Redstate

this is another example of why the UN doesn't really work-and isn't going to.

The countries involved aren't seeking a better world, they are seeking to use the organization to pad their own positions in the world.  When some of those countries are run by thuggish dictators (and sorry to all you libs as much as you loath Bush he is neither a thug or a dictator) then all the UN does is give them more legitimacy and power than they deserve.

I also think the situation in Latin America isn't good for the US given the proximity of those countries.  

Maybe Chavez is following the drug kingpin model, where in his case, the product (oil) is legal but the hardcore addicts get just as jumpy when they don't get their fix. Chavez probably thinks the lesson of the late Pablo Escobar was that Escobar just failed to build a big enough arsenal. That was probably the mistake, in Hugo Chavez's eyes.

The US would be at the top of that list

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/broward/sfl-ctownhall25jun25,0,71196
84.story

(Yes I'm still clicky challenged)

The thing I found interesting in the article was the fact that the forum was 'packed' with war veterans (among others). Yet could only find on Person to quote and he agrees with Murtha. As, apprently,did 'most of the crowd'.

Ya, right.......

...that Chavez' corrupt regime should be added to the Axis of Evil for a while now, and most people have just considered me to be a bit of a nutcase.  It's stuff like this, though, that makes me realize how right I was three years ago.

As Americans' concern about the threat of more 9/11s is replaced by their fear of higher energy prices, illegal immigration and growing fiscal deficits, Hugo, Iran and North Korea are providing the nation with timely wake-up calls. While leftists refer to Hugo with the more altruistic term, "socialist", his critics regard him as a malignant "facist". While most Americans have an instinctive fear of "facists", they consider "socialists" and "communists" to be misguided but harmless do-gooders. Hugo is helping to inoculate Americans from their historic compulsion to abandon their military at the first sign of peace.

I know what you mean--but for me it's one of those times I really don't want to say "I told you so."

overlook a couple of facts. Point 1) First time around (anyway) Chavez was democratically elected. So was our freshly minted Castro clone in Bolivia. The people of those countries actually hired both of these clowns.

Now, I doubt they will get the chance to fire them at some point in the future. Once guys like this move into the presidential hacienda they tend to grow roots.

Democracy will solve our problems? Democracy will make the world safer? Well, it hasn't made Latin America safer as you have made plain in your post.

But, mysteriously, you are probably still in favor of a global campaign to bring even more democracy at the expense of American blood and treasure. This despite what the current version of popular rule in Latin America is producing in terms of anti-American despots who got their start at the ballot box.

Of course, you may be sure that the Middle East will prove much more hospitable to Democracy than Latin America, but I am not sure on what you could base that assumption.

The current Republican (official that is) philosophy seems to be: More Democracy equals stability, pro-American governments, and less support for terrorism. The current Latin American experience is moving in the opposite direction, but I don't expect that the official party line will adjust much, even though prominent conservatives are rethinking the whole enterprise.

Point 2) Chavez is banking on a confrontation with the U.S. to provide the basis for a state of emergency to stay in power. If we hand him that confrontation, then aren't we playing his game?

jaszkowski: You are correct about Morales' election, and you may even be correct about Chavez' first election, although there are those who would differ with your take on that one.  But good heavens you have a jaded outlook on democracy.  Is it perfect?  Absolutely not. After all, Hitler was duly elected.  It is the most imperfect of systems--one might even say that democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried.  But perhaps you have an alternative to propose?  Do you find on the whole dictatorships more peaceable and less inclined to sponsor terrorism than democracies?  Or perhaps you would say that state-sponsored terrorism isn't one of the greatest threats we face as a nation, in which case it doesn't matter so much who controls what oil reserves or plutonium reserves--and who cares how many millions live under tyranny.  None of that effects you now, does it?  It's not like they would come after us here.

I also find that your understanding of current trends in Latin America does not mesh precisely with mine.  I consider Latin America on the whole more, rather than less, hospitable to democracy than the Middle East.  I don't think this is rocket science--after all, there is more of a tradition of democracy in Latin America. You might even say that what is happening in Latin America is a positive indicator of what we might find in the Middle East in 20 years.  No, it is not uniformly pro-US, but I view the (touch but clean) defeat of Humala in Peru and the (also clean, by the way) re-election of Uribe in Colombia as strong indicators that Mr. Chavez' power is not all-pervasive and that the election of anti-American rulers is not inevitable.  Along these lines, do you consider Saca anti-American?  Berger?  Bachelet? On what do you base those assumptions?

And regardless if Chavez used symantic technology or Hitler-esque propaganda to get himself into office, I for one strongly believe him to be a genuine threat to regional and even global peace, and quite frankly I cannot think of a better use for some of our blood and treasure than to eradicate such menaces before they wind up costing us all of it.  A confrontation with the US might not go precisely as the genius Chavez plans it, after all.

He won't remain in power long enough anyway to do much with it. End of story.