An Interview with Hugo Chavez By Greg Grandin: "I believe in the dream of Martin Luther King Jr."

[Better Believe It]

There Is Much to Do: An Interview with Hugo Chavez By Greg Grandin
September 27, 2009



GG: Do you think it ironic that the Right in the US now uses the same tactics and rhetoric to attack Obama that the Venezuelan right uses against your government? Did you follow what happened just two weeks ago, with Obama's planned address to schoolchildren, when they attacked him in terms very similar to the criticism used against your education reform?

HC: Ah, yes, I read about that, that it was socialist indoctrination.

GG: Exactly.

HC: If only it were socialism! I believe they are scared. And this fear is dangerous. Because independent of whatever reasoned criticism we might have of Obama--such as that concerning the Fourth Fleet, which is an effort to make his actions be coherent with his words-- here within the United States, the recalcitrant right is scared. And they hate him. First, because he is Black...

GG: This is a debate now within the United States...

HC: Jimmy Carter is saying it. And hopefully Obama won't be assassinated because of it. But Obama has also taken up the theme of social reform almost as if it were a point of honor, because he made the pledge during the campaign. And also, as Obama knows, out of necessity. Everyday there is more poverty in the United States, everyday there is more uncared for people who don't have medicine, doctors, or even education. This country is eating itself from the inside. What's happening to the American, how do you say it, Dream . I believe in the American Dream, but the dream of Martin Luther King Jr., not the dream of consumerism, unbridled capitalism or individualism, that craziness, that's not a dream it's a nightmare. Now, the recalcitrant right attacks Obama hard, calling him a socialist...

GG: Even a Nazi...

HC: Yes, a Nazi! When we met in Trinidad and shook hands, the right roasted him here for doing so: "Chávez! Why are you greeting Chávez?!" Imagine the craziness just for saying hello. It's irrational. The right here is scared that Obama is awakening a popular current in the people of the US, and they are trying to stop it. Where it is going to wind up, who knows? But I have a question, where is the US people? Where are the people, when their leader tries to propose something in benefit of the people? The people need
to go out into the streets, not just to vote but to passionately protest, to support the president, so he can fulfill his promise. Where are the people?

GG: It is the right that is in the street.

HC: Yes, the right has taken over the street. There is much to do. Those who represent progressive thought-- and I include you--need to know that without the people, there is no democracy. The people of the United States need to wake up, wake up and help construct a new country, a great nation, a true democracy. Obama can be an opportunity, and you need to support him with great force, in order to contain those that ferociously oppose whatever change. Like in Honduras. It's the same situation. The progressive community of the United States needs to support Obama to achieve change, and then it has to demand more change, and more change, and more change.

Please read the complete interview at:

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20091012/grandin

[DutchLiberal]

1. Hugo Chavez is a good man, and it shows.

If only so-called liberals on DU stopped believing the smears from the MSM --the very same MSM they distrust on *every other* topic.

[SIMPLYB1980]

2. LoL!

Chavez is a much of an ass as Gaddafi or Ahmajinedad. A simple dictator with leftists views, but still a dictator none the less.

[Better Believe It]

3. And you "learned" that from reading or viewing what? FoxNews?

[SIMPLYB1980]

4. Oh Noes! Better Believe It thanks I'm uninformed.

Why don't you go post another hit piece on Obama, Reid or Pelosi. That seems to be what you are best at.

[Better Believe It]

5. And your answer to the question is .....

?

[SIMPLYB1980]

6. Hugo Chávez Versus Human Rights.

http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2008/10/09/hugo-ch-vez-versus-human-rights

"On September 18, we released a report in Caracas that shows how President Hugo Chávez has undermined human rights guarantees in Venezuela. That night, we returned to our hotel and found around twenty Venezuelan security agents, some armed and in military uniform, awaiting us outside our rooms. They were accompanied by a man who announced—with no apparent sense of irony—that he was a government "human rights" official and that we were being expelled from the country.

With government cameramen filming over his shoulder, the official did his best to act as if he were merely upholding the law. When we said we needed to gather our belongings, he calmly told us not to worry, his men had already entered our rooms and "packed" our bags.

But when we tried to use our cell phones to get word to our families, our colleagues, and the press, the veneer of protocol quickly gave way. Security agents surrounded us, pried the phones from our hands, and removed and pocketed the batteries. When we then insisted on contacting our embassies, they shoved us into a service elevator, took us to the basement, and forced us into the back seat of an SUV with tinted windows. When we asked where we were headed, they told us only that we were going to the airport.

Three security agents sat behind us, at least two with weapons drawn. One used a cell phone to receive and relay orders as we raced through the streets of Caracas and out onto a highway. At one point an order came to turn on the SUV's radio so we could listen as the state news agency announced our expulsion. The announcers told their captive audience—which also included every other Venezuelan listening to the radio, since all stations are required to broadcast such messages—that our organization was funded by the US government and that we were part of a campaign of aggression against Venezuela."

Need more?

[Better Believe It]

10. Throw them out!

Who the frick are these two characters really working for?

They have lost all credibility with me when they made the outrageous and obviously absurd comment that "not even the right-wing dictatorships guilty of far more egregious abuses than those committed by Chávez." threw them out.

If that's true, they have never experienced life under a right-wing dictatorship.

And let's see that report and who did they release that alleged report to .... the extreme right-wing opposition perhaps which they used in their propaganda?

[SIMPLYB1980]

12. LoL!

My aren't we just a jackboot for Chavez. Your authoritarianism is showing.

[Better Believe It]

15. Are you admitting that you know nothing about these alleged defenders of democracy?

[SIMPLYB1980]

18. You are a fool. Who can't admit he's wrong.

Have fun defending a dictator.

[SIMPLYB1980]

21. They work for Human Rights Watch. Do you question there credibility?

If so provide links to discredit them.

"In the more than twenty years that Human Rights Watch has worked in Latin America, no government has ever expelled our representatives for our work, not even the right-wing dictatorships guilty of far more egregious abuses than those committed by Chávez. Presumably they knew better. After all, Chávez's decision to expel us merely served to confirm the central message of our report and ensure that it received extensive coverage around the globe.

Why did Chávez do it? One Brazilian on the plane on which we were forced to leave Venezuela offered a view that is increasingly widespread throughout Latin America: "Chávez is crazy." But the human rights defenders we work with in Venezuela have drawn a far more sobering conclusion. Chávez, in their view, was sending a deliberate message to his fellow countrymen: he will not allow human rights guarantees to get in his way, no matter what the rest of the world may think.

If their interpretation is right, it does not bode well for the future of Venezuelan democracy."

[Better Believe It]

60. Who are they? What do you know about them?

You never heard of the CIA and other government agencies planting agents in progressive and liberal organizations?

I'm not claiming that's what they are. They might just be dupes.

But, can you present some details on their backgrounds or not?

[SIMPLYB1980]

62. I have no reason to doubt them.

Can you find any reason to doubt them. I did a google search on them they seem lagit.

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Jose_Miguel_Vivanco
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Human_Rights_Watch
http://www.humanrightsfoundation.org/media/091908.html

[Wilms]

68. Here's another link.

Criticism of Human Rights Watch may be classified into four major categories: accusations of poor research methods producing inaccurate reports, accusations of selection bias, accusations of ideological bias, and questions regarding their funding practices.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_watch#Criticisms

[ChimpersMcSmirkers]

94. You owe me a new keyboard.

:rofl:

[roody]

58. Ignore is your friend.

[Better Believe It]

11. Duplicate

Duplicate

[SIMPLYB1980]

9. Crickets?

[Wilms]

69. More Than 100 Experts Question Human Rights Watch's Venezuela Report

In an open letter to the Board of Directors of Human Rights Watch, over 100 experts on Latin America criticized the organization's recent report on Venezuela, A Decade Under Chávez: Political Intolerance and Lost Opportunities for Advancing Human Rights in Venezuela, saying that it "does not meet even the most minimal standards of scholarship, impartiality, accuracy, or credibility." The signers include leading academic specialists from universities in the United States, including Harvard, Johns Hopkins, and a number of state universities, and academic institutions in Argentina, Australia, Brazil, México, the U.K., Venezuela and other countries. The letter cites Jose Miguel Vivanco, lead author of the report, saying "We did the report because we wanted to demonstrate to the world that Venezuela is not a model for anyone…"<1>, as evidence of its political agenda. The letter also criticizes the report for making unsubstantiated allegations, and that some of the sources that Human Rights Watch relied on in the report are not credible.

"By publishing such a grossly flawed report, and acknowledging a political motivation in doing so, Mr. Vivanco has undermined the credibility of an important human rights organization," the letter states.

https://nacla.org/node/5334

[DutchLiberal]

22. Thanks for proving my point.

Please be sure to provide links to prove that Chavez is having the opposition shot to death in the streets, like Ahmadinejad. Or when he blows up a plane, killing hundreds, like Khadaffi did. Until you do, shut the fuck up.

Oh, and turn off the MSM which you distrust on *any other issue*.

[SIMPLYB1980]

24. Please provide links to debunk,

Human Rights Watch or STFU.

[DutchLiberal]

29. You're reversing the burden of proof here.

But I don't blame you. You just repeat what you've learned from other anti-Chavistas on DU.

[SIMPLYB1980]

31. LOL!

Edited to add: You can't debunk, can you. Please STFU until you do.

[DutchLiberal]

35. I'm asking you to debunk what *I* wrote, and you reverse the question...

So PLEASE, answer my question, or else

[SIMPLYB1980]

39. See post 6 and 21. Then try to debunk.

You can tell me to STFU all you want it won't help. You started it by telling me to STFU now try to debunk. I bet you can't.

[DutchLiberal]

41. Your posts had nothing to do with my questions...

I asked you to prove that Chavez has opposition shot to death in the streets, like Ahmadinejad. Or that Chavez blows up airplanes, killing hundreds, like Khadaffi.

You came with a story of two HRW employees who had to leave the country.

Am I the only one who sees the obvious disconnect?

[SIMPLYB1980]

43. We don't know since he has kicked out humanitarian

groups, and purged the media he could very well have someone killed "in the street" or a back room and we wouldn't know.

http://i.abcnews.com/International/wireStory?id=6113240

"Chavez leveled the accusation against Manuel Rosales ? one of Venezuela's four opposition governors ? just weeks before Nov. 23 gubernatorial and municipal elections.

Rosales, the two-time governor of Zulia, is running for mayor of Maracaibo, Venezuela's second largest city. He ran against Chavez for the presidency in 2006, but Chavez handily defeated him with nearly 63 percent of the vote.

"I have decided to make Manuel Rosales a prisoner," Chavez told a group of business leaders in Maracaibo. "He cannot continue in office. ... He is one of those who wants to see me dead."

In recent weeks, Chavez's allies have accused Rosales of planning the president's assassination ? though officials have not presented any evidence implicating the governor in such a plot."

[DutchLiberal]

44. So two people get expelled, and suddenly it's a dictatorship???

Two people get expelled, and suddenly that means NO human rights groups are active in Venezuela? Two people get expelled, ans suddenly that mean people are being gunned down in the streets?

What media are 'purged'? Most media are in the hands of the opposition and are alive and well. What about the foreign press that's stationed in Venezuela?

They all stopped to function because two people from HRW got expelled? :rofl:

Maybe Rosales is guilty, maybe not. We'll have to wait and find out. He would certainly not be the first. The coup against Zelaya proves Chavez has to be very careful.

[SIMPLYB1980]

45. LOL!

[DutchLiberal]

46. If you don't have something factual to reply with, it's okay to not react at all...

I understand. :)

[SIMPLYB1980]

48. "Government Sponsored Antisemitism Grows Under Chavez

http://themoderatevoice.com/17046/government-sponsored-antisemitism-grows-under-chavez/

There are charges that Hugo Chavez?s government in Venezuela is sponsoring blossoming antisemitism ? concerns that are reflected in the gradual flight of Jews from Venezuela.

It fits with a long history of allegations that Chavez?s Venezuela is becoming a hotbed of antisemitism.

The latest comes via a Miami Herald article detailing the comments of journalist Sammy Eppel. It?s the latest in a piece of an ugly puzzle that has emerged regarding Chavez over the years.

Venezuelan Jews, long uneasy with the Chávez government?s alliances with Iran and other Middle Eastern countries that espouse anti-Israel views, are concerned that the government is sponsoring anti-Semitism in this hemisphere, a prominent journalist said Tuesday."

[DutchLiberal]

49. "Charges"... "Some say"... An obscure website and... the fucking Miami Herald?!

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

And you've STILL not addressed anything I've written. You just keep shifting the topic.

[SIMPLYB1980]

50. "Venezuela Expels Israeli Ambassador

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/01/06/world/main4703025.shtml

The decision by President Hugo Chavez, a longtime critic of U.S. and Israeli policy, to kick out the diplomats appeared to be the strongest reaction yet to the Gaza offensive by any country with ties to Israel.

Venezuela's Foreign Ministry announced the move in a statement, saying it "has decided to expel the Israeli ambassador and part of the personnel of the Israeli embassy."

[DutchLiberal]

52. Shifting the subject even further...

What has this all got to do with anything?

[SIMPLYB1980]

53. Start debunking if you don't like it.

All I see fom you is all talk and no links.

[Forkboy]

54. You never answered any of the questions.

Speaking of just talk... :shrug:

[SIMPLYB1980]

55. My proof is in my links.

The man is a dictator and I'm tired of trying to prove it to fools who refuse to see it. Chavez plays our left like a fiddle.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x3795319#3798597

[Forkboy]

56. I read those links when you posted them.

Your proof isn't in there. Nor is it in the link you just provided.

Chavez plays our left like a fiddle.

Or the Right is playing you perhaps?

[DutchLiberal]

57. I've given up. Talking to a brick wall is more effective...

He simply wants to believe what he's being spoon-fed by the MSM (even if he doesn't believe the same MSM on *any other issue*).

[SIMPLYB1980]

63. And talking with you is like talking to a dining room table. nt

[SIMPLYB1980]

61. I respect your opinion Forkboy, but my opinion of Chavez remains.

Can you provide me with any links where Chaves has produced evidence of death threats against him by the media. I can find no audio, video, or newspapers article of the media in Venezuela doing any such thing.

[Forkboy]

64. I don't know if I can find them or not.

This'll sound like a cop out, but I'm honestly just not up for anything in the way of research tonight. It was a long, bad day and I'm just not up for anything that requires me to actually think for more than a minute at a time. If I get the chance tomorrow I'll look into it and see what, if anything, I can find.

In the meantime, I'll leave you with this. Chavez is neither the dictator you think he is, nor the Leftist savior that others see him as. He is an intelligent man that was elected in elections that were cleaner than ours, and is a very popular leader in his country. He's right to distrust the U.S. as we've tampered in Latin America for decades, and still are. Uribe is ten times worse than Chavez ever will be, and yet he gets no attention from those who worry about whether Chavez is a dictator or not, there's no MSM coverage of the very real death squads in Columbia, etc. DutchLiberal is correct on one thing, and that's that many who don't like Chavez buy into what the MSM is saying about him without question when they would never trust it on other topics. Very few of his detractors seem to question why this is, and why the MSM seems to have such a vested in this, and I believe they should. If the press truly cared about Chavez being such a bad man then they would also be covering Uribe. They aren't, so that begs the question, why the focus on Chavez, and for who's gain?

[SIMPLYB1980]

65. Sorry you had a bad day.

I don't buy what the M$M sells, but I have read to many news reports, not all from M$M media, that the once Democraticaly elected Chavez has used authoritarian means to crush decent and retain power. To me that makes him a dictator.

[DutchLiberal]

71. Then you haven't searched very hard. Deliberately, I guess.

Watch 'The Revolution Will Not Be Televised', a documentary shot by an Irish filmteam during the 2002 coup d'état against Chavez. You will see plenty of evidence of media complicity in Venezuela in overthrowing Chavez.

Or, if you want to search it closer to home: look for Pat Robertson calling for the assassination of Chavez on national tv.

[SIMPLYB1980]

72. I have seen that documentary. It didn't show

anything reassembling death threats by the Venezuelan media as far as I can remember. Pat Robertson is not the Venezuelan media. Got any links to back up Chavez on his claims of death threats?

[DutchLiberal]

73. So death threats are when you draw the line, but a coup d'état is okay?

And then you call Chavez the dictator! :rofl:

And you haven't seen that film, or you wouldn't be an anti-Chavez-robot.

[SIMPLYB1980]

74. Yawn. No links I see.

Why am I not surprised.

[DutchLiberal]

75. Why don't YOU start by answering all the questions I asked you, BEFORE you make demands...

But your tactic is shifting the subject and reversing the burden of proof and exhausting the other person.

[SIMPLYB1980]

76. ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzz.....

:boring:

[jefferson_dem]

23. LOL!

:rofl:

[scheming daemons]

7. Did MLK Jr. believe in dictatorship?

Because that's what Chavez has become.

Originally democratically elected... but now a two-bit dictator.

[uponit7771]

8. How has he become dictator? TIA

[JamesA1102]

27. When you shut down the opposition press

you're a dictator!

[DutchLiberal]

33. I would close media, too, if they were calling for overthrowing my government!

[JamesA1102]

36. And that's being a dictator!

"If we don't believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we don't believe in it at all." - Noam Chomsky

[DutchLiberal]

38. No, that's prosecuting treasonous acts.

If some media outley started to call for the overthrowment of the US government outright (not in the covered up terms they use now on Fox), you can bet they were shut down *immediately*. If you don't believe this, you're being naive.

[paulk]

70. you mean "prosecution" through the courts?

is that what happened in VZ?

[Dreamer Tatum]

82. Due process is only important when the shoe is on the other foot, don't you know nt

[DutchLiberal]

83. According to the Constitution in Venezuela, drawn up *before* Chavez came to power...

the president has the power to deny a license to a broadcasting station (radio, tv). Chavez simply waited until RCTV's license expired and refused to renew it. He has every right to do so.

[paulk]

93. hmmm

does that make it all right then? He closed how many radio stations? Was it 33 or 34? I can't remember. And just a few weeks ago his infrastructure minister threatened to close down another 29.

If Chavez was as interested in the same things MLK was, freedom, justice, etc. - maybe he would protest a constitutional provision that puts so much power in the hands of a President - a power that could be easily abused to shut up your political opposition (not that Chavez would ever do such a thing, of course).

[DutchLiberal]

97. Why don't you read the interview to find out how Chavez is doing what MLK preached?

Combating poverty, sending twice as many children to school, eliminating illiteracy, giving broadcasting services back to the people (communal radio and tv).

[spanza]

66. You're just repeating the official version

and forgetting that every story has at least two angles..

Show me SOMETHING (images, recordings) that PROVES (no opinion article by chavista media.. same propaganda that any right wing media) the radio and tv stations that were closed in 2009 were "calling for overthrowing" the govt.

Tell me, why are you so sure?

[DutchLiberal]

88. I'm talking about RCTV, and you can see for yourself in...

The Revolution Will Not Be Televised:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Revolution_Will_Not_Be_Televised_(documentary)

[eridani]

95. Explain why the corporate opposition still owns most of the media n/t

[DutchLiberal]

98. You never got an answer to that question from the anti-Chavistas, did you?

[jefferson_dem]

25. Martin would surely be proud of the comparison.

[DutchLiberal]

28. Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't "Martin" fight for equal rights for the weak and oppressed?

If so, YES, he WOULD have been proud of the comparison. Chavez is doing just that, the corporations hate him for it, they channel it through their propaganda on the tv channels they own, and you believe it, even though you don't believe them on *any other issue*. So I think you have to reconsider whether you're really a Democrat.

[jefferson_dem]

32. Like clockwork.

Anyone who doesn't bow to Hugo's alter is tainted by propaganda, not really a Democrat, or both.

Too predictable. When are you guys going to get a new playbook?

[DutchLiberal]

37. And this from the people who only got personal insults?!

I mean, I'm a big fan of irony, but you rabid Chavez-haters are taking it a bit too far.

I mean, I have yet to see any of my posts debunked by facts or arguments. I'm still waiting, but... no response.

I guess you want us to bow to MSM smears? (The kind of smears you don't buy on *any other issue*.)

[Forkboy]

42. Lots of binary thinking when it comes to Chavez from both sides.

His hardcore supporters and his hardcore detractors are both coming across as simpletons to me.

[SIMPLYB1980]

34. ZING! nt

[DutchLiberal]

26. You need to look up the word 'dictator' in a dictionary...

Dictators don't hold elections which are overseen by international observers (including Jimmy Carter) ... like Chavez does.

Dictators don't allow mass demonstrations of the opposition in the streets... like Chavez does.

Dictators don't allow commercial radio, tv and newspapers to badmouth them 24/7... like Chavez does.

So either Chavez is the world's strangest "dictator", or you aren't a Democrat, because you don't believe in democracy.

[texasleo]

13. Playing the American extreme left like a fiddle. Gotta love Generalissimo Chavez.

[Better Believe It]

16. More right-wing bull shit. Why are you letting the extreme right let you play you like a fiddle?

Stop watching that FoxNews crap!

[nxylas]

79. They don't have to watch Fox News

The so-called "liberal media" is just as bad.

[RepublicanElephant]

14. another look at the horrible sounds of chavez's socialist indoctrination of venezuela's youth:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S6q7RCAcaBk

more commie agitation here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I2PtLBYMo68&feature=fvw

"The Orquesta Sinfónica Simón Bolívar (Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra) is a Venezuelan youth orchestra. The economist José Antonio Abreu established the orchestra on 12 February 1975. The orchestra is under the auspices of Fundacion del Estado para el Sistema Nacional de las Orquestas Juveniles e Infantiles de Venezuela, known colloquially as El Sistema. The orchestra is based at the Teresa Carreño Cultural Complex in Caracas and is considered the apex of the nation's system of 220 youth orchestras."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orquesta_Sinf%C3%B3nica_Sim%C3%B3n_Bol%C3%ADvar

"For several years now, Gustavo Dudamel and the young musicians of the Venezuelan youth orchestra Simon Bolívar have been causing a furor on the international music scene. More than anything else, it is they who have earned the Venezuelan orchestra system respect around the world: 30 years ago the conductor, composer and economist Jose Antonio Abreu had the vision of combining social work and classical music. Abreu's goal was to tear down elitist structures in music education and make music a fundamental right of all the country's children."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I2PtLBYMo68&feature=fvw

[Better Believe It]

17. The right-wing birthers going just as nuts over Chavez and they are Obama

[RepublicanElephant]

19. yep... they attack anything that threatens the tyranny of corporate rule over our lives.

chavez is one of the great enemies of corporatism.

and there many more in south america.

[JNelson6563]

30. Indeed.

:toast:

[DutchLiberal]

40. And they're getting a helping hand from so-called "liberals" at DU...

[Vidar]

20. Good for Chavez.

[Blue_Tires]

47. ttt

[DutchLiberal]

51. I was taken aback by the well-spoken, informed and well-reasoned arguments Chavez made...

People should read the interview first, before condemning him. All they know about Chavez is a few snippets on tv. In this interview, he shows himself a very smart, well-read man. Thanks for the post.

[ecstatic]

59. He raised interesting questions: Why aren't we in the street more?

Why are we letting tea baggers dominate the discussion? It's not enough to just type furiously online. Maybe we should be more proactive and loud about what we want? :shrug:

[spanza]

67. It is the right that is in the street....?

No... it is just people from every side of the political spectrum.

[Common Sense Party]

77. You can tell a lot about a man by the company he keeps.

Birds of a feather and all that.

[RepublicanElephant]

78. you sure can...

chavez with barack obama



chavez with sean penn



chavez with naomi campbell



chavez with harry belafonte



chavez with oliver stone


damn commies!

[DutchLiberal]

87. You forgot Chavez and John Paul II; and Chavez with Bill Clinton:

Can't find the photo of Clinton and John Paul II with Chavez, but they are shown in the only FAIR segment US media have ever done on him:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kDaSJ23DRjs



Chavez and pope Benedict.



Chavez with Cindy Sheehan.

[SIMPLYB1980]

80. You can tell even more from a leaders actions.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2009-09-28-gadhafi-chavez_N.htm?csp=34

"PORLAMAR, Venezuela (AP) — Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi signed a declaration Monday night decrying what they call attempts by powerful Western countries to equate struggles against colonialism with terrorism.

In the declaration, Venezuela and Libya "reject intentions to link the legitimate struggle of the people for liberty and self-determination" with terrorism, but also adds that they "reiterate the importance of countering terrorism in all its forms."

Neither of the two leaders commented publicly on the document. It does not specifically name any Western country, but Gadhafi mentioned both the United States and Britain during a speech after the signing.

During many of his 40 years in power, Gadhafi was accused of harboring terrorists and hosting militant training camps while sponsoring terrorist attacks. But the Libyan leader has taken steps in recent years to mend relations with the West, and says his government renounces terrorism and rejects being labeled as a sponsor of terrorist acts.

Chavez, meanwhile, has been accused by Colombia and the United States of supporting the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, which has been seeking to overthrow governments in Bogota for 45 years."

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/05/26/world/main5039235.shtml

The two South American countries are known to have close ties with Iran, but this is the first allegation that they are involved in the development of Iran's nuclear program, considered a strategic threat by Israel.

"There are reports that Venezuela supplies Iran with uranium for its nuclear program," the Foreign Ministry document states, referring to previous Israeli intelligence conclusions. It added, "Bolivia also supplies uranium to Iran."

The report concludes that Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is trying to undermine the United States by supporting Iran.

Venezuela and Bolivia are close allies, and both regimes have a history of opposing U.S. foreign policy and Israeli actions. Venezuela expelled the Israeli ambassador during Israel's offensive in Gaza this year, and Israel retaliated by expelling the Venezuelan envoy. Bolivia cut ties with Israel over the offensive.

[Name removed]

81. Deleted sub-thread

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[DutchLiberal]

85. Good for Chavez to stand up against Israeli war crimes!

I wish more world leaders had the guts to do that.

[DutchLiberal]

84. Then Obama is a dictator, too!

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_L6pDyjqqsvY/Si3jPIh6IVI/AAAAAAAAb-4/5oKwd93cfaU/s400/obama+bow.jpg

Obama and the king of Saudi Arabia, the country that's consistently in Amnesty's top 10 list of human rights violations. Actually, Saudi Arabia is a lot more repressive to live in, especially for women. Also remember it were the Saudi's who financed 9/11.

http://61.129.89.199:8088/img/200904/02/68/6811520450470325308.jpg

Obama and Chinese 'president' Hu Jintao. The country with one of the highest numbers of executions per year. Also the occupying and repressive force in Tibet. Remember the bloodbath they created when Tibetan monks started to rise up last year.

So, according to YOUR OWN LOGIC, Obama can't be trusted, right?

Why don't you just read the interview? It shows an intelligent, well-spoken and reasonable man. Or do you want to go by the snippets the MSM spreads to smear him?

[SIMPLYB1980]

86. Get back to me when Obama puts any of these fools in jail.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x8676824

[DutchLiberal]

89. Get back to me when Chavez does so. Shifting arguments again.

It's called cognitive dissonance. You're suffering from it.

[SIMPLYB1980]

90. Well as fun as it's been discussing this with you.

Chavez is a dictator it's my opinion and you have done nothing to change that.

[DutchLiberal]

91. That's because facts don't influence you. Yoúr opinion is based on nothing.

You have no answers. You just call people names and hope that passes for an argument.

[SIMPLYB1980]

92. You have offered no facts,

you have no answers. Dictator is as dictator does.

[DutchLiberal]

96. I have offered truckloads of facts, Anti-Chavistas all share the same tactic of ignoring them

Pretend they don't exist. They have an opinion that's written in stone, and no fact is going to change that.

Anti-Chavistas pretend to be soooo concerned with democracy in Venezuela. Yet you *never* hear them about human right violations and death squads in Colombia, or shutting down of media and rounding up innocent people in Honduras. That's because all they care about is personal attacks on Hugo Chavez.

The right-wing thanks you.