Mere Rhetoric
What is becoming to a city is manpower, to a body beauty, to a soul wisdom, to an action virtue, to a speech truth, and the opposites of these are unbecoming — Gorgias of Leontini, Encomium of Helen
Some day – after Venezuela has become one of the two dozen rogues to go nuclear in a post-American world – this kind of stuff will seem a lot less funny. Ditto for Chavez’s obsession with his hugely popular Twitter stream, which he keeps trying to push on Castro and Morales and which may be managed by as many as 200 people, and with the blog he’s launching today.
But for now – can you believe that we’re losing to this clown:
It makes sense. Twitter has become one of the few outlets Venezuelans have left for visually demonstrating the literally medieval barbarism that Chavez’s thugs use to break protests – which they’re doing with some regularity now. So like his slightly less clownish but equally execrable ilk in Tehran, he’s looking to shut it down:
President Hugo Chavez has responded to the outpouring of messages — many of which call for his resignation along with expanded freedom of the press — by asking the National Assembly to start preparing legislation that would regulate the Internet. Similar to what we saw happening in Mexico this week, government officials in Venezuela are perceiving social networks such as Twitter (Twitter) to be a threat to the state. Chavez has apparently even gone as far as indicating that Twitter could be considered a “tool of terror,” and National Assembly deputies were quick to leap to the charge of “eliminating terrorist threats posed by social networks.”
Chavez has an interesting approach to national infrastructure. Where it’s working well he’s eager to regulate it into the ground. Where it’s teetering on the brink of collapse – as is the case with, say, the country’s entire power grid – he’s a little more lackadaisical. You’d think all the capital he acquired from the last round of disastrous currency devaluation would have given him enough cash to keep things running. Although no reason to be frugal. He can always just nationalize the auto industry if things get particularly bad.
Of course a lot of that money is probably going into preparing for that war with Colombia that he keeps promising. Ergo his purchase of those 300 new tanks and armored vehicles. And those thousands of missiles. And those nearly 5,000 potential joint projects with the Russians. Probably more important than keeping the lights on.
Anyway, those are the perks of being comfortably ensconced in the Iranian orbit. Sure you need to demonize Israel and parrot Tehran’s feverish conspiracy theories about US infiltration of Iran (as if this White House is running an offense against the mullahs). But that’s not that hard. Plus you get the distinct sense that for Chavez this is as much pleasure as business.
It’s the same as when he formally invited Castro to Caracas. A state visit won’t really advance Venezuela’s geopolitical standing, and US/Cuba rapprochement is a done deal the second Castro dies anyway. So there wasn’t a good justification for the invitation. Chavez just kind of likes being a prick.
References and related after the jump…
Because this kind of rhetoric…
Iran and Syria plan to create a new world order, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Thursday. “Iran and Syria have a joint mission to create a new world order on the basis of justice, humanity and belief in God,” Ahmadinejad told visiting Syrian Parliament Speaker Mahmoud al-Abrash. Syria is Iran’s main ally in the Middle East and both countries consider Israel to be their political arch-foe. “At the current juncture, the role of Iran and Syria is historic.”
… and these kinds of moves…
Iran sees Latin American nations as partners in creating a new world order. Ahmadinejad recently told the visiting Venezuelan Foreign Minister Nicolas Maduro: “We need to establish a new systemand take measures based on that system…. Many countries will join the new system.” That Iran and Venezuela view nuclear power as part of an attempt at global hegemony was reinforced in a joint press conference this month between Maduor and his Iranian counterpart Manuchehr Mottaki: “Our experiences prompt us to generate nuclear fuel independently and even broaden the scope of our activities to meet the demands of other countries.”
… always end well.
Meanwhile China says that the proper response to Iran’s firm and seemingly final rejection of nuclear talks is more nuclear talks. Because maybe the mullahs are just kidding. Or maybe – per the faux sophistication Obama picked up from whichever experts are feeding him lines – maybe they’re just really confused. They’re not so confused that they can’t deploy three new satellites as a cover for their ballistic missile program or launch a massive anti-dissident crackdown. But to figure out their negotiating stance after a decade-plus of nuclear talks – well they just haven’t had enough time to think about it.
Is there going to be a clash between the West and Iranian’s global coalition? Of course there will be. But it will happen on Iran’s own nuclear timetable and, because of that, it will be particularly horrific. Future generations will rightly ask why the US and its allies allowed lunatics – lunatics who openly expressed their intentions – to acquire WMDs. And they’ll be told that a loose coalition of duly-appointed diplomats, self-declared intellectuals, fully-accredited journalists, and intellectually dishonest liberals cooperated to knock the knees out of the last American President who had the opportunity and intention to stop Iranian nuclearization.
Then they’ll go to college and learn that it all goes back to American settlers attacking the Indians or something.
References and related after the jump…
It’d be easy to think of this as high comedy from the usual band of celebrity tyrant clowns who so fascinate our liberal foreign policy establishment, not least of which because it’s high comedy from the usual band of celebrity tyrant clowns who so fascinate our liberal foreign policy establishment:
Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez and Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi called on Monday for a new global definition of terrorism. Meeting a day after the end of a summit of African and South American leaders in Venezuela, the two men signed a declaration urging a global conference be held to sketch out new terms defining terrorism. Neither spoke publicly about the document, which rejects “attempts to link the legitimate struggle of the people for liberty and self-determination” with terrorism, according to a Venezuelan government website.
Next up: a redefinition of “Holocaust” that excludes genocides where the murderers were merely seeking Lebensraum. Subtle these tools are not. Not that they have to be: we’ve now reached a point in global geopolitics where Chavez is the one urging his fellow cretins to help the President of the United States, ostensibly the leader of the free world. Explicitly:
Meanwhile, Stone’s new buddy gushed about Barack Obama, short one Communist buddy since Van Jones departed in the dark of night over the weekend. Maybe the two can pal around and have a beer at the White House: “Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, a fierce critic of U.S. foreign policy who once called George W. Bush “the devil,” said on Monday he hoped to be able to work more closely with President Barack Obama…”I have no reason to call him (Obama) the devil, and I hope that I am right,” Chavez told reporters in Venice. “With Obama we can talk, we are almost from the same generation, one can’t deny that Obama is different (from Bush). He’s intelligent, he has good intentions and we have to help him.”
In fairness, Chavez and Obama do have a few overlapping perspectives. It’s not just big things like reinstalling Zelaya or engaging Iran. It’s the little things, the everyday things, the things at the level of sensibility. Like their mutual vaguely reflexive need to trash former President Bush in front of international forums. Those are the kind of shared eccentricities that really bring two people together.
Not in the way that Chavez is being “brought together” with African countries in an “anti-imperial” alliance. Or the way he’s being “brought together” with Iran to create what Costa Rica’s former US ambassador calls “a menace to the Western Hemisphere.” Or the way he’s being “brought together” with Qaddafi to build up a new world order. Those are much more robust alliance, built on shared anti-Western interests.
But it’s still kind of heartwarming.
References and previously after jump…
Even the left now admits that Iran and Venezuela are cooperating to sow global instability, with Venezuelan oil going to Iran and Iranian missiles coming to Venezuela. But at least Chavez is also building nuclear facilities with Russia’s help. At least there’s that:
Hugo Chavez wants to join the nuclear energy club and is looking to Russia for help in getting started. The Venezuelan leader is already dismissing critics’ concerns over his nuclear ambitions, offering assurances his aims are peaceful and that Venezuela will simply be following in the footsteps of other South American nations using nuclear energy.
Yet his project remains in its planning stages and still faces a host of practical hurdles, likely requiring billions of dollars, as well as technology and expertise that Venezuela lacks. Russia has offered to help bridge that gap, and Chavez has announced that the two countries have created an atomic energy commission.
Of course a simple bilateral relationship – even one built on mutual nuclear capabilities – is too small time for these cretins. They’re determined to have their own full-blown Iran-Venezuela-Hezbollah terror axis:
Two related items that should give the Obama administration pause as it seeks ways to engage Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez and other countries in Venezuela’s sphere of influence (Bolivia, Nicaragua, Ecuador primarily). The first is the new Memorandum of Understanding signed between the militaries of Venezuela and Iran. According to the official FARS News Agency, Iran’s defense minister, in a visit to Caracas, “underlined Tehran’s all-out efforts to help Venezuela promote its defense capabilities and bolster its power of deterrence through bilateral Memoranda of Understanding (MoUs) on military cooperation.” Chávez, for his part, stated that “The Bolivarian and the Islamic Revolutions have a lot in common and these commonalities have consolidated the two countries’ bonds.”…
At the same time, 17 people were arrested in the small Caribbean island (and Dutch territory) of Curacao on charges of transporting several tons of cocaine and sending some of the money to Hezbollah. “We have been able to establish that this group has relations with international criminal organizations that have connections with the Hezbollah,” prosecutor Ludmila Vicento said.
Chavez has also purchased himself some brand new tanks. His military and terror financing has drained Venezuela’s coffers to the point where they can’t even keep the lights on any more. Maybe this is something Obama can talk with them about.
References and previously after the jump…
At least Obama didn’t hand this clown a popularity boost and then excuse his public attack on American-led globalization as “a nice gesture.” Think how awkward that would be right now!
The last time this particular phrase got dropped, it was being used by one of Sarajevo’s most powerful imams to describe Jews. It’s nice to see that Chavez is getting something from the Muslim world beyond Iranian military ties and Iranian-Syrian weapons boats. Because linguistic and discursive diffusion – that’s the way civilization advances:
When Chavez says “rich,” do you think there’s any chance he means…? Probably not, right? Because Sean Penn insists that he’s a “warm and friendly man,” and warm and friendly men would never use the exact same rhetoric the Nazis used to demonize the exact same people the Nazis demonized. Or the people who the Nazis’ modern day Islamist descendants demonize.
In other news, Russia is helping Venezuela get nukes:
Almost unnoticed in the chaos created by recent terrorist events is the nuclear agreement signed between Russia and Venezuela signed when Russian president Medvedev visited Caracas last week. His visit coincided with the arrival of Russian naval ships for joint operations with the Venezuelan navy… Under the accord, Russia would help Venezuela build a nuclear energy plant. Joint gas projects were also approved. Military co-operation is also high on the agenda of Mr Medvedev’s talks with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. None of this would be alarming if Chavez were not a known sponsor of violent and radical movements across the hemisphere, from the FARC in Colombia to the worst elements (and a small minority of the overall parties) of the Sandinistas in Nicaragua and the FMLN in El Salvador.
Change!
References and previously after the jump…
There have already been two major anti-Semitic attacks in Venezuela this year. The second one – where a Caracas Jewish community center was firebombed – happened a few weeks ago. The one before that happened at the end of January. About a dozen thugs – at least 7 of which turned out to be linked to the government – broke into a synagogue. They proceeded to trash the sanctuary, desecrate holy objects, and make off with some of the synagogue’s property. Israel Matzav posted a video of the damage at the time, which was extensive. But what was even more disturbing was the stolen property. It was quite specific:
Computer hard drives, containing the database with the names, addresses, of almost every Jewish family in Venezuela. This includes donor lists, member lists, Jewish school lists, many including residences and place of business. This was not an act of common, even professional anti-semitic vandalism. This was a well-planned mission to retrieve the name and address of every Jew in Venezuela… With this list in the hands of this highly trained and organized group, every Venezuelan Jew is at risk. This cannot happen again.
Now couple that with the Nazi-like plan of action published in the pro-Chavez digital outlet newspaper, Aporrea.org:
- publicly denouncing by name, the members of powerful Jewish groups in Venezuela, names of their companies and businesses in order to boycott them
- avoiding products, stores, supermarkets, restaurants, and where Kosher food is sold which either belongs or has links with ‘Zionist Jews’
- questioning the existence of Jewish educational institutions
- shouting pro-Palestine and anti-Israel slogans at Jews on the street
- inviting anti-Zionist Jews living in Venezuela to publicly express their disassociation from ‘Zionist war crimes’ and the imposition of artificial State of Israel on Palestine
- nationalization of companies, confiscation of properties of those Jews who support the Zionist atrocities of the Nazi-State of Israel, and donate this property to the Palestinian victims of today’s Holocaust
- sending all type of aid to Palestinians including weapons
- hacking pro-Zionist websites including governments or institutions that have relations with Israel
- organizing an international conference about the creation of the theocratic – Nazi state of Israel as a genocidal European colony, and about the myths and facts of the alleged Jewish Holocaust or Holohoax (a blackmailing industry)
- support the dissolution of the artificial State of Israel
The article was eventually deleted from the site because the professor who wrote it, Emilio Silva from the Universidad Bolivariana de Venezuela, forgot to include “Zionist” before every denigratory use of the word “Jew.” There are rules about these things. You have to include “Zionist” in front of blood libels and conspiratorial ravings. So it’s not that Jews are bloodsuckers. It’s that Zionist Jews are bloodsuckers. It’s not that Jews are undermining the Western financial system. It’s that Zionist Jews are undermining the Western financial system.
But as long as you remember that you can publish the most vulgar anti-Semitic incitement across the full spectrum of Venezuelan state-owned media.
The Obama administration on Chavez’s dictator for life referendum: “we congratulate the civic and participatory spirit of the millions of Venezuelans who exercised their democratic right to vote… fully consistent with the democratic process.” (h/t: Ziva Sahl)
References and previously after the jump…
Who knows how much of this will matter now that EU Courts are trying to destroy this critical tool, but if you want some inside baseball on counterterrorism you should check out Matthew Levitt and Mike Jacobson’s new report on freezing terrorist finances:
Two posts trace Barack Obama’s connections to some relatively dark corners. Ed Lasky tracks down Obama’s connections to George “I grew up in a Jewish, anti-Semitic home” Soros and Anne Lieberman follows the threads that tie Obama to the highly problematic Trinity Church. But that’s not what’s pissing us off this morning about the Democrats.
These self-styled saviors think that they’re entitled to run their own foreign policy:
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 by SaltedStone |
 from Purchase Green |
