blatham wrote:george
First, I think you'll have trouble finding something I've written here which stands as a defence of Chavez's moves re civil liberties/democracy. Let me know if you do.
Second, I was wrong about him in that I didn't expect he would move as far as he has done towards permanent dictatorship.
But, as a third point, I see no reason to consider that this administration's motives have much or even anything to do with the welfare of Venezuelans. If a dictatorship in Venezuela corresponded with perceived US interests for resource extraction, then that wouldn't be a significant problem for the US and we could expect serious support for that dictatorship even to the extremity of support for paramilitary death squads who would be taking out 'enemies' of that friendly dictatorship (leftists, union leaders, catholic nuns, etc).
Good to see your acknowledgement of your initial error in focus with regard to Venezuela. The intent of the tyrant has indeed proven itself far more harmful to the Venezuelan people than the supposed intent of the U.S. government or President Bush.
I believe that you are extrapolating from carefully selected but atypicaL incidents to mischaracterize the nature of U.S. interventions, across the board. There is no doubt that we overestimated the danger of the export of Soviet influence in many local revolutionary movements in this hemisphere and in other areas, and that economic self-interest has played a part in our motivations. However the fact also remains that we underestimated Soviet intentions just as often, and that these questions often trumped our economic interests. We had no particular economic interest driving us in Greece, Korea, Vietnam, Guatemala, Nicaragua, or El Salvador. In Chile there was only the investment in copper mining, but that was, at most, a minor consideration in the play of events.
The facts simply do not support your prejudices in this matter.
What has been the cumulative account of the human misery and suffering created by the even worse (than Venezuelan) tyranny in Castro's Cuba? or that in North Korea? To what extent is the situatiuon today in Chile, Nicaragua and El Salvador better that it would have been had the revolutionary movements there succeeded?
These questions are of course not easily answered. However some allowance for these benefits must be made in your analysis if it is to be taken as anything more than mere propaganda.
