Colombia Bueno, Venezuela Malo
When President Bush flies off to Latin America later this week, you can bet your huarachas that he won’t be stopping off in Venezuela. George Bush has made no secret of his distaste for the socialist regime of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.
So much does Bush dislike Chavez that the Bush people have tried to 1) overthrow him, and when that failed to stick, 2) isolate him, or as the Financial Times said, “contain” him, as we did with the Soviets. Effort 1, as you recall, was a U.S. effort to back a coup by the Venezuelan opposition, but the plotters lost their nerve after they had kidnapped Chavez. Effort 2 was an attempt to inoculate other Latin American countries from the Chavez revolution virus. That, too, largely failed as countries like Bolivia and Ecuador elected left-leaning governments.
But Chavez’ latest moves have plunged the Bush administration into a case of the vapors. Chavez has announced plans to nationalize a number of industries and to reorganize the oil industry to give Venezuela a larger share of the profits. For this most petroleum-centric of all U.S. administrations, them’s fighting words. Fortunately for us all, the American military is tied up elsewhere, and the conflict, for the moment, is largely verbal.
Of course, President Chavez has not made things any easier by indulging in a series of well-publicized insults aimed at Bush, such as his jibe before the United Nations that Bush was “the devil.” In 2005, Chavez told a meeting of Latin American executives that, “The people of the United States are being governed by a killer, a genocidal murderer and a madman…” Certainly, many Americans have said the same thing, but they’re not heads of state, and don’t risk hemispheric armed conflict. .....(more)
The complete piece is at:
http://www.tompaine.com/articles/2007/03/06/colombia_bueno_venezuela_malo.php 
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