. SouthAmerica: Here is an article from a British newspaper, explaining the US position regarding Hugo Chavez. ****** The Independent - UK Published: 25 August 2005 âVenezuela: revolutionaries and a country on the edgeâ Venezuelans were hardly surprised by an American preacher's call to kill their President. After all, the US funded a coup attempt against him By Johann Hari Venezuela is living in the shadow of the other 11 September. In 1972, on a day synonymous with death, Salvador Allende - the democratically elected left-wing President of Chile - was bombed and blasted from power. The CIA and the US Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger, had decided the "irresponsibility" of the Chilean people at the ballot box needed to be "rectified" - so they installed a fascist general, Augusto Pinochet. He "disappeared" at least 3,000 people and tortured 27,000 more as he clung to power right up to 1990. Since the Venezuelans elected Hugo Chavez, their own left-wing democrat, in a 1998 landslide, they have been waiting for their 11 September. That's why it did not surprise anyone here this week when Pat Robertson - one of America's leading evangelicals and a friend of George W. Bush - openly called for a US-backed murder of their President. In the four corners of the Plaza Bolivar - Caracas's Trafalgar Square - there are groups of citizens who work in shifts, waiting, permanently waiting, to mobilise for when an attack on Chavez happens. They are known as the "hot corners", and everybody in the city knows to head there if there is an attack on Venezuela's elected leader. Laydez Primera, 34, has been doing an eight-hour shift. He explains: " Los esqualidos [the squalid ones, as the opposition is often called] and Bush have tried everything to get rid of Chavez. They know we have elected him in totally open elections, but they don't care. They have tried forcing a recall referendum in the middle of Chavez's term, but the President won by 60 per cent. They have tried saying the elections were rigged, but the opposition asked Jimmy Carter to come and watch the elections, and he said they were totally free. He didn't say that about the election of Bush in Florida! And they even tried staging a coup. We will never, never forget that." The coup, the coup. Everybody here has their stories about the 2002 coup d'état, and the strange 47-hour Presidency of Pedro Carmona Estanga, the head of Venezuela's equivalent of the Confederation of British Industry. (Pat Robertson's call caused a cascade of memories to burst across the streets of Caracas.) That April, Chavez was kidnapped and removed from power in a decapitation of democracy orchestrated by the media, a few generals and the wealthy. Carmona dissolved the Supreme Court, the Constitution and the elected National Assembly and assumed control of the country. This was immediately welcomed by the Bush administration. Washington was eager to ensure the largest pot of oil outside the Middle East - providing 10 per cent of US domestic imports - was placed back under the control of US corporations, rather than a left-winger with his own ideas about oil revenue. It later emerged the US had been funding the coup leaders. Only the story didn't end there. Venezuela refused to be Chile. Judith Patino, a 57-year-old grandmother and street-seller who lives in one of the shanty-towns in the west of Caracas, explains: "We would not let our democracy be destroyed. We refused. Everybody from this barrio [district], everybody from all the barrios, went on to the streets of Caracas. We were afraid, we thought there would be massacres, but we had chosen our President and we were governing our own country and we would not surrender." More than a million people took to the streets, surrounding the Miraflores Palace - the President's residence - and calling for Chavez to return. Los Esqualidos scurried away; Chavez returned to the Miraflores by helicopter, and Caracas erupted into what one young woman told me was "the biggest, maddest party Venezuela has ever seen". Yet, three years on, the country is still split. There is the rich 20 per cent, who for more than a century received all the oil profits - until Chavez came to power and began to distribute them more widely. They welcomed the coup and rejoiced at Robertson's comments. And, glaring at them across a chasm of incomprehension, there is the poor 80 per cent, who defended Chavez. A taxi ride across Caracas shows how small the physical divide is between these Two Venezuelas, the conflicting mental universes that share a country. Santa Fe, in the east of the city, could be a slice of Beverley Hills. Palatial, gated communities stretch along the hillsides, interrupted only by private golf courses and turrets for security guards. I am surprised to spot one of the battered, chugging public buses, which always seem to be held together by Sellotape and goodwill. "For their servants," the taxi driver explains. The bus carries them 15 minutes away to the barrio shanty-towns that could be a slice of Africa. Many are squatter barrios, thrown together in the rush migration to the cities over the past 50 years. Houses made of tin and cardboard scar the hillsides, with life somehow flourishing in the crevices. Is this steel shack really a hairdresser's salon? Is that tottering mass of concrete really a clothes shop? It is easy to see why the people of the barrios support Chavez so passionately: I visited dozens of the "missions" built by Chavez that provide health and education for the poor, in some places for the first time. The Miracle Mission, for example, provides cataract operations, restoring the sight of poor people who have been blind for decades. They would have never seen again under the opposition's vision of slashed public spending and oil revenues directed once again to the rich. If democracy was destroyed, these missions - the lifelines for the barrios - would soon disappear. â¦But you would not know - from what the opposition says in every Venezuelan newspaper, or from the propaganda of Pat Robertson - that Venezuelan elections are open and fair, that Chavez has been approved in polls or referenda no less than seven times, and there is more substantial free speech than in Britain. In Venezuela, people can (and, every night, do) call on television for the President to be killed. Indeed, Chavez has been so reluctant to commit a crackdown that the leaders of the coup are still free and unpunished. Venezuelans are still nervously waiting for them to return, in the form of another coup - or a CIA bullet. At 2am on one of Caracas's party-heavy mornings, I head again for Plaza Bolivar's hot corners, below the parrots that sit in the trees. I ask Zaid Cortez, 27, what will happen if Chavez is assassinated. "Venezuela will never go back to being governed by Los esqualidos. We won't go back to being a country where the petrol money is used for a minority and not for the barrios. So what will happen if Chavez is killed? Civil war. We are ready." The country, and its oil * Result of presidential election in 1998: 56.2 per cent for Chavez * General strikes in 2002: four * Result of 2004 referendum on whether Chavez should stay in power: 58.3 per cent vote in his favour * Highest popularity rating: 80 per cent * Lowest rating: 30 per cent * Covert aid from the US to the Venezuelan opposition since Chavez came to power: $4m * Population: 25.4 million * Foreign debt: $33.3bn (£19bn) * Unemployment: 17 per cent * Amount spent by Chavez on social sector: $2bn * Proportion of country's earnings from oil sector: 80 per cent * Chavez on oil executives: They live in luxury chalets "where they perform orgies, drinking whisky" * Proportion of US oil imports from Venezuela: 10 per cent * Proportion of Venezuelans on poverty line: 47 per cent * Total Venezuelan oil production: 2.6 million barrels per day * Total Venezuelan oil exports: 2.1 million barrels per day * Number of free barrels given to Fidel Castro: 90,000 per day * Cuban professionals working in Venezuela: 25,000 * Its greatest hero: Simon Bolivar, who liberated much of Latin America from Spain. He was born in Caracas in 1783 .
. December 13, 2005 SouthAmerica: The United States is losing its influence in South America â one country at the time. I am not surprised!!!! Can all these South American countries be wrong regarding the United States policies on the region? ****** AP â Associated Press â December 12, 2005 âBolivian Could Be a 'Nightmare' for U.S.â By FIONA SMITH, Associated Press Writer CARACOLLO, Bolivia - As a little boy in Bolivia's bleak highlands, Evo Morales used to run behind buses to pick up the orange skins and banana peels passengers threw out the windows. Sometimes, he says, it was all he had to eat. Now, holding the lead ahead of Sunday's presidential election, he's threatening to be "a nightmare for the government of the United States." It's not hard to see why. The 46-year-old candidate is a staunch leftist who counts Cuba's Fidel Castro and Venezuela's Hugo Chavez among his close friends. Moreover, he's a coca farmer, promising to reverse the U.S.-backed campaign to stamp out production of the leaf that is used to make cocaine. With his Aymara Indian blood and a hatred for the free-market doctrines known to Latin Americans as neo-liberalism, Morales in power would not only shake up Bolivia's political elite, but strengthen the leftward tide rippling across South America. "Something historic is happening in Bolivia," Morales told The Associated Press in an interview. "The most scorned, hated, humiliated sector now has the capacity to organize." At a recent campaign stop in the western highland town of Caracollo, Morales and members of his Movement Toward Socialism party were mobbed by crowds who kissed them, showered them with confetti and draped necklaces of flowers and fruit around their necks. The Movement Toward Socialism "represents not only hope for the Bolivian people, but also a nightmare for the government of the United States," Morales told the supporters. "I have no fear in saying â and saying loudly â that we're not just anti-neo-liberal, we're anti-imperialist in our blood." Morales, whose leather key chain sports a portrait of communist revolutionary Che Guevara, has already been involved in toppling two presidents, has come close to winning the presidency once before, and is now running strong against conservative former President Jorge Quiroga and several other candidates. If no one wins an outright majority on Sunday, Congress will choose between the top two vote-getters in mid-January. The latest poll by Ipsos-Captura shows Morales with 32.8 percent, five percentage points above Quiroga, and gives a margin of error of two percentage points. "Symbolically, he would represent a fundamental change," said Jimena Costa, a political science professor at Bolivia's Universidad Mayor de San Andres. "It's not just the first time an Indian would win the presidential elections, but he would be doing it with the support of a sector of the white and mestizo community and urban populations." Morales has been a problem for Washington since he rose to prominence in the 1990s as the leader of the cocaleros, or coca farmers, in Bolivia's tropical Chapare region, leading their often violent resistance to U.S.-backed coca eradication efforts. While the U.S. government insists that much of the Chapare's coca becomes cocaine, farmers say they supply a legal market. Coca leaves are sold in supermarkets and can be chewed, brewed for tea, and used in religious ceremonies. During the last presidential election, then U.S. Ambassador Manuel Rocha criticized Morales, only to see him shoot up in the polls. This time Washington has kept silent, though a statement two weeks ago by the present ambassador, David Greenlee, urging Bolivia not to change course on coca, was widely interpreted as a jab at Morales. "I hope there aren't changes, because if there are changes for the worse, the country that's going to suffer is Bolivia," Greenlee told anti-drug rally in El Alto, a slum city next to La Paz. Morales, more comfortable in black Wrangler jeans and sneakers than suit and tie, still maintains coca fields and pledges an international campaign to legalize the leaf and industrialize its production. He insists he will fight drug trafficking, but maintains that the plant has been wrongly maligned in the world's mind. As a boy, Morales' family struggled to survive. Of seven children, Evo was among only three who made it past infancy. He helped herd the family's llamas and harvest their potatoes, played trumpet in a traveling band and dropped out of high school. When he was 19 the family joined the highland migration to low-lying Chapare in the southeast. There he became a cocalero and in 1993 was elected president of the local coca farmers' federation. Meanwhile, the nation of 8.5 million was emerging from decades of coups and dictatorships and joining the spread of democracy across the continent. Morales founded the Movement Toward Socialism in 1995, was later elected to congress, and in 2002 narrowly lost the presidential race to Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada. The free market policies that have failed to pull Bolivians out of poverty, coupled with the conflict over how best to exploit the continent's second largest natural gas reserves, has empowered the country's poor Indians to demand change. Morales became an important figure in waves of protest that brought down Sanchez de Lozada in 2003 and his successor, Carlos Mesa, in June. .
. December 19, 2005 SouthAmerica: The United States influence is South America is declining by the day. Here is another example of what is happening all over South America. ***** December 19, 2005 Mail & Guardian â South Africa 'Evo' vows to help poorest of South America's poor Raul Burgoa - La Paz, Bolivia Evo Morales, Bolivia's president-elect, wears sneakers but never a jacket and tie. And that is not the only aspect about the fiery left-winger that is going to shock the world. Bolivia's first native Indian president, who is simply known as "Evo" across the country, wants to rein-in United States influence and end restrictions on the coca crop that he made his life from before entering politics. Morales (46) said South America's poorest country had entered a new era after his main opponent conceded defeat in Sunday's presidential election. He has vowed to increase state control of Bolivia's oil and gas industry as a way to distribute wealth. Morales says his country is in need of drastic change. "For a handful of people there is money, for the others, repression," he says repeatedly. The poverty of his own upbringing has marked much of his politics. The son of both Aymara and Quechua indigenous parents, Morales was born on October 29, 1959 in the mining region of Orinoca, high in the Andes mountains. His family was so poor that four of his six siblings died before reaching the age of two. Morales dropped out of high school and left home in the early 1980s as the region was struck by a drought and a collapse of the mining industry. With many indigenous highlanders he left to start a farm in the Chapare region where many raised coca, the source plant for cocaine. To survive Morales took on odd jobs, including work as a traveling musician and a football player. With that background he became sports secretary of the Chapare coca producers guild. Soon he was the leader of about 30 000 poor families linked to farming coca plants. Coca has been cultivated in the Andes for thousands of years, used mainly for medicinal and religious purposes. But cultivation boomed in the 1980s with the growth of the international drug trafficking trade, and especially with the growth of the Colombian drug cartels. In the 1990s the US government pumped millions of dollars into efforts to eradicate coca production. Coca farmers and US-funded anti-drug police clashed frequently. Morales, a popular leader of the farmers, was elected to Congress in 1997 representing the region. In 2002 he ran for the presidency at the head of his Movement Towards Socialism (MAS) party. He came just two points behind conservative Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada, who became president. In October 2003 Morales led mass protests that led to Sanchez de Lozada's resignation over the future of the natural gas industry that is one of the bright spots in South America's poorest country. In his final campaign rally in La Paz, Morales vowed to a delirious crowd of 10 000 supporters to "re-found Bolivia" and end "the colonial state" -- the division between native Indians and the mainly European-descended settlers -- that has ruled since Bolivia's independence from Spain in 1824. Morales started the polls six months ago with just 12% voter support but scored more than 51% in the election, according to exit polls. But he has detractors in the protest movement. Felipe Quispe, an indigenous Aymara leader and one-time classmate, said that Morales was not up to the president's job. And if he does not nationalise the oil and gas industry "we indigenous will throw him out with even more anger", Quispe said. The United States has also closely watched the election. Morales has said he is willing to speak to US officials. "Dialogue is always open, but we need diplomatic relations, not submission or subordination," he said. .
. December 26, 2005 SouthAmerica: The United States influence in South America is declining by the day. Evo Morales is a strong critic of free-market economics, and his election win was the latest in a string of leftist victories in South American nations disenchanted with ruling elites, endemic corruption and chronic poverty. And there are many more anti-American elections to come in the coming months in other South American countries. ****** âQuestions Linger About New Bolivia Leaderâ By FIONA SMITH, Associated Press Writer AP â Associated Press â December 25, 2005 LA PAZ, Bolivia - His idea of formal wear is a brown leather jacket over an open-collared shirt. He is more at home leading street protests than wrangling deals in the corridors of power. His fiery speaking style leaves no room for prepared texts. Evo Morales assumes Bolivia's presidency Jan. 22 as an extreme outsider to the country's politics, and as the first Indian president to rule an Andean nation that has always been governed by people of European descent. His triumph is causing concern in Washington because of his promises to reverse the U.S.-backed campaign to end the growing of coca leaf, which is used to make cocaine, and to nationalize Bolivia's gas and oil reserves. Counting Cuba's Fidel Castro among his allies, he also is a strong critic of free-market economics, and his election win was the latest in a string of leftist victories in South American nations disenchanted with ruling elites, endemic corruption and chronic poverty. But the maverick style and street activism that helped the 46-year-old Morales connect with the country's poor Indian majority could prove a liability once he takes office. "Evo Morales is an unpredictable politician," said Henry Oporto, a Bolivian political analyst. "He is a person who can say unexpected things without weighing the consequences. Unfortunately, I don't think that is going to help him in his role as president." While results from congressional voting have not been announced, calculations by polling companies predict Morales' supporters will have a slim majority in one house and a near tie in their other. That means he won't have the two-thirds majority needed to pass major reforms and he will have to bargain with other parties to advance his radical agenda. After his surprisingly easy victory in the Dec. 17 election â his 54 percent of the vote was the most popular support for a presidential candidate since democracy was restored two decades ago â Morales acknowledged being "a little nervous." As president he will be faced with easing the social and political strife of a country that has seen more than 200 coups, countercoups and street rebellions in 180 years of independence. Morales led Indian protests that ousted two presidents since 2003 using highway blockades and mass demonstrations. Now, thanks to the same angry groundswell, he will be on the inside, where any misstep could lead to the same kinds of street protests. "It's still a big question how he's going to govern. Clearly if he wants to be a successful president, he doesn't want the same fate as some of his predecessors," said Michael Shifter, a Latin American expert at Inter-American Dialogue, a think tank in Washington. How he will govern is anyone's guess. At this point, even whether he'll wear a tie to his inauguration remains a mystery. "We don't know," said Alex Contreras, a close Morales adviser who heads the transition commission for protocol. An Aymara Indian who grew up in poverty herding llamas and raising potatoes in Bolivia's arid highlands, Morales migrated as a youth to the coca-growing region of Chapare, where many poor farmers depend on small plots of the crop to provide a livelihood for their families. With an 11th grade education, the coca farmer emerged as an astute organizer able to harness the anger of the poor and flex their political muscle in the streets. Given the new president's strong electoral mandate, Bolivia's 8.5 million people are putting their hopes on his shoulders, and analysts say his opponents will be under pressure to deal with him. That also will leave him no one else to blame for failures. "It is precisely the magnitude of his victory that places on him a much greater responsibility because he will practically have no opposition," said Cayetano Llobet, a Bolivian political analyst. Morales, who promised during his campaign to be Washington's "worst nightmare," already appears to be moderating his rhetoric. In an interview with The Associated Press a week ago, he attributed his support to the desire of Bolivians to rebel against "the empire," referring to the U.S. government. Later in the interview, however, he said he was open to dialogue with Washington and will try "diplomacy with any country." On his Web site he once wrote, "Thanks to coca, we've made it through the endless suffering caused by the white man's infamous war on drugs." But in recent statements he has said that while he supports the growing of coca for traditional uses â such as coca tea and medicinal purposes â he opposes cocaine trafficking. Seeking to calm worries of some voters who didn't support him, he tapped a middle class intellectual to be his vice president, Alvaro Garcia Linera. Morales also says he plans to strengthen relations with state-owned foreign energy companies as he seeks to assert ownership over Bolivia's large natural gas reserves. He has assured the business community his government will not confiscate energy company assets and will respect private property rights. Still, Morales, who contends two decades of free-market policies have worsened life for Bolivia's poor, said Friday that his government will "change the economic model." He offered no details, but Garcia Linera said Saturday that one aspect would be a new tax on the wealthy. "A Bolivian political cycle has ended," said Llobet, the analyst. "Another one is beginning. Exactly what will be the characteristics of this new political cycle, it's too early to say." .
. âChavez attacks U.S. halt on Spanish plane dealâ Reuters - Fri Jan 13, 2006 7:15 PM ET By Patrick Markey CARACAS, Venezuela (Reuters) - President Hugo Chavez on Friday blasted Washington for blocking Spain's sale of military aircraft to Venezuela and taunted the United States by speculating about what might happen if he stopped sending it oil. Washington said on Thursday it had refused an export license for Spain to sell 12 transport and maritime surveillance planes containing U.S. technology to Venezuela, the world's No. 5 oil exporter and a key U.S. energy supplier. Chavez, who often accuses Washington of trying to oust him, has antagonized the U.S. government with his campaign to counter U.S. trade proposals in Latin America. U.S. officials brand him a negative influence in the region. "What is this if not proof of the horrific imperialism Washington's government wants to impose on the world ... a new attack on Venezuela is just beginning," Chavez told parliament in a speech that lasted more than five hours. "After all the U.S. government has done to us, we still send them 1.5 million barrels of oil every day... what would happen if tomorrow I said no more oil tankers go to the US, how high would oil prices go?" he asked. Spain said on Friday it planned to go ahead with the sale of planes to Venezuela, using substitute technology, after the United States blocked the deal for the EADS-CASA aircraft with U.S. components. Chavez has weakened Venezuela's traditional alliance with Washington since his election in 1998. He has cut U.S. military cooperation and strengthened ties with South American neighbors and countries such as Iran, India and China. The fiery leader has repeatedly warned oil supplies could be threatened if the United States invaded Venezuela, which supplies about 15 percent of U.S. energy imports. U.S. officials dismiss such statements as ridiculous. Rich from soaring petroleum prices, Venezuela last year negotiated deals to buy weapons and military equipment from Spain, Russia and Brazil in an effort to overhaul its armed forces and beef up border defenses. Washington has said it worries that some of Venezuela's new weapons could fall into the hands of groups it says are terrorist, such as Colombia's Marxist FARC rebels. "We're concerned that this proposed sale of military equipment and components to Venezuela could contribute to destabilization in Latin America," U.S. State Department spokesman Sean McCormack told reporters. The aircraft are part of a $2 billion Spanish deal, signed in November, to supply Caracas with ships and planes. Venezuela has also purchased Russian military helicopters and 100,000 rifles and wants to buy Brazilian military training planes. Brazilian Foreign Minister Celso Amorim said on Wednesday his country saw signs Washington was trying to block the sale of the Brazilian-made military aircraft to Venezuela. (Additional reporting by Saul Hudson in Washington) .
. REUTERS âOliver Stone denies directing Venezuela coup filmâ By Hugh Bronstein Mon May 22, 2006 6:51pm ET CARACAS, Venezuela (Reuters) - Oscar-winning director Oliver Stone said on Monday that he was not directing a movie about the 2002 coup in Venezuela despite an announcement to the contrary by President Hugo Chavez. "Rumors that I am directing a film about the 2002 coup in Venezuela are untrue and unfounded," Stone said in a statement released by his publicist. On Sunday, leftist firebrand Chavez told the South American country that Stone was making a film about the short-lived coup that Chavez says was planned by United States Washington denies the charge. Relations between the United States and oil supplier Venezuela remain tense, particularly as Chavez cultivates alliances with U.S. foes like Iran and Cuba and blasts U.S. foreign policies as "imperialist domination." "So there will be a movie," Chavez said during his weekly television talk show. "Could it be that the government of the empire will try to prevent the filming of a movie about a coup that they themselves planned and carried out? Let's see if they can." Dissident military officers joined with opposition politicians to seize power in Venezuela on April 12, 2002, following reports Chavez had resigned. The power grab came after more than a dozen people were killed by gunmen during a huge opposition march. Chavez, insisting he never resigned, was returned to power by supporters and loyal troops two days later. The coup has been a recurring theme in Chavez's war of words with Washington, which portrays the Venezuelan leader as a menace to democracy. Stone won best directing Oscars for Vietnam War movies "Platoon" and "Born on the Fourth of July," and directed a 2003 documentary, "Comandante," about Cuban President Fidel Castro, a Chavez ally. ********** A Folha de Sao Paulo â May 22, 2006 âOliver Stone filmará golpe contra Hugo Chávezâ da Efe, em Caracas O diretor de cinema americano Oliver Stone e o produtor inglês John Daily rodarão um filme sobre o golpe que, em abril de 2002, derrubou durante 48 horas o presidente venezuelano, Hugo Chávez. Stone e Daily farão o anúncio durante a 59ª edição do Festival de Cannes, que acontece até 28 de maio, informou nesta segunda-feira a Agência Bolivariana de NotÃcias. O diretor acaba de filmar "World Trade Center", sobre o 11 de Setembro. O presidente da Venezuela se reuniu com Daily "há vários meses" em Caracas, para conversar sobre o filme que mostrará a tentativa de golpe de 11 de abril de 2002. "Não sei que nome darão ao filme sobre a Venezuela, mas é sobre o golpe de Estado. Será que o governo imperialista vai tentar impedir que se faça um filme sobre o golpe de Estado que eles planejaram e conduziram?", disse Chávez em seu programa de rádio e televisão transmitido aos domingos, chamado "Alô Presidente". Chávez acusa Washington de "estar por trás" do golpe de Estado de 2002 e de outros "planos desestabilizadores" contra seu Governo, o que a Casa Branca nega. "No ano que vem, um tremendo filme de Oliver Stone e John Daily sobre o golpe de Estado na Venezuela pode correr o mundo", disse o presidente venezuelano. Chávez voltou ao poder em 13 de abril de 2002, apoiado por um grupo de oficiais que defendeu a ordem constitucional e por milhares de cidadãos que foram à s ruas rejeitar o autoproclamado presidente do paÃs, o lÃder empresarial Pedro Carmona, exilado na Colômbia desde maio desse ano. .
Chavez is nationalizing some of the most beautiful farms in the country. He will move himself and his cronies into these places and claim it is helping him to make the country better for poor people. He misquotes the Bible in his speeches and practically makes himself out to be a form of Jesus in political disguise. There is little hope for a country with leadership like that. Marxism always involves wage and price controls and job protectionism and combined with nationalization of middle class and foreign holdings..... faggetaboutit.
Chavez is supporting guerilla/drug rebels who are trying to take over Colombia. Sooner or later we will have to take a stand on that or see Colombia taken over. Certainly it gives us reason to support a democratic ally, Colombia, and take out chavez. This could be a sleeper issue that will be red hot by the time the 2008 elections roll around.