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Hugo Chavez, Barack Obama Legacy

QueEx

QueEx

Rising Star
Super Moderator
Re: What's in a handshake ?

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What's in an Obama-Chavez handshake?</font size>



r
</center>


Reuters
By Steve Holland - Analysis
April 20, 2009

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - What's in a handshake? The clasping of hands by President Barack Obama and Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has set off a debate over what kind of signal Obama was sending.

To the White House, the friendly Obama-Chavez encounter at a weekend summit of Latin leaders was a sign of a new U.S. foreign policy aimed at improving relations around the world.

"It's unlikely that as a consequence of me shaking hands or having a polite conversation with Mr. Chavez that we are endangering the strategic interests of the United States," Obama said.

But to some of his critics, the handshake was a sign of American weakness.

"Everywhere in Latin America, enemies of America are going to use the picture of Chavez smiling and meeting with the president as proof that Chavez is now legitimate, that he's acceptable," Republican Newt Gingrich, a former speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, told NBC's "Today" show.

Obama and Chavez had two highly public encounters at the summit in Trinidad and Tobago -- a handshake, a chat and then later when Chavez gave Obama a book, "The Open Veins of Latin America," published in 1971 by Uruguayan Eduardo Galeano.

Former Vice President Dick Cheney, in an interview with the Fox News Channel, said Obama's encounters with both Chavez and Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega were not helpful and "sets the wrong standard."

He accused Obama of taking an apologetic tone about past U.S. policy on his trips to Europe and Latin America.


(No citation; the article was removed as it was being cut and pasted during posting).

 
Re: What's in a handshake ?

A great example of "Spin". Providing an interpretation of an event or campaign to persuade public opinion in favor or against a certain organization or public figure. While traditional public relations may also rely on creative presentation of the facts, "spin" often, though not always, implies disingenuous, deceptive and/or highly manipulative tactics. Politicians are often accused by their opponents of claiming to be honest and seek the truth while using spin tactics to manipulate public opinion.
 
Re: What's in a handshake ?

<font size="6">
The Reaction:</font size>

  • Does shaking hands with Chavez make him look soft: "We had this debate throughout the campaign, and the whole notion was -- is -- that somehow if we showed courtesy or opened up dialogue with governments that had previously been hostile to us, that that somehow would be a sign of weakness. The American people didn't buy it. And there's a good reason the American people didn't buy it -- because it doesn't make sense," said President Obama.

    Shaking hands with Chávez does nothing to endanger U.S. strategic interests, he argued. Nor does having a more constructive relationship with Venezuela.


  • Newt Gingrich - a former Speaker of the House of Representatives: Everywhere in Latin America, enemies of America are going to use the picture of Chavez smiling and meeting with the president as proof that Chavez is now legitimate, that he is acceptable," he said.


    "I am not against him talking to Chavez," he said. "But I think he ought to talk to Chavez in a cold and distant way because Chavez openly, constantly attacks the United States."


  • Rush Limbaugh: Obama paling around with Chavez.




  • Otto Reich, Former U.S. Ambassador to Venezuela: President Barack Obama’s “hobnobbing” with the Venezuelan leader the “greatest triumph in Venezuelan diplomacy ever.” “I think it’s very unfortunate. I don’t think President Obama really understands, perhaps out of lack of experience in international affairs, the importance of symbolism,” said Reich, who was policy adviser on Latin America for John McCain’s presidential campaign.

    “You don’t go around slapping the back of a foreign dictator, a would-be dictator in the case of Chavez, who has done everything in his power to undermine U.S. interests in the region and who calls himself an enemy of the United States.”

    Chavez is seeking to “portray this warm handshake, and a slap on the back which came later, as an endorsement of Chavez, which I’m sure President Obama did not intend,” Reich said.

    “That is the way it is being portrayed not only in Venezuela but in the rest of the continent, all of Latin America.”

    “I worked for three presidents. I don’t think that would have happened with President Reagan or either one of the President Bushes.

<font size="4">Whats your reaction ???

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Re: What's in a handshake ?

From Nixon to Reagan we see pictures of American Presidents shaking hands with those who we would refer to as 'enemies' of the United States. This overblown inflammatory distraction only serves to fill the media cycle because they have nothing substantive to discuss.
 
Re: What's in a handshake ?

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Will Chavez and Obama continue to make friendly?</font size>



McClatchy Newspapers
By Tyler Bridges
April 20, 2009


CARACAS, Venezuela — Presidents Barack Obama and Hugo Chavez unexpectedly rescued U.S.-Venezuelan relations from the deep freezer over the weekend at the Summit of the Americas in Trinidad.

The two high-profile leaders replaced barbed words with cordial greetings, and Chavez said he wanted to name a new ambassador to the U.S. to replace the one who was expelled last year.

Now each side is waiting for the other to take the next step to put relations on a normal footing, a level not achieved since 2001, during the early days of the Bush administration, analysts said Monday.

  • U.S. officials want the Chavez government to cooperate with U.S. anti-drug efforts, begin issuing visas for U.S. diplomats to enter Venezuela and halt its buying spree of Russia weapons, analysts said.

  • Venezuelan officials want continued respect from the Obama administration and a muted response to Chavez's moves against his political opposition.


<SPAN style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffff00"><font size="3">
Can Cordial Contacts Reflect Genuine Change ?</span></font size>

Unless the cordial contacts reflect a genuine change in the countries' attitudes, however, few analysts expect the warming to last, given U.S. actions that Chavez has deemed hostile and Chavez's history of using the U.S. as a political punching bag.

"Chavez's MO has always been to create conflict with an external power or entity, be it Washington, Colombia or ExxonMobil," said Patrick Esteruelas, who just returned to New York from Venezuela for the Eurasia Group, a risk-analysis firm. "He needs to create a smoke screen to distract people away from the government's own problems and mismanagement, no matter who sits in the White House."

It's in the interest of both leaders to maintain the flow of Venezuelan oil to the United States, however.

Washington and Chavez have had a turbulent history, punctuated by his accusation that the U.S. was killing babies with bombing attacks in Afghanistan in 2001 and his charge that Bush administration officials gave at least tacit support to a 2002 coup that toppled him for three days.

Chavez expelled the U.S. ambassador last year in solidarity with Bolivia after President Evo Morales booted out the U.S. ambassador there. The U.S. retaliated by kicking out ambassadors from both countries.

So the first move toward building on the amiable conversations from last weekend is for Venezuela and the U.S. to restore the ambassadors.

In Trinidad, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Chavez discussed restoring the ambassadors, with Chavez publicly identifying a former foreign minister as his choice to send to Washington.

"As we have stated previously, exchanging ambassadors will help advance U.S. interests," a State Department representative said Monday, speaking on the condition of anonymity as a matter of policy. "It is necessary for improving communications and our bilateral relations."

Obama defended himself from conservatives in the U.S. who said he'd been too friendly with Chavez at the summit.

"I have great differences with Hugo Chavez on matters of economic policy and matters of foreign policy," Obama said Sunday at a post-summit news conference. "His rhetoric directed at the United States has been inflammatory. There have been instances in which we've seen Venezuela interfere with some of the . . . countries that surround Venezuela in ways that I think are a source of concern.

"On the other hand, Venezuela is a country whose defense budget is probably 1/600th of the United States'. They own CITGO. It's unlikely that as a consequence of me shaking hands or having a polite conversation with Mr. Chavez that we are endangering the strategic interests of the United States."

Fausto Maso, a Caracas-based political columnist, said he thought that Chavez felt obliged to make nice with Obama because the U.S. president had sky-high rankings in Venezuela and elsewhere throughout Latin America as a fresh face who had the same skin color as many Latin Americans.

"Chavez wants good relations with the United States in the short term," Maso said. "But Chavez will seek conflict with the United States again."




http://www.mcclatchydc.com/255/story/66541.html
 
Re: What's in a handshake ?

QueEx said:
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What's in an Obama-Chavez handshake?</font size>



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Click to expand...

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Chavez: Smiles, handshakes don't
change view of 'imperialist' U.S.</font size></center>


Friday, April 24, 2009


(CNN) -- Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said Friday he appreciated U.S. President Barack Obama's friendly gestures at last weekend's Summit of the Americas, but said they don't change his view of the United States as an imperialist nation.

Chavez's fiery diatribes against the United States have included referring to former President George W. Bush as the devil.

He was photographed with Obama at least twice at the summit -- once when Obama shook hands with him and other leaders, and again when he approached Obama to give him a book.

<SPAN style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffff00">"The hand[shake], yes. And the smile, yes -- one time and a second time and a third time and a fourth time," Chavez said during a televised address. "But nobody should be mistaken. The empire is there, alive and kicking."</span>

The book Chavez presented to Obama as cameras rolled is titled "Open Veins of Latin America: Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent." The book chronicles Europe's and the United States' role in "the effects and causes of capitalist underdevelopment in Latin America," according to one reviewer.

<SPAN style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffff00">As he has in the past, Chavez noted Obama's historic role as the first black U.S. president.

"I hope Obama, for the dignity of his race, may be the last president of an imperialist United States," he said</span>.


http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/americas/04/24/chavez.us/
 
Re: What's in a handshake ?

<font size="5"><center>
Chavez: Next Gift for Obama
Authored by Vladimir Lenin</font size></center>


0_61_obama_320.jpg

April 18: Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez
hands President Obama the book titled "The
Open Veins of Latin America" by Eduardo
Galeano.


Associated Press
Saturday, May 30, 2009


CARACAS, Venezuela — President Hugo Chavez says he has a new book for President Barack Obama: "What is to be Done?" by communist Vladimir Lenin, founder of the Soviet state.

Chavez says he'll "give it to Obama at the next meeting."

"What is to be Done?" is Lenin's political treatise on the role of intellectuals and the proletariat in promoting revolution, written more than a decade before he led the Bolshevik takeover of Russia in 1917.

Chavez gave Obama a copy of "Open Veins of Latin America: Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent" by Eduardo Galeano at an April summit.

The book jumped the next day to the No. 2 seller on Amazon.com.

Chavez spoke Friday on a marathon, anniversary edition of his "Hello President" television show.


http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,523297,00.html
 
Re: What's in a handshake ?

QueEx said:
<font size="5"><center>
Chavez: Next Gift for Obama
Authored by Vladimir Lenin</font size></center>


0_61_obama_320.jpg

April 18: Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez
hands President Obama the book titled "The
Open Veins of Latin America" by Eduardo
Galeano.


Associated Press
Saturday, May 30, 2009


CARACAS, Venezuela — President Hugo Chavez says he has a new book for President Barack Obama: "What is to be Done?" by communist Vladimir Lenin, founder of the Soviet state.

Chavez says he'll "give it to Obama at the next meeting."

"What is to be Done?" is Lenin's political treatise on the role of intellectuals and the proletariat in promoting revolution, written more than a decade before he led the Bolshevik takeover of Russia in 1917.

Chavez gave Obama a copy of "Open Veins of Latin America: Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent" by Eduardo Galeano at an April summit.

The book jumped the next day to the No. 2 seller on Amazon.com.

Chavez spoke Friday on a marathon, anniversary edition of his "Hello President" television show.


http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,523297,00.html
Click to expand...

The first book was fine, but giving him a book written by Lenin..and on top of that promoting revolution........conservatives are going to have a field day.
 


Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has accused the United States of causing the devastating 7.0 magnitude earthquake in Haiti, which killed possibly 200,000 people. Chavez believes the U.S. was testing a tectonic weapon to produce eco-type devastations.
Last week, Digital Journal reported that the Venezuelan President accused the United States of using Haiti’s earthquake as a pretext to occupy the Caribbean country, and since then the US has deployed thousands of troops to the region to bring law and order.
Chavez is blaming the US for causing the 7.0 magnitude earthquake in Haiti as part of testing a “tectonic weapon” that can cause eco-type disasters, according to Russia Today. The Latin American leader added that the US should “stop playing God.”
Chavez said these “weapon earthquakes” would eventually be used against Iran and be taken over by the US military.
Chavez says these weapons can alter the climate and set off earthquakes and volcanoes remotely through the use of electromagnetic waves.
Although Chavez did not reveal his source, Press TV reports the Venezuelan media are reporting the earthquake may be associated with the High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program (HAARP), which has been accused of generating violent and disastrous changes in climate.
HAARP has been met with controversy since the mid-1990s when the State Duma of Russia issued a press release written by international affairs and defense communities on HAARP and signed by 90 deputies:
“The U.S. is creating new integral geophysical weapons that may influence the near-Earth medium with high-frequency radio waves ... The significance of this qualitative leap could be compared to the transition from cold steel to firearms, or from conventional weapons to nuclear weapons. This new type of weapons differs from previous types in that the near-Earth medium becomes at once an object of direct influence and its component.”
In 1997, US Secretary of Defense William Cohen also expressed concern over such eco-terrorism “whereby they can alter the climate, set off earthquakes, volcanoes remotely through the use of electromagnetic waves."
However, the U.S. government claims HAARP’s primary objective is to analyze and investigate the Earth’s ionosphere and the possibility of developing technology for communications and surveillance purposes.

http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/286145
 
Re: Hugo Chavez accuses U.S. of using weapon to cause Haiti quake

Yeah so? White people in the republic of South Carolina don't believe Hawaii is a state.

George Bush Jr said he could look into Putin's eyes and see his soul.

Also during George Bush Jr.s term, there were those who said, he conspired with Japan to not only create the hurricane to kill black people in New Orleans, but they could steer it like a battle ship.

Pat Robertson said during his one attempt at running for president of the US, said to control crime, he would conviene a panel of religious Christians to pray and they would determine who was about to pull off a crime and arrest them, throw them in jail before they could commit the crime.

Muslims believe there are 7 virgins waiting for them if they kill themselves for their god.

Mac users, many of them, believe that a MacBook with 2 gig of ram is more powerful than a PC with 8 gig running an I7 processor.

There are people who believe we could dump tons of toxins into the air and it not affect the climate. They need to talk to the people in New Jersey who had to deal with a thing called Acid Rain a bunch of years ago.

You see the pattern here? "Crazy" isn't limited to crazy people or people without jobs.

-VG
 
(WMR) -- WMR’s intelligence sources have reported that the Obama administration has authorized an economic war against Venezuela in order to destabilize the government of President Hugo Chavez.

After a successful coup against Chavez ally, President Manuel Zelaya of Honduras, and the very thin 51-49 percent electoral win by Chile’s billionaire right-winger Sebastian Pinera on January 17, a buoyed Obama White House has given a green light for political operatives in Venezuela, many of whom operate under the cover of non-governmental organizations (NGOs), to set the stage for massive street demonstrations to protest Chavez’s devaluation of the bolivar, Venezuela’s currency.

Chavez devalued the bolivar by 50 percent to make Venezuelan oil exports less expensive, thus boosting revenue for his country. However, the devaluation has also seen price rises and inflation in Venezuela and the CIA and its subservient NGOs have wasted little time in putting out stories about consumers rushing to the stories ahead of an increase in consumer products, with imported flat-screen televisions being the favorite consumer item being hyped by the corporate media as seeing a huge price increase and long lines at shopping malls favored by the Venezuelan elites.

The state has exempted certain consumer goods such as food, medicines, school supplies, and industrial machinery from being affected by the bolivar’s devaluation through a different exchange rate and price controls, but it is the price increases on televisions, tobacco, alcohol, cell phones, and computers that has the anti-Chavez forces in Venezuela and abroad hyping the ill-effects on the Venezuelan consumer.

To battle against businessmen who are trying to capitalize on the devaluation of the bolivar, Chavez has threatened to close and possibly seize any business that gouges the consumer by inordinately raising prices. The first target of a temporary closure was a Caracas store owned by the French firm Exito.

International investment analysts praised Chavez’s decision to devalue the bolivar and said the decision was overdue considering the fall of oil prices worldwide. However, the CIA and NGOs, many aligned with George Soros’s Open Society Institute and the U.S. National Endowment for Democracy are planning large street demonstrations against Chavez’s handling of the economy.

National Assembly elections are scheduled for September but the Obama administration has decided that if Chavez can be removed now, his allies in Bolivia, Ecuador, Nicaragua, Paraguay, and some Caribbean island states will quickly abandon Chavez’s alternative to American-led Western Hemisphere financial contrivances and free trade pacts, the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas (ALBA).

The Obama planners then see Cuba, once again, being isolated in the hemisphere and ripe for increased U.S. political pressure. Cuba was placed on the list of 14 countries requiring additional airline passenger screening as part of the policy to pressure and isolate Cuba. There is a possibility that with the outbreak of U.S.-inspired violence in the streets of Venezuela, that nation could join Cuba on the list as the 15th country.

The Obama administration’s assault is two-fold: economic and political. Pressure is being applied against the gasoline chain Citgo, which is owned by the Venezuelan state oil company, PDVSA, and Venezuelan investment favorability ratings. Politically, the U.S. is overtly and covertly funneling money to anti-Chavez groups through the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), and groups affiliated with George Soros.

There is also a small military component to Obama’s strategy of undermining Chavez. U.S., P-3 Orion overflights of Venezuelan airspace from bases in Aruba and Curacao are designed to intimidate Chavez and activate Venezuelan radar and command, control, communications, and intelligence (C3I) systems to gather electronic and signals intelligence data that would be used by the United States to jam Venezuelan military networks in the event of a U.S.-inspired uprising against Chavez by U.S. loyalists embedded in the Venezuelan military, police, PDVSA, and media. The U.S. is also stoking cross-border incursions into Venezuela by Colombian paramilitaries to gauge Venezuela’s border defenses. Last November, Colombian right-wing paramilitary units killed two Venezuelan National Guardsmen inside Venezuela in Tachira state. Weapons caches maintained by Colombians inside Venezuela have been seized by Venezuelan authorities. Venezuela has also arrested a number of Colombian DAS intelligence agents inside Venezuela.

Obama signed a military agreement with Colombia that allows the United States to establish seven air and naval bases in Colombia. An additional agreement by Obama with Panama will see the U.S. military return to that nation to set up two military bases.

It is estimated that some 25 percent of Venezuelans are likely Fifth Columnists who would take part in a revolt against Chavez. Many of them based in the Venezuelan oil-producing state of Zulia and the capital of Maracaibo, where successive U.S. ambassadors in Caracas have stoked secessionist embers and where the CIA and U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency have concentrated much of their efforts. In November, Venezuelan police arrested in Maracaibo, Magaly Janeth Moreno Vega, also known as “The Pearl,” the leader of the right-wing United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC), which has been directly linked to Colombia’s pro-U.S. President Alvaro Uribe and members of his government, including former Colombian Attorney General Luis Camilo Osorio Isaza, appointed by Uribe as Colombia’s ambassador to Mexico.

http://onlinejournal.com/artman/publish/article_5489.shtml
 
(WMR) -- WMR’s intelligence sources have reported that the Obama administration has authorized an economic war against Venezuela in order to destabilize the government of President Hugo Chavez.

After a successful coup against Chavez ally, President Manuel Zelaya of Honduras, and the very thin 51-49 percent electoral win by Chile’s billionaire right-winger Sebastian Pinera on January 17, a buoyed Obama White House has given a green light for political operatives in Venezuela, many of whom operate under the cover of non-governmental organizations (NGOs), to set the stage for massive street demonstrations to protest Chavez’s devaluation of the bolivar, Venezuela’s currency.

Chavez devalued the bolivar by 50 percent to make Venezuelan oil exports less expensive, thus boosting revenue for his country. However, the devaluation has also seen price rises and inflation in Venezuela and the CIA and its subservient NGOs have wasted little time in putting out stories about consumers rushing to the stories ahead of an increase in consumer products, with imported flat-screen televisions being the favorite consumer item being hyped by the corporate media as seeing a huge price increase and long lines at shopping malls favored by the Venezuelan elites.

The state has exempted certain consumer goods such as food, medicines, school supplies, and industrial machinery from being affected by the bolivar’s devaluation through a different exchange rate and price controls, but it is the price increases on televisions, tobacco, alcohol, cell phones, and computers that has the anti-Chavez forces in Venezuela and abroad hyping the ill-effects on the Venezuelan consumer.

To battle against businessmen who are trying to capitalize on the devaluation of the bolivar, Chavez has threatened to close and possibly seize any business that gouges the consumer by inordinately raising prices. The first target of a temporary closure was a Caracas store owned by the French firm Exito.

International investment analysts praised Chavez’s decision to devalue the bolivar and said the decision was overdue considering the fall of oil prices worldwide. However, the CIA and NGOs, many aligned with George Soros’s Open Society Institute and the U.S. National Endowment for Democracy are planning large street demonstrations against Chavez’s handling of the economy.

National Assembly elections are scheduled for September but the Obama administration has decided that if Chavez can be removed now, his allies in Bolivia, Ecuador, Nicaragua, Paraguay, and some Caribbean island states will quickly abandon Chavez’s alternative to American-led Western Hemisphere financial contrivances and free trade pacts, the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas (ALBA).

The Obama planners then see Cuba, once again, being isolated in the hemisphere and ripe for increased U.S. political pressure. Cuba was placed on the list of 14 countries requiring additional airline passenger screening as part of the policy to pressure and isolate Cuba. There is a possibility that with the outbreak of U.S.-inspired violence in the streets of Venezuela, that nation could join Cuba on the list as the 15th country.

The Obama administration’s assault is two-fold: economic and political. Pressure is being applied against the gasoline chain Citgo, which is owned by the Venezuelan state oil company, PDVSA, and Venezuelan investment favorability ratings. Politically, the U.S. is overtly and covertly funneling money to anti-Chavez groups through the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), and groups affiliated with George Soros.

There is also a small military component to Obama’s strategy of undermining Chavez. U.S., P-3 Orion overflights of Venezuelan airspace from bases in Aruba and Curacao are designed to intimidate Chavez and activate Venezuelan radar and command, control, communications, and intelligence (C3I) systems to gather electronic and signals intelligence data that would be used by the United States to jam Venezuelan military networks in the event of a U.S.-inspired uprising against Chavez by U.S. loyalists embedded in the Venezuelan military, police, PDVSA, and media. The U.S. is also stoking cross-border incursions into Venezuela by Colombian paramilitaries to gauge Venezuela’s border defenses. Last November, Colombian right-wing paramilitary units killed two Venezuelan National Guardsmen inside Venezuela in Tachira state. Weapons caches maintained by Colombians inside Venezuela have been seized by Venezuelan authorities. Venezuela has also arrested a number of Colombian DAS intelligence agents inside Venezuela.

Obama signed a military agreement with Colombia that allows the United States to establish seven air and naval bases in Colombia. An additional agreement by Obama with Panama will see the U.S. military return to that nation to set up two military bases.

It is estimated that some 25 percent of Venezuelans are likely Fifth Columnists who would take part in a revolt against Chavez. Many of them based in the Venezuelan oil-producing state of Zulia and the capital of Maracaibo, where successive U.S. ambassadors in Caracas have stoked secessionist embers and where the CIA and U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency have concentrated much of their efforts. In November, Venezuelan police arrested in Maracaibo, Magaly Janeth Moreno Vega, also known as “The Pearl,” the leader of the right-wing United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC), which has been directly linked to Colombia’s pro-U.S. President Alvaro Uribe and members of his government, including former Colombian Attorney General Luis Camilo Osorio Isaza, appointed by Uribe as Colombia’s ambassador to Mexico.

http://onlinejournal.com/artman/publish/article_5489.shtml
 
Re: Obama authorizes covert economic war against Venezuela

Obama is being made into somebodies bitch made punk.
 
Re: Obama authorizes covert economic war against Venezuela

Obama is being made into somebodies bitch made punk.
 
Re: What's in a handshake ?

QueEx said:
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<center>
Chavez: Smiles, handshakes don't
change view of 'imperialist' U.S.</font size></center>


Friday, April 24, 2009
Click to expand...

<font size="5"><center>
Hugo Chavez launches
New Year war against USA</font size></center>


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December 3o, 2010


Hugo Chavez has launched a "New Year's War" against the U.S. He delivered a new portion of angry statements against Washington, and refused to allow a new U.S. Ambassador Larry Palmer into his country even at the cost of a possible breach of the diplomatic relations.

The dispute over Palmer's candidacy emerged last summer. Then, the former U.S. ambassador Patrick Duddy had left Caracas due to the expiration of his stay in Venezuela. However, the new appointment has not taken place.
Chavez did not like the statement of Larry Palmer that the morale of Venezuela's army is low, and that the ideology of the country is increasingly more influenced by the socialist Cuba. Finally, Palmer said that Venezuela hosted "terrorist bases" of the "Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia" (FARC), which Caracas has always denied.

Chavez called on to replace him with another diplomat. However, the U.S. State Department refused. In addition, the U.S. threatened to Venezuela that a refusal to accept the ambassador may cause further deterioration of already uneasy bilateral relations.

However, Hugo did not get scared. "We have refused to recognize this gentleman (Palmer), and now the U.S. government has threatened retaliatory measures. If they want to kick out our ambassador, let them do it! If they want to break off diplomatic relations, let them do it. To arrive here, the ambassador has to respect the country. That would be a shame if I allowed this man to come to Venezuela," said Chavez.

Lately, the Americans also allowed themselves undiplomatic remarks against Venezuela. They were not happy about the fact that on December 17 the Venezuelan Parliament granted Chavez additional powers to enact laws and bypass the Parliament itself. Chavez took advantage of it enough to anger Washington.

In particular, he created 10 special military districts, many of which are located on the border with Colombia, the main U.S. ally in the region. Others are located on the territory of Venezuela, in the provinces headed by the opposition. In this decision by Chavez Washington saw the pressure on its opponents.

The U.S. does not like his other laws aimed at strengthening of the supervision of the universities and cutting off the channels of financing of non-governmental organizations from abroad. As we know, thanks to such grants the Americans have nurtured "color revolutions" around the world.

The relationship between the U.S. and Venezuela has changed dramatically with the coming of Hugo Chavez to power in Caracas. But now we are talking about the threat of the break of the diplomatic relations, which is equivalent to a state of war.

Boris Martynov, Deputy Director of the Institute of Latin American Countries, commented on the situation for Pravda.ru.

- Is Chavez really, not just in words, ready to challenge the U.S.?

"This does not mean that he intends to break up the relations with the United States, knowing the dependence of Venezuela on oil exports. Chavez's words about a possible breakup is a puppet theater, a one-man show.

Realizing that he starts losing the ground, he turns to the means available to stir up the people, which is anti-Americanism. I foresee that in the near future, the verbal rhetoric of Chavez aimed at mobilizing his voters will only increase.

<SPAN style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffff00">His statements are due to the deterioration of the situation in the country.</span>

  • First, after the elections to the Parliament where the opposition is stronger, it became clear that it has ceased to be a toy in Hugo's hands.

  • Second, he has wasted the enormous proceeds from oil sales to support friendly regimes and his economic platform is rather shaky.


- Why did the U.S. take such an uncompromising position?


"The Americans are not going to give in; otherwise it would mean losing their face. This is important especially now, when the U.S. has made so many mistakes in terms of Latin America. If we take into account Palmer's harsh statements, it is not surprising. The U.S. is now going to recover its lost position in Latin America that it considers its back yard if not fully, then at least partially.

Even the "peacemaker" Obama who also made some mistakes in terms of the policy towards seemingly strategic direction to the south of the Rio Grande makes statements of this kind.

Yet, most Latin Americans disagree. They believe that they do not need directions on how to live their lives, as they are capable of choosing the most appropriate way. You do not teach Asian tigers how they should live, do you?​


- What is the future of Chavez's regime?


<SPAN style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffff00">"The prospects of Hugo, frankly, are not that great.</span>

  • He will not make any concessions to the opposition, knowing that it would mean the loss of power.

  • He will not be able to influence the situation without the crackdown.

  • He simply does not have the economic leverage to do it.

He has the last resort - the <SPAN style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffff00">dictatorship</span> in the full sense of this word, without appealing to democratic institutions like parliament and all sorts of elections. This is the short term perspective.

Yet, <SPAN style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffff00">if you look into the distant future, Chavez is unlikely to keep his place long enough.</span> It does not have to do so much with the U.S. tricks, but with the actions of Chavez, which led to a sharp deterioration in the economic situation in the country."​

http://english.pravda.ru/world/americas/30-12-2010/116404-chavez_usa-0/




POSTER'S NOTE: <font size="1">Pravdahttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pravda (Russian: Правда, "Truth", was a leading newspaper of the Soviet Union and an official organ of the Central Committee of the Communist Party between 1912 and 1991.

The Pravda newspaper was started in 1912 in St. Petersburg. It was converted from a weekly Zvezda. It did not arrive in Moscow until 1918. During the Cold War, Pravda was well known in the West for its pronouncements as the official voice of Soviet Communism. (Similarly Izvestia was the official voice of the Soviet government.)

After the paper was closed down in 1991 by decree of then-President Boris Yeltsin, many of the staff founded a new paper with the same name, which is now a tabloid-style Russian news source. There is an unaffiliated Internet-based newspaper, Pravda Online run by former Pravda newspaper employees. A number of other newspapers have also been called Pravda, most notably Komsomolskaya Pravda, formerly the official newspaper of the now defunct Komsomol and currently the best-selling tabloid in Russia.</font size>
 
Re: What's in a handshake ?

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Yesterday Hugo Chavez refused to allow a new U.S. Ambassador, Larry Palmer, into his country, even at the cost of a possible breach of the diplomatic relations.

A day later, the US revoked the visa of Bernardo Alvarez Herrera, the Venezuelan ambassador, blocking him from returning to Washington. PJ Crowley, the State Department spokesman, said that "appropriate, proportional and reciprocal action" had been taken.

State Department officials acknowledged difficulties in US relations with Venezuela. "We believe it's in our national interest to have an ambassador in Caracas so that we can candidly express our views and engage with the government of Venezuela," said Mark Toner, another spokesman.

"There are tensions in the relationship, and it's precisely because of that that we feel that it's important to have appropriate diplomatic relations."

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