Hugo Chavez is trying to do away with presidential term limits. He is restricting freedom of the press and is friends with Fidel Castro and has close ties with Iran. He is building a Kalashnikov rifle factory in Venezuela.
All of these may be true about the controversial leader, but it seems that increasingly there is a perception within the US that he also poses a security threat to the United States and that average Americans should be afraid of him.
Chavez inspires polarized views. He is alternatively a despot, intent on attacking the US and threatening democracy throughout Latin America, and a heroic populist, bravely standing up to US hegemony.
But should we be afraid of him?
The fact that he is buying Kalashnikovs and building a rifle factory has rattled our government, but that particular rifle can fire about 330 feet. The closest American mainland between the shores of Venezuela and the US is about 1300 miles. Venezuela has no nuclear weapons or other weapons capable of reaching us. Most likely, he is not planning on marching up through Central America to invade Texas. Unless, as Chavez claims, the US plans to invade Venezuela, we have nothing to worry about from the Kalashnikovs.
But rifles aren’t the only thing our administration seems to be worried about. Venezuela also dropped out of participation in the World Bank and IMF after repaying all its loans early and has worked to establish the Bank of the South as a regional World Bank alternative. Chavez established ALBA, a trade agreement proposed as an alternative to the US’s FTAA. As part of it, Venezuela plans to supply 100 percent of the energy needs for ALBA member-nations, which include Haiti, Bolivia, Nicaragua, Haiti and Cuba. It’s a wildly generous offer, but he can afford to be. Not counting the Middle East, Venezuela has more proven oil reserves than any nation on earth except Canada. Chavez has also supplied oil to fund reduced-price oil programs for the poor in the United States, including Joe Kennedy’s Citizens Energy Corporation. Many New Englanders have had heat on cold winter nights, thanks to cheap Venezuelan oil, a la Chavez.
The US government’s fretting over Venezuela’s initiating the Bank of the South and the ALBA free trade agreement is simply a fear that Latin America will no longer turn to the United States for everything — from borrowing money with strings attached to being told what the price of corn will be that day.
Hugo Chavez may indeed be power-hungry and intent on ruling Venezuela to the end of his days. He may, like many with great power, turn corrupt and brutal and become the dictator he is already accused of being. Some fear he may become another Fidel Castro. We fail to remember that in the more than 40 years that Castro has been in power, Cuba has been a peaceful nation and has never once attacked us, even though they are only 90 miles away from our shores (but still out of Kalashnikov range). Only we have attacked them. Castro has governed over a poor populace that manages to feed and educate and provide medical care to all of its people; Chavez could do worse than follow in his footsteps.
Today, Chavez is a popular, democratically elected leader of a sovereign nation that has never in its history invaded, attacked, or otherwise hurt the United States. Chavez’s greatest crime is simply that he has the nerve to try to control his nation’s own wealth, its oil, and refuses to play by the rules the US has established for Latin America over the last 150 years. If that’s what our administration is afraid of, the self-determination of another democratic nation, we probably have bigger things to worry about, right here at home.
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2 comments:
You seem to forget that although the US did try to undermine the government of Cuba shortly after Castro came to power, I believe there was a moment where the world nearly blew itself up with Cuba smack in the middle of it all (think past your allusion to the Bahia de Cochinos and fast forward a bit to the Cuban Missile Crisis). I actually come to some soft agreement with you on a lot of your points but if you are trying to paint an objective picture you need to give more weight to the geopolitical and strategic objectives of nations that are playing the delicate game of using the US as the 'imperialist threat' in order to manipulate their domestic polity. When in fact, the tactics of Chavez, Morales, Castro and Ortega (and to a degree Correa) all find a similar vain in the tactics of the US. The only difference is that the US tends to override its international critics in favor of its national interests abroad. The above mentioned leaders silence their domestic critics in favor of pursuing ends that will personally enrich them and their intimate supporters (including strategic allies in other nations). Thus, you see China partnering up with Sudan. Venezuela with Iran. Russia with Venezuela. Costa Rica bucking Taiwan in favor of China. None of this had to do with ideological threats but with geopolitics. So, following your argument that the US should not be worried about Venezuela's regional security policies or its harsh rhetoric towards the US....
1) US geo-political interests in the region are threatened by the real and imagined instability that Hugo Chavez brings to the region with his military build up and his active economic interference in multiple Latin American countries.
2) The US is not as threatened by the VEN GOV's tilt away from US based multi-lateral institutions and the creation of the ALBA as it is by the lack of the will to cooperate with international organizations that stress transparency and accountable government institutions that give the international financial community a clearer picture than the corrupt, populist, clientelistic, inflated and bloated statist governments of Venezuela, Argentina and Bolivia.
3) The adamant disrespect for previously existing democratic institutions (this is not to be confused with democracy on the whole) and (in the case of him doing away with them) the construction of counter-balanced new institutions COMBINED with his over bearing influence in neighboring nations reflects his soft power influence to foster a regional disrespect for democratic practice. This will only serve as a force multiplier for the backlash to democracy seen as a result of a lackluster (and at times disastrous ) performance by the Bush Administration on the world stage.
In conclusion, it is no doubt that the problems of instability in the region are not solely Chavez's to burden responsibility for but his diplomatic style and foreign policy have greatly contributed to a more polarized and more unstable regional dynamic that is a threat to US interests in the region. I guess at the end of the day, you have to think about whose interests you're worried about. Explain that, and then make your analysis follow that 'interest'.
http://doyou.likeorhate.com/Fidel+Castro/
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