Jihadi Du Jour: "I Have Friends At The White House ..."

Hugo Chavez thinks he has low friends in high places.

From the AP:

CARACAS, Venezuela - Venezuela President Hugo Chavez said Sunday he has received warnings from within the White House that the Bush administration is plotting to assassinate him or topple his left-leaning government.

Citing what he said were warnings from an alleged White House informant, Chavez told thousands of supporters at a campaign rally that
President Bush has ordered him to be killed before he leaves office in 2008.

Bush "has said that before he goes, Hugo Chavez shouldn't be the president of Venezuela," Chavez told the crowd. "The president of the United States has said it, especially in recent days. What he doesn't know is that I have friends in the White House."

If it's true, I hope those friends are a little more reliable that the NYT's ubiquitous unnamed sources.

Anyway, Chavez is running for re-election in December, and he's using "fighting the devil," as one of his campaign themes. Of course, if he wins, that will put him in office for decades:

Chavez vowed to win the Dec. 3 vote and continue governing this South American nation until 2021. "Fourteen more years, that's what's coming," Chavez said.

Venezuela's Constitution allows a president to be re-elected only once in immediate succession. If Chavez wins a second six-year term in December, he wouldn't be able to run again in 2012 _ without a legal change

But he is planning a legal change. From ElUniversal:

Not even the times of election campaign can curb a thrust condensed in three key announcements made during his recent speech in Bolivar Avenue, Caracas. They are: ratification of an amendment to the Constitution for indefinite re-election; expropriation, that is, seizure, of a sugar mill and La Ceiba port, and unified political forces of the regime in one single party.

Alot of people see Chavez as just another buffoon on the world state, but while it's true he is a hoot, I think he needs to be taken seriously. Here's why:

1) First and foremost, the US depends on Venezuela for about a fifth of our oil supply. There's an article out today that Chavez plans to cut down oil production by 50,000 barrels a day. That's a symbolic amount, probably economic driven, at last so far. However, there's also an agreement between Chavez and Ahmadinejad that Venezuela will cut off oil to the US if Iran's attacked... or maybe "feels" attacked ... ?

2) The Iranians already run at least one of the Venezuelan refineries, and have recently signed an agreement with Chavez to explore and exploit the Orinico River for oil.

3) There is a disturbing story of Hezbollah setting up camp between Columbia and Venezuela, in the Guajira Peninsula. (It's also the province that Chavez' competitor Gov. Manuel Rosales of Zulia state, comes from. No wonder Rosales is a tad upset about "Chavez Of Arabia".)

4) Chavez is lobbying hard for a seat on the UN Security Council, although it's hard to imagine that Venezuela could be more obstructionist than Russia and China. Still, it's a little unsettling. Also unsettling is Kofi Annan's smarmy tacit approval of his anti-American bashing (although Kofi could be just job-hunting since his term in the UN will expire in December)

5) More disturbing: Chavez has been running around the world looking for arms. Last summer, he spent about three billion dollars buying arms from Russia. That's on top of his deal last year, in which he spent 2.17 billion in Kalishnakov's and helicopters from Russia. Of course, he'll no longer have to buy assault weapons from Russia, since he just signed a deal to open a Kalishnakov factory on Venezuelan soil.

6) Blatantly disturbing: Chavez and his new best friend, Ahmadinejad, have a kind of mutual defense pact, which includes Iran sharing nuclear technology with Venezuela, and Venezuela cutting off oil if Iran's attacked.

What needs to be remembered here is that unlike Russia, China, N.Korea or Iran, Venezuela is a hop, skip and a jump from our southern border. You could also think of Venezuela as a half dozen gas tanks away from the Rio Grande.

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(above photo from Al Jazeera.net's "Chavez of Arabia" -- an enlightening and instructive piece on how Hugo is winning hearts and minds in the Middle East)

From RedHotCuppaPolitics.

Labels: Hugo Chavez