Venezuela Watch 11/25/05

From Melena Zyla Vickers and Tech Central Station: Venezuela's Worrisome Export: Revolution

If all there was to the Venezuelan president was his backward socialist views, Chavez wouldn't be such a problem. He'd just be a hypocrite whose government enriches itself on highly globalized, state-controlled oil revenues, while he denies the region's privately owned businesses the same opportunity.

The trouble is, Chavez is about much more than hypocrisy. He's become an exporter of revolution, a socialist authoritarian with a Fidel Castro-style agenda to destabilize the region and with oil dollars to finance his ambitions.

Consider how his government takes advantage of Venezuela's oil wealth. When an American driver fills up at the local Citgo station, those gas dollars go from American wallets into Chavez's governing pockets -- after all, his government controls Citgo. From Venezuelan coffers, the money goes to fund leftist narco-insurgencies in Colombia, Ecuador, and other Latin American countries -- insurgencies the U.S. soldiers and U.S. taxpayers have expended great resources to tamp down.

Leftist guerrillas from eight Latin American countries have received training at Venezuelan military bases this year, according to an Ecuadorian intelligence report revealed in a Quito newspaper earlier this month. El Presidente Chavez of course denies the charges. But his recent vows to create a regional, anti-American leftist front, his alliance with Fidel Castro's Cuba, his rising military expenditures and persistent reports that weapons disappear from the Venezuelan military into the hands of regional leftist rebels, make the charges all the more believable. (emphasis added - ed.)

Read the rest of the story for details. Perhaps we should fulfil his paranoid prophecies of an invasion. Just kidding. We should, however, require Citgo to register as a foreign agent. Information on how Chavez's oil manipulation harms Caribbean countries will follow. Please read this to learn of his willingness to use open military aggression. (hat tip to Barcepundit.)