On occasion I've worried that Chavez is bucking for a promotion to the Axis of Evil.
More and more, I'm convinced that Chavez is becoming a real threat that we will have to devote resources to combatting:
If all there was to the Venezuelan president was his backward socialist views, Chavez wouldn't be such a problem. He'd just be a hypocrite whose government enriches itself on highly globalized, state-controlled oil revenues, while he denies the region's privately owned businesses the same opportunity.
The trouble is, Chavez is about much more than hypocrisy. He's become an exporter of revolution, a socialist authoritarian with a Fidel Castro-style agenda to destabilize the region and with oil dollars to finance his ambitions.
Even though we've ignored Chavez, he continues to pound his chest and mark his territory. He sees our plot everywhere and loudly proclaims his continuing victory over them.
Nutball ruler and oil wealth. What is it about oil-exporting rather than nutmeg cultivation that seems to prompt nutball dictators with delusions of grandeur?
Chavez sees us as an enemy? Well let's be his enemy, then. So far he's gotten a free ride with victories over phantom American plots. We've nothing to lose by actually publicly declaring our opposition to him and working openly for his removal. As the author states:
It's time to call Hugo Chavez on his aggressive, unilateral, destabilizing foreign policy, and even to punish him for it.
Like we haven't got enough to worry about. Hugo is really torquing me off.
