THE Venezuela/Chavez Thread (merged)

gego · Light Sweet Crude Joined: Mar 03, 2005 Posts: 1334

I am certain that if Venezuala has sufficient oil reserves to fuel the USA for the next 100 years, that they have weapons of mass destruction and will soon be the 53rd state.

Otherwise, the Communist thug that rules that territory will be igonored as the piss ant that he is.

pstarr

It is orinoco tar sands crap that he is mumbling about. that stuff is sludge like the gunk in canada and the potato wrappers in Colorado. chavez is just having fun and palast is a commie Very Happy

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director

ree rah rip ram. sunofabitch godamn. hidey didey christ almighty. rah rah crap wav

Colorado-Valley · Intermediate Crude Joined: Aug 16, 2004 Posts: 729

So if Hugo has 100 years of oil, we should just be really nice to him and forget having a $600 billion army getting its butt kicked in the ME.

Seems simple enough ...

Doly · Expert Joined: Dec 03, 2004 Posts: 4031

coyote

Dreamtwister · Fission Joined: Feb 06, 2006 Posts: 2093

uNkNowN ElEmEnt

APR. 18 9:57 P.M. ET Haiti will soon join a Venezuelan Oil Pact that supplies Caribbean countries with fuel under preferential terms, President-elect Rene Preval said.

Preval made the announcement Tuesday after returning from a five-day trip to Cuba, where he met with Fidel Castro to discuss Cuban aid to his impoverished nation and underwent back surgery.

Preval, who takes power next month, said he also met with Venezuela's ambassador to Cuba and discussed Haiti's desire to join the Petrocaribe pact, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez's initiative to sell oil directly to Caribbean countries with generous financing.

(Notice where he went for surgery?)

Rafa · Heavy Crude Joined: Sep 01, 2005 Posts: 255

Actually Haiti was left out of the oil pact (Petrocaribe) because at the time of its creation Haiti was still with a de facto government, not recognized by Venezuela nor by Cuba nor by CARICOM nations, which considered that the ousting of president Aristide was a USA-backed coup d'Etat.

Now that Preval is the new president, from regular elections, Haiti can be part of Petrocaribe; Venezuela said Haiti would be welcome in Petrocaribe the same day that Preval won the elections (but it always takes some time formalising things and accords).

Lighthouse · Light Sweet Crude Joined: Mar 02, 2006 Posts: 1460

Just wondering why Venezuela is such a thread.

Castro and Cuba maybe, but they are literally on Florida's shore.

What is it with Chavez?

Novus · Light Sweet Crude Joined: Jun 21, 2005 Posts: 1647

Chaves has quite a bit of oil and a good chunk of it goes to the USA. If it were ever to be cut off then America would be in for a nasty wake up call. The US oil majors invested a lot of money in those fields and now he is threatening to nationalize them because he feels his people are not benefitting from exploitation of the feilds. There is also a huge tar sands project underway that could drawf the Canadian one. If the middle east oil stategy fails then Venezuela is America's plan B.

Lighthouse · Light Sweet Crude Joined: Mar 02, 2006 Posts: 1460

big_rc

Rafa · Heavy Crude Joined: Sep 01, 2005 Posts: 255

Epic · Coal Joined: Jan 14, 2006 Posts: 5

One of big reasons that the US govt. is so afraid of Chavez is his ideology, and the fact that his ideology has started a massive populist movement that can be characterized as anti-american. Chavez' ideology gets little, if any, attention in the MSM, consequently most people don't have a firm grip on what he's all about.

Chavez operates on what can be called a "contemporary Bolivarian model," which he calls the "Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas." Basically, this is a leftist development model with roots in dependency theory, and Simon Bolivar's vision of a "Gran Colombia:" a united Latin America. Bolivar was of the persuasion that Latin American nations would never have true sovereignty until they banded together against foreign threats to their sovereignty. Chavez takes this one step further; his Bolivarian model is a concrete way to achieve a sort of "Gran Colombia," that is gaining momentum. What is threatening to the US about that is that Chavez has picked the US as the "threat" for Latin American nations to unite against.

Chavez specifically sees the US as threatening the sovereignty of Latin American nations through economic control (like big_rc said, go read Confessions of an Economic Hit Man). The Bolivarian model reacts against that control by creating a Latin American alliance based on economic integration, solidarity, and complementarity in trade. Yet the model also relies on a high degree of state control, and is designed to put the needs of the people ahead of the needs of the market. On a most basic level Chavez' ideology is about the people: its about relieving poverty through endogenous development. Chavez wants development without foreign meddling and control, which he sees as destructive.

One can easily see how these ideas would run counter to US interests.

Keymaster

Chavez is so many things. He's a dictator, true, and reported to be ruthless at times. I'm curious as to any specific atrocities he may or may not have committed. Anyone here have any info on that?

He's also a socialist, a sort of fighter for the lower class. He's created noteworthy (and needed) social programs to endear the trust of Venezuela's poverty-stricken masses while simultaneously raising the ire of Venezuela's upper crust and U.S. oil interests. He's sitting on a huge and volatile pot of black gold.

He's our adversary because of his cooperation with nations outside America's sphere of influence, a growing chorus I think.

He has every justification to mistrust the United States government, based on its lawless behavior in Venezuela and other Latin American nations (ie Panama, El Salvador, Nicaragua). The United States, thusly, has no choice but to oppose Chavez, along with Evo Morales and others who have the guts to oppose U.S. corporate interest.

Keymaster