Chavez: The U.S. will bite the dust

[Blue Rectangle]

 

Taken far out of context. He said that if the US were to invade Venezuela, it would lose. With the US so bogged down in Iraq, and considering the Venezuelan military is far superior to the Iraqi one (no 12 years of sanctions on it), and  the terrain in Venezuela is much better for defense, I have to say he's right.

Of course I doubt even Bush is dumb enough to invade Venezuela.

Park a carrier group off his coast and control his offshore oil fields.  This would require very little of the resources used in Iraq or Afghanistan.  This would technically be an invasion and Chavez could do nothing to stop it.  I don't think Chavez would last long with that kind of embarrassment and with the U.S. in full control of his oil production.

[Blue Rectangle]

The US did not invade Serbia. How many American soldiers marched into Belgrade?

Uh, Kosovo was part of Serbia.  Actually, it still is.  We put troops in Kosovo, so yes, we invaded Serbia.  So what if we didn't march on the capital?  That's like saying Germany didn't invade France in WWI because they didn't reach Paris.

If the bombing campaign against Serbia wasn't invasion, they maybe we should not invade Venezuela for a few months in the same manner.  After all, what's the use of having the world's best military when you don't get to use them?

[Blue Rectangle]

After all, what's the use of having the world's best military when you don't get to use them?

wow, what a great attitude. Hitler and Stalin probably had the same one, which is why they decided to use it. But it is being used now: in Iraq. Not much of a success there!

Oh and the US campaign in Serbia was part of a NATO operation. There obviously would be no such operation here, and it wouldn't even be like Iraq because we wouldn't even have Britain and the UK this time. You think most Americans would want to waste tax dollars bombing a non-Muslim country because the President said mean things about the US? Uh yeah.

You want to bomb Venezuela and kill thousands of civilians because you don't like some comments their president made and you just want to use the military. You sicken me.

I sicken you with that quote?  Oh, I'm sorry.

Completely off-topic, here's a picture of a fish:


Anyway, back on subject now...

You must be logged in to read this quote.

[Blue Rectangle]

We'll bite the dust, eh? You first, Hugo.

And we'd not have much trouble invading Venezuela if the army was not in Iraq. The difficulty in Iraq comes from sectarianism, which does not exist in Venezuela, Islamism, which does not exist in Venezuela, and border states who back insurgents, which again do not exist in the Venezula example.

Most of the population is on the coast, and I'd assume most of the military too. This means that we'd not have to deal much with the most difficult terrain to wage offensive war, which is in the interior.

Wait, sectarianism is the problem in Iraq? We've united the Shia and Sunnis against us. Maybe try some other talking point?

Since when are the Shia and Sunnis united?  Only yesterday you were arguing the opposite, that whether an Iraqi sect voted or not determined its support for the US occupation, and then cited low Sunni turnout as evidence that the Sunnis disliked us, and by implication that we supported the Shia side.  Consistency, anyone?

OK, maybe they're not really best friends, but crazies everywhere believe that the enemy of my enemy is my friend, so they seem to be allied for the moment.

So you admit that Saddam and bin Laden were allies?

[Blue Rectangle]

But Castro survived for 40 years before that. It's not necesary.

And the same could be said for the US and the Saudis.

No.

The Soviets supplied Castro with below-market-price oil for 30 of those 40 years.  Cuba suffered badly when the Soviet subsidy was removed.

And no, the same cannot be said of the Saudis, because they certainly do not sell oil to the U.S. at far below market prices.