Responding to "Venezuela's Security Factors and Foreign Policy Goals"

In response to Alex Sanchez's May 2nd piece on Venezuelan security and foreign policy, Mr. Brian Souter of Canberra, Australia suggests that, "Alex Sanchez sounds as if he's working for the US State Department!" The text of Mr. Souter's correspondence regarding this piece is below:

1. 'His critics will argue that Chávez has committed some significant blunders regarding both foreign and security policy matters. One of these has been his comparison of Israel to Adolf Hitler’s Nazi Germany. He made this statement during the summer 2006 war between the Israeli Defense Forces and the terrorist organization Hezbollah in Lebanon.'

Whats wrong with this piece? Well, Sanchez calls Hezbollah a 'terrorist organisation', when it is nothing of the sort. And he calls Israels army 'Defence Force'; which is not how the Lebanese would view it. Israel invaded Lebanon and commited acts of terrorism, which is defined as the use of violence and intimidation to procure a political end. So bombing cities towns, airports, hospitals was done to terrorise the lebanese to abandon Hezbollah. It had the opposite effect.

So why isnt that article calling Israel a terrorist?

But why is Chavez words a 'foreign policy blunder' and not and honest assessment?! Or is Sanchez going to use the 'anti-semite' card?

The comparison to Hitler is valid, as both Zionist Israel Nazi Germany engage/d in ethnic cleansing of unwanted inhabitants. And the war on Lebanon is now known to have been planned months before, the two captured soldiers being the excuse for Olmert toi put the invasion into action.

2.The article criticises Chavez for arming his country...Now, if Chavez can cause unrest in his neighbours by arming, what are we to think of US arming itself, and with new nuclear weapons? Shouldn’t its neighbiurs be worried? And when US arms israel, with the very real wart on lebanon, shouldnt Israels neighours be worried? What is so special about Chavez that gets him singled out?

3. 'Another issue that has hurt Chávez’s international standing is his declared sympathy for the Colombian rebel movement, the FARC'

What? This is the US govt talking. What about Columbias use of US weapons to arm the death squads?

4. 'Venezuela can formulate whatever foreign policy it wants as a sovereign state, which can include pursuing relations with renowned human right violators and despotic governments like Libya and Iran'

Singling out Libya and Iran again smacks of US state dept disinfo peddling. Coming from an american, which i assume he is, this is laughable. Iran has invaded noone in 200-300 years. The original democracy under Mossadegh was overturned by US/UK, and their puppet was eventually removed by the Iranian revolution. So any crimes committed but the current iranian govt are the fruit of that initial coup.


5. 'In order to satisfy this perceived necessity, he needs to upgrade Venezuela’s military even if there are no logical immediate enemies for an offensive war' anyone paying attention knows the US has war ships close to Venezuelan waters.

Why was this piece published at all? It offers nothing new, attacks various official enemies and brings into serious doubt COHAs indendence.

6. Then theres the use of that word 'pariah' a word used by th US and its allies for govts who do not do their bidding.

Calling Syria a 'pariah' is hypocritical, since the US itself does business with Syria, or have you forgotten the use US made of Syria in the Maha Arer 'Extraorinary Rendition' case?

Finally COHA shows its colours with the following:

'he also understands that in order to gain the petro-dollars he needs to update his country’s military, he needs a stable environment, which today will only come from major oil clients like the U.S not roiling the waters. '

That is, Chavez should serve the interests of a real pariah: the US. That last paragraph sounds weasley, the sort of advice a US client would take while licking its masters boot.