Requiem For A Scumbag

Hugo Chavez was proof that leftists learn nothing from the past. Every socialist would-be dictator, like him, operates on the premise that this time, they're employing "true" Marxism; this time, it'll work for sure. Of course, he ended up being just another petty despot. What a shame.

As a brief recap of his unfortunate life, Chavez, a former military man, started a revolutionary movement in the '80s, was briefly imprisoned following a failed coup in the early '90s, then released, and then swept to power in the 1998 presidential elections, after capitalizing on disenchantment with the prior regime after an economic downturn. (All he needed was a German accent and a funny mustache to complete the comparison.) Indeed, El Hugo was praised by the U.N. (go figure) and other authorities for his fiscally conservative lifestyle and his famously populist agenda, which included massive public relief efforts, a crackdown on business corruption, nationalization of oil companies, and lots of other stick-it-to-the-Man policies. Such actions, these international bodies have proclaimed, cut Venezuela's poverty rate by half and significantly improved the standard of living.

What a guy. Only problem--all of that is bull@#$%.

Whenever you hear statistics praising Chavez' development of a social democracy (and you will, if you're following the news), keep in mind those statistics are grossly manipulated by Venezuelan government agencies. Unemployment, for example, is only counted in terms of people working less than one hour per month, so that the real rate is three or four times higher than the official figure (which itself is nothing to write home about--in 2010 it was about eight percent. You do the math.)

This mendacity hides the truly basketcase economy Chavez presided over in his final years. The real picture includes the closing of over 4,000 businesses during the 2000s, an annual inflation rate regularly topping 50%, a significant decline of GDP compared to its neighbors' growing economies, and a crumbling infrastructure that sees frequent electricity brownouts and water shortages. Ironically--but predictably--the main burden falls on the poor, who regularly experience scarcities of food, utilities, and medical care. Crime in the capital city of Caracas is off the charts, and the drop in investment that comes with bashing business interests isn't exactly helping the jobless problem, either.

Clearly, Chavez' government hasn't done much for the "social" part of "social democracy." And I'm sure I don't need to tell you how it's lived up to the other half of that equation. (Which I will.) It was no unusual thing for the Venezuelan president to "suggest" during his weekly broadcasts that certain political enemies should be imprisoned--which, of course, they then were--under atrocious conditions which have frequently drawn the protest of human rights groups. And the government's "to be rich is to be bad" slogan has led to the arbitrary takeover and break-up of various private firms and the groundless convictions of bankers and other "enemies of the people." When one of these last was paroled, Chavez gave the offending judge a 30-year sentence. Has any purported friend-of-the-little-man violated the rule of law as frequently and blatantly as Chavez has?



Hey, how did that get in here? That's not funny.

I could go on. There's more, much more--Chavez' personal lavish spending, the alleged corruption of family members, his use of Cuban special forces to quell dissent, and a conspiracy-theorist paranoia so extreme even Sean Penn was taken aback--but this is bad enough, isn't it? And yet, when word of his death came this week, hacks like Jimmy Carter, Michael Moore, and Oliver Stone immediately lauded him as a friend to democracy and social justice. To put that in perspective, let me leave you with this, courtesy of HumanEvents.com:

Practically alone, farmer and biologist Franklin Brito launched a hunger strike last year to protest the government's 2005 invasion and plundering of his property in Bolivar state, which was later expropriated without a just compensatory payment....When authorities failed to return clear title to his property, Franklin Brito resumed his strike, only to be taken forcefully to the Military Hospital, where attempts were made to declare him insane. Since being hospitalized in December [2009], Mr. Brito has defied efforts to force-feed him and fought to resume his hunger strike. The government finally allowed the Red Cross to visit him and he has since resumed drinking water. His condition remains grave.

That's what those hacks are defending.

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Cubezuela

I know most of you don’t care about foreign affairs, but this one is kind of interesting. Ever since Castro came to power, he’s been trying to spread his revolution around the world. They’ve funded and supplied leftist rebels throughout South and Central America. They sent troops to Angola. And now, it looks like they’ve conquered Venezuela. Seriously.

When Hugo Chavez came to power in Venezuela, he did so democratically and with the backing of the vast number of peasants in Venezuela. Since that time, he’s signed all kinds of bilateral agreements with Cuba where Cuba provided technical know-how and advisors in exchange for oil, oil which bankrupt Cuba desperately needs since it lost its Soviet backers.

So how many Cubans are we talking about? At last count, Cuba has about 40,000 “advisors” in Venezuela. What’s more, they seem to be running the place. Here are some of things the Cubans control:

• Cubans control the training of the national police, an organization created last year and modeled on the Cuban secret police.

• Cuban agents occupy key posts in Venezuela’s military intelligence agency.

• Cubans built the digital radio communications system used by the security forces, which gives them access to antenna locations and radio frequencies.

• Cubans run the electrical system.

• Cubans control the ports.

• Cubans designed and control the computerized identification card system, which includes personal information on all residents.

• Cubans designed and control the passport control and immigration systems.

• Cubans designed and control the health care system.

• Cubans designed and control the public registries, the business registries, and the notary system.

In fact, Cuban control is so thorough that Cuban advisors are known to wield more power than the Venezuelan officials whom they supposedly advise. Coffee growers, for example, say they answer directly to Cuba’s former trade minister Barbara Castillo, rather than the Venezuelans who supposedly run the trade ministry.

In another example, the former Venezuelan ambassador to the U.N. protested the seizure of his farm by turning over his ownership documents to the Cuban embassy rather than the Venezuelan authorities.

Chavez himself accidentally acknowledged this reality last year when he announced that a large number of medical clinics would be closing. His slip up was admitting that he had heard about this from Castro, rather than any Venezuelan officials, because data from the medical system goes to Cuba before it gets released to the Venezuelan government.

Chavez tries to downplay this, saying that: “Cuba helps us modestly with some things that I’m not going to detail. Everything Cuba does for Venezuela is to strengthen the homeland.”

But others aren’t buying it. Froilan Barrios of the Confederation of Venezuelan Workers says that the “oil and petrochemicals [industries] are completely penetrated by Cuban G2,” which is Castro’s intelligence service. He also says that when they threatened a strike in the oil industry, Cuban officials threatened them. Coincidentally, Venezuela sends 100,000 barrels of oil a day to Cuba. Moreover, the government will not allow the unionization of worksites run by the Cubans.

The military isn’t happy about this either. Former Brigadier General Antonio Rivero resigned in protest because of the control Cuba exerts over their military. Says Rivero, “They’ve crossed a line. They’ve gone beyond what should be permitted and what an alliance should be.” He specifically complains about Cuban officials running high level meetings, training snipers, and establishing a system of bunkers around the country where weapons are being concealed. He speculates that if Chavez loses in the next election, the Cubans could “become part of a guerrilla force.”

Interestingly, when Chavez flies to Cuba, he does so on board Cuban military jets. He also uses Cuban intelligence to spy on dissidents.

Castro and Chavez even got a time share on Sean Penn’s affections.

Sounds like a puppet state to me.


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Why China Is A Danger To Us. . .

I wrote an article some time ago in which I pointed out that the obsession with China surpassing us economically was all a bunch of paranoid garbage. . . and it is. But that doesn’t mean that we should not be worried about China. Here’s what should concern you. . .

China: The Military Threat

About ten years ago, China came to an interesting realization. It knew it could not compete with the United States military as a world power. But what if it didn’t have to? After much rethinking, China concluded that it didn’t need to compete with the United States militarily as a world power, it only needed a strong enough military to outclass whatever the United States could bring to the region in the event of conflict. In other words, it didn’t need to prepare to fight the United States around the world, it only needed to be strong enough to intimidate the United States into staying out of whatever regional conflicts it chose to start, e.g. Taiwan.

Putting that plan into motion, China began modernizing its military with EU and Russian weapons. In 2002, when I first started paying attention to this issue, China began buying old Russian Kilo-class submarines. Those subs are equipped with long-range, anti-ship missile systems. The Chinese also bought destroyers, anti-aircraft missiles and fighter-bombers from the Russian at the same time. They also began building large numbers of missiles that could reach other countries within the region, and they began doing war games that involved simulating attacks on Taiwan.

According to experts at the National War College, those submarines would “very significantly enhance the Chinese navy's ability to influence events in the East China Sea. First, by enforcing a blockade against Taiwan, if Beijing adopts that course of action, and also by posing a serious problem for opposing naval forces attempting to operate in the area.”

Now Defense Secretary Robert Gates has acknowledged this threat. Said Gates on Wednesday:

“When considering the military-modernization programs of countries like China, we should be concerned less with their potential ability to challenge the US symmetrically -- fighter to fighter or ship to ship -- and more with their ability to disrupt our freedom of movement and narrow our strategic options. Investments in cyber and anti-satellite warfare, anti-air and anti-ship weaponry, and ballistic missiles could threaten America's primary way to project power and help allies in the Pacific -- in particular our forward air bases and carrier strike groups.”

Short of starting an arms race in the region, combating this threat will be extremely difficult, especially with an administration that pays no attention to world affairs. Perhaps discouraging further arms sales and allowing Taiwan to buy more modern American military hardware would be a good start? Of course, that could cause China to stop buying the bonds Obama needs to sell so that he can keep up his deficit spending.

China: The Foreign Policy Threat

At the same time, China has undertaken a much more aggressive approach to foreign policy throughout the rest of the world. Meet the “Bamboo Republic”:

Do you remember the banana republic? “Banana republic” was the term for countries that were essentially ruled by fruit companies. British or American companies would head to places like South America and set up banana and rubber plantations. They would then use their considerable wealth and power to shape/control the local governments to ensure that their investment was protected. The banana republics came to end as result of various means, most often revolution.

Now they are back, and China is the biggest purveyor. At a time when most governments in the world are content to step back and let NGOs -- non-governmental organizations -- address the problems of the Third World, China has stepped into the vacuum. Using hard currency, they have bought up massive amounts of resources in these countries, everything from oil, to minerals, to huge tracks of land. They also bought up the companies that were doing the extracting and they have created companies to manage the land. In this way, they are securing the oil, the copper, the iron ore, and the wheat that they need.

The question that remains unanswered is how this will affect the governments in those countries. Will this predispose them toward a favorable view of China? Will they feel held hostage to China’s demands? Will they become Bamboo Republics? And is this good for these countries, or have they simply traded white colonial masters for Chinese colonial masters? Moreover, how will this affect countries like the United States, as, for example, copper mine after copper mine comes under the influence of the Chinese government?

Like it or not, resources are limited and it’s time to consider the wisdom of letting a government like China monopolize the things upon which modern economies depend.

China And The Coming Oil Shortage Threat

Similar to the Bamboo Republic threat comes a threat of massive disruption to our oil supply. Everyone knows that oil is a commodity, and, thus, it doesn’t matter where you get it, right? Well, no.

In fact, there are different types of oil. Indeed, one of the reasons that Iran is seeking nuclear power even though it is “sitting” on a ton of oil, is that its oil is “sour crude”, meaning it contains a great many impurities -- particularly sulfur. Those impurities need to be removed before the oil can be processed. This makes the oil expensive to use and not well suited to being turned into gasoline (it tends to be used for heating oil or diesel).

A second, more important fact is that oil is not dumped into a market where it can be picked up by anyone like bread from a bin at a grocery store. Oil comes from certain countries and is often designated for specific countries. Indeed, the United States gets most of its oil from Canada, Mexico and Saudi Arabia. But coming in a strong fourth, and providing around 1/6th of the oil supplied to the United States, is Venezuela.

And this rubs Hugo Chavez wrong. Thus, he has stated several times that if he could find other buyers, he would stop selling oil to the United States entirely -- thereby cutting off 1/6 of the oil supply to the United States. The reason he hasn’t been able to find too many buyers is that Venezuela also sits on sour crude, which not everyone can refine. Last week, China signed a deal with Venezuela to start developing oil fields in Venezuela.

This remains speculation at this point, but it will not likely take long after China develops the infrastructure needed to process and transport oil from Venezuela to China, before Chavez starts selling all of his oil to China instead of the United States. Where will the United States suddenly find enough oil to replace 1/6 of its requirement?

Conclusion

The Chinese are not fools, nor are they content with being second class. They have made it clear that they view the world now as bi-polar, with the United States on one end and China on the other, and everyone else nothing more than pawns. We need to make sure that we are not dependent on China in any way, and that China does not find a way to hold us over a barrel. We also need to think about balancing China’s power within its own region by fully supporting our friends, before they stop being our friends and instead fall under the influence of a new Chinese Empire.

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