Little Fidel in Caracas
By A.M. Mora y Leon | The American Thinker
19.12.04 | On Venezuela, the Los Angeles Times has written a superb editorial,
correctly realizing that dictator Hugo Chavez is emerging as Little
Fidel in Caracas and preparing to assume the full world mantle of his
dying tyrannical hero.
For
Americans, it's more important than the mainstream media has let on.
It's not very well known that Hugo Chavez has destroyed nearly all
personal liberties in his country since consolidating power six weeks
ago. And even less known than that this same dictator has stepped up
his ties with the international terrorist community, recently visiting
the ayatollahs of Iran. On that trip, Chavez directed his goons in
Caracas to raid on a Jewish school full of children. The object was to
terrify them, ostensibly in search of 'weapons,' but in reality it was
Chavez's gift to the glowering ayatollahs. Chavez has always had a soft
spot for anti-semitic terrorism, given his flowery love letters to
jailed Venezuelan terrorist Carlos the Jackal. But in the past six
weeks, he's concretely stepped up his ties to the terrorist regimes, as
if he were angling hard to join the Axis of Evil. That's bad news for
the U.S.
But the LA Times has finally noticed, and this is to their credit. (We do not expect the same of the New York Times which is currently upholding its Herbert Matthews legacy.) The LA Times join the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal and the Miami Herald in warning the world about the looming danger just 1350 miles south of Miami.
It's an interesting irony to see the left-leaning mainstream media like the LAT come
up with the same solution to Chavez that the Bush Administration has
recommended months earlier. But that's what happened yesterday
morning when the LAT editorial staff looked at Venezuela
honestly ... and came up with the same recommendation that Dr.
Condoleezza Rice spelled out two months ago shortly before the
elections.
Compare and contrast:
Dr.
Rice: .. In Venezuela ... I think President Hugo Chavez is a real
problem. I think he will continue to find ways to subvert democracy in
his own country. He will continue to find ways to make his neighbors
miserable. He will continue his contacts with Fidel Castro, maybe
giving Castro one last fling to try to affect the politics of Latin
America, which is not a good thing. He's involved in ways in Colombia
with the FARC (Marxist rebels) that are unhelpful.
The key there is to mobilize the region to both watch him and be vigilant about him and to pressure him when he makes moves in one direction or another. We can't do it alone. This is a region where if we try to do it alone, we actually probably strengthen him. But the OAS (Organization of American States) can do a lot. We're hopeful that the recognition that he's not following a democratic course will help mobilize the OAS to do that. They have done it before -- with Peru they did it. Watching his activities and making it costly at least politically for Chavez to carry out anti-democratic activities either at home or in the region is really about where we are.
-National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, via Pittsburgh Tribune Review and Daniel's Venezuela News and Views
and
As
increasingly frustrated democratic forces in Venezuela run out of
options, the best way to prevent social unrest in that deeply divided
country is for other left-leaning South American presidents — like
Ricardo Lagos of Chile, Nestor Kirchner of Argentina and Luiz Inacio
Lula da Silva of Brazil — to speak up. They need to convince Chavez
that mimicking his buddy Fidel Castro is incompatible with the region's
commitment to democracy.
-The Los Angeles Times, Dec. 18, 2004
Meantime, Venezuelan analyst Alexandra Beech in London has written a fine blog essay analyzing the Los Angeles Times' and other media's growing realization of the leftist disaster now unfolding in Chavez's Venezuela. It's well worth reading.
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