Russia defies U.S. with Venezuela arms deal

My comments first:

Let's try to tie the events of the last couple of weeks together...Bush goes to G-8 Summit. Usually when there is a G-8 Summit, there is something serious to talk about. We recall how nervous and uncomfortable George W Bush was at the summit. We recall Putin's remarks that embarrassed Bush. We remember the Massage of the German Prime Minister.

This was at the same time as Israel was bombing the shit out of Beirut. This Administration was in no hurry to call for a ceasefire. They twiddled their thumbs for about ten days before Condi made her "diplomatic" trip abroad.

The US rushes 2000 satelite-guided missiles to Israel.

Russia moves their troops out of Georgia to the south, to Armenia. The BTC oil pipeline that runs thru Georgia from Azerbaijan and thru Turkey to the Mediterranean opens today.

Bush invites the "leader" of Iraq, an oil producing nation, to speak before the US Congress.

Meanwhile, the Israelis push the Hezbollah farther away from Haifa harbor.

The Haaretz newspaper prints an article today that the US wants a pipeline to run from Kirkuk to Mosul to Haifa. They would like to use the existing pipeline but Syria would not permit such a thing.

And today, Putin sells these weapons to Venezuela. Do you see any pattern here? Do you see a storyline developing?
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http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/americas/07/27/russia.venezuela.reut/index.html

<snip>
MOSCOW, Russia (Reuters) -- Russia said Thursday it had sold 24 aircraft and 53 helicopters to Venezuela, defying the United States, which has urged Moscow to halt arms sales to Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.

Russia's arms export chief, speaking as Chavez met Russian President Vladimir Putin in the Kremlin, said the aircraft deal was part of a long-term package of arms contracts with Venezuela that was worth more than $3 billion.

Chavez is a vocal critic of what he calls U.S. imperialism. Washington considers him a dangerous radical and had urged Russia to rethink the weapons sale. It bans its own producers from selling weapons to Venezuela.

<snip>

The arms deal is likely to add to friction in an already testy relationship between Washington and a Russia which, under Putin, has taken on a more assertive international role.

Russia already has supplied Kalashnikov automatic weapons to Venezuela and some attack helicopters. Chavez says he is preparing his armed forces to repel U.S. aggression.

I've been away from most news sources for the past few weeks. Missed much of that information.

I tend to think this is all tied together, from the G-8, to the Mosul-Haifa oil pipeline, to the new pipeline going thru Georgia, to the Israelis pushing the Hezbollah to the north, etc...

The Cold War has returned, due to an utter lack of responsible diplomacy on the the part of the current U.S. government.

We are the joke of the world. ALL of our enemies, past and present, have won. We face a very tough road ahead.

Good point, kentuck.

This is as much about Russia as it is about us. Putin is a KGB tyrant who hates democracy. For all the shit we talk about this country, a least we still have a free press. Is it any surprise he wants to sell weapons to his commie tyrant friend Chavez?

2000 missiles to Israel would do the trick. Also, to kick the Russians out of Georgia and then put a new pipeline thru it, was not an easy pill to swallow, I would venture.

"Commie tyrant friend Chavez." :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

If you think we actually have a free press anymore, well. Hmm.

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

one that uses the word 'defies' to a sovereign state as if it needs US permission to sell weapons when the US does the same.
Who the fugg is the US to tell any sovereign country that it 'defies' any fugging thing. The US does not own this fugging planet.

Russia doesn't. One of the first things Putin did when coming to office was start reining in the Russian media. At this point there is no free press left in Russia, only state media touting Putin's line. Any political opponent capable of causing a headache for Putin has been jailed or is in exile. Many no longer believe Russia can be considered a democracy.

Contrast that to America. We absolutely have a free press. Yes, most of it is controlled by several large corporations, but they still report without restriction. There is plenty of independent media sources outside of the corporate structure. I lived near Buffalo for a few years, and was a weekly devotee of Artvoice and the Buffalo Beast. Most large cities have similar independent papers.

We have a corporate press.

http://www.freepress.net/ownership/chart.php

And that corporate press isn't going to let real free-thought and discourse poison their money-dipping well.

and covers Bush's sorry pimply hiney at every opportunity?


pulhleeeeeeeeeeze.

If one wants anything resembling a free press, reading american news is not where to find it.

*eyeing you suspiciously* Hello and welcome to DU..............how have you lasted this long? :)

to know that if fascism completely takes over in the US, we at least have some fallback for resistance in our own backyard of South America.

Instead of Krushchev, substitute Putin...

Bush does a lot of bad things, but he is not a dictator. Chavez is. He has killed Venezuela's democracy and economy. Fortunately he is a South American dictator, which means he will probably be killed in a Coup when things get too bad down there.

He doesn't inform the Congress. Bush is the worst of the lot. He's a psychopath. Over 800 signing statements by George W Bush in which he said he would not obey the laws that were passed. If that's not a "dictator", what would you call it?

You've clearly got your dictator-tots mixed up.

The first coup was foiled. It was sponsored by the U.S.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/1929498.stm

Read, friend.

I absolutely hate when people make bad comparisons like these because it takes away from the gravity of the crimes being committed. Comparing Bush to Chavez does a disservice to what is happening to the people of Venezuela.

Bush oversteps his bounds pretty regularly, he is considered the president most able to get things done without having to get approval. But he is not Hugo Chavez. If he was he would have simply rewritten the Constitution in 2004 and avoided the whole election business (though that might make it harder to claim a mandate, nah, he'd find a way). When we all protested, we would end up in jail, and for a good deal longer then an overnight stay.

Bush is a twice elected president who remains accountable to the government and people, Chavez is a murdering dictator who is just accountable enough to his air force so they won't kill him.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5832390545689805144&q=the+revolution+will+not+be+televised

> Bush is a twice elected president who remains accountable to the government and people

No, he isn't. He's a cheat. You seem to have fed too much off of the govt. propaganda.

I'm a moderated libertarian socialist. I don't know what she is or from where her sources come.

Re-edit: Whoops, wrong person. I confused this one with somebody else.

:rofl: Chavez was democratically elected by HIS own ppeople of his country.. he wasn't installed by a court decision like our Dictator Junior <~~~ just like a whopper junior, it's only half there

Yes, he was elected (after he tried to seize power in a coup). He then proceeded to run roughshod over Venezuelan law, in ways Bush can only dream about. Example: when Bush can't get something done no matter how hard he tries, he talks about how "polls don't matter" to him. When Chavez can't get something done, he rewrites the Constitution to give himself wildly increased authority. When the populace gets fed up and tries to oust him, he runs roughshod over his own Constitution and doesn't let it happen. In two years Bush is gone, does anyone expect Chavez to live up to his own two term limit?

anything about Chavez? your source?

He was elected in 1998 under the old constitution. He then called a constitutional convention to establish a new constitution that included more participatory elements, one of them being the ability of the people to recall a sitting president half-way through his term.

The new constitution passed, and elections were set for 2000. He won the presidency again. That's two electoral victories in less than two years.

Then in 2002 the corporatists launched a coup against him. Pedro Carmona was named president. The Bush Administration recognized him as the "legitimate" leader. One of the first things Carmona did was liquidate both the legislature and the judiciary to lay the groundwork for establishing another Latin American dictatorship that is friendly to the US. The corporate-owned news media outlets cheered his overthrow even though he was democratically elected...twice.

Carmona did not count on the poor rising up and rebelling. He was ousted a couple days later, and Chavez was reinstated. Chavez defeated the coup, and he remembered what Bush did.

The next year the corporatists tried to make the economy scream by disrupting it. It was hoped this would make Chavez appear to be a poor administrator as far as the economy goes, but again they failed to topple him.

In 2004 they, using the NEW constitution, managed to trigger a recall referendum against Chavez. It failed. It was heavily monitored by international groups ranging from the OAS to the Carter Center. It went as well as could be expected in such an environment. He won 59 percent of the vote.

That means that from 1998 to now, he has been reaffirmed as leader of Venezuela THREE times by the voters of Venezuela.

If he were a true authoritarian, he would not even tolerate a news media that constantly attacks him, nor would he tolerate the opposition having the ability to run against him in internationally monitored elections, much less call a referendum on him.

He's a democratic state socialist, not a Stalinist.

about bush for the past 6 years.

Bush may do his best to circumvent the checks and balances process, but he was elected twice and will be gone in two years when his term limit is up. I suspect a large number of Republicans will find themselves going with him. I can't say I believe Chavez will do the same, I'd be willing to bet money on a Constitutional amendment allowing him to increase his term limit.

you think florida was a true election?

the candidates brother is governor of the state
the elections coordinator is head of the gop apparatus in the state
many of the democratic leaning counties have busted machines, long lineups, missing poll workers, gop hoodlums, disenfranchised minorities
bush's cousin uses his position as head of a news station to declare him president before the votes are even counted
the supreme court votes along party lines and gives the election to bush

if this had been any other country, i would imagine you'd be saying the the election was rigged and corrupt.

the situation stinks. i would think that someone who claims to believe in freedom and democracy might have taken the opportunity to insist that all the votes in florida be counted.

then there's ohio. the ceo of diebold, the unaudited machines counting the votes, goes on record saying that he guarantees that the election will go in the repug direction. the governor of ohio and the election officials are all under bribery scandals. guess what, bush wins counties that are electronically counted showing more voters than are registered in the counties.

i don't care if you republican, democrat, green, whatever. anyone believing in our freedoms and American values would be screaming against this abuse. And remember, eventually the situation will be reversed. The rights being taken away by bush's regime will still be gone when a Democrat will take office. that Democrat can then start a war through lies and then in the name of national security do whatever they want for 8 years. but don't complain because they will be gone after 8 years.

http://www.cepr.net/columns/weisbrot/2005_11_01.htm

If he were a dictator, I doubt he'd be so popular with the people he supposedly oppresses, nor would Venezuela's economy expand as rapidly as 9.3% in the first half of 2005.

Is he a perfect leader? Most definitely not. No such leader has ever attained that standard, but that does not necessarily mean he is a dictator, for there is no evidence he is attempting to strangle the very same people who support him.

Putin is also popular, that doesn't make him a democratic leader. Neither does a good economy prove democratic governance, as a quick look to wards China shows.

Chavez had the Constitution rewritten in order to consolidate power in his hands. When it was apparent he faced recall under his own Constitution, he engaged in widespread intimidation tactics to try and stop this from occurring. When he couldn't, he (arguably, and likely along with the other side) engaged in voter fraud to help himself win. The result of Chavez's actions is that Venezuelan government is far less accountable then before he took office.

The Venezuelan economy might be currently growing, but don't forget that it all but collapsed under Chavez's leadership as well. The growth in the economy is directly tied to oil, and like any cash crop economy it could easily collapse with a drop in price.

The recall referendum was one of the most heavily monitored elections in Latin America for years. Reread the Carter Center's report on the 2004 recall referendum. Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International also had people down there monitoring the situation. While there were certainly problems, they certified the election results as valid. The Organization of American States also had poll monitors on the ground as well, and they certified the election as valid. They actually listened to the opposition's claim of election fraud, and they ran recounts to see if their claims were valid, and they were largely untrue. He won 59 percent of the vote in the recall referendum.

With respect to the economy "almost collapsing," that was not his fault but the very same people who overthrew him briefly who also liquidated the courts and the legislature. When they failed in the military coup, they attempted a crippling strike by shutting down PDVSA and other large firms in the country to attack Chavez.

Chavez, unlike Putin, has some of the most anti-government news networks in Latin America attacking him. They are so blatently biased against Chavez that if the corporate news networks in the US had done half the things they do down there, there would be a demand for a return of the Fairness Doctrine. Putin, unlike Chavez, nationalized all the major news networks to crush dissent.

and then there was a referendum on his mandate and he won even more votes. Did Bush win either the 2000 or the 2004 elections?

you can take off the clown outfit now.

SHARE the Americas with the other American countries. It doesn't seem to be a lesson they are capable of learning. Instead it's their inclination to spend U.S. taxpayers' hard earned money running violent, wildly expensive operations behind everyone's back, and putting up right-wing dictators who, with Nixon's, Ford's, Reagan's and Bush, Sr.'s help, slaughter masses of human beings who won't, or is suspected of not wanting to get on board with their control plans: so many of them, entire villages have been swept away by death squads working for their lackeys.

Americans are starting to find this out in large numbers only DECADES after these things have happened, so you'd have to say they seem to get by with it slick as #### at the time.

And everyone laughed. Some would say Russia embarrassed America in front of the World Press and gained strength and standing around the world. George Bush is laughed out of the room, because he is a joke and everyone knows it. Unfortunately he wants to be the Emperor. I just hope everyone realizes that.

It is almost an extension of the Cold War except the that war officially ended the day they lowered the Soviet Sickle & Hammer standard from the Kremlin.

Geo-politics.

One senses that we are fast approaching a real moment of truth for this country and the world. The rest of the world sees the US on the ropes in Iraq, and those who want to have the honor and prestige of toppling us from the "sole world superpower" position are poking at us in various ways economic, military, and otherwise. On the one hand we have the Islamist groups like Hezbollah and al Qaeda, each of which would love to be seen among the muslim masses as the key group to overthrow the US hegemony just as al Qaeda and the Taliban did with the Soviet Union in Afghanistan in the early 80's. On the other side we have the most dramatic figure of Hugo Chavez, a left-leaning Latin American president of an oil-rich country which used to be securely in the US sphere-of-influence but which under Chavez is going its own way and signing contracts all over the place and thumbing its nose at the US neocon regime. But most interesting is the fact that the Peoples Republic of China is now all over the planet signing contracts and laying the way for its accession to sole superpower status (Ironically using our debt to achieve this goal!) when the US definitively self-destructs within the next decade or less. I believe the US is playing its position in the world like a checker player, one with about an 80 IQ in fact, while various other players but particularly the Islamists, Chavez and Fidel Castro, Russia, and China are involved in an intricate chess game with the post-American hegemony in focus.

Is that the newspaper article you speak of?

which makes it all the more ominous. This was before Saddam was captured, before Mission Accomplished, before establishing "democracy" in Iraq..

Moscow Times story
http://www.moscowtimes.ru/stories/2006/07/28/001.html

"For us, it's very important that Russia participates in the construction of a large gas pipeline that will run from Venezuela to the south and will span 8,000 kilometers," Chavez said, adding that the pipeline would take $20 billion to build.



(SNIP)



Konstantin Makiyenko, a defense analyst at the Center for Analysis of Strategies and Technologies, a think tank, said Moscow should not even consider bowing to U.S. pressure over the arms deal, as it would lead to "catastrophic damage to the reputation of our country on the global arms market."



The strengthening of energy ties hailed by both leaders is also likely to worry Washington, which is eager to ensure the security of oil and gas supplies from non-Middle East exporters, such as Venezuela and Russia.



Venezuela is the world's fifth-largest oil exporter, holding about 7 percent of global oil reserves, and holds the second-largest gas reserves in the Western hemisphere after the United States.



As well as participating in his cherished project of a South American gas pipeline, Chavez said Russian energy companies, including LUKoil and Gazprom, had been invited to increase their involvement in Venezuelan oil and gas projects, including the exploration of oil fields in the Orinoco River basin.

MORE

It's unreal how we are all subject to the propaganda that is fed to us on a daily basis. The facts are there if we can tie them together. Otherwise, we will forever be in the darkness.

...to the "Islamo-fascists" (whatever the heck that means) of the day.

Just as America was pleased to bog down the Soviets in Afghanistan during the eighties, Russia of today breathes a sigh of relief in having Bush and Company pre-occupied in Iraq - without having to do anything much at all!

Thank god Vladimer Putin is not an idiot. If he started supplying Hezbollah(sp?) or Hamas with "Russian Stingers", "Head" Cheney would be clamouring for a sustainable-world-peace-inspired attack on Putin's network of "evil doers".

Finally, compare a $3 billion sale to Venezuela with America's half a trillion plus per annum expenditure on defense and "intelligence". It seems the more spent on "defence" the more vulnerable the West becomes. Go figure...

making its own decisions is weird.

are involved in trying to mold public perception politically, rather than in delivering the information honestly.

"Defy" sounds warlike, and it also emphasizes the mistaken belief that other countries are required to think of U.S. interests first, above their own, and that if they don't, they are dangerous, and should be punished.

It's so dirty you'd think they'd be embarrassed to write it.

time today, and recognized someone new was reiterating all of windansea's old claims.

They know fully well it takes forever for DU'ers to respond adequately to their boatloads of twisted charges, and they constitute a real time investment, so it's a complete drag when people have to take time from their days to straighten things out.

If they actually came to discuss honestly it would be so much different. You can see these creeps a mile away.

Looked up the new truth twister's profile, and found he has left us already.

Not a moment too soon. So proud of the process's working well.