Kidnap Hugo Chavez?
I noted this at a message board I wander across:
On the August 24 edition of the 700 Club, Robertson claimed he wasn’t actually calling for Chavez’ assassination, but that there were other ways of “taking him out,” such as… KIDNAPPING!
Yes, you got that correct, He now suggested that we might want to KIDNAP a foriegn president! That’s two strikes, as both kidnapping and assassinations are TERRORIST ACTS!
The US government would NEVER kidnap a foreign leader. That’s just insane!!
US officials are dismissing allegations that US troops forced Jean-Bertrand Aristide to leave Haiti.
Secretary of State Colin Powell says the claim is absurd. White House spokesman Scott McClellan calls it “nonsense.” He says Aristide left on his own free will — and that US troops were there to protect him.
But Congresswoman Maxine Waters of California says she got a phone call today from Aristide and his wife, who are now in the Central African Republic. She tells CNN that the Aristides claim US officials forced them to get on a plane — and that they now feel as if they’re being held as prisoners.
African-American activist Randall Robinson says he got a similar call from Aristide — who said he’d been ousted in a coup and abducted by US soldiers.
A good rule of thumb is that a foreign leader does not “meekly step down” to a popular uprising uplifting a new government whose pocket of popular support does not really follow. (I know I mentioned it on my blog at the time… here it is.) (The story template for the American backed-coup never changes. Go back and read the New York Times articles on the Monarchist Uprisings Bringing to Power the Shah in Iran. And the small story laughing at Pravda for the ludricous notion that this was a US backed coup.)
I noted this story here… which seems to either lose something in translation or is written partly in Aesopian parable. See… Chavez recently threatened the US with $10 gas prices. Which suggests why Pat Robertson is full of it: the US government cannot kidnap Hugo Chavez, because the storyline of “meekly resigning” does not fit into his personality. The government is just going to have to assassinate him.
Actually, I find this paragraph hilarious:
Chavez asserted that there has never been an empire more brutal, more cruel, more cynical, more savage, more hypocritical, and more dangerous than the one led by his counterpart, George Bush. He said that “Mr. Danger,” like all other U.S. presidents, is not a person but an imperial system of hegemony that personifies within himself all other names and figures.
Mr. Danger is not a person but an imperial system of hegemony that personifies within himself all other names and figures.
Mr. Danger is not a person but an imperial system of hegemony that personifies within himself all other names and figures.
Hm.
I note some more news on the Hugo Chavez front. He’s now offering the US some assistance in fighting poverty:
Chavez said that some citizens of that country could be enrolled in the medical program of Cuba, and he even spoke of offering a special program of direct gasoline assistance to poor communities.
“The level of poverty in the United States also worries us. We offer not only to cover 6 million people with medical care over the next ten years, but to train over 200,000 doctors over the 10 years. We will put them back into the program,” he said.
“Venezuela is also offering energy aid. We could assist some poor communities by selling them gasoline directly. If we sell directly they could save a lot of money. If you are going to New York or San Francisco, the price of a barrel of Venezuelan gasoline is $80. That is almost double the price at which it leaves us, because intermediaries speculate and raise the price. We are prepared to help poor communities with doctors but also with fuel.”