Fearsome Alliance~Russia, Hugo Chavez, Missiles, and Weak US President

In an earlier post about Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez, his crush and worship of Simon Bolivar and his steady take over of the government, a commenter denied Chavez was a dictator because they still had elections and a constitution etc. Well, that’s true enough, but so did the Soviet Union and so does Communist China.

Venezuela’s parliament, like our congress, is in lame duck session. The opposition party there, like the opposition party here, made huge gains. What Chavez’s socialist party has done is an pass an “Enabling Law” which gives Chavez powers of decree to take over anything he wants. Bet our own socialist party and president are just drooling over this maneuver.

Chavez had asked for a year of dictatorial powers and the lame duck parliament gave him eighteen months. There was a flood that displaced about 140,000 people, and Chavez used this as an excuse to ask for new powers of decree. The legislation also gives Chavez more decree power over the banking system. Obama has pretty much accomplished that here, but I’m sure he’d like to have a little more Chavez-like decree power.

Part of the increased dictatorial powers given to Chavez is national security, and nothing a dictator loves more (with power itself) is a compliant military. In 2009 Russia tried to sell missiles to Chavez, and the US tried to block it, unsuccessfully; Venezuela has bought about 1800 missiles from Russia. Now, with a weak and cowardly US president, Russia has loaned $4 billion to Venezuela to buy more missiles, ones that could reach the US. Chavez says he needs them to protect Venezuela from US aggression. Obama has done nothing.

We do know that our Chavez sympathizing US president will not enforce the Monroe Doctrine like JFK did. Because of that, we will soon have a South American dictator with new military powers and Russian missiles than can reach the US.