Insider's View On Chavez' Recent Saber Rattling

My step-dad (Bill) is a retired senior Foreign Service Officer who led a fascinating career and has maintained long-time friendships with some very bright foreign policy folks.

He forwarded this analysis of the current situation in Venezuela to me. It was authored by a Foreign Service acquaintance who Bill holds in very high regard, but he asked that I refer to the author only as "a friend of my stepfather." So with no further adieu:

Finally got around to reading the journalist's note on Venezuela/Ecuador vs. Colombia, which was true when written but explained nothing.

Colombia's civil war began in 1948 and the FARC guerrillas trace their ancestry to that date. Then, it was a group of passionate revolutionaries ­ today it is a 20,000 man criminal enterprise, led by rich thugs who make a fine living from cocaine. Reyes, the FARCs # 2 whom Colombia killed just inside Ecuador, was wearing in his jungle camp a ROLEX worth $10,000.

It's not surprising that Colombia got Reyes, who thought himself untouchable in Ecuador, even using his camp for a classroom for "internationals," among them 10 Mexican students (most died in the air strike).

The most important aspect may have been the "information warfare" bonus. Seizure of Reyes' computers and a notebook at his rainforest office have already led Costa Rican police to a cache of $500,000 in moldy $100s in the back yard of a 79 year old professor ­ an aging Robespierre who kept a rainy day fund for the FARC.

The moral, your e-mail is not secure. In more important places, among them Mexico and Brasil, information from Reyes's files is also being tracked.

So while Ecuador got an apology and Chavez strutted, Colombia and President Uribe won big. Reputable polls show Uribe's popularity has risen from near 60% to 82%. The only dissonant note: President Bush ­ unpopular in much of Latin America, ­ broke s recent sensible silence about Chavez to growl loudly, a welcome diversion for Chavez and for the FARC. [Would he have criticized a Bill Clinton statement in a similar situation? I doubt it.]

None of this means the war on drugs goes well, it doesn't. But Colombia may have won a decisive battle against a shrinking FARC, a good thing.

Mindful of Scotty Reston's dictum that "the American people will do anything for Latin America except read about it," I will stop, before you delete all reference to Latin America from your computers.

But he goes on ...

Hardly anyone in the U.S., with the exception of the Spanish language news media, paid attention to the Venezuela and Ecuador vs. Colombia dust up. Now that their Presidents have shaken hands in Santo Domingo, Latin America will be forgotten, until the next crisis.

Colombia got its man (plus the gift of another of the FARC's top leadership). Most Colombians, who detest the FARC and support Uribe because he vigorously prosecutes the war, think an apology is not a heavy price for striking a hard blow at the insurgency.

For Ecuador, the crisis was about honor. That may sound strange, but history has given Ecuador a losers complex with respect to its larger neighbors. Uribe's apology settles the matter, until the next incident.

The chief protagonist, however, is Venezuela's Hugo Chavez.

That's probably true for Ecuador, but not for Venezuela's Hugo Chavez, who has a blood feud with Colombia and President Alvaro Uribe. Chavez will keep on backing the narco-guerrilla FARC, simply because it is a way of striking at the U. S.

Now the FARC, which has just suffered some hard blows, is nowhere near taking Colombia, who democratic [sorry; the text gets messed up here]

Experts say no; the parties want control of the narrative about who is at fault, not fight. Ecuador voted for an OAS resolution that fell short of its demands though the text gave the Correa government satisfaction by noting Colombia's violation of Ecuador's territory. By accepting OAS good offices, Ecuador, which doesn't have the military horses, signaled a desire for peace.

If this were only about Ecuador and Colombia we could be confident the OAS, with a fine record of defusing state on state conflicts, would talk the dispute to death. The real protagonist, however, is Venezuela's Hugo Chavez, who has a blood feud with Colombia and President Alvaro Uribe, mostly because Chavez backs the FARC's narco-guerillas as a way to get at the U.S.

In the conventional wisdom, Chavez goads the U.S., knowing that we recognize that hostilities would drive oil prices through the roof and that our forces are tied down in Iraq and Afghanistan. Perhaps that is still true, but his calculations may be changing.

It is important to recognize that Chavez sees himself as the heir of Simon Bolivar, who liberated South America from Spain. In Chavez's mind, he is the new "Liberator," destined to throw off the Yankee yoke. He takes heart from OPEC's success in damaging the American economy but his effort to build an anti-U.S. coalition has not gone well, massive expenditures to support Latin political friends notwithstanding.

Today, Bolivia and Nicaragua are acolytes, while Ecuador and Argentina are friends. Brazil humors Chavez but ignores him when it comes to Brazil's vast ties with the U.S. Elsewhere, he is often detested, for meddling and for his anti-democratic stance. By helping the FARC, which is nowhere near taking power, he has earned the enmity of most Colombians.

Chavez is in a race against time before his popularity runs out at home. Oil production is declining and inflation the highest in the Western Hemisphere. He is about to lose his favorite target, a Bush administration unpopular in much of Latin America.

Our next President, regardless of party, is likely to enjoy warmer relations with the region. A policy of giving Chavez enough rope with which to hang himself could pay off in 2009.

Autocrats in trouble at home resort to foreign adventures. If Chavez recognizes he is on the clock, a war with Colombia may commend itself as a way to drag U.S. forces into the fray, a last chance to mobilize Latin America before declining fortunes and a new U.S. administration cut short his Bolivarian destiny.

None of this, except for trying to bankrupt the U.S. through oil, is rational to us. But in Chavez's Mussolini-style search for glory, war may be logical.
Uribe is alert to this possibility; by not responding to Chavez's troops on the frontier, he positioned Colombia to avoid blame, should Chavez initiate hostilities.

That is key, for Uribe and for ourselves -- no ambiguity about who is the aggressor, should Chavez use force. In Latin America, self defense beats pre-emption every time. In saying this I don't want to fall into what Secretary Gates ­ back when he was DDI -- used to tell me was stuff for a "Cassandra column."

What Teodoro Petkoff (Venezuelan guerrilla turned staunch democrat) said may well be correct: "Chavez barks but will not bite." But have shin guards
handy, just in case.

Despite some breaks and mysterious repetition, perhaps caused when it was copied and forwarded to me, I thought the piece insightful and worth sharing.

How To Take Down A Terrorist Insurgency

The Global War on Terror is just that, global, as evidenced by Columbia's recent attack on Farc rebels in Ecuador. Think Columbia as Israel taking out Hamas thugs in Gaza. Think Venezuela as Iran supplying terror militia in Iraq.

Pull off the layers of Columbia's attack and you see how the Global War on Terror can succeed in destroying even decades-old terror organizations.

"This is a definitive blow to the guerrillas and one which will seriously affect their cohesion as an organisation," Roman Ortiz, an analyst with the Bogota think tank Ideas for Peace Foundation, told BBC.

With the attack, a member of Farc's ruling Secretariat has, for the first time, been killed in action. Other members of the Secretariat who have died have succumbed to old age, giving FARC an aura of invincibility.

But the death of Secretariat member Paul Reyes is a significant blow for more reasons than just that he was a FARC Secretariat member. The BBC report explains:

The [Columbian] government has set up a network of informants, runs reinsertion packages for deserting rebels and offers handsome rewards for information.

In the past few days, almost $900,000 was paid for the capture of a Farc commander with 35 years of service.

All this is combined with technology and communication intercepts provided by Washington.

Inciting desertion, infiltrating high levels of Farc, paying off informants ... and having the powerful resources of the US behind you: Priceless.

Against this united front, Farc is by no means dead, but it is crumbling as never before.

In Tehran Caracas, Chavez can bluster, but bluster only goes so far, as we learn from Venezuela News & Views:

Apparently Chavez has been silent today, probably realizing that he shot enough his foot and that others should come to the forefront to fix things up some. Unfortunately once upon a time he had an operator like Jose Vicente Rangel who could not fix much inside Venezuela but who at least could present some more credible image to the foreign observers. Now Chavez has only [foreign minister Nicolas] Maduro and Rodriguez Chacin, a failed bus driver now foreign minister and a thug now Interior and security minister.

Maduro went to the National Assembly. He made a cheap chauvinistic act, criticized the Venezuelan opposition for not rallying the way the Colombian one was doing around Uribe (I kid you not), spoke of all sorts of things that seemed like coming from Cliff notes from the Cuban staff in Venezuela (they were that dated), and climaxed announcing that Venezuela had asked all the Colombian embassy staff to leave the country. Not a complete break up but same difference.

Pretty pathetic. As Hugo's boys try to rally a tired and disgusted nation behind them -- finding it a tough slog, indeed -- Columbia's president plays intelligently on the global stage:

Colombian President Alvaro Uribe says he will ask the International Criminal Court to bring charges against President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela.

Mr Uribe said he would ask the Hague court to bring charges of "financing genocide". Colombia accuses Venezuela of backing Farc rebels. (BBC)

Back to Daniel at VN&V:

Colombians know a good thing when they hold it, they are forging ahead, revealing what they know, and not getting at all in the ridicule tit for tat that the other guys want to drag them into. No matter what tantrums Chavez and Correa throw, and what the rest of Latin America might hold in particularly fake crocodile tears, the Uribe staff is in control.

A now much-maligned president once said, "You're either with us or against us." Uribe and Chavez have picked their sides, Uribe with us, Chavez with Farc, and we're seeing the consequences.

Chavez: Up To W's Old Tricks

With Hugo (No, you go) Chavez suddenly appearing to find threats and terrors everywhere -- doing the same ol' dirty tricks the Left accuses Bush of -- will the Leftys' love affair with Hugo falter?

As all of us who read the Leftist polemics know, Bush created hysteria over "non-existent" WMDs in order to justify an attack on Iraq, and has kept the terror over terrorism purposefully pitched at a high level in order to continue expanding his control of government and masking his efforts to shred the Constitution and crush our freedom.

Or something like that.

Now this, from the Left's favorite crackpot despot:

CARACAS [Don't you just love saying "Caracas?" Carrracas. Carrrracasss!], Venezuela (AP) - President Hugo Chavez on Friday accused Colombia of plotting a military attack against Venezuela.

"A military aggression against Venezuela is being prepared" by Colombia, Chavez said. He warned Colombia not to attempt "a provocation against Venezuela" and said his country would cut off all oil exports in the event of a military strike from the neighboring country.

Chavez did not support evidence to support his claim.

Nor did Bush! Or so the Lefties say, anyway, conveniently forgetting so much.

Or maybe it's his old friend Fidel he's emulating; after all, he just accused Columbia of plotting his assassination. Fidel's used that one for years to whip up the anti-American mindset in Cuba -- although I'm sure a substantial segment of the population there merely wonders why it's taking us so long.

In reality, Chavez is behaving more like Saddam Hussein, as if he's preparing his own version of Saddam's disastrous Iran/Iraq war, with Columbia in his sights. Since, unlike Bush who is content to be an 8-year president, Chavez's wants to be a long-term dictator, he may see war with Columbia as his best means to that end -- behaving very much in reality just as the Left imagines Bush acting in their paranoid fantasies.

My, how confusing the Leftist mindset it!

By the way, the always informative Daniel at Venezuela News and Views has a lengthy post that digs into all this and concludes that ultimately, Chavez is unlikely to go to war with Columbia.

No Release For These FARC Hostages

I was thinking on the way home tonight of the recent hostage release in Columbia of two hostages held by FARC ... and got to wondering about Dave Mankins, Mark Rich and Rick Tenehoff.

The three Christian missionaries were kidnapped by FARC on January 31, 1993. They and their families were living in Panama, about 15 miles from the Colombian border. They were there at the invitation of village leaders, teaching villagers to read and write in their own language and providing medical assistance. They were seized when FARC guerrillas captured the village -- and have not been heard from since.

Unfortunately, it appears these three FARC hostages will not be released. I found this at the site The Inspirations, posted in 2007:

We now know that Rick, Mark and Dave did not survive, and it's God's Time for closure. Since 1996, the picture has been confusing. Had they been killed, or were they still waiting in a guerrilla camp? Slowly the story has emerged of a military attack and the ensuing fatal shots from the captor's guns.

I sat in a Colombian prison in early September, 2001, with a guerrilla who had once guarded Rick, Mark and Dave. His words, "They are dead," were final and emphatic, confirming what we had heard from several other insurgents. The years of tears and anxiety for our dear brothers have ended.They have gone to a far better place. They rejoice in the presence of the God they served so faithfully. Colombian authorities and the FBI will continue to search for those responsible, but now we have the answer we need.

Many of you have prayed for the Hostages, their families and us. Nearly eight and a half years have brought countless answers to your prayers. Our path has moved alongside presidents and humble peasants, guerrilla commanders and archbishops, self righteous and spiritually hungry. Three martyrs have gone to their reward. Families of the hostages have discovered God's sufficiency. And we have seen Him work in unique places and in lives of people we otherwise would never have met. What a privilege!

I purposefully put the word "apparently" above, because I would like FARC to confirm that Mankins, Rich and Tenehoff did indeed die while in the hands of the Communist guerrillas, and own up to their responsibility for what happened to three men who were just trying to help people.

Hugo (No, you go) Chavez is trying to score diplomatic points by brokering talks between the Columbians and FARC, a group he has no real quibble with since he's an idiot. He could score some points with countless Christians in America and around the world if he could use his influence to get FARC to disclose the status of the three missionary hostages.

Of course, impressing Christians is not high on Chavez' to-do list.

And being humanitarian is not too high on FARC's, since they hold as many as 750 hostages by some reports, including 45 'high profile' ones, mostly Columbian leaders. Not able to raise a credible army any more, they are left with only the repulsive tactic of kidnapping and ransoming.

So goes Communism, and along with it Chavez, figuratively wagging his tail, as friendly to FARC as a pup.

You Go, Hugo! Chavez Loses!

Breaking news from Venezuela:

CARACAS, Venezuela - President Hugo Chavez suffered a stinging defeat in a vote on constitutional changes that would have let him run for re-election indefinitely, the chief of National Electoral Council said Monday.

Voters defeated the sweeping measures by a vote of 51 percent to 49 percent, Tibisay Lucena said.

Venezuela News & Views adds:

In spite of all the obscene governmental advantage, all the threats and blackmails, the Venezuelan people found the strength to say NO.

The remaining question: Will Hugo let a 51-49 vote stand, or will he grandstand in a way freedom-loving people can't stand?

On Election Eve, Chavez Ally Turns Against Him

Raúl Isaías Baduel has been at Hugo Chavez' side for decades. He was with him in 1982 when they and other officers swore allegiance to the Bolivarian Revolutionary Army 2000, which would ultimately lead to Chavez' presidency.

Until his retirement in July, Baduel served as commander in chief of Venezuela's army, so we know he knows the heart of Chavez, and we know that his opinion piece published in Venezuela (and the NYT) on the eve of the election, will be a powerful force against Chavez. He writes:

I find myself with the moral and ethical obligation as a citizen to express my opposition to the changes to the Constitution that President Chávez and the National Assembly have presented for approval by the voters tomorrow.

The proposal, which would abolish presidential term limits and expand presidential powers, is nothing less than an attempt to establish a socialist state in Venezuela. As our Catholic bishops have already made clear, a socialist state is contrary to the beliefs of Simón Bolívar, the South American liberation hero, and it is also contrary to human nature and the Christian view of society, because it grants the state absolute control over the people it governs.

Men of honor, men who take risks when they could live an easy life, are men who are listened to. Hugo Chavez cannot count himself in this group, but Baduel certainly can.

Will it be enough? Maybe, especially as Chavez' rhetoric is beginning to turn more and more Venezuelans against the dictator in populist clothing. Venezuela News and Views reports:

I have received yet another poll, a famous tracking one and I do not want to give its name because, well, I cannot check 100% the source. I mean, it is a good source but I do not know if that person's source was as good as he is. Don't you love mystery?

Anyway, it is from a famous pollster who has been holding a tracking for a few months now. Early he predicted a possible SI [Chavez] victory, now his prediction is a NO victory by at least 7% and up to 16%. As usual, all depends from participation. What is new here is the guy going on record predicting a 7% minimum. Well, the poll is through phone interviews as tracking polls do and thus the error is 4%. So the NO, according to his own words, could squeeze by a meager 3%, enough to cause trouble and even allow enough cheating by the CNE. At any rate, my 5% gut feeling prediction keeps strengthening :-)

But the most interesting part of the tracking poll is the result for the following question: "Is it right for Chavez to qualify anyone that votes NO as a traitor"? Stunningly 70% of the respondents disagreed! And here we have again the 30% hard core chavismo that this blog has always acknowledged and the 70% rest of the country shocked by such rhetoric!!! This time around Chavez seems to be paying the price. Indeed, it is one thing to do a "rojo, rojito" where the worst is to lose your job and becoming a traitor where the worst, well, is up to the imagination of all....

This error was repeated once again tonight in the pitiful Chavez speech. And in this speech Chavez announced that if they lose they will recognize the result. Even if he put many conditions on losing the fact of the matter is that tonight Chavez, in one of his rare moments of lucidity, decided to prepare his followers to the unthinkable, until a few weeks ago, that he could lose an election.

The results of one of the most important election in Latin America ever may well be contested, so this story could be a long way from over. Stay tuned.

hat-tip: Real Clear Politics

Stalin Vs. Chavez

Leftist students who revere the state torturer Che and spout off on doctrines of collectivism and state planning as if these very doctrines weren't already in history's dustbin bother me to no end. How interesting to find that I am joined in that reaction by Hugo Chavez, the supposed darling of the Left.

How do Penn, Glover & Co. square their fondness for Chavez with the fact that Hugo's most vocal and threatening opponents are college leftists -- their support base here at home?

The WSJ tells the story by cuing off on the curiously named leader of the Venezuelan student movement against Chavez:

As Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez attempts to push through what he calls 21st-Century Socialism, his biggest obstacle is an army of students led by a leftist named Stalin.

Ivan Stalin González, who prefers to be called just plain Stalin, is president of the student body at the Central University of Venezuela, or UCV, Venezuela's biggest public university. During the past few weeks, Mr. González and other student leaders here have organized protest marches by tens of thousands of students opposed to a constitutional referendum set for Dec. 2. The proposed changes would dramatically expand Mr. Chávez's power and allow him to seek perpetual re-election.

"Historically, students have represented the hope and conscience of Venezuela," says Mr. González, who, unlike his bushy-moustached and sinister-mannered Soviet namesake, is scruffy-bearded and laid-back.

Young Stalin isn't really overstating the case that much. Throughout Latin America, student unions have a solid place in history. Fifty years ago, a student strike at UCV led ultimately to the downfall of Venezuelan dictator Marcos Pérez Jiménez, and in Cuba, Fidel Castro got his start as a student leader at the University of Havana.

Many Venezuelans are looking hopefully to UCV to spark a protest and save Venezuela from the Chavezocracy that will follow should Hugo prevail in the upcoming Dec. 2 referendum -- and that focus on the university's student leadership is exactly why the power-hungry young Stalin went to the school in the first place.

As you can imagine from his name, Stalin -- who has sisters named Ilych and and Engles -- was raised Red in a union-loving Communist household:

His father, a print-machine operator, was a high-ranking member of the Bandera Roja, or Red Flag, a hard-line Marxist-Leninist party that maintained a guerrilla force until as recently as the mid-1990s. Its members revered Josef Stalin as well as Albania's xenophobic Enver Hoxha. ...

As a young man, Mr. González burnished his leftist credentials, joining Marxist youth groups and following his father into the Bandera Roja. He traveled to Socialist youth conferences in Latin America.

Still seeking to make a life out of left-wing politics, Mr. González enrolled in 2001 at UCV. Rising in the ranks of the student body can be a fast track into political life, and as head of the 40,000-member student federation, his studies have taken a back seat to politics. He plans to graduate next year.

Poor Venezuela has Chavez on the one side, ready to install a dictatorship under a Socialist cover, and a power-hungry hard-core Communist on the other, wanting to take the nation down another path to another failed vision of Socialism. Either route is guaranteed to end in repression, as can be seen by how Stalin's factions treat their own opponents:

The law school's student-center room, a base for Chávez supporters, still smells of charred wood and plastic from a fire that recently destroyed it. Workmen are still cleaning up the School of Social Work. There, pro-Chávez students barricaded themselves for several hours during a standoff with a crowd of students, until a group of armed civilians on motorcycles intervened to allow the Chávez supporters to escape.

How interesting that Stalin's movement got its grip on the campuses by crystallizing the anti-Chávez sentiment that exploded six months ago, when Chavez pulled the plug on the independent television station RCTV. Free speech in May, followed by the repression of Chavez supporters in November.

How typically Leftist.

Still, in the cause of greater global freedom, Stalin Gonzalez can be a useful idiot, helping to remove a much more dangerous idiot from power. Then, we can hope, Gonzalez will swiftly follow Communism into historical obscurity, and Venezuela will be able to pursue a more perfect freedom.

Update: The Hoover Institute's William Ratliff predicts a Chavez victory in the referendum.

Update: Polls show Chavez has lost his lead; will lose.

Sunday Scan

The Jerry Lewis Porkathon

The San Bernardino Sun reports on the hometown Congressman:

Rep. Jerry Lewis, R-Redlands, is tops among California's 54 congressional representatives when it comes to securing federal dollars in money-spending bills.

Lewis even bested House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-San Francisco, by 56 percent.

Numbers compiled by a non-partisan budget watchdog group, Taxpayers for Common Sense, show that Lewis - sometimes partnering with other lawmakers - scored more than $126 million worth of earmarks in a dozen appropriations bills for fiscal 2008.

Lewis does have some classic pork in his $126 million, including $8million in Army research funding for a local military contractor, but not all pork is created equal.

Lewis represents some of the fastest-growing cities in the nation, so his region needs a lot of help to cope with growth: New roads, new water and sewer systems, new hospitals. Developers pay a big chunk as do taxpayer-approved bonds, but it makes sense that Lewis' district should get more than slow-growing districts.

Then there's the fires that have swept the mountain communities above Redlands. Lewis represented those people well by getting money to help rebuild their towns.

While I'm no fan of pork, I'm even less a fan of lazy reporting.

Preposterous Prosperity Preachers

"Give and the Lord will give back" is a message heard from many pulpits, often with biblical purity. God loves a giving heart -- but if He loves televangelist prosperity preachers, who do a lot of preaching about giving, it would be one of God's greater mysteries.

Now a Republican Senator has launched an investigation of some of the biggest of these money-sucking televangelists:

The powerful top Republican on the Senate Finance Committee earlier this month sent detailed letters to six mega-ministries that are exempt from paying federal taxes, asking about their fundraising and use of donations.

For example, [Sen. Charles] Grassley wants to know for what tax-exempt purpose Joyce Meyer Ministries, based in Fenton, Mo., bought a $30,000 malachite round table, and spent $11,219 on a French clock and $19,162 on Dresden vases.

He's also interested in the total amount of "love offerings" received in lieu of salary by Bishop Eddie Long of the New Birth Missionary Baptist Church in Lithonia, Ga., and how Long reports them on his W-2 forms to the Internal Revenue Service.

Kenneth Copeland Ministries, in Newark, Texas, also received a letter. Grassley is curious about reports that a gathering of ministers presented Kenneth Copeland with a "personal gift" in excess of $2 million, in celebration of the organization's 40th anniversary.

The other three targets are Randy and Paula White of Without Walls International Church in Tampa, Fla.; Benny Hinn of World Healing Center Church Inc. in Grapevine, Texas; and Creflo and Taffi Dollar of World Changers Church International in College Park, Ga. Des Moines Register via Right Views)

My only question is why it took so long. These thieves have been taking money from the widowed, feeble and naive for so long their place in Hell is well secured; their time in prison should have started long ago.

A pulpit is the worst place to hide behind ... with the possible exception of the television camera. If Sen. Grassley's investigation bears fruit, then the next step should be going after some television broadcast licenses.

The $30,000 malachite table caught my eye; here's Malachi 1:6:

“A son honors his father, and a servant his master. If I am a father, where is the honor due me? If I am a master, where is the respect due me?” says the Lord Almighty. “It is you, O priests, who show contempt for my name.

Amen.

Happy 60th Betty and Phil

Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip are celebrating their 60th, and BBC has provided us with 60 wedding tidbits including ones of wealth:

The Queen's bridal veil was made of tulle and held by a tiara of diamonds. This tiara was made for Queen Mary in 1919. It was made from re-used diamonds taken from a necklace/tiara purchased by Queen Victoria from Collingwood and Co and a wedding present for Queen Mary in 1893. In August 1936, Queen Mary gave the tiara to Queen Elizabeth from whom it was borrowed by Princess Elizabeth for her wedding in 1947.

... and ones of war-time austerity:

The two Royal kneelers, used during the service, were covered in rose pink silk. They were made from orange boxes, due to war time austerity, and date stamped 1946.

It's an interesting journey into another time, another place, and makes a nice Sunday read.

Paranoid Libertarians

Steve Greenhut, editorial writer at the OCRegister, is a years-long friend. We talk frequently about property rights, crazed greenies, global warming hysteria and other common interests.

We almost never talk about the war, because as a libertarian, Greenhut has been against it since day one, and his normally clear vision gets clouded, as in his column today:

One of the most disturbing lessons I've learned following the 9/11 attacks is that many people will go along with just about any government-imposed outrage if it's couched in the right terms and plays on their fears.

In the past few years, we've seen the federal government become increasingly aggressive in its efforts to spy on, detain, wiretap, monitor, imprison, search and harass not only suspected "enemy combatants" but pretty much anyone, at its discretion.

Pretty much anyone, Steve? Where are the cases in point? Who's been harassed? Who's been imprisoned? If you think the targets are "anyone," then our legal targets will shrink to pretty much no one, and the Islamists will have successfully exploited our freedoms in their efforts to take our freedoms away from us.

Greenhut's focus is Manzanar, the internment camp for Japanese-Americans in WWII:

One columnist, quoted in the book, "Reflections," about the Manzanar relocation center in California, made this argument: "I'm for the immediate removal of every Japanese on the West Coast to a point deep in the interior … let 'em be pinched, hurt, hungry … let us have no patience with the enemy or with anyone who carry his blood. Personally, I hate the Japanese."

Last year when I first researched this topic, I found such bile to be common in newspapers. At the time, The Orange County Register's longtime co-publisher R.C. Hoiles was one of the only West Coast newspaper publishers to come out against the internment.

Hindsight can be 20/20, but Greenhut should understand that among all those unjustly interned were some whose interment was good for us and for the war effort -- something Greenhut dismisses with:

The justification was to protect against espionage and sabotage, although there was scant evidence that Japanese-Americans and Japanese nationals living on the West Coast had engaged in any such activities.

But how could there be evidence unless there was the sort of spying on, wiretapping and monitoring that Greenhut abhors?

I have friends who lived in Manzanar, and I am well aware that the internment was ugly for all and unnecessary for nearly all. But the fact is this: There hasn't been any government call for internment of Muslims or any government effort that we know of that involves wholesale electronic spying on Muslims.

To fear such civil liberty breaches from within so much that you ignore the very real effort of some to undermine and destroy our freedoms, then that is the greater risk to freedom.

The Islamo-Socialist Front

Two terrible regimes are getting together today as the Venezuelan vampire drops by to visit the Tehraniacs. No good will come of this.

McGovern: The Dems' Vietnam

Look at the Dem Prez hopefuls and you see candidates who are running on a platform that speaks to activist core of the part, with planks on peace, economic justice and social equality.

If that sounds mistily familiar, think back to McGovern, says poli-sci prof and author Bruce Miroff. He looks at today's situation through a lens of an ongoing McGovern shock to the Dems:

Republican political ascendancy since the Reagan presidency has centered on a few core—and clear—principles: limited government, the free market, a strong military, traditional values. The Democrats’ alternative public philosophy is far less distinct. For decades, their party had had trouble articulating what it cares about and what it believes. Republicans have been proud to call themselves conservatives. Democrats have not really wanted to call themselves anything in particular.

I argue in my recently published book, The Liberals’ Moment: The McGovern Insurgency and the Identity Crisis of the Democratic Party, that the McGovern campaign was the last time that a presidential nominee of the Democratic Party voiced a full-fledged public philosophy: liberalism. ...

But McGovern lost by a huge margin, crushed by a landslide in which forty-nine states voted for the incumbent, none other than Richard Nixon. ...

A legacy of the McGovern campaign was that it made Democrats lose confidence in their longstanding public philosophy even as Republicans were gaining confidence in their new one. The McGovern defeat can thus be seen as a profound trauma for contemporary Democrats, a political and psychic wound that has been covered over with layers of denial and defensiveness. (History News Network)

Miroff is, of course, right. Today's candidates all remember the McGovern debacle well, just as they remember the Reagan juggernaut. What they're forgetting is that there is a place in Dem-dom somewhere between the unrealistic positions of McGovern or Markos Moulitsas and the hard right positions of the Conservative revolution.

It may take another generation for the Dems to leave McGovern behind and find a new voice for the party -- a bit of New Deal, a bit of populism, a bit of progressivism (as in embracing change, not running from it as the Dems are today). Hillary is the embodiment of McGovernitis, with her unwillingness to take a position on anything, her searching for something safe and electable to believe in.

Not that this augers well for the GOP in 2008. The people are free to elect people who can't say what they believe in -- especially if the people don't know what they believe in either.

Shut Up, Hugo!

What would the world be without that sulfur-sniffin' Hugo Chavez, who gives us moments like this:

SANTIAGO, Chile (AP) - The king of Spain told Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez to "shut up" Saturday during a heated exchange that soured the end of a summit of leaders from Latin America, Spain and Portugal.

Chavez ... triggered the exchange by repeatedly referring to former Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar as a "fascist."

Aznar, a conservative who was an ally of Bush as prime minister, "is a fascist," Chavez said in a speech at the Ibero-American summit in Santiago, Chile. "Fascists are not human. A snake is more human."

And a Socialist dictator is more scaly and slitherly.

Spain's current socialist prime minister, Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, responded during his own allotted time by urging Chavez to be more diplomatic in his words and respect other leaders despite political differences.

"Former President Aznar was democratically elected by the Spanish people and was a legitimate representative of the Spanish people," he said, eliciting applause from the gathered heads of state.

Chavez repeatedly tried to interrupt, but his microphone was off.

Oh, just too good. And then ... and then ...

Spanish King Juan Carlos, seated next to Zapatero, angrily turned to Chavez and said, "Why don't you shut up?"

Chavez good buddy Daniel Ortega ceded his time to Yugo ... uh, Hugo ... who cozied up to the mike and said:

"Sssssss. Hsssssss."

Hey, what's wrong with my cut and paste?

"I do not offend by telling the truth. The Venezuelan government reserves the right to respond to any aggression, anywhere, in any space and in any manner."

Weapons of mouthing-off destruction. Intercontinental ballistic bombast. Gotta love Hugo, as long as you don't have the misfortune of living in Venezuela.

Bad Medicine

Here's a (socialized, natch) medicine prescription from Venezuela, with Fidel and Hugo as a watermark.

If Hillary gets her way and we're saddled with a national healthcare plan, do you think prescriptions will feature her with Robert Treuhaft, Communist Party USA member, Black Panther lawyer and former Hil employer? (source)

hat-tip: Jim

Three (Bozo) Amigos

Hugo (No, you go) Chavez has nationalized oil companies, obliterated freedom of the press and imprisoned and tortured opposition leaders. He uses brutal thugs and bribes to the poor keep himself in power.

Che, whose picture Chavez is holding, was a Marxist revolutionary who didn't just kill during revolutionary battles, but also after them, to support totalitarian regimes, as he did when he ran Cuba's prisons after Fidel Castro's rise to power. There he oversaw the slaughter of the former Batista leadership (in violation of the Geneva Conventions).

And in the back seat, behind those dark, dark glasses, is Sean Penn.

"I came here looking for a great country. I found a great country," said Penn. "I'm just hear to take it in like everyone else."

Everyone else? There's your proof (as if you need it) that Penn and the mentally dull glitterati like him live in gilded cages with "IDIOT" emblazoned over the door. No one but the Penns and Glovers of the world goes to Venezuela these days.

I'm sure Chavez showed him a great country ... and I'm just as sure that he's too stupid to know that there's an ugliness behind the slick facade Chavez showed him.

hat-tip: LGF

Voting With Their Feet

WSJ has a fascinating story this a.m. (subscribers only, probably) about Venezuelan oil workers who have gotten out of el Dodge because of Chavez, who is giving literal meaning to the pronunciation of his name, Hugo.

The 45-year-old engineer is part of a swelling colony of Venezuelan expats who say they were driven into exile by a hostile government. Many assert they were purged after a long strike in 2002 at Petróleos de Venezuela SA, the state-owned oil giant known as PdVSA. More recent arrivals initially found work with private oil companies operating in Venezuela in 2003, but lost their jobs this year when Hugo Chávez wrested control of the companies' holdings. They call themselves the "twice fired."

Frigid, remote Alberta has become one of the world's fastest growing enclaves of Venezuelans, rivaling such warm-weather spots as Weston, Fla., outside Miami; and Sugar Land, Texas, near Houston. There are now 3,000 Venezuelan-Albertan families, up from 800 or so last year. Some Albertans now call Evergreen, a Calgary housing development, "Vene-green" because of the 100 families who have bought split-level homes there, and dangle Venezuelan flags from car rearview mirrors. ...

The loss of so many skilled oil workers has hit PdVSA hard. (See related article on page A8.) Since Mr. Chávez took power in 1999, Venezuela's oil production -- according to U.S. government statistics -- is down to 2.4 million barrels a day, from 3.1 million barrels a day, despite high prices. (Venezuela has consistently accused the U.S. of undercounting PdVSA's production in recent years.)

Back in the day when despots could seal their borders better than we can, they could keep their scientists, engineers and skilled workers well shackled. Chavez isn't having the same luck, and his ineptness reminds me of African nations on the way to statehood that crumbled when their skilled white populations fled.

Chavez' days may well be numbered. But we said that about Castro more than once.

Left Praises Hugo For Squelching Free Speech

As Hugo Chavez forced an opposing voice off the air -- it was only the longest-standing broadcast outlet in Venezuela -- so he could impose his views, and only his views on the Venezuelan people, here's how the left met the news, courtesy of Democratic Underground:

Caracas, May 28 (Prensa Latina) The new Venezuelan Social TV Network (Televisora Venezolana Social, TEVES) inundated channel two of Venezuela"s radio-electric spectrum on Monday, marking the beginning of a new era in Latin American media.

With the appearance of its signal in the first minutes of May 28, TEVES switched off the image of private Radio Caracas Television (RCTV channel), which had exploited the frequency for 53 years to benefit only its owners and their families.

At the same time, this was the materialization of a patient effort of the Venezuelan government in its struggle for democratization of the media in this South American country.

RCTV was off the air at the very moment its concession to use radio-electric space expired, as it was not renewed by authorities in order to facilitate the launching of the public service TEVES station.

The left is utterly without honor. It used to stand for something: For the liberal exchange of ideas, for freedom of speech, for government not heavy-handedly imposing its will on others.

That is now long-gone, as the left gleefully welcomes the brutal and total suppression of any thought but Chavez-thought in Venezuela.

As I wondered this morning: NanPo and Kookcinich, are you tracking this? Is it making you feel better than ever about your efforts to reimpose the Fairness Doctrine on America?

Chavez "Fairness Doctrine" Leads To Demonstrations

Venezulea has been rocked with demonstrations against the despotic regime of Hugo Chavez, with the "people's president" using tanks and water cannons against his people.

Free speech and freedom of the press are the triggering issues of the demonstrations, which started when the nation's oldest broadcast outlet, RCTV, was forced to close after Chavez refused to renew its broadcast licence. (Dem supporters of the Fairness Doctrine, are you tracking this?)

BBC reports:

Within seconds of screens going blank, the insignia of a new state-sponsored broadcaster, TVES, appeared.

Mr Chavez said RCTV had tried to undermine his government.

The president says the new channel that took RCTV's place at midnight on Sunday (0400 GMT Monday) will better reflect the socialist revolution he has pledged to lead.

(Nancy Pelosi and Dennis Kucinich, are you finding this interesting?)

The blog The Devil's Excrement (hat-tip, Gateway Pundit, which has several more good links) gives a blow-by-blow of the day's events, including:

Then the Minister of Defense going into a military parade comes in and says that "minority groups can not go against the majority feeling of the Venezuelan people to create uncertainty with the closure of RCTV, as if there was a majority support to the decision, which is in any case a legal decision and not one to be decided by popularity,["] but in any case, all indications are the illegal and political decision is highly unpopular, contradicting the Minister's words.

Meanwhile, as people begin checking the newssites on the Internet, Noticiero Digital, Megaresistencia and RCTV websites are taken down by denial of service attacks, the effects of which are still being felt hours later. This is compounded by problems with the CANTV network which take down some other news sites in what may be unrelated to the denial of serivce attacks, since all the others are hosted abroad.

Then the autocrat/dictator himself shows up at the military parade, the main focus of which is the new Russian planes. I had little tie to listen (or interest) to the speech, but what little I heard may have been Chavez at his nuttiest . While I will wait to have the transcript, the intimidation was there, dressed in military garb (which is illegal since he is not active), the President told his supporters not to worry that "his" new planes (on the right above) are flown by experts and carry bombs which these experts can drop with pinpoint accuracy on their targets. (Us?).

And then, as if this were not enough evidence and proof of how we have lost our rights and freedom in this country, the Constitutional Hall of the Supreme Court decides to "protect" the diffuse rights of the "people", the same rights that it refused to protect in allowing the shutdown of RCTV, and essentially allows the Government not only to shutdown the network, but to take over the equipment rightfully owned by the owners of RCTV, all in the name of the "Law". Gimme a f... break! This is a simple and direct confiscation of the enemy's property, which goes beyond anything ever seen so far in the Chavez Dictatorship, as usual under the guise of "legality".

Let's see, a regime that's hungry for power and frightfully afraid of any opposition on public airwaves revokes broadcast licenses of outlets that aren't "fair." One more time: that sounds just like the thinking behind the Fairness Doctrine, doesn't it?

hat-tip: Memeorandum

Biting The Hand That Bites The Hand That Feeds It

"I Go Crazy/Hugo Crazy" Chavez has a little problem to deal with between his sulfur-smelling rants, kissy-face sessions with Cindy Sheehan, and his siezures of private business: Al Qaeda.

CARACAS, Venezuela (Reuters) -- Venezuela's defense minister said Thursday that the nation would reinforce security measures after a branch of al Qaeda called for attacks on suppliers of oil to the United States.

Venezuela provides around 11 percent of U.S. oil imports despite diplomatic tensions between Caracas and Washington over leftist President Hugo Chavez's self-styled socialist revolution.

Gen. Raul Baduel told reporters that security and intelligence agencies would "take actions and implement previously established security plans, but reinforce them with the goal of guaranteeing security."

He called for calm and said Chavez would provide further instructions about how to deal with the threat.

A Saudi wing of al Qaeda, in a statement posted Wednesday on a Web site, called for attacks on suppliers of oil to the United States to cut off vital oil supplies.

Al Qaeda specifically called for attacks outside the Middle East -- on Venezuela, Mexico and Canada. Eh.

I'll vote for Venezuela, if al Qaeda's interested. Strategically, it makes the most sense for them because the attack would establish that al Qaeda is about forced conversion to Islam or death, and that even fellow Bush-haters need to fall before the sword of Islam. Venezuela would give them that opportunity.

And if you're listening, al Qaeda, could you please spare the Venezuelan people and plant your bomb so it just gets Hugo and his inner circle?

Much appreciated.

hat-tip: Jim

Let's Have Fun! Let's Not Learn From The Soviets!

The Soviet economy, such as it ever was, resides now in the dustbin of history, sharing space with Hitler's dream of an Aryan world and Napoleon's plan for the defeat of Russia.

But someone forgot to drive the ash stake through its heart. The Soviet economic system lives on, thanks to "I go crazy, Hugo crazy" Chavez in his Socialist playground of Venezuela. (In the photo, Chavez is shown holding the food his Socialist reforms are bringing to his people.) From BBC:

Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez has threatened to nationalise stores that sell meat above a government-set price.

The government says supermarkets have been artificially boosting prices of basic foods by manipulating stockpiles. But critics blame regular food shortages on prices imposed four years ago, forcing shops to sell at a loss.

Many privately-owned supermarkets have suspended sales of beef, milk and sugar after one chain was temporarily closed for pricing meat above allowed levels.

The government has already seized goods that it says are being hoarded to drive up prices.

Since the early 1900s, the world has basically had two economic models: Free market and communist/socialist. Measured by prosperity, freedom, satisfaction of the people, or any other measure than "wealth of the tyrant," the free market capitalist societies won. Yet Chavez and the leaders of a handful of other nations continue to force failed socialism on their people.

And when their "reforms" fail, instead of blaming socialism, they blame corruption by the businesses they are brutalizing. Lenin would be proud. Stalin would beam.