Chavez once again porves he's a tin pot dictator in the making.

[Flubber]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara
What continues to fail to get through your head is that the vast majority of Venezuelans are materially better off today, because of Chavez's reforms. It's not just the poor, who constitute the bulk of Venezuelan society, but even the middle class.

If by middle class you mean Venezuelan lawyers, doctors and engineers . . . well lots of them are far better off. Chavez has driven many of them off to places like Canada.


I have a Venezuelan woman two doors down here at work with whom I work closely. She says she might return but only after Chavez is gone. Its actually interesting to hear first hand accounts of some of the events there-- she actually witnessed a dogfight between two planes over Caracas during a coup.

[Flubber]

Originally posted by Kontiki
I'm pretty sure the US would be on them like stink on a monkey if they annexed Guyana.

Perhaps you are right but why exactly would they even get directly involved. I don't imagine it would take the US long to roll them out of Guyana but then what?

PLus some US troops would die and for what US purpose (other than sticking it tom Chavez)?

[Dinner]

Originally posted by Flubber

Why ?? I am not saying this is his intent but if he say . annexed Guyana, who is going to go in to stop him.Guyana is pathetically small such that Ven. forces would probably take over in a day. They have historical claims to a lot of the territory etc etc.

Perhaps the world might get uppity and intervene but I'm not so sure. Assume it would take military action and that China is willing to buy their oil . . . who steps in?

Columbia doesn't like him while the British will likely not be happy with their neo-protectorate (Independent but still has British bases) being annexed, the Dutch have a nice little island nearby which could work as a launch pad, while the French are not to far away. Brazil is in the neighborhood but I doubt they'd do anything. That means the US is the big swinging dick in question.

In any event this wouldn't happen.

[Kontiki]

Originally posted by Flubber


Perhaps you are right but why exactly would they even get directly involved. I don't imagine it would take the US long to roll them out of Guyana but then what?

PLus some US troops would die and for what US purpose (other than sticking it tom Chavez)?

Seems pretty straightforward to me. Guyana is a sovereign country and would (rightfully) raise a stink about being attacked. Just like in the 1990 Kuwait example, the world would condemn the action and given that it's in their backyard, the US would mosey on down to return the status quo, perhaps with the help of the Brits and/or token offering from other South American countries. The US already doesn't like Chavez, so I'm sure they'd take the chance to see about getting him out of power, like really really paying attention to Venezuelan C&C. At a minimum, I doubt getting smacked around by the US because of an unprovoked attack against a weak neighbour would help Chavez's popularity at home.

[Ned]

Originally posted by Spiffor

Funny thing. Very very few Cubans miss Batista.

You mean the Cubans from that day who remain in Cuba? What about the ones who fled? We can no longer ask the exectued.

BTW, just what were the so-called abuses of Batista that lead to the revolution in the first place?

[Grandpa Troll]

I learned today the Chave "took" control of a Portland Cement Manufacturing and distribution center in Venezueala, "because he could" from Port Royal Cementos, one of our sources to get cement into the USA, only a single source but still the company had ownership up to the time the military showed up and seized it.

Less product availability drives prices up even further..nice shot Chavez

[Imran Siddiqui]

Chavez

He's a wannabe dicatator who has a serious Napoleonic complex and is going to destroy his country's economy completely. It's only because of him that Bush isn't the worst leader on the Hemisphere .

Oh, and anyone that supports him are brainwashed tools who can't see anything other than the fact that he "stands up" to the US.

[Ned]

Time Mag., April 27, 1962, pp. 2-4 http://www.time.com/time/magazine/ar...896102,00.html

"Soot & Soup. The face of Cuba seems to be crumbling like the sea wall along Havana's beautiful Malecon Drive. The gay city is now grey and, for a Latin capital, uncharacteristically quiet. No visitor can fail to note the soot-smudged dinginess of the Habana Riviera and the Habana Libre, once the city's flossiest hotels. Silent knots of Iron Curtain technicians, gun-toting militiamen, and bewildered peasants brought to Havana for Marxist orientation have replaced the thronging tourists who once filled their lobbies. Nightclubs like the Tropicana—still ballyhooed as the world's biggest—continue to operate, but with a Cuba socialista beat, and the leggy pony chorus now does Russian folk dances. The great restaurants have two choices on the menu —half-dollar-sized steak (at $6 a crack) and spaghetti; on the street, the hamburger stands serve watery bean soup.

Nothing seems to work. Havana's transportation system is coasting to a halt for lack of spare parts and mechanics to install them. One of Castro's captive newspapers counted 280 bus breakdowns on Havana's streets in one day alone recently. "What am I supposed to do when this thing finally goes—join the militia?" said the disgruntled driver of a 1953 Cadillac taxi. Cubans are leary of the Coca-Cola they drink—it has been known to contain cockroach eggs; in bars they pointedly order Coke "sin bacilli" (without germs). "My father would be very sad to see this," said the son of the late president of Coca-Cola in Cuba.

Bitter Harvest. What is sadly visible on the face of Cuba is clearer still in the statistics of economy. The country runs on sugar, and under Communism sugar has been ruined. Little or no cane has been replanted for three years ; most fields have not been fertilized. Many of the ex pert cane cutters who normally harvest the crop are in the militia, and the "vol unteers" who replace them have hacked the stalks so badly that normal regrowth is stopped or stunted. In pre-Castro years, Cuba could count on about 5,000,000 tons of sugar, for which it got an average $500 million, most of it from the U.S. in preferential prices. Fortnight ago, Cuba's Minister of Industry, Che Gue vara, who, if nothing else, is the most candid of Cuba's new rulers, reported on this year's crop to a meeting of sugar workers: "The first thing we must say is that this harvest has been bad."

With the rainy season beginning, said Guevara, only three or four sugar mills of 160 in Cuba were meeting what he called "conservative targets." The outlook: 4,000,000 tons or less, which, with last year's carryover, will bring Cuba only $336 million, or a bare 53% of sugar earnings in pre-Castro 1957. Even that sum will not be in hard cash, but in high-priced barter goods from the Soviet bloc, which has replaced the U.S. as Cuba's major trading partner.

Profits into Losses. At night. Havana's once bright lights are dimmed for economic reasons; each kilowatt-hour of electricity, the Communists tell the people, costs 345 grams of oil, which comes from Russia and is paid for with scarce sugar.

The new poverty has halved Cuba's per capita income. The figure in 1957 was $374 for each of the country's 6,400,000 people, and Cuba ranked second among the 20 Latin American nations; now it is among the last seven on the list with a real per capita income of $185. Profitable domestic industries once made Cuba 90% self-sufficient in a long list of items: cigarettes, beer, soap, detergents, evaporated milk, tires and tubes, cement, refined petroleum, clothing, paints. Now all have been nationalized; production has faltered and profits have turned into losses.

The cigarette industry lost about $2,780,000 in the second half of 1961, the breweries more than $5,000,000. Soap was a big-time pre-Castro industry, with an annual 50,000-ton output, plus another 10,000 tons of detergent. Today the soap ration (when available) is one bath-size cake per person per month, plus a small packet of detergent for two persons per month.

The Communist world's promises to make Cuba a model of insular self-sufficiency have proved empty. The Cuban press has reported grandiose plans for more than 76 new factories, including plants for ballpoint pens, gum erasers, gasoline pumps, auto parts and batteries, poultry processing, machine tools, meat processing, shipbuilding, oil refining, electric power, steel milling and nail manufacturing. So far, Cuba's socialist partners have built four juice-canning plants, two cotton mills and a biscuit bakery. But in the other direction, Cuba has sent shiploads of machinery and furniture to Russia.

Making History. Before Communism, Cuba grew 70% of its food; today domestic food production has dropped by 50%, and little comes in from the rest of the Communist world. The country is not starving, but Havana, a city of 1,200,000, is getting hungry. In a way, its citizens are making history. In 1842, during the hated Spanish rule, the poorest-fed Cubans on record—Negro slaves from Africa—were guaranteed by law and custom at least 8 oz. of meat or fish a day, 4 oz. of rice, 12 oz. of cooking fat and 4 Ibs. of vegetables. Under Castro's rationing system, citizens of Havana are now allotted 3 oz. of meat or fish a day, 3 oz. of rice, ^ oz. of cooking fat and 8 oz. of vegetables. Even that meager ration is hard to come by. Housewives start lining up at 3 a.m. before the neighborhood groceries, which open at 8. Almost always, the end of the food comes before the end of the line.

"If this is socialism, you can have it." said a Habanero to a visiting journalist a few weeks ago. Some 200,000 of his fellow Cubans—mostly of the middle class—have already had it, and have fled into exile. Of 5,000 doctors before Castro, 1,300 have left; of 1,800 pharmacists, 300 left; of 700 agricultural engineers, 320 left; of 1,800 certified public accountants, 1,000 left; of 800 civil engineers. 350 left; of 520 electrical engineers, 200 left.

To top it off. Castro's noisv insults and his slave trader's offer to sell for $62 million the 1,179 Bay of Pies prisoners have disgusted and alienated many of the Latin Americans at first disposed to treat his revolution kindly (even though his may still be a name to reckon with among Latin America's back-country illiterates). Last week the strongest of the 60 sick and wounded prisoners Castro has sold on credit were in the U.S. to beg funds to buy themselves and the other 1,119 still in Jail-In Manhattan. Cardinal Spellman contributed $5,000 to their cause. From Mexico, onetime Cuban Vice President Guillermo Alonso Pujol flew to Havana, paid $100,000 cash for his son, a private in the exile brigade, and flew out again. "

[Ned]

Again, what were Batista's crimes that justified through Cuba back into the dark ages.

[Dinner]

I'm amazed that even in the mid 1960's the daily food ration in Cuba was lower then what the Spanish legally allowed black slaves to be fed in the 1840's. The sad thing is prior to 1959 Cuba had the second heightest per capita income in Latin America while now the only country it beats is Haiti.

Centralization of economic power cannot occur without centralization of political power and that's why Communist countries always ended up as dictatorships. In any event it will be sad to see another Latin American country economically self destruct due to poor management and a reckless neo-dictator (yes, any leader who demands the power to rule by decree is a dictator even if he was elected).

[Ned]

In retrospect, it is sad that Kennedy screwed up the Bay of Pigs, sad not so muc for the US which shortly had to face the Missile Crisis, but mostly for the people of Cuba who have suffered so long under socialism.

[Dinner]

The CIA couldn't really do much more during the Bay of Pigs without risking a war with the Soviet block. The CIA really wanted that to look like an uprising of Cubans against Castro but using American troops to invade Cuba wouldn't have made that story very believable.

[Ned]

There was no risk of war with the Sov's at that time. Post, BOP, possibly.

But the use of US Airpower and US supply could have helped. Plus a lot of armor.

The project never should have been launched in the first place without a good chance of winning. Kennedy should have fished or cut bait.

[Spiffor]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui
Oh, and anyone that supports him are brainwashed tools who can't see anything other than the fact that he "stands up" to the US.

[notyoueither]

Originally posted by Flubber



Why ?? I am not saying this is his intent but if he say . annexed Guyana, who is going to go in to stop him.Guyana is pathetically small such that Ven. forces would probably take over in a day. They have historical claims to a lot of the territory etc etc.

Perhaps the world might get uppity and intervene but I'm not so sure. Assume it would take military action and that China is willing to buy their oil . . . who steps in?

Your question is designed to provoke discussion, right?