Chavez: U.S. Plans to Invade Venezuela
Knowing whether this guy was certifiably nuts or not would go a long way, since he claims to have evidence. What’s worse than all that though, is with Bush in charge you don’t automatically think it couldn’t happen. Perhaps he’s a modern day Napolean. Say the next time he comes here, visits the White House to speak with Bush. He waits in a room and once the President arrives, stands up, takes a piss on the carpet and calmly walks out the door. Maybe the UN should be outside of the US, because more talk like this from the land of oil and cocaine…well we’ve got our own mildly psychotic batch of holy-rollers here in America who might fall for the old, ‘you are God’s chosen people’, line if push came to shove. Dobson, Roberts, Hinn and some folks out in Utah get a call on the red telephone…
-CA
WASHINGTON – Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said Friday he has documentary evidence that the United States plans to invade his country.
Chavez, interviewed on ABC’s “Nightline,” said the plan is called “Balboa” and involves aircraft carriers and planes. A transcript of the interview was made available by “Nightline.”
He said U.S. soldiers recently went to Curacao, an island off Venezuela’s northwest coast. He described as a “lie” the official U.S. explanation that they visited Curacao for rest and recreation.
“They were doing movements. They were doing maneuvers,” Chavez said, speaking through a translator.
He added: “We are coming up with the counter-Balboa plan. That is to say if the government of the United States attempts to commit the foolhardy enterprise of attacking us, it would be embarked on a 100-year war. We are prepared.”
Chavez has been attending the summit of world leaders at the United Nations in New York this week. On Thursday, he denounced the U.S.-led war in Iraq and told other leaders they should consider moving the U.N. headquarters out of the United States.
To prove U.S. intentions to invade Venezuela, Chavez offered to send “Nightline” host Ted Koppel maps and other documentation.
“What I can’t tell you is how we got it, to protect the sources, how we got it through military intelligence,” he said.
In the event of a U.S. invasion, Chavez said the United States can “just forget” about receiving any more oil from his country.
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Chavez Criticizes U.N. Reforms in Speech
NEW YORK – Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez criticized United Nations reforms on Saturday, saying they would permit powerful countries invade developing ones whose leaders are considered a threat.
In a speech at a community center in New York City’s Bronx borough, Chavez said the document adopted at a U.N. summit Friday was developed without consensus and was “invalid and illegal.”
He singled out a section of the document creating a Peacebuilding Commission that outlines a “responsibility to protect.”
“This is very suspicious … tomorrow or sometime in the future, someone in Washington will say that the Venezuelan people need to be protected from the tyrant Chavez, who is a threat,” he said in a speech that was broadcast on state-run television in Venezuela.
Chavez also directed a member of his delegation to arrange support for a project to clean a Bronx river.
“I want to help,” he told a group of youths who made the proposal.
Chavez, a self-declared “revolutionary,” has often clashed with the U.S. government and has accused Washington of seeking to oust him — a claim U.S. officials have vehemently denied.
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Chávez seeks influence with oil diplomacy
In just one month, Venezuela has cut deals with five countries.
By Danna Harman | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
MEXICO CITY – When protesters in Ecuador started dynamiting pipelines and vandalizing pumping machinery last week, crippling oil exports – Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez sprang to the rescue.
“We are going to help Ecuador,” Mr. Chávez announced from Cuba, where he was making his 13th visit since coming to power in 1999. “Venezuela will cover the [oil export] commitments that the Ecuadorean government has not been able to fulfill these days. They will not have to pay a cent.”A generous offer, but not a surprising one.
Chávez, whom Christian televangelist Pat Robertson says the US should assassinate, has been traveling the hemisphere offering preferential oil deals, barters, and loans to leftist and left-of-center governments. In the past 30 days, the leader of the world’s fifth-largest oil exporting country, has inked deals with Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay, and Paraguay. Thirteen Caribbean nations signed a deal for cheap oil in June. And since April, Cuba has been getting almost all of its oil from Venezuela in exchange for doctors and gym teachers.
It is, Chávez says, his way of helping neighboring countries cut energy costs and improve living standards in the region. “Altruism,” says Eric Wingerter, a spokesman at the Venezuela Information Office in Washington, D.C., simply. “This is part of larger process involving regional solidarity and helping other countries economically.”
But critics charge Chávez is buying friends and influence with the objective of extending his regional hegemony – and undermining the US.
“Chávez is a man with a mission. He is determined to use the enormous windfall from record oil prices to pursue his Bolivarian Revolution on the regional stage as aggressively as possible,” says Michael Shifter, vice president of the Inter-American Dialogue, a think tank in Washington, D.C. “He is intent on building a counterweight to US influence in the Western Hemisphere.”
Chávez’s antiglobalization and anti-US discourse, which comes part and parcel with the petrodollars, adds Shifter, “is resonating more and more with marginal sectors throughout the region, many of whom have been ignored by the US and are now looking for alternatives to their stubbornly acute poverty.”
Carlos Granier, an economist at Cedice, a Caracas think tank, says that the 13-nation Petrocaribe group formed by Chávez, is described as a “nonprofit political enterprise” of strategic importance by Venezuela. “This peculiar jargon hardly conceals the pretense to use “oil as a diplomatic weapon,” says Mr. Granier.
Ricardo Hausmann, an economist at Harvard University’s Kennedy School and a former minister of planning in Venezuela says, “There is no economic rationale in these deals…. It is a political investment.” The opportunity cost of the deals – a loss of payment at market price – is clear, says Professor Hausmann. “What is less transparent is what Venezuela is going to get in return – is it good will? Is it Latin American support for the day when Chávez decides to radicalize his revolution, prompting an international reaction?”
According to Granier, the opportunity cost for the Cuban-Venezuelan oil “deal” alone is costing Venezuelans an estimated US$ 1.7 billion in 2005. In dollar terms, says the economist, this is equivalent to all US official aid to Latin America, including military and non-military disbursements.
Today, the US remains the top buyer of Venezuelan crude. Venezuela is still the third-largest foreign supplier of oil to the US, and owns CITGO, one of the largest refinery complexes and gas distribution networks in the US. But this could change. Chávez warned recently that the daily 1.5 million-barrel supply to US ports could be halted if US “aggressions” against his government continue. “Ships filled with Venezuelan oil, instead of going to the United States, could go somewhere else,” he threatened at a World Youth Day event on Aug. 14 in Caracas. “The US market is not indispensable” for Venezuela, he said.
A week after Chávez made these comments, Venezuela announced plans to expand its fleet of oil tankers to diversify its client base and sell more crude to Asia and other faraway markets. Asdrubal Chávez, head of PdVSA’s shipping and sales, said $2.2 billion would be invested over the next seven years to expand the fleet from 21 to 58 tankers. Eulogio Del Pino, a PdVSA director, said Venezuela would open its first office in Asia – in Beijing – “in coming days.”
Reflecting perhaps the tension between Chávez and the US, religious broadcaster Pat Robertson suggested this week that the US “take out” Chávez to stop Venezuela from becoming a “launching pad for communist influence and Muslim extremism.” Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld immediately distanced the administration from his comments, even as Chávez’s vice president described Mr. Robertson’s remarks as a “terrorist statement.”
Meanwhile Chávez is picking fights with foreign oil companies – including Shell, ExxonMobil, Repsol YPF, Chevron, BP, and Total that have been working in Venezuela for years. Thirty-two publicly traded oil companies are accused of owing Venezuela $4 billion in back taxes for overproduction – something they deny. This follows Venezuela’s hikes in production royalties from 1 percent to 16.7 percent in October, hikes in taxes on operating agreements from 32 percent to 50 percent in April, and a declared end to contracted dollar payments to foreign oil field operators in May. “The desire to operate in Venezuela,” Kyle Cooper, energy analyst for Citigroup Global Markets said in a report last week, “is fading fast.”
The US is not alone in its concern over Chávez’s oil diplomacy. An increasing number of Venezuelans, according to Alfredo Keller, an independent pollster in Caracas, are also watching events unfold nervously.
“Sure, Chávez is becoming a major regional force,” says Mr. Keller, “…but he is losing popularity at home.” According to national polls Keller conducted in July, he found 75 percent of Venezuelans against the favors and generosities Chávez is showering on other countries. “Venezuelans don’t like their resources going to foreigners,” says Keller. “At home problems such as cost of living, housing, unemployment, remain unchanged … and people are wondering: Whose leader is he?”
• Ms. Harman is Latin America bureau chief for the Monitor and USA Today.
Oil deals across the hemisphere
SCOTT WALLACE – STAFF1) The Caribbean– Chávez was in Jamaica Tuesday to finalize details on the PetroCaribe agreement signed in June. The deal, which is meant to help small Caribbean economies cope with high fuel prices, offers generous financing for oil sales and favorable rates in exchange for goods, services, or credit. Thirteen of the 15 members of the Caribbean Community group, or Caricom, have already signed on.
2) PetroSur Chávez is pushing for the creation of a southern America group with Argentina, Brazil, and Uruguay, offering oil deals similar to the PetroCaribe pact.
3) PetroAndina – Another proposal to sell discounted oil to the Andean countries of Bolivia, Ecuador, Peru and Colombia.
4) Cuba – Venezuela has become a vital economic lifeline for Cuba – shipping in 90,000 barrels a day of oil. In return, Havana has sent more than 30,000 physicians, sports coaches and teachers to Venezuela. Further, the Venezuelan state-run oil company, Petroleos de Venezuela S.A (PdVSA) opened its Caribbean headquarters in Cuba in April.
5) Uruguay – Earlier this month, Chávez signed an oil-supply and energy accord with that country’s first elected leftist President Tabaré Vázquez. Under the accord, Caracas will guarantee oil supplies to Montevideo for the next 25 years at preferential terms: Uruguay will pay for 67 percent of the oil with export products, and the rest under low-interest financing. PdVSA also announced plans to upgrade Uruguay’s La Teja refinery to process Venezuela crude.
6) Paraguay – Venezuela just agreed to start shipping to Paraguay 8,600 barrels per day of crude oil byproducts, particularly fuels, at a 25 percent discount and with no interest.
7) Ecuador – After oil workers forced state-owned Petroecuador to shut down production last week, Ecuador’s President Alfredo Palacio asked Chávez for an oil loan to meet its export commitments. It was immediately provided. Prior to these events, Venezuela had offered to process Ecuador’s oil (Ecuador has no refineries) and sell products produced from Ecuadorian crude in the international market.
8) Argentina – Venezuela has been supplying Argentina with emergency fuel oil since last year to help it cope with energy shortages in exchange for cash and agricultural products. This month, Chávez and President Néstor Kirchner announced plans to supply Argentina with an addition 4 million barrels of Venezuelan fuel oil, in return for which Argentina would provide shipbuilding expertise and farm machinery to Venezuela.
Also, Argentina’s state owned oil company Energia de Argentina (Enarsa) joined with PdVSA this year, and opened two service stations in Buenos Aires. Several hundred more joint service stations in Argentina are planned.
9) Brazil – Chávez and President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva are discussing plans to jointly build a $2.5 billion refinery in Brazil. Brazilian state-controlled Petrobras is also considering oil and gas exploration and production activities in Venezuela.
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Chavez Sees ‘True Crisis’ Over Oil Reserves
LONDON – Dame mas gasolina, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez may find himself humming. The sentiment of Daddy Yankee’s high-octane reggaeton hit–which has been pumping out of every car stereo on the globe this summer–has uncannily caught the zeitgeist right by the tail.
Chavez, Washington’s bugbear in South America, has told a U.N. summit OPEC members are in danger of sending the price of a barrel of crude over the century mark because they are pumping near capacity. “OPEC is practically already at its production ceiling,” said Chavez, whose critics accuse him of using Venezuela’s oil wealth to buy influence and push his socialist agenda in America’s backyard. “The price of a barrel of crude is going to continue climbing,” he added, by way of warning.
Just last week nine more Caribbean nations signed up to join Chavez’ cheap-oil jamboree proposed back in June. Venezuela, the world’s fifth-largest oil exporter, is offering Petrocaribe members oil at up to 60% of market price if crude is selling at more than $50 a barrel on world markets. Caracas will finance the remaining 40% at long-term rates and is willing to accept export goods such as rice, bananas or sugar as payment. The deal jars with Washington’s freshly inked free trade pact with the region and a blueprint for a broader free trade agreement for the Americas.
Speculation regarding oil production increases are normal ahead of OPEC meetings–the 11-member organization is scheduled to meet Monday in Vienna–and many expect OPEC to increase production to bring down soaring international oil prices.
Yet the problem is the oil reserves are running out, thinks Chavez. “It is a true crisis,” he complained on state television. The country’s oil minister, Rafael Ramirez, is also worried: He’s not expecting OPEC to increase oil production because few member countries have the capacity to boost output.
Oil is the lifeblood of Venezuela’s economy, accounting for about half of total government revenues and about one third of gross domestic product.
First draft of Robertson’s fatwa apology
By CARL HIAASENR ejected first draft of Rev. Pat Robertson’s apology on “The 700 Club.”
My fellow sinners,
The other night I made a statement about Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez that’s been widely misinterpreted by the heathen media and even some of my friends in the ministry.
As you know, Señor Chávez has been going around saying there’s a secret American plot to assassinate him. In my broadcast I recommended that “we really ought to go ahead and do it.”
I admit that was a mistake. I first should’ve touched base with God. Assassination is a pretty big deal, and it’s always a good idea to go through the proper channels.
Many of my colleagues in the evangelical community are upset about what I said, and some have even faxed me copies of the Sixth Commandment, which I re-read last night before The Sopranos came on.
At first glance, the words seem straightforward and crystal clear: Thou shalt not kill.
Yet if you study that phrase closely, I think you’ll agree that God could have been a little more specific.
Thou shalt not kill what — all living things? Come on.
Who amongst us hasn’t swatted a mosquito, squashed a cockroach or shot an eight-point buck the day after deer season ended?
My fellow Christians, think about it. If God didn’t want us to take the life of any other living creature, would He not have long ago smote Col. Sanders and Burger King — and what of Truly Nolen, which has remorselessly snuffed billions upon billions of tiny termites?
So we are left to conclude that God is somewhat flexible on the issue of killing; that the premeditated execution of certain life forms doesn’t seem to bother Him all that much.
For guidance on this question, look to the Old Testament. If God truly regarded all creatures as equal, He wouldn’t have called it a ”plague” of locusts. He would have called it a pep rally.
And surely the word pestilence wouldn’t appear in the Scriptures if God didn’t believe in the concept of pests.
Which brings me to President Chávez down in Venezuela. We know that he’s a troublemaker who speaks out against the foreign policies of the United States. We know he’s a pal of Fidel Castro, that no-good communist dictator. And we know his country’s got loads and loads of precious oil.
So why not kill him, I wondered, as one would kill any pest? That’s the modest scenario I proposed the other night on this program.
God unblessed America
I had no idea that people would be so upset and surprised. Heck, for years I’ve been blurting out stuff that sounds ignorant and un-Christian and downright loony.
It was yours truly who declared that the Sept. 11 attack was God ”lifting His protection” as payback for this country legalizing abortions and banning prayer in the schools.
I was the one who once predicted that God would destroy the Soviet Union with earthquakes and volcanoes. I also took credit for scaring a hurricane away with my prayers and for healing both hernias and hemorrhoids from the pulpit.
Remember back in ’87, when my preacher pal Jimmy Swaggart got caught with that hooker in a Louisiana motel? It was me (and only me) who figured out that the whole thing had been set up by the first George Bush, who was vice president at the time.
So it’s not like I’ve never been called crazy before.
Admittedly, I could’ve handled the Chávez situation better. Before saying one word, I should have waited until God spoke personally to me (which He does every Thursday night, after Will and Grace), and asked Him how He feels about political assassinations.
Confusing commandment
Thumbs up, Lord, or thumbs down? A definitive answer would certainly help clear up some of the confusion about the Sixth Commandment. I mean, really, don’t Christians have more important things to worry about?
As a man of faith, I’m proudly and passionately pro-life. Even so, it’s hard to believe that when God said ”Thou Shalt Not Kill,” He literally meant thou shalt not kill.
But, while awaiting His further instructions on this topic, I will contritely withdraw my suggestion that President Chávez be whacked as soon as possible.
However, nothing prevents me from using my well-known power of prayer to steer a fearsome Cat-5 hurricane toward this godless evil-doer, or to at least afflict him with a really uncomfortable hemorrhoid.
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