I'm not sure how up everyone here is on Venezuelan politics and the story of Hugo Chavez, so I'll offer a bare bones history for you. He was democratically elected, tiwce, and upheld in referendums in between. First elected in 1999, there was a short lived coup in 2002 that oussted him from power for a few days. Butt he rebels found he was so overwhelmingly popular that they reinstated him and gave up. Most believe the US was behind this coup. Hugo has since come out swinging against Bush and the neo-liberal policies of the US.
Most recently Chavez announced fears of US official spying in Venezuela. Last week he named Capt John Correa, a US Naval attache, as a spy passing info to the Pentagon. Chavez then expelled him from the country.
Here is where it gets interesting. The US has made a retalitory move - it has expelled the Chief of Staff to Venezuela's diplomat, Jeny Figereudo Frias, and sent him packing. Was there a good reason to expel Frias? Was he spying? Nope, this was elementary school tit-for-tat.
"We don't like to go into tit-for-tat games like this with the Venezuelan government, but they initiated this and the US chose to respond," says US State Department spokeperson.
What kind of immature, testosterone-pumping fuckwads are running our government? Most governments attempt to remain civil, to follow a course of diplomacy. It is rare that "He started it" becomes the official response in foreign policy.
These efforts by Washingon to de-stabilize Chavez and sever dimplomatic ties to Venezuela look pretty clearly like the blueprint for an upcoming invasion. Pat Robertson said we should assassinate him (the US Gov't never really denounced that remark). Rumsfeld compares Chavez to Hitler. Washington has already tried to oust Chavez from power once before, and the only thing probably keeping us out right now is that our military is so over-stretched and can't find enough new recruits.
A lot of progressives on the Left see Venezuela's "Bolivarian Revolution" and its style of 21st century socialism as a very good thing. If Washington has its way, we may soon be faced with the difficult choice of were to stand, and who we choose to stand with.
I think it is too simplistic to judge Chavez based on his approach to remodeling his country. How would anyone go about reforming a society that’s been under the thumb of international oil interests for the past hundred years, where the gap between wealth and the masses is extreme and the US is dumping hundreds of millions of dollars into the country in an attempt to destabilize the democratically elected government?
For the first time in Venezuelan history, profits from oil sales are being spent on infrastructure for the most needy. This is being paid for by a rewriting of oil contracts so that more of the profit stays in Venezuela rather than being dumped into the pockets of external corporations. That’s the real issue, international interests are now getting less of the Venezuelan financial pie than they used to. So these interests go to Washington and use my and you tax dollars to destabilize a democratically elected leader in an attempt to restore profit margins. To hell with the indigenous people and their poverty.
Before anyone judges Chavez, study the nation’s history and try to understand what his goals are and the forces that are attempting to stop him.