Despite the policy of appeasement followed by His Majesty (just like George W. Bush) towards Hugo Chavez -- which under His Majesty has been ratcheted up to the point of actually taking phone calls from Chavez and thereafter doing Chavez's bidding (see first link below) when it comes to restoring Chavez-backed Zelaya to power in Honduras -- Chavez spouts today that "what the government of the United States and its allies want is simply for the [Honduran] coup [leaders] to consolidate themselves and be recognized, if not by law, then de facto." Now, when I saw this quote, my first question was WHERE did Chavez say it. Since Majesty and U.S. are bending over backwards to help Chavez and Zelaya these days, Chavez could only possibly be making such statements in his own country, where beating the constant drum of anti-Americanism is a lot of what has driven him to (and kept him in) absolute power. And sure enough, I see (second link below) that such statements were made to his own Venezuelan national assembly, i.e. these were words meant for the ears of his own folks, not us. In other words, they were pure propaganda for the Venezuelans to digest -- because they certainly have no basis in the truth, not given how His Majesty has done about everything in his power (absent sending American troops or the CIA to help Chavez and Zelaya) to be a good little agent of Hugo Chavez. As stated previously in this space, and in contrast to the path taken by years of past republican presidents in this country, I would like us to stay the HELL out of central and south american affairs. Which likewise means that we don't follow policies of appeasement with respect to authoritarian dictators down there and we most certainly don't take their phone calls and then play their requests in the days that follow (first link below).
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