PBH / colombia (active forums more▼ | travelguide | pictures) / post

The aggressor

Michael Rowan / The aggressor

Michael Rowan
Special for El Universal (Caracas)
http://english.eluniversal.com/2008/03/26/en_opi_art_michael-rowan--th...

When the conflict between Venezuela and the US calms down, history will judge that it was Hugo Chavez and not the US who was the aggressor. While the US is guilty of ignorance, arrogance, and apathy about Chavez, it is not guilty of waging a war against him. In fact, for a decade now Chavez has been an enigma to the US. He is as unknown as Neanderthal Man. And this led to mistakes right from the beginning, as when Chavez was denied a visa to the US in his 1998 presidential campaign, a sign of arrogant disrespect which he never forgot. But arrogance is one thing, war is another.

Ten years of evidence says that the US is not trying to assassinate Chavez, invade Venezuela, confiscate Venezuela's oil, or conduct a regime change a la Iraq. Here's why: the US doesn't care that much about Venezuela. If its oil doesn't go to the US, it will go somewhere else. On the strategic map of US interests, the only country in the hemisphere that truly qualifies is Mexico. Remember when President Richard Nixon told a young Donald Rumsfeld in 1971 "no one gives a damn about Latin America?" It's the same today. The US doesn't really give a damn but Chavez figures just the opposite is true. That's why he refused US engineers to help after the Vargas flood; he dismissed US drug agents as spies; he believed the US military in Fuerte Tiuna were planning to overthrow him; he fired the technology firm, SAIC, for stealing secrets from PDVSA. The truth is way more boring: the US isn't thinking about Chavez.

But what gets US attention is the strategic alliance with Iran that may involve nuclear weapons materials procurement; providing safe havens and millions of dollars to the FARC; and money-laundering for terrorist organizations. Ignoring those security threats would be like President Kennedy ignoring Soviet nuclear missiles headed to Cuba in 1961. But the US has learned a lot over the forty years since the aborted Bay of Pigs invasion, the Vietnam War, the 9/11 terror attack, and wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. The US has learned the hard way that invasion, regime change, and assassination are not solutions but problems. The US will deal with the threat from Chavez by playing defense, not offense, whether the president is named Bush, McCain, Clinton or Obama. Whatever happens after that depends on Chavez. It's all up to him.

michaelrowan22 at gmail.com

By sloopskipper on Mar 27, 2008, 06:52 in Politics & the war.

sloopskipper says on Mar 27, 2008, 06:55:

"stealing secrets from PDVSA", what a joke!

0 funny, 0 helpful.

vladimiro says on Mar 27, 2008, 19:46:

The US funds the Venezuelan opposition groups through organizations like the National Endowment for Democracy.

0 funny, 0 helpful.

SiV says on Mar 27, 2008, 21:13:

Well they say the winner rewrites history to suit their own standpoint, so it's probably true that Venezuela will be written to be the agressor. Whatsmore, it is already being done in articles like these and by Fux News.

Over 50 years of evidence shows the US is interested in its interests in Latin America, that it does not like left wing govts., and has supported right wing coup d'etats in many LA countries: Chile, Argentina, Uraguay, Panama, Grenada, Dom Rep, Haiti, Nicaragua, El Salvador, and a big etc.

Stultórum númere infinitum est.

0 funny, 0 helpful.