Chavez vows to 'lock up' US spies

[im10ashus]

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has threatened to jail any US officials caught gathering sensitive information about the Venezuelan military.
His warning came hours after Caracas accused US embassy staff of spying.

A spokesman for the US embassy said officials had received no communication from the Venezuelan authorities about the matter.

Mr Chavez has repeatedly accused the US of supporting attempts to overthrow him, an allegation Washington denies.

"The next time we detect an officer or a civilian official, above all US military officers, trying to get information from our armed forces, we're going to lock them up," Mr Chavez said at the World Social Forum in Caracas.

cont'd...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4656906.stm

[Warren Stupidity]

1. Wa? He can do that?

Aren't we allowed to do anything we want anywhere we want to?

Actually of course Chavez cannot lock up (for more than an overnight) diplomatic staff who are out spying, he just gets to toss them out of the country. Any non-diplomatic spies he catches are fair game however. It is the sovereignty thing, ain't it a bitch?

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

2. Shame on him. He should have said "detain".

Perhaps he could "rendition" them to North Korea for "questioning" and entertaining "frat-boy pranks".

[aden_nak]

3. This breaks with the 500 year tradition of giving spies cake and beer!

[stray cat]

4. Hope the Bush Adm doesn't decide to expose them all

and get them killed for political gain

[Balbus]

5. So what has he been doing up until this point?

Letting the spies go free? :shrug:

[murdoch]

6. Bush and the "Cuban Five"

For all the talk about terrorist groups, the US harbors Cuban anti-Castro terrorists, a lot of them based in Miami. They are indisputably terrorists - like Orlando Bosch who bombed a civilian Cuban airline which killed 73 people and is allowed to roam free in Miami, the US refusing extradition. He's even allowed to organized terrorist groups to plot to attack Cuba.

Cuba complained about this, asked for extraditions and so forth. The US government did nothing. Finally, Castro sent five people to collect evidence on what these terrorists were up to in Miami. They were all arrested and are still in prison. These people didn't even spy on the US military, they were spying on terrorist groups formed by exiled Cubans who had blown up civilian airlines and so forth. Imagine if they were spying on US military bases or something, Havana would probably have a mushroom cloud over it.

[Mutley]

7. We'd do the same here, would we not?