Occupying Iraq is better than making peace with Chavez?

[The Backlash Cometh]

I know this is overly simplified, but a great man could have made this happen. A great man would have been able to accept Chavez's socialistic governance, and also managed to strike a deal that would have saved over 3000 American soliders and a number of Iraqis.

The only catch: Our multi-national oil coprorations & Halliburton wouldn't have made so much money.

If Chavez really does have a 200 year supply of oil, I'd call what we've done in the last six years, the biggest boneheaded mistake made by our, what did O'Reilly call it, White male Christian powers that be.

[zeemike]

1. Well I disagree

It would not have taken a great man to do it, just one that had the interest of America and the people in mind instead of major corporations.
A "lesser" president could have simply told his generals to start removing the troops out of harms way.
And then took a little trip to Venezuela to shake hands with Chavez. I have no doubt that Chavez would have given us all the oil we needed.

[The Backlash Cometh]

2. I know I'm going to get blasted for saying this, but,

Strategically, if it was about the oil, why didn't they just take-over Venezuela instead of Iraq?

That's what makes me think that there's multi-national interests involved. The Middle East was not just the likely target because it closed off oil for our potential adversaries, but also because Venezuela is just one nuke bomb away.

That's how I bet they saw it.

[Peace Patriot]

4. You make an interesting point (if I understand it correctly), but there were other

factors as well. The Iraq War was perpetrated by an unholy alliance of NeoCons, 'christianists,' global corporate oil predators, war profiteers, the rightwing Israel lobby, far right wing fascist political elements in the U.S., and global corporate predator financiers who want to extend ruinous World Bank/IMF financial policies, and G-8/WTO "free trade" policies to Middle Eastern countries. Further, they had a handy demon, Osama bin Laden--whom they tried to conflate with Saddam Hussein (against all the facts). They also had a compliant generalized demon: the Middle Eastern Islamic "terrorist."

It's not so easy to demonize Latin Americans (--although they are surely trying to), who merely want jobs, prosperity, justice, democracy, and have NEVER harmed us in any way. And they're having a helluva time demonizing Iran, for that matter. They kill over a have a million people (according to the British doctors' report) in neighboring Iraq, smash that country to pieces and create a civil war--and now are trying to blame IRAN for their own dastardly deeds. SO WHAT if Iran is trying to influence the situation--and even supplying arms (IF they are)? Christ, wouldn't WE do that--if say, China invaded Mexico?

Anyway, the point is mainly to feed the "military-industrial complex" monster, and also to hijack the U.S. military for a corporate resource war. The 'christianists' and the Israeli lobby and all the rest are RIDING ON this global junta. Put it all together, and it spells: permanent war in the Middle East until the people there who want sovereignty and self-determination, and control over their own resources, are totally subdued. We may not like what self-determination may mean in Islamic countries. We wouldn't be comfortable in a society controlled by mullahs and fundamentalist religion, even if it had some elements of democracy (such as Iran does). But that is none of our business. If we had real democracy ourselves--and weren't controlled by a fascist junta that is bleeding the poor, and monopolizing our airwaves with warmongering fascist propaganda--we might have something to offer as an alternative to the communal strength that the Islamic religion and the mullahs provide for Middle Easterners. But we don't. All we offer them is fascist dictators. (For instance, we toppled Iran's democracy in 1954, and installed the horrible Shah of Iran, who inflicted the Iranian people with 25 years of torture and oppression. You think the Iranians have forgotten that? They have not. They know what Bushite/U.S. intentions are.)

Latin America is an entirely different thing. We have great kinship with Latin America. Many Latin Americans are indigenous to the hemisphere, or have indigenous blood. We (the people) have similar notions of democracy, human rights, and social justice. Latin Americans don't hate us--although sometimes I wonder why they don't. We're all Americans. South America had a very similar revolution to our own--led by Simon Bolivar--in which the colonial governments of Europe were thrown out. They threw off slavery as well. The current leftist democracy movement in Latin America is following our model (not our example--our traditions), as to free and fair elections, free speech, grass roots/citizen activism in government and politics, government accountability and so on. They are in many ways following our BEST traditions.

So it would take a very, very intense effort by the warmongers to stir up a war against Venezuela and/or the other Andean democracies that control the oil. They are trying to. Just the visible evidence alone is hair-raising (as to what the Bushites are up to in South America); God knows what they are doing with secret funds and operations. (The horrors in Colombia may be just the tip of the iceberg.) And the demonization of Hugo Chavez is part of this--very similar to the demonization of Saddam Hussein, only with NO TRUTH TO IT AT ALL.

I think their strategy in South America is to fund and foment internal dissent, and create as much chaos as possible, so that if they can pull off some real trouble--like assassinating Chavez (or Evo Morales in Bolivia)--they can then more easily install fascist juntas, and the folks here won't get all stirred up by an overt war, as in Iraq. But the Bush Junta failure in Iraq--and the world and domestic opposition to extending that war into Iran--could mean an outright war in South America, a) to get control of their oil, and b) to kill democracy there, once again.

What I'm saying is that it's a much more difficult propaganda problem. And the propaganda is half the battle.

[leftchick]

5. ooooo I like that! "The 'christianists' "

I always love your posts PP! :)

:yourock:

[Peace Patriot]

3. Venezuela's democracy is in a lot better shape than our own. In fact, it is

the healthiest, most vibrant democracy in the Western Hemisphere.

There is absolutely no good reason for the U.S. government's hostility toward Venezuela. And it has been more than hostility. The Bush Junta has poured our taxpayer money into the fascist cause in Venezuela, through USAID/NED (money used in political campaigns against President Chavez, in violation of Venezuelan law--we have a similar law about foreign money), and no doubt in other illegal activities in support of the violent military coup attempt, the crippling oil professionals' strike, and rightwing paramilitaries in Colombia who were plotting against Venezuela and other Andean democracies where leftists have won office (Bolivia, Ecuador). And do remember who Bush appointed as U.S. Undersecretary for Latin America: John "death squad" Negroponte.

Why is the U.S. government trying to overturn the will of the Venezuelan people?

1. Oil.

2. Gas.

3. Minerals.

4. Forests.

5. And other natural resources.

6. Hatred of democracy and social justice.

An amazing, peaceful, democratic, leftist (majorityist) movement is sweeping South America, with leftist governments elected in Brazil, Chile, Uruguay and Argentina, as well as Venezuela, Bolivia, and Ecuador, and with strong leftist movements in Peru and Paraguay (likely to win future elections). This movement is strong also in Mexico, and just won the presidency in Nicaragua. The movement is led by Venezuela, which has inspired other Latin American countries with principles of Latin American self-determination and regional cooperation. For instance, Venezuela bailed Argentina out of ruinous, predatory World/IMF debt, then, together with Argentina, Ecuador, Bolivia and Paraguay, formed the Bank of the South, so that necessary loans and debt would be handled by South Americans on principles of social justice and regional prosperity (not the rape and ruin of World Bank financiers).

Bushites hate social justice. They hate human beings. They want to steal from the poor. We know this. Is it any surprise that they hate Venezuela?

Further, Venezuela has honest and aboveboard elections, unanimously certified by the Carter Center, the OAS and EU election monitoring groups. Venezuela's election practices put ours to shame. They vote electronically, but it is an OPEN SOURCE CODE system--anyone may review the code by which votes are tabulated--and they handcount a whopping 55% of the ballots as a check on machine fraud. U.S. elections, by contrast, are a cruel joke. As of 2004, we have been voting mostly electronically on voting machines run on "TRADE SECRET," PROPRIETARY programming code, owned and controlled by rightwing Bushite corporations. Many states have ZERO handcounts--ZERO auditability. The best states--the best!--have only a 1% audit. Further, our pro-war Democratic Party leadership agreed to this, shoved it down everybody else's throats, and have kept it below the radar of the public. And we now know that the White House was running a secret program--through RNC email servers--to purge legitimate voters, such as U.S. soldiers, black and poor voters from the voting rolls, and were putting Rovebots in place as U.S. Attorneys to cover up these FELONIES and help steal more elections.

In short, Venezuela has a legitimate government, and we do not. The Bushites hate legitimacy. They hate democracy. They are loathed by the American people, and were never elected by them. Venezuelans, on the other hand, greatly approve of their government. They have repeatedly elected Hugo Chavez, and have given the Chavistas big majorities in the National Assembly (Congress) as well, in highly transparent and fair elections.

A truly representative and legitimate U.S. government would be hailing these huge successes for democracy in South America, and would be negotiating for fair oil deals to benefit both our countries. Instead, the Bushites support the fascists in Colombia, who have been slaughtering union organizers, leftists and peasants and dumping them in mass graves, engaging in drug trafficking, and plotting with the worst elements in South American society to destabilize and topple real democracies. The Bushites have larded Colombia with $4 billion of our tax dollars to create a crime gang government like our own.

And our war profiteering corporate news monopolies--and too many of our Democratic Party leaders--agree with these dreadful, wrongful policies: demonizing Hugo Chavez, who actually represents the people of his country, and is a visionary DEMOCRATIC leader, and fawning over and funding the lawless, rightwing Uribe government in Colombia. None of this is in OUR interest. It is very detrimental to us--as to energy policy and everything else.

You are correct in identifying multinational oil giants, Halliburton and other war profiteers as the puppetmasters pulling the strings of our leaders--and not just the criminals in the White House. With true, democratic, representative leadership, there would be no war on Iraq, no oil price gouging, no $10 trillion debt, no tax cuts for the rich, and no hostility to Hugo Chavez or the democratic movement in Latin America. It would be a far better world.

------------------------

A note about the Chavez government's denial of a license to use the public airwaves, to RCTV, a news corporation that actively participated in the 2002 violent military coup:

1) Like here, TV/radio airwaves in Venezuela belong to the public and are licensed to news organizations with the promise of operating the public airwaves in the public interest. Violent overthrow of the legitimate government is not in the public interest.

2) Denial of a license can occur for far less cause than this. We used to have a "Fairness Doctrine" here, which, among other things, required that all TV/radio stations provide equal time for opposing opinions on public issues. TV/radio stations were supposed to provide a forum for all views, as a condition of their license.

3) Imagine a U.S.A. without Faux News, CNN, ABC, NBC, CBS and rightwing radio news monopolies, in which those licenses were given to truly competitive, small, broad political spectrum news organization. Imagine a U.S.A. in which fascist views were not shoved down our throats 24/7 on all channels.

4) The Bush State Dept. and our corporate news monopolies descry the loss of RCTV's license NOT because they value free speech, but because RCTV serves their fascist agenda of toppling the democratic government of Venezuela, and further because they DON'T WANT US TO GET ANY IDEAS ABOUT FAIRNESS IN NEWS AND OPINION, or, say, busting monopolistic corporations. They want us to forget the time when our government REGULATED corporations, and, in particular, regulated NEWS corporations IN THE INTEREST OF FREE SPEECH!

5) Every criticism of the Chavez government that I have heard is like this: bogus! Once you learn the facts, and look at it from a truly democratic perspective, it evaporates. It is propaganda. It the classic Orwellian BIG LIE.

Recommended (by me):

www.venezuelanalysis.com.

"The Revolution Will Not Be Televised," available in DVD at AxisofLogic.com.

[slipslidingaway]

6. K&R. It's all about control of resources IMO, some charts

posted here and will try and search for other data later.

edit to add link

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=1022812&mesg_id=1028244