Chavez: The U.S. will bite the dust

[The Duke]

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.

[The Duke]

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?

that despot needs to be relieved of his duties.

Would you support doing the same thing to Singapore, whose Freedom House scores are much worse? Do you really think Chavez is actually anywhere near one of the most repressive rulers in the world? Conservative obssession with him is quite bizarre.

We all do realize that it is Venezuelan oil keeping Castro's regime afloat and enabling it to become even more repressive, right?

Castro handled fine for 40 years before Chavez came around, he's obviously not the only thing keeping him in power now. As the Bush admin props up much worse dictators than Castro Chavez's friendliness with him doesn't bother me at all. Better him than the Saudis.

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.

And the people of Venezuela would just accept the US occupying it? Uh, no. The jungle is perfect for guerilla warfare, which is where all the resistance will come from, and it'd be a hell of a lot tougher to beat than the Iraqis. Colombia hasn't even been able to wipe out FARC after more than 30 years, and any Venezuelan resistance would be much higher.

But it's all moot, because the American public would never tolerate the invasion of another Christian country. Regardless, I can hardly blame Chavez for being pissed at Bush. I just want to know why conservatives are so obsessed with the guy, considering he doesn't even have a Not Free score from Freedom House.

There is no direct parallel to FARC in Venzuela, since the FARC is funded by the drug trade.  The drug trade is not absent from Venezuela, but it is not anywhere near as central as in Columbia.  As someone who knows some Venezuelans personally, I have to say that the suggestion that the US would not be welcome and that resistance to the US would be stronger than FARC is in Columbia can't be taken entirely seriously.

So we'd never invade a Christian country?  Like, oh, Serbia?  Nice one.  As Naso says, you need to have a talk with Archie Bunker.

[The Duke]

Um, you see, the two countries are..umm.. different?

Because one is a dictatorship and the other isn't, and thus the people in the non-dictatorship will be much more resentful.

Well, for one thing, one has lots more fundamentalist Muslims in it. I'd think that would have been very obvious to you.

The insurgency in Iraq is not mostly fundamentalist, but rather ex-regime elements, who are obviously not since Saddam was no friend to them.

And Venezuela does have lots of socialists and communists, who'd be just as much of a problem.

It has already been repeatedly established that Saddam wasa  friend of Islamists.  Here's a picture of a check his government wrote funding Palestinian suicide bombers, who I assure you aren't secular.



It has also alread been established not 24 hours ago by myself in the General politics thread that most of the insurgents, particularly the insurgent leadership is in fact Islamist.

Why do you persist in basing your arguments on things that are so overwhel mingly discredited?

[The Duke]

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

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

P.S. The New People's Army are holding marriages for gay rebels in their ranks. Not socially conservative.

Looks like we need a center for kids that can't read good. I said once in power. i.e. USSR, China, Vietnam, etc.

Except that East Germany's abortion laws were much less restrictive than West Germany's, and Poland had much less restrictive abortion laws under the communist regime than now.

It has already been repeatedly established that Saddam wasa  friend of Islamists.  Here's a picture of a check his government wrote funding Palestinian suicide bombers, who I assure you aren't secular.

Which is why on the eve of the invasion Osama sent a message calling it a conflict between "two great infidels" and calling upon the Iraqis to oust Saddam themselves. Which is also why his archenemy in the region was Iran. Yeah, those Islamists loved Saddam.

I obviously can't see who that check is made out to, but there are plenty of secular Palestinean terrorist organizations, Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine being most prominent. So I don't buy you're assurance that they neccesarily aren't secular. And yes, secular terrorist groups have committed suicide bombings before, unless you think the Tamil Tigers and Kurdistan Workers Party are Islamist.

And the primary reason Arab countries back Palestinean terrorists is not religious but that they hate Israel for reasons that has little to do with religion. The military regime in Egypt that attacked Israel during the Six Day War was very secular and suffered much trouble from Islamists as wel.

Of course you can't read the check, its in Arabic.  The point is that photographic proof shows that they exist and that Saddam did fund terrorism, despite your reepeated false claims that he didn't.

As for funding only secular suicide bombers, a laughable suggestion!  Saddam gave large sums of cash to Hamas, which is not secular, and we can document this without much trouble.  Furthermore, the cash from Saddam was not to only a group or collection of groups of Palestinian bombers, it was to each and every bomber.  Here is a quote from Tariq Aziz: “President Saddam Hussein has recently told the head of the Palestinian political office, Faroq al-Kaddoumi, his decision to raise the sum granted to each family of the martyrs of the Palestinian uprising to $25,000 instead of $10,000,”.

Osama can issue a Fatwa if he wishes, but he took Saddam's money when offered and he took Saddam's shelter for his factions when offered, deeds matter more than words, and Osama's deeds speak louder than a thousand video taped messages ever could.

As for Iran, Saddam hated the iranians because they are Persian and not Arab.  It doesn't have much to do with religion, in any case Saddam was Sunni and the Ayatollah was Shi'a, so even in a case where Saddam was opposed to Iran on religious grounds (which he wasn't) he'd still not have to do it on grounds of secularism vs. religion.  It would be a straight Sunni-Shi'a divide.

The Nasser regime did not suffer too much trouble from Islamists.  It was not until after the Camp David Accords that Islamists began seriously trying to undermine the secular government.