Some alarming news from the Washington Post:
Russia delivered at least 1,800 shoulder-fired antiaircraft missiles to Venezuela in 2009, U.N. arms control data show, despite vigorous U.S. efforts to stop President Hugo Chavez’s stridently anti-American government from acquiring the weapons.
The United States feared that the missiles could be funneled to Marxist guerrillas fighting Colombia’s pro-American government or Mexican drug cartels, concerns expressed in U.S. diplomatic cables obtained by WikiLeaks and first reported in the Spanish newspaper El Pais…
Chavez has many unsavory connections and while he appears a clown, he is a growing threat to the liberty and stability of south and central America. The missiles, in question, can shoot down jets at 19,000 feet – in the hands of drug cartels or Islamist terrorists such weapons have the capability of paralyzing air transport in the Americas…just a few jets downed by such weapons would pretty much do the trick.
What Russia is up to is clear – Putin, imagining that Russia is still a Great Power, is trying to tweak our nose. For Putin, this is payback, as he sees it, for our defense of Poland and other nations once in the Russian orbit. Chavez is useful in this asinine Russian policy. Unfortunately, unless we want to go to war with Russia, there’s not much we can do to stop Putin from sending arms to Chavez. So, our task becomes one of getting rid of Chavez.
As the Venezuelan economy falls further and further in to socialist poverty our ability to separate Chavez from the people of Venezuela will grow. Every bit of pressure which can be applied should be applied – including, and most especially, disrupting Venezuela’s ability to sell oil. The oil, of course, is all Chavez has really got – its how he pays his goon squads and how he buys the weapons. Cut in to that and we greatly diminish his power, as well as tip Venezuela in to acute economic crisis, thus putting more domestic pressure on Chavez’ regime.
In 2010, we can’t afford an insane, heavily armed dictatorship in South America. We’ve got enough problems in the world and we’ve allowed the Chavez problem to fester long enough.
Blogs For Victory 