America plans to invade Venezuela

telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jh … avez22.xml

Chávez arms community groups as he anticipates US invasion

By Alfonso Daniels in Caracas, Sunday Telegraph
Last Updated: 11:59pm BST 21/04/2007

A dozen people gather inside a rudimentary, two-storey brick house in Catia, the most dangerous of all the slums that ring the Venezuelan capital, Caracas.

President Chávez arms community groups as he anticipates US invasion
President Chávez is arming community groups

They talk excitedly about plans to repair crumbling walls, clear sewage and help local enterprises. It is the business of civic leaders everywhere - yet this gathering is also the vanguard of Leftist president Hugo Chávez’s 21st-century “socialist revolution”.

By the time they have been trained and armed, they will also be ready to defend Venezuela against outside interference, including the US invasion that Mr Chávez says he expects.

“El Comandante (Mr Chávez) told us to create communal groups and to tackle problems ourselves,” said Lenny Guerrero, 35, to nods of assent from others in the room. “Some government officials came here to help us create the groups. Power will now rest with the people.”

On Mr Chávez’s order, 17,000 communal councils have now been set up across the country, and an estimated £1 billion earmarked to fund them. As the official slogan, “Build power from below”, proclaims, their stated purpose is to promote grass-roots democracy and hand power directly to the people - in particular the urban poor who make up the bulk of his most fervent supporters.

But as well as grappling with the grim conditions in slums such as Catia, members of these voluntary groups will constitute a nationwide militia, schooled in Cuban-style tactics for both guerrilla warfare and counter-insurgency.

Gen Alberto Mueller, an advisor to Mr Chávez, told The Sunday Telegraph: “Some communal groups have already received military training. They’ll train in their own neighbourhoods and will be equipped with any arms - guns, grenades, knifes - the community can provide. We have a right to defend ourselves, like the UK has, and be sure we’ll do it.”
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The move has caused alarm among Mr Chávez’s critics, who claim the groups will be used to repress internal dissent. They point out that, unlike Venezuela’s military reservists, the communal councils come under Mr Chávez’s direct control, including the appointments of their oversight committees and allocation of funding.

They are being created in tandem with plans to expand Venezuela’s military reserve fivefold, from about 200,000 people to one million - a move Mr Chávez has introduced in the belief that his sworn foe America is planning some kind of military intervention.

Tensions with Washington and the West are likely to escalate further next month, when the Chávez government plans to begin taking control of the main European and American-owned oil fields in Venezuela - a move ordered by presidential decree in February.

The communal councils project is being overseen by David Velasquez, a communist who is the president’s new “minister of the popular power for participation and social development”.

Although the favoured blueprint for the scheme is the Paris Commune of 1871, under which socialism briefly reigned in the French capital, critics say it is more reminiscent of “mini-Soviets”, which will be used to monopolise Venezuelan local politics.

Emilio Grateron, an opposition councillor from the rich Chacao area, claimed that communal councils which did not toe the Chávez line were usually denied permission to set up. “When we went to the ministry to set them up, they asked us our political affiliation. When they saw we’re not Chavistas they didn’t say no, but flooded us with requests until you feel like giving up,” he said.

Luis Enrique Lander, a sociologist at the Central University of Venezuela, said that some official regulatory committee members were pushing for “non-Chavista” groups to be denied acceptance and funding.

Ironically the new communal council in Catia has been devoting its energy to fighting the expansion of the nearby Fabricio Ojeda industrial complex, which is built with state oil money and which the Chávez administration portrays as an example of its new socialist co-operative model. Local residents are sceptical of promises to resettle them in better conditions.

Will the U.S. ever stop invading countries? I’m wondering how far ahead or behind Venezuela Canada is on the list.

I don’t think the Americans will be happy until they take over the entire American continent.

Treetop -
re:
“America plans to invade Venezuela”

I somehow missed that memo…could you be a dear and cc: that over to me?

Thanks ever so much…:smiley:

Change the title: Chavez Arms Future Paramilitary Deathsquads.

I am sure that Chavez’s intelligence has information about Bush’s future plans that aren’t popularly reported in the mainstream American media.

Why else would he be concerned that America was poised to invade?

ChaNGE title to: America should invade Canada.

That way, I can get me hands on some of that welfare checks and Katrina house payments, social security, and other freebies. I wanna live on Uncle Sam’s bill for a change.

[quote=“treetop”]I am sure that Chavez’s intelligence has information about Bush’s future plans that aren’t popularly reported in the mainstream American media.
Why else would he be concerned that America was poised to invade?[/quote]
If you have to ask:unamused:

[quote=“treetop”]I am sure that Chavez’s intelligence has information about Bush’s future plans that aren’t popularly reported in the mainstream American media.

Why else would he be concerned that America was poised to invade?[/quote]

Questions: Why would George Bush exaggerate and over-hype supposed terrorist threats to the United States? Why would George Bush try to convince Americans that Iraq was a massive threat to the United States?

Possible Answers: To rally popular support by focusing the anger of the population on a foreign enemy. To people’s attention from the fact that his own corrupt regime was filling its own pockets at the nation’s expense. To justify increasing his own power, and to excuse his efforts to chip away at the civil rights of the citizens.

One may or may not believe this narrative with respect to the Bush administration. One may or may not believe this narrative with respect to Chavez. But the idea that leaders have been known to hype overseas threats to consolidate their own power domestically is not terribly difficult to grasp.

Most of us, though, are only willing to acknowledge this possibility when it comes to leaders we don’t like.

HA!

Excellent Hobbes.

And Treetop, since all the troops are pretty much overseas, who will invade Venezuala? The Coast Guard?

HA!

Excellent Hobbes.

And Treetop, since all the troops are pretty much overseas, who will invade Venezuala? The Coast Guard?[/quote]

i am admittedly no expert on american foreign policy, but i somehow doubt that even bush could be so dim as to put all the troops pretty much overseas …

HA!

Excellent Hobbes.

And Treetop, since all the troops are pretty much overseas, who will invade Venezuala? The Coast Guard?[/quote]

I am admittedly no expert on American foreign policy, but i somehow doubt that even bush could be so dim as to put all the troops pretty much overseas …[/quote]

OH! We’re taking this thread seriously? :blush: :wink:

[quote]Will the U.S. ever stop invading countries? I’m wondering how far ahead or behind Venezuela Canada is on the list.

I don’t think the Americans will be happy until they take over the entire American continent.[/quote]

Yeah. Sure. Uh-huh. :tinfoilhat:

Everyone knows that Bush has plans to re-instate the draft for all able-bodies men above 18 years of age, thus having sufficient troops to invade, sorry, liberate Venezuela. And the Falkland Islands. I got the memo but can’t show it since it’s classified, sorry.

Everyone knows that Bush has plans to re-instate the draft for all able-bodies men above 18 years of age, thus having sufficient troops to invade, sorry, liberate Venezuela. And the Falkland Islands. I got the memo but can’t show it since it’s classified, sorry.[/quote]

You couldn’t be more wrong. You could try, but you would not be successful. The aging baby boomers will soon outnumber the 18-25 year old American male. Their large numbers and the increasing availability of segways and invulnerable one man Lexus tanks will encourage them to once again themselves what they can do for their country, now that they’re going to die soon anyway.

There will be no draft. The spirit of Boomer volunteerism will fill the rubber soled shoes of the next fighting generation.

[quote=“Hobbes”][quote=“treetop”]I am sure that Chavez’s intelligence has information about Bush’s future plans that aren’t popularly reported in the mainstream American media.

Why else would he be concerned that America was poised to invade?[/quote]

Questions: Why would George Bush exaggerate and over-hype supposed terrorist threats to the United States? Why would George Bush try to convince Americans that Iraq was a massive threat to the United States?

Possible Answers: To rally popular support by focusing the anger of the population on a foreign enemy. To people’s attention from the fact that his own corrupt regime was filling its own pockets at the nation’s expense. To justify increasing his own power, and to excuse his efforts to chip away at the civil rights of the citizens.

One may or may not believe this narrative with respect to the Bush administration. One may or may not believe this narrative with respect to Chavez. But the idea that leaders have been known to hype overseas threats to consolidate their own power domestically is not terribly difficult to grasp.

Most of us, though, are only willing to acknowledge this possibility when it comes to leaders we don’t like.[/quote]

Every country in the world believes that the greatest threat to the world is the United States. Are we supposed to believe ALL of these countries are lying, too?

You can only extrapolate so far. The Unit3ed States is a threat. Venezuela is not.

Including the US itself? The UK? Israel? Australia?

Would you care to prove that statement?

And are you speaking of the citizens of those countries, or the elected officials when you say “Countries?”

JDSmith, there’s been millions of polls and surveys coming to that conclusion. It seems there’s a new one in a paper somewhere every month. “America seen as biggest threat blah blah blah” This can’t possibly have escaped your attention.

Is this REALLY because other countries’ governments drum up fearmongering?

Or is there ANOTHER reason?

At least the U.S. gov’t isn’t trying to drum up support for invading Venezuela by suggesting there are WMD’s hidden there. The attack will most likely come as a surprise.

[quote=“treetop”]Every country in the world believes that the greatest threat to the world is the United States.

You can only extrapolate so far. [/quote]
Uhhh…yeah…only so far… :whistle:

Call me a crazy left-wing Trotskyist-Heningsen-Kasparite nut, but I don’t see this happening anytime soon. But it sure would be fodder for entire series of threads here on F’mosa.

[quote=“treetop”]JDSmith, there’s been millions of polls and surveys coming to that conclusion. It seems there’s a new one in a paper somewhere every month. “America seen as biggest threat blah blah blah” This can’t possibly have escaped your attention.

Is this REALLY because other countries’ governments drum up fearmongering?

Or is there ANOTHER reason?

At least the U.S. gov’t isn’t trying to drum up support for invading Venezuela by suggesting there are WMD’s hidden there. The attack will most likely come as a surprise.[/quote]

If there have been millions of them, find one that says that the US is perceived as the biggest adjective threat to the world by every country in the world. As that is what you are stating.

A surprise attack on Venezuala, and because Chavez arms citizens? Trust me bud, Chavez is going to crack down on his own people…but soon it seems.