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Mobilize Dodd

Latin America is hotting up, owing mostly to the exertions of Hugo Chavez, the Marxist oil baron of Venezuela.

Columbia, under the American supported pro-democratic regime of Alvaro Uribe, has been fighting a battle against a drug smuggling, Marxist, Venezuelan and Ecuadorian protected, well equipped army of narco-terrorists for about forty years.

Last month, the Columbian army, its patience wearing thin, followed one particularly vicious thug, Raul Reyes, FARC's foreign minister, into Equador and bombed the stuffing out of his band of merry men, leaving Reyes at room temperature.

This did not please Chavez and his Charlie McCarthy puppet, Rafael Correa, the duly elected president of Ecuador.

The solution to all this nonsense is obvious: Mobilize U.S. Sen. Chris Dodd to remove the tax exemption granted by his comrades in the congress to Chavez. If taxes on energy production are good enough for Americans, they ought to be good enough for Reyes' patron. At the very least, the constitutional loving Dodd ought to be able to convince fellow Democrats in the U.S. House to support Colombian President Alvaro Uribe, a fellow democrat whose feelings towards Dodd’s country is less hostile than that of Castro wannabe Chavez.

Comments

Kate said…
While the solution may be obvious, it is far from simple. Believe me, I am all for removing Chavez's tax exemption status -- I was beyond furious when I read that he had it, thanks to the illustrious Democraps we have here in DC -- but that will put a mere dent in Chavez's (and the FARC's) funding. Despite his mismanagement of PdVSA funds, he will still be raking in tons of money given the sheer amount of crude in the Orinoco delta; the sky-high oil prices definitely don't hurt. Also, do not discount the amount of money coming from private citizens in Europe (particularly Denmark) to fund the FARC. However, despite all this, the FARC as less well equipped than many might like to think. Plus, do not forget that, despite Venezuela's superior air power, any military force is only as good as its soldiers. Venezuela hasn't been at war since 1823, and my sources down there tell me that war games have all but stopped. Their army is not only out of condition, but sharply divided, most notably with the appearance of Gen. Baduel (r).

I am slightly confused as to your closing comment. Do you mean that the US should mobilize militarily against Chavez? Or, are you making reference to the pending Colombian FTA?

Thank you for writing about this, I feel like often it gets lost in the mix!

Greetings from DC.
Don Pesci said…
Kate,

Thanks for the perceptive comments. I appreciate what you had to say about Ortega on your own blog.

The comment on mobilizing Dodd was somewhat tongue in cheek. He has a reputation in my state as something of an expert on Latin America; his brother was an ambassador. There is a little ambassador in Chris Dodd too, begging to be allowed out to play. You may recall he paid a visit to the Ortega brothers during the war Daniel was waging against the native Indians, democracy and the western world. He was partially responsible for torpedoing Bolton at the UN and generally appears to be on the wrong side of things, Latin American-wise. He has never hesitated to leap on a soap box when it suits his fancy, and I thought here to poke him in the ribs a little.

I don’t think it’s necessary to go to war against Chavez. The war he’s conducting against himself may be sufficient for our purposes. I just don’t want to help him out of the ditch he’s dug for himself. Nicaragua under Ortega is a joke. Too bad innocent people have to suffer these idiots.
Kate said…
I am all too familiar with Dodd, I grew up in CT, so I have a vague notion as to how he operates. I am never ceased to be amazed by the fact that many people, particularly in CT, consider him to be a Latin America expert. In the Latin America circles down here, at least among my friends, he is a big joke. Many of his arguments are specious at best, and often times out of touch with reality. Honestly, I find it disgusting and offensive to the people of my native region.

Going to war against Chavez, at the moment, is not necessary at all. I am firmly of the belief that if we give him enough rope he will hang himself. Since 2 December, that is precisely what it has been, and he keeps digging himself deeper and deeper, to the point that many moderate chavistas are moving toward a different political ideology commonly called "chavismo without Chavez" or are moving away from chavismo completely, realizing that the farcical goals and methods are suitable and beneficial only to a small group of politically connected individuals.

While many in the blogosphere were up in arms about the possibility about Venezuela going to war with Colombia, I think most familiar with the situation called his bluff from the beginning. Venezuela is not in any state to go to war. Militarily, it's a mess, and they have no producing power outside of whatever is harvested from the Orinoco delta. The country is starving as it is, it would be virtually impossible to feed an army at this time without a popular coup taking place. Five million Colombians live in Venezuelan territory; Colombia and Venezuela are "paises hermanos." They do not want to go to war with each other, especially over a stupid issue over which Venezuela has no business opining, much less getting involved. Alvaro Uribe, one of the most brilliant statesmen in Colombia's history, realized this, and called Chavez's bluff, averting what many thought could have been an abysmal crisis, primarily for Venezuela.

Ortega is a useless statesmen. I saw clips of him at the Rio Summit in the Dominican Republic, and as he was speaking in his very, very poor Spanish, he looked drunk. More than that, he is a typical lackey to Chavez: toes the chavista line to antagonize, and unfortunately does not think at all about the 80% of Nicaragua's population which has to live on less than $2/day. What I still don't understand is that, despite the oil agreements with PdVSA, and the lack of transparency in where the money is going --my sources in Managua tell me straight into the FSLN coffers, and based on what I've seen I have no reason to believe otherwise-- there is still no development, even in the areas which have been promised it, particularly on the Atlantic coast, which was hit by Hurricane Felix some months ago.

Ah, the wonders of socialism...
Don Pesci said…
I appreciate eveything you've had to say here. It's a pity it probably won't reach the right ears. Keep up the good work on your own blog.

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