At least he had the guts to say it...
I'm sure a lot of conservatives share Pat Robinson's sentiments for Hugo Chavez. Some people in America feel threatened by a socialist leader who has the support of his countries poor, particularly when that country is oil rich. Chavez is a thorn in the side of US foreign policy. It's difficult to label Venezuela as a threat to US security but Chavez is building strong relationships with enemies of "freedom and democracy" aka capitalism. As oil prices continue to rise it will be interesting to see where the administration decides to turn next. Perhaps the assassination of Chavez is on the agenda, more likely is a CIA sponsored coup. We will have to wait and see.
posted by mochi at 5:22 PM
22 Comments:
Forgive me if this is an ignorant question, but what exactly has Chavez done outside of hanging with Castro and criticizing the US? Anything? Why does he deserve to die?
Smorg, your first comment is on the money. On the assasination comment, I think that Mochi was being a little tongue-in-cheek. (Unless he's been reading a bit too much Bond and thinks that the U.S. assasinates all their political enemies...)
Or, more likely, we'll just have to wait until he drives his country even further into the ground. When he can't deliver the social re-engineering he promised to the poor, they'll abandon him. Without his power base he should, hopefully, be gone pretty quickly.
Yeah because those poor people have so much to lose...
Okay, now I am going to reinforce my reputation as the resident wacko looney of the Liberal Thought blog... I would never publicly endorse such an idea, especially from a position of influence like Robertson, but, honestly, I have entertained the notion of how better it might be to simply assassinate a horrible dictator rather than engage in the wholesale slaughter of warfare. I'm talking about the real baddies, like Hitler, Stalin, Idi Amin, not just folks with whom we disagree ideologically. But the ones who are real devils.
Hasn't anyone else ever thought, "Man, if only they had just taken out [____] with one sniper shot, how differently things might have been! Thousands might have lived!"
Sorry. Even a pacifist thinks about such things.
Now I feel dirty.
Shea,
Maybe I'm even a little more pacifistic than you! I say that a people allow themselves to be enslaved and therefore have the government they deserve. Who am I to interfere in another country's affairs? If they tolerate a dictator, then that's what they deserve.
-Jack
But you don't support the war in Iraq Jack? What is that except removing a dictator from a people that "enslaved themselves"?
Oh and in my original comment I wasn't saying that Mochi wants Chavez to die, I was wondering why Robertson wants him dead. What has Chavez done to him?
If they tolerate a dictator, then that's what they deserve.
Yeah! Screw them! Never mind that they have no guns to fight, and the secret police drag suspected dissidents from their homes in the middle of the night never to be seen again - if they can't overthrow the well armed and financed dictator they deserve to be trampled into the dirt like the cowards they are!
Yes. That was sarcasm.
Shea, you brought up some real bad guys like Hitler and Stalin. Those were men whose regimes had to be opposed with force because they (the man and the regime) were so evil, and were harming millions. Your idea is not so "dirty" as it is hoping to save the lives of countless soldiers, and innocent civilians who get in the middle.
Of course, assassination isn't always the way. I have no link, but I recall learning that assassination attempts on Hitler were nixed because he was actually losing the war for Germany. If I recall correctly, his generals were much more competent than he was, and if they were calling the shots the war would have gone much better. I believe it was Hitler, for example, who decided to break his pact with Russia and open the Eastern Front.
Regardless, assassination of a legitimate military target should always be an option. But stress the "legitimate military target". Assassinating undesirable leaders, just because we don't like them, should never be an option.
Smorg,
You've read enough comments of mine to remember that I am the neutral one on the Iraq war. I have never said I was for or against it, because I refuse to confer upon myself omniscience on the matter. Yes, I have studied as much as anyone on the matter, but know enough to know that I don't know whether it was the right thing to do or the wrong.
I think on your blog I may have mentioned that Bush's reason given to go into Iraq was to remove Saddam who posed a threat. I have NO idea whether he was a threat or not--we may never know. There are pros and cons to that argument also. But if it was Bush's reason to go into Iraq and simply remove a dictator, then we have a lot of countries we need to be going into.
So, no, Smorg, I don't have an informed opinion on the Iraq war formulated yet, and also I don't think it is the United States job to bring freedom and democracy to the world.
Sorry too about the comment, I guess I misunderstood too. There is a lot of room for misunderstanding through the simple written word.
Take care,
-Jack
Sean,
Not all people want democracy. If one wants it bad enough, they will rise up with pitchforks. only then is it real. Democracy is born in the heart and purchased with blood. This is history, this is the way its done--
(no sarcasm here:)
-Jack
Jack, I just can't agree with you. Rising up with pitchforks is fine and dandy, if the dictator and his troops aren't armed with machine guns. Otherwise it isn't revolution, it's suicide.
Tell that to the United States revolutionaries, Sean :)
-Jack
Let the bells chime again, for Jack and I are in agreement again, this time on the concept of the population's responsibility to overthrow their government if they need to do so. In that sense, I am actually more of a conservative than many who call themselves conservative. It doesn't have to be a hard and fast rule, but revolution is the only way to make it stick, I think. It has been done in the past (like the USSR), and it can be done again.
One problem currently is that "liberating" people is usually just an excuse used by one country to overthrow another. It has been used as an excuse for what we are doing to Iraq, when in fact it was little more than a convenient afterthought, and an insincere one at that. It is not why we are there, and never was.
Nobody is really fooled into thinking that the leaders of one country care enough about the population of another to "liberate" them. Why do the media even bother to publicize such ridiculous tripe? Oh, yeah...
Shea,
This is a little scary...
ha!
-Jack
Tell that to the United States revolutionaries, Sean :)
Uh, can you say "armed militia"? Those weren't just a bunch of farmers that rose up. Those were the men that fought the French and Indian wars. They had guns and knew how to use them. And those that weren't involved in the prior war had weapons for hunting food.
Not every man who stood up to the British in the very beginning had a weapon, but it was certainly not a bunch of angry farmers with pitchforks standing up to the strongest army in the world at that time.
I agree that the population has to be willing to fight. But let's be honest. In the age of modern armies, unless the regular citizens are given some outside help of some kind, they are destined to fail. Now, that help can be with military invtervention, military supplies and training, or severe economic pressure (like we did to the USSR). But the severe economic pressure does not always work. Cases in point: Iraq and Cuba.
It has been used as an excuse for what we are doing to Iraq, when in fact it was little more than a convenient afterthought, and an insincere one at that. It is not why we are there, and never was.
Actually, it has been official U.S. policy, since Clinton was President, to work for regime change in Iraq. Official policy. It was definitely on of the main reasons we are there.
But, Sean, "regime change" and "liberating" the people can be two very different things. The new regime might not be what they want at all.
Sean, I disagree - I was talking about "liberating the Iraqi people", not regime change - they are two very different things. A new regime, especially one set up by outside interests, can very likely be contrary to what the people want. It's like the analogy that dogs are animals but not all animals are dogs. A new regime has the potential to bring positive change, but it could also be the same or worse than the one it replaced; not all regime change equals liberation.
(biiiig sigh)
Okay Shea. If you want to be obtuse about this, go ahead. But when a country is under the thumb of a brutal dictator, regime change has the effect of "liberating" the people. They are two actions that necessarily follow each other. You cannot effect regime change without liberating the people, you cannot liberate the people without effecting regime change. Oh sure, you can argue that we could have removed Sodom and had him replaced with another dictator who was more, um, "benevolent", but that would be ridiculous.
Yeah, we have done that enough.
And all this talk about liberating people, going back to the original post, how has Chavez driven his country into the ground? The problem is, American and Canadian companies have been mining and setting up shop there for years, destroying the environmnet of the already poor, driving them further into poverty and eroding the middle class. If you were dirt poor living like most of the people in that country do, you would be supporting Chavez. And he has yet to fail in his social re-engineering like a fascist would have you believe. The only problem, and nothing else, is that he runs an oil rich nation whose nationals and actual citizens have become poorer over the years, has threatened to cut us off from his oil supply and associates with people we do not like. We do not give a shit about Chavez's political philosophy, we want his resources and we had such a tight grip on that country until he was DEMOCRATICALLY elected and told us to fuck off. It is not good for us; but we do not represent planet Earth, most of the world hates us and I honestly admire his cajones (not in that sense, get your mind out of the gutter), having overcome a CIA-lead coup and sticking up for his ridiculously poor people. So I cannot hate Chavez, I respect where the man is coming from- which is nothing.
And put it this way, he would absolutely fuck up George Bush, Otto Reich, and Dick Cheney at the same time. Essentially why I have no respect for any of our elected officials, they are predominantly spoiled rich pussies on both sides, and talk like theyre tough on the issues all the time and never in their life have they had to fight their own battles. We have a great country, just people running it that are a bunch of douchebags.
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