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Chavez Continues to Try to Help Bush

Hugo Chávez by Greg Palast // The Progressive // July 2006

You'd think George Bush would get down on his knees and kiss Hugo Chávez's behind. Not only has Chávez delivered cheap oil to the Bronx and other poor communities in the United States. And not only did he offer to bring aid to the victims of Katrina. In my interview with the president of Venezuela on March 28, he made Bush the following astonishing offer: Chávez would drop the price of oil to $50 a barrel, "not too high, a fair price," he said-a third less than the $75 a barrel for oil recently posted on the spot market. That would bring down the price at the pump by about a buck, from $3 to $2 a gallon.

But our President has basically told Chávez to take his cheaper oil and stick it up his pipeline. Before I explain why Bush has done so, let me explain why Chávez has the power to pull it off-and the method in the seeming madness of his "take-my-oil-please!" deal.

Venezuela, Chávez told me, has more oil than Saudi Arabia. A nutty boast? Not by a long shot. In fact, his surprising claim comes from a most surprising source: the U.S. Department of Energy. In an internal report, the DOE estimates that Venezuela has five times the Saudis' reserves.

However, most of Venezuela's mega-horde of crude is in the form of "extra-heavy" oil-liquid asphalt-which is ghastly expensive to pull up and refine. Oil has to sell above $30 a barrel to make the investment in extra-heavy oil worthwhile. A big dip in oil's price-and, after all, oil cost only $18 a barrel six years ago-would bankrupt heavy-oil investors. Hence Chávez's offer: Drop the price to $50-and keep it there. That would guarantee Venezuela's investment in heavy oil.

But the ascendance of Venezuela within OPEC necessarily means the decline of the power of the House of Saud. And the Bush family wouldn't like that one bit. It comes down to "petro-dollars." When George W. ferried then-Crown Prince (now King) Abdullah of Saudi Arabia around the Crawford ranch in a golf cart it wasn't because America needs Arabian oil. The Saudis will always sell us their petroleum. What Bush needs is Saudi petro-dollars. Saudi Arabia has, over the past three decades, kindly recycled the cash sucked from the wallets of American SUV owners and sent much of the loot right back to New York to buy U.S. Treasury bills and other U.S. assets.

The Gulf potentates understand that in return for lending the U.S. Treasury the cash to fund George Bush's $2 trillion rise in the nation's debt, they receive protection in return. They lend us petro-dollars, we lend them the 82nd Airborne.

Chávez would put an end to all that. He'll sell us oil relatively cheaply-but intends to keep the petro-dollars in Latin America. Recently, Chávez withdrew $20 billion from the U.S. Federal Reserve and, at the same time, lent or committed a like sum to Argentina, Ecuador, and other Latin American nations.

Chávez, notes The Wall Street Journal, has become a "tropical IMF." And indeed, as the Venezuelan president told me, he wants to abolish the Washington-based International Monetary Fund, with its brutal free-market diktats, and replace it with an "International Humanitarian Fund," an IHF, or more accurately, an International Hugo Fund. In addition, Chávez wants OPEC to officially recognize Venezuela as the cartel's reserve leader, which neither the Saudis nor Bush will take kindly to.

Politically, Venezuela is torn in two. Chávez's "Bolivarian Revolution," a close replica of Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal-a progressive income tax, public works, social security, cheap electricity-makes him wildly popular with the poor. And most Venezuelans are poor. His critics, a four-centuries' old white elite, unused to sharing oil wealth, portray him as a Castro-hugging anti-Christ.

Chávez's government, which used to brush off these critics, has turned aggressive on them. I challenged Chávez several times over charges brought against Súmate, his main opposition group. The two founders of the nongovernmental organization, which led the recall campaign against Chávez, face eight years in prison for taking money from the Bush Administration and the International Republican [Party] Institute. No nation permits foreign funding of political campaigns, but the charges (no one is in jail) seem like a heavy hammer to use on the minor infractions of these pathetic gadflies.

Bush's reaction to Chávez has been a mix of hostility and provocation. Washington supported the coup attempt against Chávez in 2002, and Condoleezza Rice and Donald Rumsfeld have repeatedly denounced him. The revised National Security Strategy of the United States of America, released in March, says, "In Venezuela, a demagogue awash in oil money is undermining democracy and seeking to destabilize the region."

So when the Reverend Pat Robertson, a Bush ally, told his faithful in August 2005 that Chávez has to go, it was not unreasonable to assume that he was articulating an Administration wish. "If he thinks we're trying to assassinate him," Robertson said, "I think that we really ought to go ahead and do it. It's a whole lot cheaper than starting a war ... and I don't think any oil shipments will stop."

There are only two ways to defeat the rise of Chávez as the New Abdullah of the Americas. First, the unattractive option: Cut the price of oil below $30 a barrel. That would make Chávez's crude worthless. Or, option two: Kill him.

Q: Your opponents are saying that you are beginning a slow-motion dicswtatorship. Is that what we are seeing?

Hugo Chávez: They have been saying that for a long time. When they're short of ideas, any excuse will do as a vehicle for lies. That is totally false. I would like to invite the citizens of Great Britain and the citizens of the U.S. and the citizens of the world to come here and walk freely through the streets of Venezuela, to talk to anyone they want, to watch television, to read the papers. We are building a true democracy, with human rights for everyone, social rights, education, health care, pensions, social security, and jobs.

Q: Some of your opponents are being charged with the crime of taking money from George Bush. Will you send them to jail?

Chávez: It's not up to me to decide that. We have the institutions that do that. These people have admitted they have received money from the government of the United States. It's up to the prosecutors to decide what to do, but the truth is that we can't allow the U.S. to finance the destabilization of our country. What would happen if we financed somebody in the U.S. to destabilize the government of George Bush? They would go to prison, certainly.

Q: How do you respond to Bush's charge that you are destabilizing the region and interfering in the elections of other Latin American countries?

Chávez: Mr. Bush is an illegitimate President. In Florida, his brother Jeb deleted many black voters from the electoral registers. So this President is the result of a fraud. Not only that, he is also currently applying a dictatorship in the U.S. People can be put in jail without being charged. They tap phones without court orders. They check what books people take out of public libraries. They arrested Cindy Sheehan because of a T-shirt she was wearing demanding the return of the troops from Iraq. They abuse blacks and Latinos. And if we are going to talk about meddling in other countries, then the U.S. is the champion of meddling in other people's affairs. They invaded Guatemala, they overthrew Salvador Allende, invaded Panama and the Dominican Republic. They were involved in the coup d'état in Argentina thirty years ago.

Q: Is the U.S. interfering in your elections here?

Chávez: They have interfered for 200 years. They have tried to prevent us from winning the elections, they supported the coup d'état, they gave millions of dollars to the coup plotters, they supported the media, newspapers, outlaw movements, military intervention, and espionage. But here the empire is finished, and I believe that before the end of this century, it will be finished in the rest of the world. We will see the burial of the empire of the eagle.

Q: You don't interfere in the elections of other nations in Latin America?

Chávez: Absolutely not. I concern myself with Venezuela. However, what's going on now is that some rightwing movements are transforming me into a pawn in the domestic politics of their countries, by making statements that are groundless. About candidates like Morales [of Bolivia], for example. They said I financed the candidacy of President Lula [of Brazil], which is totally false. They said I financed the candidacy of Kirchner [of Argentina], which is totally false. In Mexico, recently, the rightwing party has used my image for its own profit. What's happened is that in Latin America there is a turn to the left. Latin Americans have gotten tired of the Washington consensus-a neoliberalism that has aggravated misery and poverty.

Q: You have spent millions of dollars of your nation's oil wealth throughout Latin America. Are you really helping these other nations or are you simply buying political support for your regime?

Chávez: We are brothers and sisters. That's one of the reasons for the wrath of the empire. You know that Venezuela has the biggest oil reserves in the world. And the biggest gas reserves in this hemisphere, the eighth in the world. Up until seven years ago, Venezuela was a U.S. oil colony. All of our oil was going up to the north, and the gas was being used by the U.S. and not by us. Now we are diversifying. Our oil is helping the poor. We are selling to the Dominican Republic, Haiti, Cuba, some Central American countries, Uruguay, Argentina.

Q: And the Bronx?

Chávez: In the Bronx it is a donation. In all the cases I just mentioned before, it is trade. However, it's not free trade, just fair commerce. We also have an international humanitarian fund as a result of oil revenues.

Q: Why did George Bush turn down your help for New Orleans after the hurricane?

Chávez: You should ask him, but from the very beginning of the terrible disaster of Katrina, our people in the U.S., like the president of CITGO, went to New Orleans to rescue people. We were in close contact by phone with Jesse Jackson. We hired buses. We got food and water. We tried to protect them; they are our brothers and sisters. Doesn't matter if they are African, Asian, Cuban, whatever.

Q: Are you replacing the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund as "Daddy Big Bucks"?

Chávez: I do wish that the IMF and the World Bank would disappear soon.

Q: And it would be the Bank of Hugo?

Chávez: No. The International Humanitarian Bank. We are just creating an alternative way to conduct financial exchange. It is based on cooperation. For example, we send oil to Uruguay for their refinery and they are paying us with cows.

Q: Milk for oil.

Chávez: That's right. Milk for oil. The Argentineans also pay us with cows. And they give us medical equipment to combat cancer. It's a transfer of technology. We also exchange oil for software technology. Uruguay is one of the biggest producers of software. We are breaking with the neoliberal model. We do not believe in free trade. We believe in fair trade and exchange, not competition but cooperation. I'm not giving away oil for free. Just using oil, first to benefit our people, to relieve poverty. For a hundred years we have been one of the largest oil-producing countries in the world but with a 60 percent poverty rate and now we are canceling the historical debt.

Q: Speaking of the free market, you've demanded back taxes from U.S. oil companies. You have eliminated contracts for North American, British, and European oil companies. Are you trying to slice out the British and American oil companies from Venezuela?

Chávez: No, we don't want them to go, and I don't think they want to leave the country, either. We need each other. It's simply that we have recovered our oil sovereignty. They didn't pay taxes. They didn't pay royalties. They didn't give an account of their actions to the government. They had more land than had previously been established in the contracts. They didn't comply with the agreed technology exchange. They polluted the environment and didn't pay anything towards the cleanup. They now have to comply with the law.

Q: You've said that you imagine the price of oil rising to $100 dollars per barrel. Are you going to use your new oil wealth to squeeze the planet?

Chávez: No, no. We have no intention of squeezing anyone. Now, we have been squeezed and very hard. Five hundred years of squeezing us and stifling us, the people of the South. I do believe that demand is increasing and supply is dropping and the large reservoirs are running out. But it's not our fault. In the future, there must be an agreement between the large consumers and the large producers.

Q: What happens when the oil money runs out, what happens when the price of oil falls as it always does? Will the Bolivarian revolution of Hugo Chávez simply collapse because there's no money to pay for the big free ride?

Chávez: I don't think it will collapse, in the unlikely case of oil running out today. The revolution will survive. It does not rely solely on oil for its survival. There is a national will, there is a national idea, a national project. However, we are today implementing a strategic program called the Oil Sowing Plan: using oil wealth so Venezuela can become an agricultural country, a tourist destination, an industrialized country with a diversified economy. We are investing billions of dollars in the infrastructure: power generators using thermal energy, a large railway, roads, highways, new towns, new universities, new schools, recuperating land, building tractors, and giving loans to farmers. One day we won't have any more oil, but that will be in the twenty-second century. Venezuela has oil for another 200 years.

Q: But the revolution can come to an end if there's another coup and it succeeds. Do you believe Bush is still trying to overthrow your government?

Chávez: He would like to, but what you want is one thing, and what you cannot really obtain is another.

By platano on Jun 30, 2006, 14:43 in Politics & the war.

utopiacowboy says on Jun 30, 2006, 15:10:

I vote for Option 2.

Disclaimer: any comment I make is inane and is not to be taken seriously, and is so patently ridiculous that no one should take it seriously, even as an insult.

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vladimiro says on Jun 30, 2006, 16:08:

Ven Unlike in any other industrialized nation there is an undertone of patriotism in the US media. So they fill it with info like the below even though Chavez' policies are not unlike those of FDR's and probably would be applied in the US aswell if they had the same poverty rate as Venezuela.

http://www.vheadline.com/readnews.asp?id=62401

"...according to a study recently issued by the United Nations Office on Drugs & Crime (UNODC), Trafficking in Persons: Global Patterns, there are, in fact, more reports on human trafficking incidents applying to a major US ally, Colombia, than Washington’s major adversary, Venezuela; yet the former received only a Tier 1 classification from the State Department, while the book was thrown at Caracas. This discrepancy reveals how much sway political factors have in the methodology behind producing the agency’s annual report."

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platano says on Jun 30, 2006, 16:51:

UTC, option 2 is to kill Chavez.... Any particular method? Crucifixion is a slow, painful method. Do you really want to create another martyr? I can see it now: Che/Hugo photos on the back of Colombian buses. Sometimes killing only makes the situation worse.

plátano

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Wastelandlive says on Jun 30, 2006, 17:20:

I was laughing when I read: "Chávez's "Bolivarian Revolution," a close replica of Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal"

I stopped reading entirely when I read:

"Bush's reaction to Chávez has been a mix of hostility and provocation."

Classic, Platano. That Greg Palast is one hell of a journalist!

Wasteland

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greg says on Jun 30, 2006, 18:10:

Palast is a good journalist. He did a lot of good work exposing Bush`s stealing of the election in 2000. Read his book, The Best Democracy Money Can Buy. I don`t agree with everything Chavez does , but i would take him over Bush or Uribe any day

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Miguel_Clavo says on Jun 30, 2006, 20:39:

Naw, he will go the way all little dictators go: STD infected.. brain like the little midget bitch he is....and of course the post is from our non-American perpetual Amnerica-bashing banana.....=)

Just my opinion...

Miguel_Clavo...faltan 1 días...Colombia es pasión!

"F.A.R.C..S.U.C.K.S"

"I would rather die living life, than to live a dying life."........ Oh, and my PM is always ON. Great Bumper Sticker: "Home of the Free, Because of the Brave"

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Wastelandlive says on Jul 1, 2006, 11:02:

Hey... what that actually Greg Palast posting on PBH? Who else would actually plug for the mendatious BS that he writes?

A-M-A-Z-I-N-G.

Wasteland

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platano says on Jul 1, 2006, 14:50:

Wastelandlive and M_C, Instead of bashing the author or bashing Chavez, (ad hominem name calling is not argument), I would really like to hear your reasons for disagreeing with the content of the article.

plátano

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megustamuchisimo says on Jul 1, 2006, 18:27:

The problem is that when Americans get lied to by their government, the refuse to believe it is happening...so the lies WORK! Evidence--see above...

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greg says on Jul 1, 2006, 20:40:

I too would like to hear reasons and not just mindless name calling. I would like to know what the B.S. is that Palast writes. Would like to know why some think Chavez is a dictator? Uribe seems more like a dictator than Chavez. I recently had an interesting conversation on the plane to Bogota with a very educated Colombian lady. She spoke very softly because she did not want to be overheard. She told me of the Colombians who live in exile because they are afraid of Uribe. She said many Colombians don`t like Uribe but are afraid to speak out.

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utopiacowboy says on Jul 1, 2006, 22:43:

I was just wanking you, Platano. There is no point getting worked up about a second rate Third World dictator like Chavez. Or his buddy Evo Knievel. I wonder if Evo has a motorcycle and is contemplating doing daredevil jumps?

Disclaimer: any comment I make is inane and is not to be taken seriously, and is so patently ridiculous that no one should take it seriously, even as an insult.

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miamimike says on Jul 2, 2006, 09:24:

In A recent poll, it may surprise many that Venezuela ranked #1 and slighly ahead of the USA on National Pride.http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1139395515589&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

"Wait a minute. What did you just say? You're predicting $4-a-gallon gas? That's interesting. I hadn't heard that." -- Feb. 28, 2008 --George W. Bush, Washington, D.C.

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utopiacowboy says on Jul 2, 2006, 11:28:

I read the article in the post above and I had to laugh. The Venezuelans rated themselves second highest of any country in "the nation's achievements in science and technology, the arts, sports and political influence in the world." What a joke! Achievements? They haven't got any. Other than Il Duce himself, I can't even name a single person from Venezuela. Does anyone in the world even give a rat's tushie about Venezuela? It's a total sh*thole which I would rate with Iraq and Iran. Even their oil is crapola which can barely be refined.

Disclaimer: any comment I make is inane and is not to be taken seriously, and is so patently ridiculous that no one should take it seriously, even as an insult.

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miamimike says on Jul 2, 2006, 12:31:

Does anyone care about Venezuela?? Exxon/Mobil, Hess Oil to name a few who care. I've personally traveled a few times to Venezuela and found it very enjoyable. UTC, this poll/research wasn't conducted by the Chavez Govt. ; it was an independent research poll FYI. Take a trip there, you'll like it, try Merida...

http://www.gonomad.com/destinations/0407/merida_venezuela.html

"Wait a minute. What did you just say? You're predicting $4-a-gallon gas? That's interesting. I hadn't heard that." -- Feb. 28, 2008 --George W. Bush, Washington, D.C.

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Wastelandlive says on Jul 2, 2006, 15:01:

Platano... Some editorials merit reasoned response. Palast's doesn't.

The best I can recommend to you is that you reflect on the two sentences I cited in my initial post. If that doesn't illuminate the problem with Palast's arguments, then I fear that any help I might give you is somewhat wasted.

(That's not ad-hominem, BTW, that ad-argumentum.)

Oh! Here's an example of some of that daily mix of "hostility and provocation" coming from the White House:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060702/wl_nm/africa_chavez_dc;_ylt=AoyTQD5KKrH5Ise08JDvnclm.3QA;_ylu=X3oDMTA5aHJvMDdwBHNlYwN5bmNhdA--

Sometimes I worry about you Platano. Are all cylinders firing?

Wasteland

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arthur brode says on Jul 2, 2006, 17:11:

UTC Venezuela is a beatiful country with beautiful people.Take a trip there,maybey you will learn something.Texas is the "total sh*thole" infested with ignorant Hicks(like Bush)UTC,you should be thankful,if it wasnt for Chavez "crapola oil" you would be paying a lot more per gallon.

http://www.calirentals.net/

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platano says on Jul 2, 2006, 18:18:

"Sometimes I worry about you Platano. Are all cylinders firing?" Wastelandlive,

This week I have made posts praising Uribe. I have made posts saying I love the USA. You didn't wonder about my cylinders with those posts.

Then I post something favorable about Chavez and suddenly you are worried? Interesting...

plátano

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Wastelandlive says on Jul 2, 2006, 18:28:

Nice try. Or maybe I was just responding to the essay by Palast; it's a piece of crap, riddled with transparent nonsense. Post some piece of crap about Uribe, riddled with transparent nonsense, and I'll comment.

Try to make it equally absurd, so that it'll be entertaining: after all, if Chavez is like FDR, well Uribe must be like Vladimir Putin!

Wasteland

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platano says on Jul 2, 2006, 19:09:

Do you know about FDR? The suggestion that Chavez is like FDR is not so far fetched historically speaking:

"Even Eleanor Roosevelt, more liberal than her husband, privately suggested that a "benevolent dictator" might be what the country needed. The vague idea was not a police state but deference to a strong leader unfettered by Congress or the other inconveniences of democracy. Amid the crisis, the specifics didn't go beyond more faith in government by fiat.

Within a few years, "dictator" would carry sinister tones, but -- hard as it is to believe now -- the word had a reassuring ring that season. So did "storm troopers," used by one admiring author to describe foot soldiers of the early New Deal, and "concentration camps," a generic term routinely applied to the work camps of the Civilian Conservation Corps that would be established by summer across the country. After all, the Italian Fascist Benito Mussolini, in power for a decade, had ginned up the Italian economy and was popular with everyone from Winston Churchill to Will Rogers to Lowell Thomas, America's most influential broadcaster. "If ever this country needed a Mussolini, it needs one now," said Senator David Reed of Pennsylvania, outgoing President Hoover's closest friend on Capitol Hill. The speech draft prepared for FDR brought to mind Mussolini addressing his black-shirt followers, many of whom were demobilized veterans who joined Il Duce's private army."
SOURCE: The Defining Moment by Jonathan Alter

plátano

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utopiacowboy says on Jul 3, 2006, 08:09:

All oil is not the same. Venezuela's crude is a very heavy oil that cannot be handled by most refineries. In fact retrofitting an existing refinery to handle it may take as long as two years. Most Venezuelan crude is used internally or goes to refineries owned by Citgo which is owned by PDVSA. Chavez is already planning to get rid of Citgo and shift sending their oil from the US to Pacific customers such as China or Singapore. Which is fine by me.

Disclaimer: any comment I make is inane and is not to be taken seriously, and is so patently ridiculous that no one should take it seriously, even as an insult.

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aztec says on Jul 3, 2006, 08:59:

greg, do you live in the NE? "He did a lot of good work exposing Bush`s stealing of the election in 2000."

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Wastelandlive says on Jul 3, 2006, 10:47:

Platano, you always make me smile Me tomas del piel?

So now you hit me with a passage from a book that I haven't read. It's author hints that FDR was a dictator. This is based not on the history of FDR's administration, but on an unconfirmed private "suggestion" made by his wife. Following this is some spurious comparison to Mussolini, "established" by a completly unrelated quote from a Senator (who was not FDR), and the claim that a speech draft (draft?) "brought to mind" a speech by Mussolini (to who's mind? The author's?).

Seriously, how do you find this stuff?

I suppose if I found any of that drivel convincing, then I would conclude that FDR was a lot like Mussolini, kind of a fascist. Marrying that conclusion to your thesis:

P: "The suggestion that Chavez is like FDR is not so far fetched historically speaking."

I guess I'd have to conclude that Chavez too is kind of a fascist.

Nice work Platano.

Wasteland

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platano says on Jul 3, 2006, 12:23:

Thanks, wastelandlive, I try to keep it entertaining for you! The Venezuelan people will rise from their paralysis. No dictators for them, just elected leaders. FDR was also elected and relected, just as Chavez was.

"FDR moved in the opposite direction, passing the word on Capitol Hill that he did not believe in a constitutional dictatorship and asking his friend Felix Frankfurter to tell Lippmann to stop hawking dictatorship and disrespect of Congress in his columns. It was not as if Roosevelt was letting the cup pass; for the next twelve years, he would fully exploit the authority of the presidency, sometimes overreaching to the point where his enemies accused him of becoming a dictator. He would flirt with fascistic (or at least corporatist) ideas like the National Recovery Administration and in 1937 try to pack the Supreme Court. But even then, he would do so in the context of democracy, without private armies or government-by-decree. Even at his worst, he would eventually submit his schemes for the approval of Congress. Instead of coercion, he chose persuasion; instead of drawing the sword, he would draw on his own character and political instincts. He would draw, too, on the subconscious metaphor of his own physical condition. Although it was only rarely mentioned in the press, the American people knew at the time that he had polio (though not the extent of his disability) and it bound them to him in ways that were no less powerful for being unspoken: If he could rise from his paralysis, then so could they." SOURCE: The Defining Moment by Jonathan Alter

plátano

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Wastelandlive says on Jul 3, 2006, 12:42:

Aha! So...

Mr. Alter was engaging in that varsity sport of establishing a really rediculous thesis so that he could disprove it. And - wow! - turns out FDR actually wasn't a fascist. Who'd a thunk it?

(He sure is clever, that Jonathan Alter.)

So now we fall back to the most classic Chavista defense when confronted with the sheer venality, lawlessnes, and corruption of the Chavez administration:

Chavez was elected.

Ya, true. Not exactly germaine, but true. So was FDR. So were Mussolini and Hitler, BTW.

Beyond the fact that both Chavez and FDR were elected, the only real commonality I can tease from your argument is that both FDR and Chavez packed the Supreme Court.

There is that.

Wasteland

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mcraig says on Jul 30, 2006, 08:36:

The article is based on non facts Bush was a small time failed oil man in texas both attempts for him to be an oil man failed an his companies had to file bankruptcy.So the same old lie about him being some big oil man is nonsense. Bush doesnt even make a million a year the only true money he made was putting a investment group together an bought the Texas Rangers baseball team an when the team was sold he made about 5 miilion bucks.

Chavez is nothing more than a small time oretega thug that will be removed from office soon enough if not by the world body hopefully by his own people. Socialism is a bankrupt economic policy reference Russia. Why would we deal with Chavez because he gave two cities some natural gas whoa like that really was big deal.

That 5% of Valenzueal oil that america bought every year is going to hurt Valenzuela worse that it will hurt americas. We get a better deal from Mexico an Russians now an Valenzeula loses billions. Chavez forcing out international oil companies an privatizing his oil wells will only stop Valenzuela from ever getting to that deep oil reserves your talking about because the international companies an there investment is the only way Valenzueala will get to that oil now that there cut off from the international community good luck.

I am not for big oil companies but anyone with a half idea about economics understands the international trade is the only thing that produces a strong economy that creates jobs. So when you shun the international democratic countries you have wrote your ticket to failure an the same old poverty for your people. Chavez is spending billions on purchasing miltiary weapons while his people live in poverty. Point being you have to be producing something other than oil an those other busineess you have has to be selling them internationally to create more jobs an more profits. Instead Chavez is buying Russian rifles to give to his citizens to form some kinda threat that america is going to take over Valenzuela how bout building some schools with that money, roada, creating good paying jobs instead he gives the people weapons. America would never send ground troops in Valenzuela we would either send some special forces in an pull Chavez out by himself like Oretego or would drop a bomb from the sky that would take him out,

Chavez thinks people care in America about what he is or who he represents they dont. Chavez is an ego maniac that doesnt help his people an he also is alienating the world democratic body. So he is just another thug that thinks he can be a dictator an make a living off other socialist latin american countries. Well seeing those countries are all massive poverty like Cuba where is that money going to come from? Chavez days are numbererd.

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