Comments Posted By R Martin
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ONE MAN'S TERRORIST IS ANOTHER MAN'S...MURDEROUS THUG
No bones about it, I am a lefty myself, so I'm not happy about granting asylum to a right-wing thug. But I believe the right (the White House) does have a nearly-reasonable for doing so. Both Condoleeza and GWB have made their opinion of the Venezuelan government quite clear. As Rice said during her "job interview,"
"I think President Hugo Chavez is a real problem. I think he will continue to find ways to subvert democracy in his own country. He will continue to find ways to make his neighbors miserable. He will continue his contacts with Fidel Castro, maybe giving Castro one last fling to try to affect the politics of Latin America, which is not a good thing. He's involved in ways in Colombia with the FARC (Marxist rebels) that are unhelpful.
"The key there is to mobilize the region to both watch him and be vigilant about him and to pressure him when he makes moves in one direction or another. We can't do it alone. This is a region where if we try to do it alone, we actually probably strengthen him. But the OAS (Organization of American States) can do a lot. We're hopeful that the recognition that he's not following a democratic course will help mobilize the OAS to do that. They have done it before -- with Peru they did it. Watching his activities and making it costly at least politically for Chavez to carry out anti-democratic activities either at home or in the region is really about where we are."
The hard evidence offered against Carriles is flimsy. The word of a thug who died in a bar shoot-out, testimony as likely to have been wrought by pay-off as by any other means.
Even the news source you reference is slanting the issue; the same report that says Carriles was "in the pay of the CIA for years," later quotes the sum total of $300. If Carriles was paid "for years," he was receiving cents a day, it seems. I thought thugs cost more than that, perhaps I should buy me a few...
I'm a lefty, but I find that lefties lie about as often as righties.
At any rate, from a right-wing POV I think it's entirely reasonable to prevent someone being tried on such paper-thin evidence in a country ruled
by "strongman" Chavez, whose sales of oil to Cuba and China are viewed as evidence of his willingness to "subvert democracy."I don't view Chavez as the present administration does. But if I did, I'd have no problem with the idea of preventing this man from being tried in a country where I have plenty of reasonable doubt about justice being done.
Comment Posted By R Martin On 11.05.2005 @ 13:13
