Freepers react to Chavez win

[ChavezSpeakstheTruth]

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1192332/posts
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1192350/posts

My favorite gem "Like Chavez, Carter is a socialist fraud, fake and phony. The upcoming bloody uprising is coming, and Bush will be blamed for it. Get ready for the headlines for the next two weeks. It's going to be nasty.


46 posted on 08/16/2004 2:07:57 AM PDT by 7.62 x 51mm (• Veni • Vidi • Vino • Visa • "I came, I saw, I drank wine, I shopped")"

[Webster Green]

1. They sure hate democracy, don't they?

Despite all the evidence to the contrary, they are compelled to believe the election was fixed.

Chavez won, get over it, freeps!

[lottie244]

36. They hate them for their freedom!!! Bawaaaaaaaaaaaa

:party:

[Lucky Luciano]

2. Typical freeper reaction:

To: fieldmarshaldj
Paging General Pinochet, your services are needed.



13 posted on 08/16/2004 1:28:11 AM PDT by dfwgator (It's sad that the news media treats Michael Jackson better than our military.)





They are a scary bunch indeed because while I think this guy is joking, he is somewhat serious.

[noonwitch]

4. I don't think he's joking

There is a lot of support for Pinochet among the freepers. After all, he did save Chile from Communism! The freepers don't really care about all the people he tortured and killed to do so-they never cared about the people the contras killed in Nicauragua, nor about the people killed by right-wing death squads in El Salvador. All they care about is defeating communisim.

The right never really seriously considers why communism takes hold. They're far too much into wiping it out than countering it with better alternatives. The places where communist revolutions succeed are where violent dicatators have thrived. The USSR is a great example-clueless idiots like Nikolas II who were big on what they considered their god-given power and light on responsibility toward those they were supposed to rule over didn't do much to endear themselves to their people. Especially when Nikolas sent soldiers to die in an unpopular war (the Russians were slaughtered in WWI)and then took over command of the military from more experienced commanders. Neither did Samoza, nor Baptista, etc. The USA has made the mistake of supporting some really bad people only because they weren't communists.

[ChavezSpeakstheTruth]

6. Like Osama Bin Laden

n/t

[smada]

13. Let's not start comparing body counts

communism will lose that argument.

[Vladimir]

20. Very debatable

especially if European imperialism is factored into the equation.

[smada]

21. No, it's not, unfortunately

Communism in it's various forms, and it's leaders, is responsible for somewhere around 35 million deaths. Nothing else comes close.

Even the Inquisition and the Crusades together account for 3 million at the upper end of estimates.

[Vladimir]

23. The Inquisition is small potatoes

the Belgins in the Congo alone accounted for 5-8 million.

http://www.is.wayne.edu/mnissani/WWI/Leopold.htm

They both have themselves knee deep in blood.

[IrateCitizen]

28. Don't forget about Native Americans and "Manifest Destiny"...

I think that adds another several million to the tally.

Shit, the US campaign in Vietnam alone claimed some 3 million Vietnamese. Never mind how many the French campaigns there claimed before them.

They both have themselves knee deep in blood.

This is the most true thing said in this entire back-and-forth.

[TrogL]

14. You do realize of course

by that logic, the United States is ripe for Communism.

[ChavezSpeakstheTruth]

16. yeah - that's why need 4 more years of Bush

to fight Communism :eyes:

[Jokinomx]

17. Or the Kmer Rouge.....n/t

[smada]

22. The Khmer Rouge were communist

[Jokinomx]

27. They slaughtered over a million people....

yet we had supported them to defeat the leader of Cambodia...
who I believe was Pol Pot...The K.R.. were a ruthless bunch of thugs...that killed ANYONE with an education. If you haven't seen the movie..."The Killing Fields" ..... I thought we would never witness genocide on this scale after what happened in WWII.... I was wrong.

[smada]

29. You're half right, half wrong

The U.S. supported the Khmer Rouge, which was led by Pol Pot, because they were fighting against the North Vietnamese. The enemy of my enemy is my friend, you know.

The Khmer Rouge took over control of Cambodia on April 15, 1975 and closed the country to all outsiders. When they were overthrown in January 1979 by the Vietnamese, it was only then discovered what the extent of their extermination campaign was, 1.7 million Cambodians were killed.

[Jokinomx]

31. Thanks for the correction.... I new he was involved... but I couldn't

remember who was in charge of Cambodia. Again..thanks for correcting my memory...

[Vladimir]

34. However the USA

supported the claims of the Khmer Rouge to being the legitimate government of Cambodia long after they were overthrown and the attrocities were known. In part, AFAIK, this was done through a precurssor agency to today's NED, national endowment for democracy.

[ieoeja]

30. Pol Pot WAS Khmer Rouge

And, no, we did NOT support the Khmer Rouge. The nut jobs who claim that like to point to the fact that beginning in (I forget the year now) the American press stopped reporting on atrocities perpetrated by the Khmer Rouge. The conspiracy theorists suggest this is because we started backing the Khmer Rouge that year.

I, on the other hand, would put forth the simple fact that Vietnam tossed the Khmer Rouge out of power early in January of that year as a much more obvious explanation. Remnants, even Pol Pot, continued running around the jungle for years after that. And I'm sure they committed atrocities wherever they went. But not on a Killing Fields scale. That occured when they ran the country.

Vietnam was smart enough to leave them to the jungles. After a decade of impotent chest pounding, and no enemy stupid enough (re: US Army) to come into the jungle where Pol Pot and company might be able to pull off the occasional ambush exciting their followers, the Khmer Rouge faded away into oblivion.

[Jokinomx]

32. As stated above... I stand corrected on the Pol Pot issue....however

I stand with my statement about the US government through the CIA supporting the overthrow of Cambodia by supporting the Kmer Rouge.

I have a tape of a Frontline program that presents a pretty good case for this train of thought.

:dem:

[smada]

40. I would disagree with that

And I don't mean to split hairs, but there is a distinction. The U.S. supported the Khmer Rouge in the early 70s because they were resisting Vietnamese incursions into Cambodia. They did not support the Khmer Rouge because they wanted to see Cambodia's government overthrown.

For one, instability in the Cambodian government would have worked against the U.S.'s purposes in Cambodia. Secondly, U.S. intelligence vastly underestimated the capabilities of the Khmer Rouge and never expected they would make an attempt at a coup. This possibility was barely a fleeting consideration with U.S. intelligence. They merely saw the KR as useful pawns.

[Vladimir]

33. Actually the USA

was one of the last countries to recognise the claims of the Khmer Rouge to power, long after the attrocities were known. Its not a very rosy moment in the past for anyone really.

[smada]

37. That is not true

The U.S. did not recognize the Khmer Rouge diplomatically after 1975. The United Nations, however, recognized them until 1989, long after their exterminations were well known. Quite shameful, in my opinion.

[Vladimir]

42. John Pilger, on the ball as usual

http://www.users.bigpond.com/nlevine/khmer_alliance.htm

The US not only helped create conditions that brought Cambodia's Khmer Rouge to power in 1975, but actively supported the genocidal force, politically and financially. By January 1980, the US was secretly funding Pol Pot's exiled forces on the Thai border. The extent of this support-$85 million from 1980 to 1986-was revealed six years later in correspondence between congressional lawyer Jonathan Winer, then counsel to Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and the Vietnam Veterans of America Foundation. Winer said the information had come from the Congressional Research Service (CRS). When copies of his letter were circulated, the Reagan administration was furious. Then, without adequately explaining why, Winer repudiated the statistics, while not disputing that they had come from the CRS. In a second letter to Noam Chomsky, however, Winer repeated the original charge, which, he confirmed to me, was "absolutely correct." Washington also backed the Khmer Rouge through the United Nations, which provided Pol Pot's vehicle of return. Although the Khmer Rouge government ceased to exist in January 1979, when the Vietnamese army drove it out, its representatives continued to occupy Cambodia's UN seat. Their right to do so was defended and promoted by Washington as an extension of the Cold War, as a mechanism for US revenge on Vietnam, and as part of its new alliance with China (Pol Pot's principal underwriter and Vietnam's ancient foe). In 1981, President Carter's national security adviser, Zbigniew Brzezinski, said, "I encouraged the Chinese to support Pol Pot." The US, he added, "winked publicly" as China sent arms to the Khmer Rouge through Thailand.

[smada]

43. Some of this is correct, some is not

And I'm sorry, but Noam Chomsky and his like-minded conspiracy theorists have no credibility on this issue. Chomsky claims the extent of the Khmer Rouge killings were only around 300,000, a claim that is absurd and demonstrably false.

There is some historical revision concerning the Khmer Rouge and it's done to serve a political purpose. I prefer my history unadulterated, thanks.

[Vladimir]

44. Well you can choose to disregard Chomsky

as a conspiracy theorist - many would find such a claim laughable in itself. How about you give me some evidence to back your claims up and refute the references I have provided?

[smada]

45. How about you read Henry Kamm, or spend some time in Cambodia yourself

like I have.

[Vladimir]

46. But Pilger has been there too

http://pilger.carlton.com/print/48737

which is not to say I won't be looking up Kamm, I certainly will when time allows.

On Edit: Pilger is most certainly not a fan of the Khmer Rouge, whatever some may wish to accuse Chomsky of. From the above article:

The Second Holocaust took place in Cambodia. Yet this uniquely stricken country is on the brink, not of a much praised peace settlement, but of the return of Pol Pot and his gang...

In Cambodia, I sleep only a few hours every night. Lying bathed in sweat, waiting for sunrise, listening to the hammer blows of rain, I fall in and out of a dream-state which now has an unwelcome familiarity. In the passageway outside is the sound of something being dragged on flagstones, like a bundle. This is followed by the urgent flip-flop of rubber sandals and by indistinct voices, as if conferring; then by the lilt of a voice that soon becomes recognisable as the rise and fall of sobbing. This moves on to a setting in the countryside, which is lush and green as the sun burns away skeins of mist, revealing pieces of sarong and shirt fluttering from earth speckled white.

I have talked to my friend, Chay Song Heng, about this. Heng spent three and a half years as a prisoner of the Khmer Rouge, pretending to be an idiot so that guards would not suspect him of being educated and kill him. During his 15-hour days in the paddies Heng, a diminutive man who walks with a bounce and is one of the bravest people I know, would talk softly to himself in English, determined to maintain his interpreter's skills. Do you know The Cat and the Moon by W. B. Yeats? he said. I recited that to myself many times.

Heng is one of the few to have retained his real name. Most people have a number of aliases, or entirely new identities. Everybody remembers the list of names drawn up and read out by the Kymer Rouge. To hear your name was to prepare for death. Heng is a government servant. Last month 56 people were taken off two trains and their names taken. They were shot dead simply because they were government servants.

[struggle4progress]

54. Under Reagan/Bush, the US pushed the UN for this recognition. eom

[smada]

35. The U.S. did support the Khmer Rouge

Unfortunately. However, when I say support, I don't mean that in any active sense. They did not provide arms or military training. They did recognize the Khmer Rouge diplomatically (but then so did the United Nations, even up until 1989), and were rooting for them to defeat the Vietnamese army. Because, like I said before, the enemy of my enemy is my friend.

When the U.S. gave it's support to the Khmer Rouge, it had no way of knowing what the future held for Cambodia and what evil ends the Khmer Rouge would perpetrate. Support from the U.S. was prior to 1975, when the Khmer Rouge took control of Cambodia. It did not support the Khmer Rouge from '75-'79 when it was in power.

[struggle4progress]

38. Under Reagan, US did support Khmer Rouge. eom

[smada]

41. Let's see citation. You're mistaken

The U.S. did not support the KR under Reagan. That is laughable on its face.

[struggle4progress]

47. Laughable, in a sad way. But no, I'm not mistaken: I remember that ...

... period well and I remember hunting through the periodicals at the library trying to read everything about it that I could find at the time. The wingnuts knew about it, too, and the honest among them admitted even it, although many were so embarrassed enough that they really didn't want to talk about it.

Primary sources, of course, would be best to convince you; but (since I have no idea what your perspective is) here's a quick selection of various sorts of sources for various political persuasions:



Friends of Pol Pot
By John Pilger
The Nation
May 1, 1998

<snip>
Direct contact was made between the Reagan White House and the Khmer Rouge when Dr. Ray Cline, a former deputy director of the C.I.A., made a clandestine visit to Pol Pot's operational base inside Cambodia in November 1980. Cline was then a foreign policy adviser to President-elect Reagan. Within a year some fifty C.I.A. and other intelligence agents were running Washington's secret war against Cambodia from the U.S. Embassy in Bangkok and along the Thai-Cambodian border. The aim was to appease China, the great Soviet foe and Pol Pot's most enduring backer, and to rehabilitate and use the Khmer Rouge to bring pressure on the source of recent U.S. humiliation in the region: the Vietnamese. Cambodia was now America's "last battle of the Vietnam War," as one U.S. official put it, "so that we can achieve a better result."
<snip>

http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/issues/polpot.htm



Supporting Pol Pot

<snip>
In 1982, trying to remove the smell from the Khmer Rouge, the United States put together a coalition composed of the Khmer Rouge and two "non-communist" groups also opposed to the Cambodian government, one headed by former Cambodian ruler, Prince Sihanouk.

The coalition became the recipient of much aid from the US and China, mainly funneled through Thailand. The American aid, by the late 1980s, reached $5 million officially, with the CIA providing between $20 and $24 million behind Congress's back. The aid was usually referred to as "non-lethal" or "humanitarian", but any aid freed up other money to purchase military equipment in the world's arms markets. Officially, Washington was not providing any of this aid to the Khmer Rouge, but it knew full well that Pol Pot's forces were likely to be the ultimate beneficiaries. As one US official put it: "Of course, if the coalition wins, the Khmer Rouge will eat the others alive". In any event, the CIA and the Chinese were supplying arms directly as well to the Khmer Rouge.

From 1985 on, there was a Federal law prohibiting the government from providing any money to Cambodia which would have the effect of helping the Khmer Rouge's fighting capacity, either directly or indirectly. After reports appeared in 1990 that aid to the coalition was getting into the hands of the Khmer Rouge, the Bush administration announced an official halt to the program. Whether this was a serious effort to comply with the law, or simply an effort at damage control is not known; nor is it clear how long the halt lasted, if indeed it had been halted at all. The following February, the administration acknowledged to Congress that there may have been "tactical military cooperation" between US-backed non-communist forces and the Khmer Rouge.
<snip>
http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Blum/Support_PolPot_RS.html



How the Washington Post glossed over US culpability in Pol Pot's rise to power

<snip>
This is quite a different story than the one told by the more conscientious historians at Covert Action Quarterly, also published in DC. In the fall 1997 issue, John Pilger writes that the US funneled $86 million in support of Pol Pot and his followers from 1980 to 1986. In addition, the Reagan administration schemed and plotted to have Khmer Rouge representatives occupy Cambodia's UN seat, even though the Khmer Rouge government ceased to exist in 1979. This was a sad effort to grant Pol Pot's followers international legitimacy.

Pilger also informs us that the US applied pressure to the World Food Program to ensure that $12 million worth of food targeted elsewhere in an international rescue effort would be handed over to the Thai army to be passed on to the Khmer Rouge. In addition, Washington set up the Kampuchean Emergency Group (which later morphed into the Kam- puchean Working Group), whose unspoken mission was to direct food to Khmer Rouge bases.

This helped restore the Khmer Rouge as a fighting force based in Thailand, which destabilized Cambodia for more than a decade, much like the US-backed Contras did in Nicaragua during the same period.

Of course, it should go without saying that the Reagan and Bush administrations covertly channeled weapons to the Khmer Rouge by using Singapore as a middleman. As with "Iran-Contra," Bush's military aid to the Khmer Rouge violated a law passed by Congress in 1989 that expressly forbade it.
<snip>

http://www.media-criticism.com/Washington_Post_Pol_Pot_1998.html



Reagan's Legacy

<snip>
* Cambodia. "Reagan Skull Bag." This handy Khmer Rouge carrying sack holds up to 25 skulls. The Skull Bag recognizes the Reagan administration's unstinting support for Pol Pot's assaults on Cambodians from 1981 to 1989, as well as Reagan's policy of recognizing the exiled Khmer Rouge at the U.N. as the legitimate government of Cambodia.
<snip>

http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=40&ItemID=5688



Remembering the Killing Fields
NEW YORK, April, 2000

<snip>
Some hope an international war crimes tribunal can help answer some of those questions.

Cambodia and the United Nations have been unable to agree on who should control such a trial— Cambodian courts or international judges—but UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan and Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen reported progress when they discussed the potential for a trial last week.

However, the truth could be uncomfortable for a lot of people outside Cambodia. A lawyer for Ta Mok, a Khmer Rouge military leader who could be tried for war crimes, has threatened to subpoena Margaret Thatcher, Ronald Reagan, Henry Kissinger and three former United Nations secretary generals to answer questions about their countries' support for the KR insurgency.

After the Vietnamese invaded and threw out the Khmer Rouge, the U.S. government supported the non-communist partners in a coalition army of which the Khmer Rouge was part. And world powers allowed the Khmer Rouge's delegate to occupy Cambodia's United Nations seat even after the Khmer Rouge were overthrown. Because Vietnam was America's enemy, critics say, the Khmer Rouge were treated as friends.
<snip>

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2000/04/15/world/main184477.shtml



The death of Pol Pot
By Peter Symonds and Martin McLaughlin
18 April 1998

... Throughout the 1980s the Reagan administration blocked international efforts to characterize the events of 1975-78 in Cambodia as genocide or to hold the Khmer Rouge leadership responsible for mass murder, since it would undercut the American alliance with Pol Pot ...

http://www.wsws.org/news/1998/apr1998/plpt-a18.shtml



(I won't use NewsMax's Headline)

<snip>
Renson Samay, the lawyer for Ta Mok, told WorldNetDaily he will call "Madeleine Albright, Margaret Thatcher, Henry Kissinger, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan and George Bush" to testify at the trial.

"We are going to invite them to tell the world why they supported the Khmer Rouge," Samay said.

Calling Ta Mok a "prisoner of war," Samay said his client would "not spare any of his former comrades," many of whom now hold top positions in the current Cambodian government.

The West supported the Khmer Rouge after it was overthrown in 1979 by the Viet Cong invasion, mainly because the Khmer Rouge were considered the first line of defense to protect Thailand from an invasion by the Vietnamese. China, Thailand and the U.S. all gave military aid to the Khmer Rouge. China had been defeated by the Vietnamese in a border war in 1979 and feared being encircled by "Soviet-style communist regimes" on its southern flank.
<snip>

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=17332

<edit: typo>

[smada]

49. Believe what you want

there is an entire cottage industry dedicated to perpetuating the idea that there were clandestine operations going on between the U.S. and Cambodia post-1979. It's based on second hand conversations and personal letters which no one can seem to produce nor verify but swear they exist. There is only a handful of adherents to this theory (namely Pilger, Chomsky, and William Shawcross). No matter how many times they're shown to be wrong, they weasle around the cold facts and manage to redirect the subject to deflect criticism. Those who believe them are just as hardcore in their beliefs and no doubt firmly believe as fact those things they've read. Perhaps they even remember them as if they witnessed them firsthand. So I don't doubt the sincerity with which those beliefs are held, but sincerely held beliefs can be, and often are, wrong.

[U4ikLefty]

50. Your post is "laughable"

You wanted citations & you got them...very dishonest.

[smada]

51. credible citations

not conspiracy theory websites.

The only credible site you listed was CBS news but the link had nothing to do with U.S. involvement in Cambodia post-1979. It laid out the unsubstantiated allegations of former Khmer Rouge leaders.

Here's some helpful advice about those conspiracy theory websites. Not everything you read is true. And if there's only a single, uncorroborated source, excercise some skepticism.

[struggle4progress]

52. Neither "The Nation" nor "Z Magazine" are "conspiracy theory" ...

... sources.

Nevertheless, if you dislike these sources, let us attack more directly your claim that my assertion was "laughable."

A number of people in Congress were concerned enough, over a period of years, to repeatedly offer amendments to various bills to forbid Reagan/Bush from supplying material support to the Khmer Rouge. Such a ban eventually passed, and when reports (during the reign of Bush I) continued to indicate that covert US aid was flowing to the Khmer Rouge, the Administration was forced to announce that all further aid to the Cambodian opposition would be overt.

If you seek to discredit my assertion, therefore, you are required to do more than simply sneer.


53rd Pugwash Conference on Science and World Affairs
Advancing Human Security: The Role of Technology and Politics
Halifax and Pugwash, Nova Scotia, Canada
17-21 July 2003
Afghanistan and the Genesis of Global Jihad
By Pervez Hoodbhoy,
Quaid-e-Azam University
<snip>
Support for the Mujahideen also fitted perfectly with the Reagan Doctrine - a global package of widely publicized covert aid for anti-Communist guerrillas fighting the established governments in Nicaragua, Angola, Kampuchea, and Afghanistan.
<snip>
http://www.pugwash.org/reports/pac/53/hoodbhoy.htm


Proxmire's S.AMDT.97 ("To prohibit the furnishing of certain assistance to the Khmer Rouge in Kampuchea") to Lugar's S.960 ("An original bill to amend the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961, the Arms Export Control Act and other acts to authorize appropriations for the fiscal year 1986 for international security and development assistance, the Peace Corps, the Inter-American Foundation, and the African Development Foundation, and for other purposes," became Public Law No: 99-83) passed the Senate on a voice vote 5/14/1985.

http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d099:SN00960:
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/D?d099:97:./list/bss/d099SP.lst::


INTELLIGENCE AUTHORIZATION ACT FOR FISCAL YEAR 1990
(House of Representatives - October 12, 1989)

<snip>
Amendment offered by Mr. Richardson: at the end of the bill, add the following:
`RESTRICTION ON SUPPORT FOR MILITARY OR PARAMILITARY OPERATIONS IN CAMBODIA
`Sec. 705. None of the funds authorized to be appropriated by this Act may be obligated or expended to support military or paramilitary operations by the Noncommunist Cambodian Resistance if, after the date of enactment of this Act, quantities of arms, ammunition or other military equipment are provided by the Noncommunist Cambodian Resistance to the military forces of Democratic Kampuchea (know as the Khmer Rouge) or if the Noncommunist Cambodian Resistance engages in joint military operations with military forces of Democratic Kampuchea.'
Mr. RICHARDSON (during the reading). Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent that the amendment be considered as read and printed in the Record.
The CHAIRMAN. Is there objection to the request of the gentleman from New Mexico?
There was no objection.
<snip>

http://www.fas.org/irp/congress/1989_cr/h891012-ia2.htm



CAMBODIA (1989)

The Bush administration has never come to grips with an inherent contradiction in its policy on Cambodia. While repeatedly professing opposition to a Khmer Rouge return .., the administration has consistently supported the position of Prince Sihanouk that a coalition government headed by Sihanouk and including the Khmer Rouge was the only way to forestall civil war following the September 1989 withdrawal of Vietnamese forces from Cambodia.
<snip>

... Secretary Baker turned around in March and announced that the Khmer Rouge had to be accepted as a "fact of life," and he advocated support for a four-party government composed of the current Hun Sen government, the Khmer Rouge, and the non-Communist factions, with Sihanouk as head of state. This became the operative administration policy toward Cambodia in 1989.

The quadripartite solution became part of what was called the "comprehensive peace settlement," supported by Sihanouk, China and ASEAN, under which the Khmer Rouge would share power with the other factions in an interim administration that would hold elections under international supervision. Under the plan, the Khmer Rouge could return to four key ministries -- defense, interior, foreign affairs and information -- and incorporate its army into an army of "national reconciliation."

Administration officials defended the plan on the ground that the Khmer Rouge was less dangerous inside than outside the government.
<snip>

http://www.hrw.org/reports/1989/WR89/Cambodia.htm


CAMBODIA
Human Rights Developments (1990)
<snip>
The Bush administration repeatedly denied that there was any "systematic" cooperation between its non-Communist clients and the Khmer Rouge, despite some evidence to the contrary. In September, for example, the Bangkok press reported that the Khmer Rouge had joined the KPNLF in a four-hour attack on a government military base. On June 28, the Senate Intelligence Committee, concerned that the $10 million in "non-lethal" covert aid to the KPNLF and ANS was directly or indirectly benefiting the Khmer Rouge, voted to end that aid.
<snip>
http://www.hrw.org/reports/1990/WR90/ASIA.BOU-03.htm

<edit: disable smilies to help Thomas cites>

[no name no slogan]

8. If they're calling Pinochet, I only hope that Chavez, unlike Allende,

actually has a "Plan Z" in his back pocket to quell a right-wing militaristic coup attempt.

Chavez' clear victory only confirms that he is truly the people's choice to head the Venezuelan government. With any luck, Chavez will be able to build up the poor of his country and avoid some of the tragedies that have befallen other Latin American democracies.

That is, if the US government can keep its filthy paws off of it.

¡VIVA CHAVEZ!

[dave420]

25. freakin nazis

I met a few of them at an anti-bush demo in LA last year. They were so angry. One middle-aged woman elbowed me in the face. It was quite ironic when these self-proclaimed Constitution Crusaders tried to censor my sign ("STOP BUSH" with a Hitleresque painting of GWB with "Ein Volk, Ein Reich, Ein Fuhrer!" underneath) with their American flags. Hehehehe. I'm 6'4 and my sign was on a long pole. suckers.

To top it all off, one decided to scream in my ear with a bullhorn (the LAPD refused to do anything), and then they started to racially abuse my wife. Pleasant folks. sheesh.

[Lucky Luciano]

26. You are a very tolerant person...

I am not.

I would have gone psycho-violent on anybody taunting my wife with racial slurs - you know - approaching the guy in a calm demeanor suggesting that he is rude (like I am going to talk it over) and then sucker punching him squarely in the gut and face. Those scum should be eliminated. The lady who elbowed you in the face - I don't know about hitting a woman, but I would do what I could to terrify and demean her.

Sorry - had to ge tthat off my chest - reading your post infuriated me.

[Blue Gardener]

48. Welcome to DU dave420!

They are a nasty bunch aren't they?

[Zynx]

3. This reminds me of Chile in the early 1970s.

I wasn't alive then, but I have read enough to know something about it. The right wingers did not accept the fact that Allende had come into power legitimately so we got Pinochet. Now, Allende was ruining the country economically, but there was an election in another year and he probably would have lost.

[no name no slogan]

10. Allende would have lost, BUT

he was NOT ruining the country. Quite the contrary, his policies were helping the working class and indigenous people-- much to the chagrin of the Euros who controlled the country.

The main reason for Chile's economic distress in the early '70s was due to pressure put on the country by Nixon and Kissenger. Nixon, in fact, told a meeting of his staff after Allende won in 1970 that he wanted to make Chile's economy "scream". This has been well documented and discusses elsewhere so I won't go into the details here.

However "bad" Allende seemed at the time, Pinochet was no better. In fact, the standard of living for most Chileans was actually higher in 1973 than it was in 1989, when Pinochet "stepped down" from power.

Chile faced a sever economic collapse in the early 80s after Pinochet brought in Milton Friedman's "Chicago Boys", who de-socialized the economy and turned Chile into a supply-sider's dream. In fact, Pinochet had to fire many of them and restructure much of the economy, as the average person could no longer survive in the country without some sort of government assistance.

Thirty years later, Chile is still recovering from the events of September 11, 1973. I only hope and pray that Venezuela does not suffer the same fate.

[K-W]

39. We have to be careful how we judge economies.

We cant use our standards, and heck, our standards arent really good for judging our economy.

An economy should be judged on how well it provides for the people of its country.

[Jack Rabbit]

5. Who cares what they think?

!!

[ChavezSpeakstheTruth]

7. know thy enemy

:)

[bo44]

19. hey Jack nice to hear from you

my feelings exactly

[ClassWarrior]

9. If the coming upcoming bloody uprising is coming up...

...can we come up with some upcoming bloody comeuppance?

[AntiCoup2K4]

11. "Bush will be blamed for it."

Well, I would certainly hope so. Because any "bloody uprising" that happens there will be fueled by PNAC. Meanwhile, look for Junior to roll out a bogus "terra" story involving Venezuela soon. And look for Kerry to NOT call him on it, unfortunately.

[Vladimir]

12. If Carter is a socialist, I'm a libertarian n/t

[Cat Atomic]

15. The sad thing is that the freepers don't even know why they hate this guy.

They've been told to hate him. They've been told he's a commie, or a terrorist, or whatever the 'bogeyman du jour' is, and that's enough. They're conditioned to hate on command.

Seriously- ask one of these people to explain why a popularly elected guy like Chavez should be ousted. They'll blabber about democracy and communism, ignoring their hypocrisy. They'll rail about the evil "dictator", while saying we need to install a dictator.

They make no sense.

[rucky]

18. I (heart) rule by the 3% n/t

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

24. What will they propose next? Recall of the Recall?

Too bad the right wing psychopaths currently infesting the US couldn't stack Venezuela's Supreme Court. Of maybe they could send the Gropernator down there for the next recall extravaganza.

[canuckybee]

53. I was reading a thread on another board

where a poster was claiming Carter was next to the devil, that he was looked down on by all, and that Clinton in particular hated Carter. When asked for proof she claimed it was common knowledge and that she KNEW it in the same way she KNEW the sky was blue. At least I now know where she got her knowledge.