Chavez praises Carlos the Jackal (and Mugabe, Ahmadinejad and Amin)

[cali]

By Ian James
Associated Press Writer / November 21, 2009


CARACAS, Venezuela—Hugo Chavez has defended the alleged terrorist mastermind Carlos the Jackal, saying the Venezuelan imprisoned in France was an important "revolutionary fighter" who supported the cause of the Palestinians.

The Venezuelan president praised Carlos -- whose real name is Ilich Sanchez Ramirez -- during a speech Friday night saying: "I defend him. It doesn't matter to me what they say tomorrow in Europe."

Ramirez gained international notoriety during the 1970s and 80s as the alleged mastermind of a series of bombings, killings and hostage dramas. He is serving a life sentence in France for the 1975 murders of two French secret agents and an alleged informant.

<snip>

In his speech, Chavez also sought to defend other leaders he said are wrongly labeled "bad guys" internationally, including Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe and Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Chavez called both of them brothers and said he now wonders whether Ugandan dictator Idi Amin was truly as brutal as he was reputed to be.

"We thought he was a cannibal," Chavez said, referring to Amin, whose regime was notorious for torturing and killing suspected opponents in the 1970s. "I have doubts. ... I don't know, maybe he was a great nationalist, a patriot."

<snip>

http://www.boston.com/news/world/latinamerica/articles/2009/11/21/chavez_praises_carlos_the_jackal/

[Imajika]

1. It will be interesting to see how the Chavez cheerleaders

defend these remarks.

Mugabe? Seriously? Anyone that goes out of their way to defend Robert Mugabe is seriously bad news.

Yet there are those who swoop into these threads declaring the translation is wrong, that Chavez didn't really say these things, etc, etc.

Chavez is a clown, and his spouting this sort of idiocy should be condemned.

[cali]

2. Chavez is more than merely a clown

He's done some very good things for his constituency, but indeed these kinds of utterances make it hard to take him seriously as a statesman.

[The Straight Story]

3. If it is negative, it is a lie and the source should never be trusted. Our god

You evil atheists just want to bring down chavez from his cross and give his country to evil americans like Obama.

:evilgrin:

[UTUSN]

7. You NAILED it!1 n/t

[msongs]

4. the isolated dictator descending into paranoia and madness, one step at a time nt

[tabatha]

6. like Mugabe

[bridgit]

5. It's good to be the king

[classysassy]

8. " The killing fields"

it would be very interesting to get an an accurate acount of the number of humans killed by our military and our agents,and compare them with the number killed by the so called despots mentioned in this article.Maybe some minds would be changed.