Meddling With Hugo Chavez

Hugo Chavez doesn't seem like a very nice guy. He seems to be playing hardball with big business and big labor, he is making friends with some of our enemies and competitors, he is an "OPEC hawk," and Citgo is mad at him. In a region that has a history of tinhorn dictators and banana republics, in our disparaging rhetoric, he may fit right in.

The multi-national Republican noise machine is cranking up to get rid of him. Why? Is he having a bad effect on the lives of the people of Venezuela? Is he even a minor threat to the United States, except for adding a few pennies to the price of oil? If we don't stop him in Baghdad--I mean, Caracas, will we have to stop him in San Antonio?

NO! He is friendly with Castro, who our Republicans need as a demon. He may expropriate some oil profits from Citgo, but probably not as much as George Bush is giving them. He is buying weapons from someone else besides us and he doesn't want our military teaching his military to do what? Overthrow him? He doesn't want our propaganda arm, the National Endowment for Democracy, to give money to his big business, rich enemies. Big Deal!

I am not a fan of Hugo Chavez, but I am a fan of Minding Our Own Business. It is in the best interest of the United States of America to stop spending our money meddling in the internal affairs of other countries. Hugo Chavez is playing Robin Hood in Venezuela and that seems to be quite popular with ordinary Venezuelans, who keep electing him and putting him back in power after the rich Venezuelans have their coups. We need a new Good Neighbor Policy and this time we need to be a good neighbor by minding our own business and respecting the sovereignty of other countries. We have no great moral or intellectual superiority to the people who elected Hugo Chavez or Salvator Allende or anyone else.