Chavez: Prepare for war
source: http://blogs.current.com/news/2009/11/09/chavez-prepare-for-war/
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- afitzgerald
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From the AP: Chavez to troops: Prepare for war with Colombia
"President Hugo Chavez ordered Venezuela's military on Sunday to prepare for a possible armed conflict with Colombia, saying the country's soldiers should be ready if the United States attempts to provoke a war between the South American neighbors. "The best way to avoid war is preparing for it," Chavez told military officers standing at attention during his weekly television and radio program."
Chavez is worried about the influence the US exerts over Colombia, their military cooperation, and argues that the Obama Administration could try to stir up a conflict between the two South American nations (because they're not busy enough?). From the Venezuelan perspective a new military pact between the US and Colombia threatens the region's stability.
"According to Francisco Javier Arias, deputy Foreign Minister of Venezuela, Colombia signed a pact with the U.S. allowing the Americans to freely use Colombian military bases and airports to secure the "continuity of the empire." "President Uribe is putting the region at risk to secure his re-election, dragging an elephant like the United States into a china shop, with the idea of solve problems that this northern country is not interested in," the official told Colombian Caracol Radio.
Chavez ordered 15,000 additional Venezuelan troops to the border. Colombian President Alvaro Uribe plans to appeal to the UN Security Council.
From the News Blog: http://blogs.current.com/news/2009/11/09/chavez-prepare-for-war/
Sources: http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hlP2MozD95CjZl6e_B6X-kVCZqCwD9...
http://colombiareports.com/colombia-news/news/6780-uribe-uses-venezuela-to-secur...
http://www.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUSTRE5A80B020091109
http://blog.foreignpolicy.com/node/70745
(h/t FP Passport)
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- Community, Max and Jason: Still Up, News_Featured
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- tags:
- US, UN, Obama Administration, Colombia, 10 more
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s0uthc0ast
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Maybe he'll get at the head of his Russian made tank column and drive into the Caribbean.
- 2 years ago
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s0uthc0ast
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crispyfritters
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Pffft. Bitch, please. Don't drag the U.S. into your stupid border brawls.
- 2 years ago
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crispyfritters
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dalistuff
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Yes it's F'd up...also Colombia is spelled w/an O not a U.
- 2 years ago
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dalistuff
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jubal
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dalistuff:
Big f-O-cking deal U. We aren't in a spelling bee here. Your nit picking with semantics.
- 2 years ago
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jubal
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wellhunggimp
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dalistuff:
You mean spelling "bee" and "you're." Also, semantics doesn't have anything to do with spelling, it concerns word usage.
- 2 years ago
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wellhunggimp
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jubal
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dalistuff:
Look people are having problems with the is new fucking current interface, I type faster than this tool can take the letters and display them on the screen, if you have a problem take it up with current. Leave me the fuck alone. I don't give a flying fuck about spelling anymore on this site until they fix this dumbass interface OK?
- 2 years ago
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jubal
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mjsmith11
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dalistuff:
THIS INTERFACE IS BULLSHIT!!!! HOW THE HELL DO YOU SCREW UP SOMETHING AS SIMPLE AS ENTERING TEXT INTO A TEXT BOX!!!
- 2 years ago
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mjsmith11
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jubal
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dalistuff:
It seems to work better on Firefox, but in IE8 fogetaboutit.....
- 2 years ago
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jubal
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nursediesel
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Oh, jeez, here we go again.
- 2 years ago
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nursediesel
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Follow_me
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Let's hope (but i doubt it) that the U.S. will sit this one out, we got our own problems
- 2 years ago
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Follow_me
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Ares
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I hope they all just kill each other so we can stop hearing about those dumbasses.
- 2 years ago
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Ares
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meztlihernandez
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Ares:
wow. this isn't ignorant.
- 2 years ago
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meztlihernandez
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mjsmith11
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Chavez is a baffoon. He is even considered a joke amongst his neighboring countries. He is your typical 2-bit dictator. His people are starving and in need because he ruined his country's economy as well as Venezuela's Democracy.
- 2 years ago
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mjsmith11
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Vierotchka
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mjsmith11:
Not only is this total fiction, it is lamentably bad fiction.
- 2 years ago
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Vierotchka
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mjsmith11
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mjsmith11:
The facts are on my side.
- 2 years ago
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mjsmith11
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jubal
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Colombia is going to get exactly what it deserves under the hands of Uribe. Chavez is completely right when he states that the recent pact between Colombia and the US is to ensure the continuity of the Babylon American Empire.
If war breaks out between Colombian and Venezuela, you can count on Chavez dragging Cuba, Peru, Bolivia, and possibly even Ecuador into the conflict. It would quickly escalate into a regional conflict. Currently Cuba has been slowly invading Ecuador, Bolivia, and Peru sending hundreds of thousands of their citizens to these nations, presumably to get jobs and immigrate, but there is likely something more sinister at work.
Also remember that Chavez has the support of Russia, China, Iran and North Korea.
- 2 years ago
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jubal
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sidewaysclyde
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South America really does not need to be caught in the throes of war. And if so the United States should not get involved. Are they serious? We can't afford to fight another war. People here are dying, education is lacking, and we still have to situate ourselves in relation to our involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan. With like 40%+ in Afghanistan being military contractors already, we don't have the resources to send more brothers and sisters down to fight a war between Columbia and Venezuela. Bring em back home, and for once can we just stay out of this one?
- 2 years ago
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sidewaysclyde
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Glock_Gurl
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sidewaysclyde:
DUDE, AMEN!!!
- 2 years ago
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Glock_Gurl
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tomofnorthcal
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sidewaysclyde:
Thanks for the great comment sidewaysclyde. I just hope the US gov doesn't hire more evil 3rd party contractors to do oil corporations dirty work.
- 2 years ago
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tomofnorthcal
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oracleruby
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sidewaysclyde:
AHMEN!!!! Took the words right out of my throat!
- 2 years ago
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oracleruby
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extracrazykiwi2008
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Great...
- 2 years ago
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extracrazykiwi2008
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vesher
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hmm, top us export: nation-building?
- 2 years ago
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vesher
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peterzylstramoore
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Chomsky continued...
Abroad, the "supply-side approach" has been the basis for U.S.-backed counterinsurgency strategy in Colombia and elsewhere, with a fearful toll among victims of chemical warfare and militarization of conflicts, but enormous profits for domestic and foreign elites. Colombia has a shocking record of human rights violations, by far the worst in the hemisphere since the end of Reagan's Central American terror wars in the 1980s, and also the second-largest internal displacement of populations in the world, after Sudan. Meanwhile, domestic elites and multinationals profit from the forced displacement of peasants and indigenous people, which clears land for mining, agribusiness production and ranching, infrastructure development for industry, and much else. There is a great deal more to say about this, but I will put it aside.Last February, the Latin American Commission on Drugs and Democracy issued its analysis of the U.S. "war on drugs" in the past decades. The Commission, led by former Latin American presidents Cardoso, Zedillo, and Gavíria, concluded that the drug war had been a complete failure and urged a drastic change of policy, away from criminalization and "supply-side" operations and towards much less costly and more effective measures of education, prevention, and treatment. Their report had no detectable impact, just as earlier studies and the historical record have had none. That again reinforces the natural conclusion that the "drug war"—like the "war on crime" and "the war on terror"—has quite sensible goals, which are being achieved, and therefore continue in the face of a costly failure of announced goals.
Returning to the UNASUR meeting, a dose of realism, and skepticism about propaganda, would be helpful in evaluating the pretexts offered for the establishment of U.S. military bases in Colombia, retention of the base in Honduras, and the accompanying steps towards militarization. It is very much to be hoped that South America will bar moves towards militarization and intervention, and will devote its energies to the programs of integration in both their external and internal aspects—establishing effective political and economic organizations, overcoming the terrible internal problems of deprivation and suffering, and strengthening varied links to the outside world.
- 2 years ago
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peterzylstramoore
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jubal
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peterzylstramoore:
Decriminalization, education, prevention and treatment are the best options to deal with the escalating drug problems both domestically and abroad. You would have though that America would have learned her lesson about the unintentional consequences prohibition creates.
- 2 years ago
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jubal
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peterzylstramoore
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Imperial Mentality and Drug Wars (Noam Chomsky)
The justification offered for the new military bases in Colombia is the "war on drugs." The fact that the justification is even offered is remarkable. Suppose, for example, that Colombia, or China, or many others claimed the right to establish military bases in Mexico to implement their programs to eradicate tobacco in the U.S., by fumigation in North Carolina and Kentucky, interdiction by sea and air forces, and dispatch of inspectors to the U.S. to ensure it was eradicating this poison—which is, in fact, far more lethal even than alcohol, which in turn is far more lethal than cocaine or heroin, incomparably more than cannabis. The toll of tobacco use is truly fearsome, including "passive smokers" who are seriously affected though they do not use tobacco themselves. The death toll overwhelms the lethal effects of other dangerous substances.
The idea that outsiders should interfere with U.S. production and distribution of these murderous poisons is plainly unthinkable. Nevertheless, the U.S. justification for carrying out such policies in South America is accepted as plausible. The fact that it is even regarded as worthy of discussion is yet another illustration of the depth of the imperial mentality, and the abiding truth of the doctrine of Thucydides that the strong do as they wish and the weak suffer as they must—while the intellectual classes spin tales about the nobility of power. Leading themes of history, to the present day.
Despite the outlandish assumptions, let us agree to adopt the imperial mentality that reigns in the West—virtually unchallenged, in fact, not even noticed. Even after this extreme concession, it requires real effort to take the "war on drugs" pretext seriously. The war has been waged for close to 40 years and intensively for a decade in Colombia. There has been no notable impact on drug use or even street prices. The reasons are reasonably well understood. Studies by official and quasi-official governmental organizations provide good evidence that prevention and treatment are far more effective than forceful measures in reducing drug abuse: one major study finds prevention and treatment to have been 10 times as effective as drug interdiction and 23 times as effective as "supply-side" out-of-country operations, such as fumigation in Colombia, more accurately described as chemical warfare. The historical record supports these conclusions. There is ample evidence that changes in cultural attitudes and perceptions have been very effective in curtailing harmful practices. Nevertheless, despite what is known, policy is overwhelmingly directed to the least effective measures, with the support of the doctrinal institutions.
These and other facts leave us with only two credible hypotheses: either U.S. leaders have been systematically insane for the past 40 years; or the purpose of the drug war is quite different from what is proclaimed. We can exclude the possibility of collective insanity. To determine the real reasons we can follow the model of the legal system, which takes predictable outcome to be evidence of intent, particularly when practices persist over a long period and in the face of constant failure to approach the announced objectives. In this case, the predictable outcome is not obscure, both abroad and at home.
- 2 years ago
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peterzylstramoore
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jubal
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peterzylstramoore:
Oh the hypocrisy.
- 2 years ago
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jubal
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Vierotchka
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"Si vis pacem, para bellum" - "If you want peace, prepare for war."
- 2 years ago
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Vierotchka
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RojoGatto
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Vierotchka:
i saw that in killzone 2 very true
- 2 years ago
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RojoGatto
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DreSandoval
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Chavez is smart...im sure the CIA and Columbia are up to something...
- 2 years ago
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DreSandoval
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ibrake4rappers13
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DreSandoval:
Good, we dont need chavez influencing our region.
- 2 years ago
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ibrake4rappers13
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tomofnorthcal
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DreSandoval:
Hey ibrake, Chavez builds schools, clinics, and donates oil to poor Americans. Wow, isn't that what our government should be doing? Too late, Chavez has influenced the region.
- 2 years ago
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tomofnorthcal
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sampierre
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Many South American countries have been organizing to be independent and free from the US and IMF for quite some time. Colombia needs to join that cause and stop selling out their resources to the corporatocracy. It's quite a movement and needs to be promoted and publicized. It looks like Honduras is the empire's latest victim of gov. takeover. Don't hear too much about that either do we?
- 2 years ago
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sampierre
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EmperorThan
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Haven't they been preparing for war with Colombia for like two years now???
- 2 years ago
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EmperorThan
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Tom_Coleman
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Just another dumb turd idiot the U.S. may have to take out!
- 2 years ago
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Tom_Coleman
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FishaHouse777
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I doubt, and hope, nothing really happens. There is already alot of political crap going on down there and the last thing they need is another war between two nations like columbia and venzuela.
- 2 years ago
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FishaHouse777