Crazy "warmonger" Chávez proved wrong again…

“It is cynical of Colombia to say that Chávez has a bellicose attitude. It is time to put our feet on the ground and realize what are the true intentions of the United States and their interference in the peoples of Latin America,” D’Escoto said.

There is a dictatorship in the United States, and a demonstration of it is the politics of the Obama government, which promised change during the presidential campaign, which it has not brought about, according to D’Escoto, a Catholic priest and former Sandinista foreign minister from Nicaragua.

“President Obama is well aware of what will happen to him if he follows the route of ‘change’ he promised,” D’Escoto said.

You will not hear those words from His Barackness, of course, or even from Hillary Clinton herself, but from the lower-level flunkies–sorry, “specialists” and “spokespersons”. (I almost wrote “spookspersons”, and I’m sure that slip was not just of my fast typing fingers, but of a Freudian nature. Heh, heh.)

It’s very tempting to think that a guy who promises hope ‘n’ change will actually follow through when it comes to LatAm, but I would never bet on it. Every successive US administration for over a century has done nothing there but deepen and further the capitalist exploitation. They will never get the message that it’s time to start treating the locals with respect and dignity; that it’s time to start talking to them as equals; that it’s time to negotiate in good faith, not with the old ever-failing “carrot and stick” approach.

It’s certainly not for lack of trying on the part of sovereign governments; every reasonable approach they’ve taken to initiating dialogue has been studiously ignored and even flat-out

And if you think that’s bad, remember–Dubya had no time for the ‘Cito whatsoever. He did, however, have time for this chirpy chupacabra of the opposition, named María Corina Machado:

Telegenic Venezuelan oligarch Machado had no difficulty getting an audience with GWB.

See what I mean by insult?

Anyhow. Anyone with an eye can see that it’s not about drugs at all. Colombia is, as Chavecito says, not sovereign. How can it be, when its own president is deeply enmeshed with the right-wing paramilitaries and known even to the State Dept. as an old friend of the late drug lord Pablo Escobar? Does anyone seriously believe that this cat has changed his stripes?

And another thing: Who seriously believes that the gringos are going to take orders from Colombia? US militaries take orders only from their higher-ups in Washington. They’re not under the command of Bogotá. These guys are there as intermediaries between the Pentagon and the Colombian army. It will be Colombia co-operating with Washington, not the other way around.

And suddenly, it makes all the sense in the world that Chavecito’s bombing bridges being used by Colombian smugglers and paramilitaries to sneak into Venezuela. It also makes sense that he’s calling on soldiers and civilians alike to be vigilant against Colombian incursions on Venezuelan soil. It makes sense that he would reject “mediation” by the US in the alleged dispute with Colombia (this dispute is not with Colombia, it’s with the US!) And it makes sense that he’s mulling a law to make it possible for the Venezuelan military to shoot down any aircraft known to belong to Colombian drug smugglers. This isn’t bellicosity; it’s prudence. It’s also an exercise in national self-defence and sovereignty. And it’s something that no foreigner has any right to criticize, much less mischaracterize as Washington has been doing–just as much by crapaganda hacks of the Obama administration as by those of its predecessors.

The pattern is already clear in how they’re treating the Honduras coup–Obama is no better than Bush where LatAm is concerned.

In other words: Damn that crazy Chavecito, he’s right again!