The New York Times Is Watching Chavez, Are You?

One thing that upsets me about American foreign policy right now is that because we're so busy keeping our eyes on Iraq/Iran, we don't have the capacity to watch what's happening to our neighbors in Latin America and the Caribbean. Our "friend" in Venezuela, Chavez, who hates Bush, and calls him "the devil", has no one but Bush to thank for sky rocketing oil prices and Venezuela's windfall profits.

Chavez is now using his profits and his oil to buy influence throughout the region. Three projects, an oil refinery in Haiti, a pipeline to Brazil (NYT) and a plant in Argentina that turns liquid natural gas to gas (NYT), are either in planning stages or negotiations. Discounted oil attached to long-term loans is a system already implemented throughout much of the Caribbean. All this from a man who believes in flying half way around the world for a photo op with another president who isn't a "devil", but says the holocaust didn't happen. Go figure, no holocaust.

Now, if we we're to consider Chavez as a Liberal, a man of the people, a savior of the poor, then how do we deal with his anti Semitism? Is anti Semitism a Liberal cause? Should we ignore it for the moment? Is Iran's nuclear program being designed to torch Israel? Does Chavez agree with this policy? What implications do these questions have for our own security in the hemisphere?

I know a lot of people want COMPLETE withdrawal of all troops from the Saudi Arabia/Iraq/Iran region but I just don't see how we're ready for that. And the paradox is, I don't see how, with the expense of the war, we're going to address the political and economic winds in our own hemisphere, our own soft underbelly.