"Why Chavez is in U.S. crosshairs"

[welshTerrier2]

they knocked off Saddam who made himself an easy target ... but let's be honest, they didn't give a damn about the Iraqi people ... and now they're going after Chavez with the exact some objective: Oil ...

the corruption of our foreign policy to obtain more oil and feather the nests of the oil industry needs to be put before the American people ... must we wait for oil prices so high and supplies so limited that it will be too late, if it already isn't, to address the crisis we face? how can we expect the American people to demand a new energy policy and a just foreign policy when we've failed to tell them the truth about the coming oil crisis and the coming global oil wars? Democrats push for alternative energy sources but they do absolutely nothing to educate Americans about the desperate times we face ... if we don't get the people behind our causes, nothing will change ...

source: http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1125611420336&call_pageid=968256290204&col=968350116795

The future of Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez started to look precarious last January. It was then that CNN announcers began referring to him as a "Latin American strongman." The term suggests a dictator, so it actually doesn't fit Chavez, who's twice been democratically elected in national elections. <skip>

Only two years after it toppled Saddam Hussein in Iraq, Washington seems anxious to get rid of yet another unco-operative leader of a nation very rich in oil and largely defenceless.

Of course, as with Iraq, Venezuela's ample oil reserves are never acknowledged as a possible motive. This is striking, since oil has been taking on even more significance lately. The reason is simple: The world seems to be fast reaching the point where there won't be enough oil available to meet the world's ever-growing demand. So the scramble to get control of oil, a central feature of the global power struggle for decades, seems poised to get more intense. <skip>

"The world has never faced a problem like this," the report noted. "... Previous energy transitions (wood to coal and coal to oil) were gradual and evolutionary; oil peaking will be abrupt and revolutionary."

It's hard to imagine it won't also be violent. The U.S. has long maintained that access to oil is essential to its "national security." The problem is that the U.S. consumes 25 per cent of all the oil produced worldwide each year, yet has only 3 per cent of world oil reserves. As supplies diminish, the U.S. will be particularly vulnerable, and vulnerability is not something it accepts lightly.

Indeed, Washington's hostility toward Chavez seemed to grow after he signed far-reaching oil deals last December with America's emerging rival, China. Media reports often suggest the Bush administration dislikes Chavez because it considers him undemocratic. The fact that he's sitting on the biggest oil reserve outside the Middle East while thumbing his nose at America might actually be more of a factor.