. So the President of Venezuela demanded 30%, leaving Big Oil only 70%. Suddenly, Bill Clinton's ally in Caracas became Mr. Cheney's -- and therefore, Mr. Bush's -- enemy.

So began the Bush-Cheney campaign to "Floridate" the will of the Venezuela electorate. It didn't matter that Chavez had twice won election. Winning most of the votes, said a White House spokesman, did not make Chavez' government "legitimate." Hmmm. Secret contracts were awarded by our Homeland Security spooks to steal official Venezuela voter lists. Cash passed discreetly from the US taxpayer, via the so-called 'Endowment for Democracy,' to the Chavez-haters running today's "recall" election.

A brilliant campaign of placing stories about Chavez' supposed unpopularity and "dictatorial" manner seized US news and op-ed pages, ranging from the San Francisco Chronicle to the New York Times.

But some facts just can't be smothered in propaganda ink. While George Bush can appoint the government of Iraq and call it "sovereign," the government of Venezuela is appointed by its people. And the fact is that most people in this slum-choked land don't drive Jaguars or have their hair tinted in Miami. Most look in the mirror and see someone "negro e indio," as dark as their President Hugo.

The official CIA handbook on Venezuela says that half the nation's farmers own only 1% of the land. They are the lucky ones, as more peasants owned nothing. That is, until their man Chavez took office. Even under Chavez, land redistribution remains more a promise than an accomplishment. But today, the landless and homeless voted their hopes, knowing that their man may not, against the armed axis of local oligarchs and Dick Cheney, succeed for them. But they are convinced he would never forget them.

And that's a fact.

Greg Palast (http://www.gregpalast.com/detail.cfm?artid=452&row=0)


Thoughts?

[whottt]

http://spurstalk.com/forums/showthread.php?p=453986#post453986

[whottt]

I read a funny article by a leftist that was originally written weeks before the referendum...

The lefty writer bashed the living hell out of Carter and said he was there to rig the elections against Chavez...

After Chavez won, all the articles were from the right about Carter legitimizing an illegal election.

The bottom line is this...

I don't think it's Oil that is causing this rift...

It's the fact that Chavez celebrated 9/11...
It's the fact that he donated money to Al Qaeda the day after 9/11..
It's the fact that he is been spewing anti-Americanism for a looooong time, even before the coup.

This guy is not listed in the axis of evil...I think the administration is trying to keep the bad relations out of the limelight.


Right now the guy is doing some good things for Venzuela...he is putting money into schools, and infrastructure, and a country with rampant poverty is getting some big bucks courtesy of the Oil crunch...

But this always happened when there a big Oil crunch...no matter the government.

I think his popularity with the masses is totally legitimate...

But don't spin this into a Republican Democrat thing...

This guy wants to be a communist dictator that controls most of South America...look at who his heroes are...

I mean he's not just a Castro and Kim Jong Il admirer because Cheney is the VP.

Right now he's a good guy, he could write a book on how to win friends and influence people when you are sitting on an assload of Oil...but that's going to change....Yes the educational system will improve..yes everyone will eat...and that's all they'll do...that's the top level of socialism. That's all you get...and when you start wanting more...things start getting ugly.

We need to stop getting Oil from this guy...stop putting money in his pocket.

His heroes are Castro and Kim Jong Il...

[Nbadan]

Another article from the Independent (http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/article307975.ece)


The coup, the coup. Everybody here has their stories about the 2002 coup d'état, and the strange 47-hour Presidency of Pedro Carmona Estanga, the head of Venezuela's equivalent of the Confederation of British Industry. (Pat Robertson's call caused a cascade of memories to burst across the streets of Caracas.) That April, Chavez was kidnapped and removed from power in a decapitation of democracy orchestrated by the media, a few generals and the wealthy. Carmona dissolved the Supreme Court, the Constitution and the elected National Assembly and assumed control of the country. This was immediately welcomed by the Bush administration.

Washington was eager to ensure the largest pot of oil outside the Middle East - providing 10 per cent of US domestic imports - was placed back under the control of US corporations, rather than a left-winger with his own ideas about oil revenue. It later emerged the US had been funding the coup leaders. Only the story didn't end there. Venezuela refused to be Chile. Judith Patino, a 57-year-old grandmother and street-seller who lives in one of the shanty-towns in the west of Caracas, explains: "We would not let our democracy be destroyed. We refused. Everybody from this barrio , everybody from all the barrios, went on to the streets of Caracas. We were afraid, we thought there would be massacres, but we had chosen our President and we were governing our own country and we would not surrender."

http://www.salonchingon.com/exhibits/caracas2004/image/carter-chavez-best-13.jpg
Chavez has been approved in polls or referenda no less than seven times, and there is more substantial free speech than in Britain. In Venezuela, people can (and, every night, do) call on television for the President to be killed. Indeed, Chavez has been so reluctant to commit a crackdown that the leaders of the coup are still free and unpunished. Venezuelans are still nervously waiting for them to return, in the form of another coup - or a CIA bullet."

[whottt]

As already posted by whottt:

Socialism is the only path - Hugo Chavez

He then extended a salute of "solidarity" to "friendly nations", naming, specifically, Algeria, Cuba, Iran, and North Korea.



But why single out North Korea? For that, we must look at the background of Hector Navarro and other members of the Chavez inner circle. Before taking power, Navarro hailed North Korea as a model to follow, and in a document co-authored with former Chavez industry and commerce minister Jesús Montilla and former Chavez central planning minister Jorge Giordini, he wrote:

"Socialism survives [...] in North Korea which, although isolated and alone, has achieved a strong economy."

According to O'Grady Chavez "envisions an axis of power linking Brasilla, Montevideo, and Buenos Aires." He speaks of controlling a sweep of territory ranging from Atlantic to Pacific.



His first target has to be Colombia. He is dedicated to "breaking the spine of democracy" in the Latin region.


How can anyone justify the regime in North Korea?


You know it's funny...Socialism never takes root in wealthy countries...only in poor...it's supposed to be exactly the opposite...

Chavez has twice tried to overthrow the government of Venezuela...

He's riding the support of the poor to power and blaming all the filthy rich for their problems...

Yet he is now wealthier than any of those guys were....he's alienating all the big oil companies...he's giving discounts to his dictatorship buddies...he's building a huge military even though they have no discernible threat...he really hasn't create any jobs and the fact that he is renigging on the contracts with all these companies is going to scare investors away...

How can you be so naive about this guys intentions?

Eventually these people are going to realize that they didn't stop being poor...they just became better educated poor...they are going to want him gone and he isn't going to want that...he is going to want to be their god...just like every other communiust dictator....

It is a god complex you know...that's why they don't let their people leave, that's why they stop holding free elections, that's why they control every aspect of their citizens lives. That's why they steal their right to be a free thinking human being.

Wait and see, he's not doing it now because he doesn't have to...but that will change...it always does.

[smeagol]

Chavez is an idiot. How many times do i have to say this?

[exstatic]

Chavez is an idiot. How many times do i have to say this?
Chaves is THEIR democratically elected idiot.

[boutons]

shrub is a corrupt idiot, but he's OUR red-state democratically elected corrupt idiot. :)

Seems like Manifest Destiny has turned out to be nothing but electing corrupt idiots up and down the Americas.

Let's Make A Deal, yet another intra-American deal, let's call it AAFTA, Assassins Free Trade Agreement:
We assassinate their idiot, and they assassinate our idiot. :lol

btw, assassin's etymology is rooted in the Iraq neighborhood.

http://www.alamut.com/subj/ideologies/alamut/etymolAss.html

[SWC Bonfire]

The Chavez law transferred only fields from the giant haciendas which had been left unused and abandoned.


I posted this in another thread. Enjoy:

full story (http://beef-mag.com/mag/beef_beyond_eminent_domain/)

Center on Venezuela, where new laws forbid any private entity from owning more than 5,000 hectares (12,355 acres) — and require all land to be “productive.” In one case, Venezuela's National Land Institute (INTI) is moving to seize control of the Hato Piñero cattle ranch declaring much of it as unproductive.

INTI says the family claiming ownership of Hato Piñero since the mid-18th century can't prove title. Portions of Hato Piñero's 195,000 acres will be given to squatters already living on small subsistence farms. A portion of the ranch will be declared a nature preserve while the ranch's current owners will be allowed to raise cattle under restricted conditions.

Ironically, Jaime Perez Branger, whose family owns Hato Piñero and two other large cattle ranches in the state of Cojedes, implements low-impact grazing rotations — a practice that regularly rests some tracts from grazing.

In what's become an international controversy, some conservationists say Hato Piñero is an example of how cattle ranching can co-exist with nature. Carving it into small cooperative farm holdings is environmentally unsound, they say.

The roots run deep


Venezuelan landowner groups claim domestic land-use policies are fueled by a powerful coalition of international environmental and human rights groups. They also blame Cuba's Fidel Castro, South American factions of the Catholic Church and infiltration by Brazil's Landless Worker's Movement — Movimento Sem Terra (MST).

MST's roots are buried in a clause of Brazil's constitution also requiring land to be productive. The MST, which backed Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva's initial agrarian reform platform, organizes “landless” people into cooperatives settling small plots on “unproductive” land.

Prospective settlers from big city slums sometimes wait months in shoddy, remote encampments for relocation orders. Motivated by MST's slogan — “Occupy, Resist, Produce” — innocent settlers often find themselves caught in deadly violence between MST organizers and landowners.

Few dispute claims that corruption is rampant within Brazil's land redistribution effort. After negotiating with local officials for land transfer, MST authorities hold the deeds in escrow to ensure peasant families don't sell their farms back to the landowners.

In Venezuela, the government claims the predominance of large unproductive tracts is creating a dependence on food imports. Landowners argue the efficiencies generated through private enterprise help stimulate the nation's economy, increasing income-generating exports.

[Manu'sMagicalLeftHand]

As I said before, you are creating a fuzz, where there is none. In international politics, Chavez is all rhetoric and no action. Why is he is such a commie when he keeps making business with the US?

I'm gonna quote myself in another Chavez thread:


This is pure and absolute nonsense. Chavez may have illusions of power, but he can't even send a boy scout outside Venezuela.

First, his internal situation doesn't allow him to move troops. He has 60% of support, but the other 40% is a very strong alliance between religious organizations, business federations, the upper-class, even a part of the military, and other sectors. Since he doesn't have the full support of the military, any troops movement will end in a coup.

Second, we like it or not, Chavez was elected. He has a military background (he lead a coup in 1992), but he was democratically elected in 1998. Not only that, he was forced to call for a referendum, which he won with 59% of the votes. Some people might like it, others don't, but his supporters have the right to be annoyed by these comments, just like Republicans were annoyed by the support Kerry received outside the US (mind you, no one asked for Bush to be murdered).

Third, Chavez can dream all he wants about Brasilia, Buenos Aires and Montevideo (WTF? Uruguay? He should look to Chile or Peru first if he has such expansionist fantasies), but that is all, a dream. He certainly can't defeat Brazil, nor make the Brazilian goverment his puppet, and the chance of moving to any other country is blocked by this fact. This paragraph is the biggest nonsense, I'm pretty sure Chavez is an asshole, but not even on Peyote he would talk about an axis containing Buenos Aires and Brasilia, that's overrating his power, ambition and abilities.

If he was ever to break "the spine of democracy", he certainly wouldn't start in Colombia, a country which is divided between the democratic goverment, paramilitary forces and the FARC. If Colombia ever falls to the narcoterrorists (which is highly unlikely, the paramilitary group is better armed and has more conections in the goverment), it wouldn't unleash a so called "Red Tide". Perú, Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, Paraguay and Brazil certainly wouldn't fall into that tide, while currently the situation in Bolivia and Ecuador is more delicated, I doubt that they will join an Axis formed by Chavez.

Chavez is the Jerome James of the world leaders.

A lot of :blah :blah :blah but he is useless.

[whottt]

As I said before, you are creating a fuzz, where there is none. In international politics, Chavez is all rhetoric and no action. Why is he is such a commie when he keeps making business with the US?

Because he nationalized their Oil industry....It's got nothing to do with whether or not he does business with the USA....

Do you understand how it works?

He STEALS the Oil industry under the claim that the wealth lies only in the hands of a few....he gets away with this because he says his intent is to redistribute the Oil riches to the entire country instead of only a select few...

He then pours some money into the educational system and civil infracstructure...steals some land to put some government housing projects on and says, "See? Look how well off you are now, is this not better?"

And that's as good as it will ever get...

And he is now ten times more wealthy than all the old Rich in Venzuela combined...

Next he is going to build up his military under the guise of being threatened by...ummm probably the US and probably what ever neighbors he doesn't like...but really it's so his own people won't overthrow him as he starts to take away their Democratic rights....and so he can intimidate change in the weake countries around him...or possibly invade them.


Whether he does interntaional business is moot...

He would love to have outside countries coming and investing in his country....

You know why?

Because he can break those deals at any point he wants after the money has already been invested thus stealing it...he has already done it...

He already done this to many foreign Oil companies...he has broken all the contracts and levied huge taxes on the Oil from the new ones...

This will in effect scare off foreign investment, he is an economic idiot...he's then going to claim his standing up to Imperialism has made him and all Venzuelan's pariah's of the Western World...

Then when people start telling the truth about how all these things occurred he is going to slowly but surely take away the free press, his rivals will start disappearing...

People are going to want to get the fuck out of there...because truthfully...there are only a very small minority of people in this world that are happy with the high point of their live being eating and serving as fodder for a one man ego trip.



This guy is touting the free elections...and I believe he was elected legitimately...but if has so much respect for free elections...why did he twice try to overthrow the government?















I'm gonna quote myself in another Chavez thread:



Chavez is the Jerome James of the world leaders.

A lot of :blah :blah :blah but he is useless.


You know what scares me? You aren't worried in the slightest about what his intentions are...you are criticial because he isn't acting to do it quickly enough...

[Manu'sMagicalLeftHand]

You know what scares me? You aren't worried in the slightest about what his intentions are...you are criticial because he isn't acting to do it quickly enough...

No, I'm not, that is your misinterpretation of my words. I'm saying that I don't see Chavez as a regional threat to security and democracy. Chavez is actually close to the stereotypical Latin American leader seen in Hollywood comedies, making a mess of his country, as long as he keeps power, but without any ability to harm other countries. As a poster said in the other Chavez thread, if one Venezuelan soldier steps one foot in Brazil, Venezuela will be Brazil's nothermost state.

As I said before, to compare Chavez with Saddam, Stalin or Mao is an exaggeration. Chavez might be a moron, but he is a moron that was democratically elected, twice (sounds familiar).


Because he nationalized their Oil industry....It's got nothing to do with whether or not he does business with the USA....

That isn't completely true, private companies still work in Venezuela. Do they make less profits than before Chavez? They certainly do, but that is far from socialism, at most is Keynesianism. If he broke contracts, but companies are still working there, it isn't socialism, it is corruption. Chavez hasn't made compulsory collective farming, nor expropiation of private property. When Chavez is confronted in this way by Pat Robertson or any other foreign person, it only helps his cause. It gives him more reasons to create the illusion that the US is a big bad monster that is trying to overthrown him. And if both positions go extreme, it is better for both, Chavez and Robertson, they have a new enemy to target their rhetorics at.


He would love to have outside countries coming and investing in his country....

You know why?

Because he can break those deals at any point he wants after the money has already been invested thus stealing it...he has already done it...

He already done this to many foreign Oil companies...he has broken all the contracts and levied huge taxes on the Oil from the new ones...

This will in effect scare off foreign investment, he is an economic idiot...he's then going to claim his standing up to Imperialism has made him and all Venzuelan's pariah's of the Western World...

Then when people start telling the truth about how all these things occurred he is going to slowly but surely take away the free press, his rivals will start disappearing...

People are going to want to get the fuck out of there...because truthfully...there are only a very small minority of people in this world that are happy with the high point of their live being eating and serving as fodder for a one man ego trip.

I agree.


This guy is touting the free elections...and I believe he was elected legitimately...but if has so much respect for free elections...why did he twice try to overthrow the government?

One of the many oxymorons in Latin America's politics. One moment he might look like a dictator, and six months after he would be voted by the people. The real question should be: Why people chose Chavez as their president? What were the other candidates doing or representing?

[Extra Stout]

Next he is going to build up his military under the guise of being threatened by...ummm probably the US and probably what ever neighbors he doesn't like...but really it's so his own people won't overthrow him as he starts to take away their Democratic rights....and so he can intimidate change in the weake countries around him...or possibly invade them.Oh please, if he tries to invade anybody, next thing you know Venezuela will be the northernmost province of Brazil.

Also keep in mind that a U.S. ship in the Gulf of Mexico probably can hit Caracas without even moving if it came to that.

[whottt]

No, I'm not, that is your misinterpretation of my words. I'm saying that I don't see Chavez as a regional threat to security and democracy. Chavez is actually close to the stereotypical Latin American leader seen in Hollywood comedies, making a mess of his country, as long as he keeps power, but without any ability to harm other countries. As a poster said in the other Chavez thread, if one Venezuelan soldier steps one foot in Brazil, Venezuela will be Brazil's nothermost state.

Not if he gets nukes they won't....




As I said before, to compare Chavez with Saddam, Stalin or Mao is an exaggeration. Chavez might be a moron, but he is a moron that was democratically elected, twice (sounds familiar).


I don't for a second he has the support of his people at this time....it's easy to get the support of hungry people...

If he continues to allow free elections and is willing to give up power on the day his people no longer wish him to lead them...then I will applaud him as a truly benevolent leader.


But you see...Socialism doesn't subscribe to the theory that the masses know what is best for them....that is why their free elections are a thing of myth...

This man has said Socialism is the only way...this man has said he is going to break the spine of Democracy in Latin America.




That isn't completely true, private companies still work in Venezuela. Do they make less profits than before Chavez? They certainly do, but that is far from socialism, at most is Keynesianism. If he broke contracts, but companies are still working there, it isn't socialism, it is corruption.


It will scare off foreign investment...if you do not have industry protection...people will not invest in your country...

Yeah he's still got it now...but I gurantee you people are having second thoughts, not only is he jacking the price up...but he hasn't even been able to maintain consistent production...

I know an Argentinian won't understand this but if you are constantly flip flopping back and forth between privatization and nationalization...people are going to be wary of giving you money.

The US has the best private industry protection in the world, this is why the dollar is still the world standard for currency...even though it's value has declined. People know the US is not going to all of a sudden nationalize(IE steal) it's industries...




Chavez hasn't made compulsory collective farming, nor expropiation of private property.

Give him time....he's still in the honeymoon stage, he's popular so he doesn't have to be militant yet...and there is an Oil boom right now so these things are not a necessity.





When Chavez is confronted in this way by Pat Robertson or any other foreign person, it only helps his cause. It gives him more reasons to create the illusion that the US is a big bad monster that is trying to overthrown him. And if both positions go extreme, it is better for both, Chavez and Robertson, they have a new enemy to target their rhetorics at.

Oh I agree....Pat Robertson is a complete and utter idiot....

And you can't assasinate Chavez anyway....it's only icnonizes the person it is done to...much better to discredit them...

But the US has every right to fund opposition groups...other countries do it to us...but again..we've got the peaceful exchange of power thing going.








One of the many oxymorons in Latin America's politics. One moment he might look like a dictator, and six months after he would be voted by the people. The real question should be: Why people chose Chavez as their president? What were the other candidates doing or representing?

Well the 90's was a deflation of the Oil market and since Venzuela is totally dependent on Oil it kicked their ass...Chavez would have been no different in that era....right now there is an Oil Crunch and he is milking it for all it's worth....


I applaud some of the things he has done....re-invigorating the educational system....rebuilding infrastructure...

But these things were also done the last time Venzuela hit an Oil boom in the 70's...

If he continues to hold free elections and allow freedom of the press etc...I will applaud him..but the people he admires, the form of govenrment he admires, his past history of attempting to overthrow the govenrment...don't be naive about what his ambitions are....

He is not going to go after Brazil or Argentina first...he is going to go after the weak and unstable countries first....right now though he is friendly with the governments of Brazil and Argentina....

[whottt]

MMLH...the guy is an admitted Socialist....One of the first credo's of Socialism is that for it to succeed there can be no other form of government in the world....he does not have friendly ambitions to the rest of the Latin America...he has the ambition of ruling a Socialist continent...

That's why he is cozying up to China, North Korea and Iran, they all have nukes...once he gets nukes no one in South America will be able to stand up to him...

[Extra Stout]

Doesn't Brazil already have nukes?

[whottt]

Oh please, if he tries to invade anybody, next thing you know Venezuela will be the northernmost province of Brazil.

Not if he has nukes...




Also keep in mind that a U.S. ship in the Gulf of Mexico probably can hit Caracas without even moving if it came to that.

Oh but then we'd be evil imperial empire coming to take the "Peoples" Oil and all the world would talk of how horrible we are...and our libs would never stand for Socialists hating us....

[Extra Stout]

Oh but then we'd be evil imperial empire coming to take the "Peoples" Oil and all the world would talk of how horrible we are...and our libs would never stand for Socialists hating us....Well, they already do that now, so how would it be any different if we pull Chavez out of Guyana?

[whottt]

Doesn't Brazil already have nukes?

Yeah...and we had nukes too when the Russians invaded Afghanistan...they had nukes when we went into Vietnam and Korea...


Nukes prevent a country being taken over militariliy...they do not keep a country from internal collapse or keep one country from invading a weaker one...


And what makes you think that once he gets that technology that Brazil won't be suceptible to nuclear terrorism....

In any case...he and the Brazillians are getting along just fine these days...

[smeagol]

Chaves is THEIR democratically elected idiot.
Many people claim the referendum was a massive fraud.

Ripper, where the fuck are you?

[smeagol]

Chavez has been approved in polls or referenda no less than seven times, and there is more substantial free speech than in Britain. In Venezuela, people can (and, every night, do) call on television for the President to be killed. Indeed, Chavez has been so reluctant to commit a crackdown that the leaders of the coup are still free and unpunished. Venezuelans are still nervously waiting for them to return, in the form of another coup - or a CIA bullet."
What a lode of crap!

[Manu'sMagicalLeftHand]

Doesn't Brazil already have nukes?

Brazil has a nuclear energy plan, but they don't have the A-Bomb, yet.

[whottt]

Brazil has a nuclear energy plan, but they don't have the A-Bomb, yet.

Hmmm I saw Brazil listed as one of the countries that does have the Bomb...it might have just been nuclear power though...

That makes a guy with the ambitions of Chavez an even more dangerous one for your part of the World. What can Brazil or your country do to stop him if he has a nuclear bomb backing him up...

And what makes you so sure that the governments of those countries are opposed to Socialism anyway? The current leaders of those countries would be looking at permanent rule and holding all the wealth of those countries for themselves. IF he's got the bomb he instantly becomes El Jefe....but even El Jefe has sidekicks.


He's cozying up to China, N Korea and Iran for a reason...and it's not because of their great humanitarianism...they've got nuclear tech.


Isn't he giving you Argentines an Oil deal? I am sure that makes him quite popular with the Argentine people...

[Manu'sMagicalLeftHand]

Hmmm I saw Brazil listed as one of the countries that does have the Bomb...it might have just been nuclear power though...

That makes a guy with the ambitions of Chavez an even more dangerous one for your part of the World. What can Brazil or your country do to stop him if he has a nuclear bomb backing him up...


If Chavez finally gets his hands on a bomb, he can't use it on Latin Americans, that would put Latin America, starting from Mexico, down to Argentina, against him. We might have cultural differences, but we certainly aren't Sunnis and Shiites. And even with an A-Bomb you can't win a war when you are 40-1 outnumbered, and your country has a small geographic position, and is divided on internal affairs.


And what makes you so sure that the governments of those countries are opposed to Socialism anyway? The current leaders of those countries would be looking at permanent rule and holding all the wealth of those countries for themselves. IF he's got the bomb he instantly becomes El Jefe....but even El Jefe has sidekicks.

Yes, I mean, look how Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay, Chile, Paraguay, Peru and Colombia have become socialist countries...The region is changing from the 90's inconditional support for free market and economy liberalization into a strong regional block, but not in the EU "no borders" model. If Chavez gets too extremist, he would break relations with both Argentina and Brazil goverments, and that means bye-bye to his empire plans. So that's why he is in a catch 22 situation, where he can't do more than what he has done so far, that is, use communist rhetoric in his speeches, but don't go any further that moderate populism in his actions.



Isn't he giving you Argentines an Oil deal? I am sure that makes him quite popular with the Argentine people...

Yes, we have Chavez face in posters all over Buenos Aires. The Oil deal actually works better for him than us, as usual for the country selling the oil via a state controlled company. We also have Shell, Exxon, Repsol and Petrobras selling us oil, yet I don't see people worshipping them. Oil trade is good only for one side, that is the side that owns, produces and sells it.

[Manu'sMagicalLeftHand]

I don't know, maybe I'm too optimistic and I'm underrating Chavez abilities, but from my point of view he isn't a real threat, not to South America and certainly not to the US.

Anyway, it's good to have a discussion without a flame war or partisan points of view! But, how long will it last? :lol

[jochhejaam]

Here's a site with a list of countries with declared nuclear weapons, suspected of nuclear weapons and those formerly possessing nuclear weapons or programs (Brazil).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_with_nuclear_weapons#Suspected_n uclear_states

[MannyIsGod]

Nuclear proliferation is unstopable.

[Nbadan]

Many people claim the referendum was a massive fraud.

Ripper, where the fuck are you?

Ummm Smeagal, there are many people in the US who still claim that the 04 referendum on W was a massive fraud. Time has shown that socialism is a weak form of government, but Hugo has bundles of money coming in with high oil prices and this gives him a bit of machismo.

[Nbadan]

Nuclear proliferation is unstopable.

Seems like the U.N. was doing a pretty good job in Iraq. It's a lot more difficult to build a nuclear weapon that people think. Your talking a minimum 10 years of research even with proliferation and billions of dollars. Then after you've built your one or two bombs you still have no way to deliver them because it takes another few years to learn to put them on missiles, so they become more of a protective weapon than anything else.