In what will go for the posterity as one of the shallowest, most vindictive, ignorant moments of the bolivarian farce we will remember the words of foreign minister Maduro today at the Nazional Assembly (sorry, I think I need to retake the pre January 5 appellation becasue only in a Nazional Assembly can such words be uttered unpunished).
The Opposition of course, as any good opposition would do in any democracy, demanded that Venezuela explain its ties to murderer Qaddafi who until not even two years ago was an illustrious guest of Venezuela, deserver of a replica of Bolivar's sword and even, gasp, was qualified as the Bolivar of Libya.
Until now the regime had been mercifully discreet on the events of Libya, denying promptly the Hague rumor that Qaddafi was on his way to Venezuela. But this has changed today with the simply astounding words of Maduro at the Assembly. Some of the things he addressed.
He stated that in Libya there were Al Qaeda armed groups responsible for the mess. Of course Maduro does not explain how come the Qaddafi ridiculous announcement earlier today had any credibility coming from the embattled leader of one of the most Islamic countries of the Middle East, and certainly the most anti Israel and US besides Iran. Why would Al Qaeda want to overthrow Qaddafi and spend so much time organizing such a stupendous revolt when there is so much work to be done in so many other Arabic countries?
He said that there was a risk of civil war due to interests from oil concerns. Well, maybe and maybe even certainly. Except that no country has more than 30% of Libyan oil and it is difficult to see how one country could take over a devastated post Qaddafi country with all of its oil production damaged or shut down, when so many other countries are interested. No, the real message here is a threat to the opposition, the implication that Zulia is preparing a secession and so any action against Zulia after the Libya example would be perfectly justified. Yes, it is that simplistic a reasoning in the feverish mind of the Chavez regime.
He criticized the biased information coming from "imperial agencies" which are lying outright. Maduro also praised the coverage of Telesur as if Telesur had better access to Tripoli than, say, CNN. We must note today that for some obscure reason the Venezuelan ambassador to Libya reported that nothing was happening in Libya, that all was just fine and dandy. Which, curiously, does not stop them from evacuating Venezuelans. Yet, yesterday we learned that the Venezuelan embassy there was not planning any evacuation of its nationals like every other country was doing, including, gasp, China who Chavez claims as his Maoist revolutionary friend. For good measure Maduro compared the flow information in Libya to what has become the only reference point for chavismo, April 11 2002. Ah! If they could find a way to annul the words of Lucas Rincon then as to Chavez resigning!
Sensing that his words were not convincing he went on the offensive asking that those who should be investigated are "those bombing Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan". Why that? Who knows!? As if these three conflicts were one and the same. But if any element of his replies screamed of desperation at how to dig himself out of his former support of Qaddafi it was that stoopid comparison.
But Maduro was not alone wallowing in his stinking ditch. Chavez was following the session on Twitter (has he nothing better to do than follow the Assembly?). A tweet of Chavez read "Vamos Canciller Nicolás: dales otra lección a esa ultraderecha pitiyanqui! Viva Libia y su Independencia! Kadafi enfrenta una guerra civil!!", Go ahead secretary Maduro: give another lesson to that US sucker ultrarightwing. Long live Libya and its independence! Qaddafi faces a civil war!
I do not think that Chavez did write that Tweet and he should certainly fire the person that does his tweets becasue s/he cannot fake it anymore. Chavez would not have written "canciller Maduro" but plainly "Nicolas" as he does every time. And also I think that Chavez is scared shitless at this time with the obvious Libyan mirror to the future of Venezuela if he keeps as he goes that he would not write such a stupid tweet. Probably a Cuban did.
As far as I am concerned at least I understood something about the intense stupidity and bad faith of the moment: the support of Venezuela for Qaddafi these past years was strictly based on his anti US stance. That was enough for Chavez and chavismo to bond with Qaddafi without any regard whatsoever for the country situation, good, bad, stable, whatever. It was a Chavez Qaddafi relationship and that was enough. Now they try to justify it and the only thing they show us is how ignorant of the reality they are, how immersed in ridiculous ideology the regime is today. Bad omen for Venezuela..
Friday, February 25, 2011
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Good post. One analyst on BBC was saying Gaddafi is likely to die in Libya, else he would have gone to Venezuela or Zimbabwe, but that that was never likely anyway...still, just the mere mentioning of my country in this respect was a shame. Then in the German news: will he go to Venezuela?
ReplyDeleteThere is just one thing you missed (I know you won't admit it:-), but anyway, here it goes): Gaddafi like Saddam Hussein before him did not sympathize at all with Al Qaeda and Al Qaeda did not like them at all. For Al Qaeda both guys were the most disgusting kuffār and deserve death.
Of course, it was an attempt from Kaddafi, a very crude one and one hard for most in the West to comprehend, to get some sympathy in the West. He has used two arguments: "millions of refugees will arrive in Europe if he falls" (it seems the only one EU leaders are really afraid of coming from there)
and "Al Qaeda will settle its base in Libya".
That was the same argument used by pro-US and pro-EU Ben Ali and also by the Egyptian dictator.
The thing is that Gaddafi is even more out of touch than anyone else. You can see it in the way he addressed Libyans...it produced the opposite effect, people went out of the freed cities to Tripolis.
I wrote a post about him (in German) with a link to
That is extremely twisted logic, which at a glance suggests your post is far-fetched. But the simple fact that it took them days to figure out how to spin this tells you how hard it was for them, which means the final answer could only have been twisted. It's good that he was forced to take a stand, so he could spout this nonsense.
ReplyDelete(By the way, "esa ultraderecha pitiyanqui" is better translated "those ultrarightwing US suck-ups.")
No pueden hacer de otra manera ya que Chacumbele lo abrazó diciendo que era el Bolivar de Africa, le regaló la copia de la espada y le dió el gran cordón, llamandolo hermano. Tal para Cual quien se parece se junta, acuerdense que el 11 A llamó para el Plan República y si no fué porque la armada no siguió aqui hubiesemos tenido más muertos que en Libia. Cuidemonos todos. La Maga Lee
ReplyDeleteKepler is correct that Al Qaeda was not sympathetic to Gaddafi, they are two different types of terrorists. It's also true that al Qaeda should be trying to take advantage of the situation and so little is known about the opposition to Gaddafi, that there could be an islamist presence. Having said that, Gaddafi is clearly invoking the threat of islamists to make the west think twice about his overthrow.
ReplyDeleteMaduro's comments are comical from another point of view. I thought they didn't believe in al Qaedaon, according to Hugito, bin Laden is simply a creation of western intelligence services. I guess they believe islamic terrorism is a threat when its convenient to do so.
Sensing that his words were not convincing he went on the offensive asking that those who should be investigated are "those bombing Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan".
Rule #1 for a chavista, whatever is going on in the world, he must always and everywhere blame every bad thing in the world on the evil US boogeyman.
While they are busy pretending there is nothing to see in Libya, one chavista "news" outlet seems to be preparing for the inevitable.
Is there a murderous dictator Chavez doesn't love?
I think it benefits the opposition that the Chavez government has come out in favor of Gadaffi because it shows people inside of Venezuela and and the rest of the world who Chavez really is.
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand there might be a warning implied to the opposition that if they try something like that, Chavez would start killing people.He might not actually do that but it behooves him to make people think he would.
I wonder why Chavez himself didn't declare on Libya but had Maduro do it?
Maybe he wants to leave himself room in case he decides to back away from Gadaffi.
I'm in awe Kepler, that someone would hold his own people hostage to the threat of mass emigration. Reminds me of the Mariel boat lift from Cuba although for different reasons.
ReplyDeletehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mariel_Boat_Lift
I would be so much happier regarding the whole mess going on in the Arab world if it weren't because this is the beginning of World War III....
ReplyDeleteFrom WSJ re Libya:
ReplyDelete"Some analysts credit the unrest in the region for forcing Mr. Chavez to make concessions this week to opposition students who were on a hunger strike which was quickly spreading through the country. "Chavez is very nervous," said Moises Naim, an analyst at Washington's Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "He got scared. That's why he gave in to the requests of the hunger strikers."
This from Moises Naim? What's this world coming to?
kepler and consdemo
ReplyDeletei think my forth paragraph alluded to your concern. the blog was not a short story of libya, but a condemnation of chavez position.
"
ReplyDeleteZimbabwean army helping Gaddafi in Libya
"
http://www.thezimbabwean.co.uk/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=37590:zimbabwean-army-helping-gaddafi-in-libya-&catid=31:weekday-top-stories&Itemid=30
Sorry, I forgot the last sentence: "a video with a link to Gaddafi's celebration. There you can see Chávez as second to the right of Gaddafi, the first being , I think, Gaddafi's security man".
ReplyDeleteNow I tried to check out the video again in Youtube and saw it has been removed by the user...strange, very very very very strange :-)
An interesting story on the reactions of various LatAm governments on the Libyan situation, from the AlJazeera blog:
ReplyDeletehttp://blogs.aljazeera.net/americas/2011/02/25/latin-americas-sudden-silence-gaddafi