US bans arms sales to Venezuela
The US state department has announced that it is to ban the sales of weapons to Venezeula, which it has listed as a country of concern, because Venezuela has not done enough to aid the war on terror.
Among the reasons given for the ban, the state department claimed that Venezuela provided a safe haven for Colombian "narco-terrorists".
The left wing leader of Venezuela, Hugo Chavez, has shrugged off the ban during a visit to London, where he is receiving a hero's welcome for his hardline stance against the US government led by George Bush.Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said the ban "doesn't matter to us at all", saying it confirmed that Washington wanted to trample on smaller countries.
Relations between the US and Venezuela are severely strained on a number of issues, including oil prices and trade.Venezuela is an important source of crude oil for the US, but the relationship between the two countries has been deteriorating for some time.
The state department has repeatedly expressed its concern over Venezuela's contacts with Iran and Cuba and also over its relations with armed groups operating in Colombia which the US considers terrorist organisations.
US state department spokeswoman Darla Jordan said that for a year Venezuela had shown what she called nearly total lack of support for counter-terrorism efforts.
As a result Venezuela was being listed as "a country of concern".
Venezuela is being listed as a "country of concern" at the exact same time that the US is restoring all diplomatic ties with Libya, the country behind the Lockerbie bombing of 1988.
Condaleeza Rice, without a trace of irony, said that Tripoli was being rewarded for her assistance in the war on terror.
So a country that has accepted her role in one of the worst terrorist atrocities in British history is acceptable, and a country that has never taken part in any terrrorist attacks is considered unacceptable because, according to the US state department, Chavez "is working to undermine American influence in the region" and is aiding "narco-terrorists."
When they are operating such scatty rules regarding who they consider supporters of their war on a noun and who they don't, it's hardly surprising that Chavez is considered a hero throughout the UK for trying to lessen their influence in the region.
There is simply no consistency in their measurements of what constitutes a terrorist and what doesn't. Indeed, to this day, they have gone out of their way to ensure that the UN never provides a meaningful definition of the term.
I suspect this is because they fear some of their own actions, from Nicaragua to Iraq, would be included in any reasonable definition the UN could ever come up with.
And I feel reasonably confident that any international definition the UN defined would exclude the term "narco-terrorist."
The US state department really are making this crap up as they go along.
Click title for full article.
Related Articles:
Vivacious Venezuelan
The world according to Chávez
U.S. Will Restore Diplomatic Links With the Libyans
Tags:
No comments:
Post a Comment