Chavez calls for anti-US alliance

It says rather a lot about the way George Bush's presidency has increased anti-American feelings across the globe and diminished actual US power that Hugo Chavez can so openly call for countries in South America to revolt against their northern counterpart.

Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez has called on other Latin American and Caribbean countries to form a military alliance against the United States.

The vehemently anti-US leader says Nicaragua, Bolivia, Cuba and Dominica should create one united force.

Mr Chavez, a long time critic of what he sees as US imperialism, made the comments after a summit of its leaders.

Of course, having already failed to oust him in a coup, and with their hands tied up in Afghanistan and Iraq, there is very little chance of the US making any kind of serious response to Hugo's remarks.

Bolivia, Cuba, Nicaragua and now the Caribbean island of Dominica are all members of a trade alliance known as the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas, a group that takes its name from South America's independence leader, Simon Bolivar.

Mr Chavez has urged them to draw up a joint defence policy and create a united military force against US imperialism.

"If the US threatens one of us, it threatens all of us," he said, "we will respond as one."

America's meddling in South America has long been a source of anger for many across the globe.

During the cold war the US seemed obsessed with stopping communism from creeping into south America and, to that end, often interfered in the business of small nations.

However, under Bush's presidency, most of South America has turned socialist and no-one in the White House appears to have noticed.

It's bizarre. Much as I loathed the Reagan presidency and it's goals, there was at least an intellectual consistency; under Bush there is none.

That's why the man who declared his intention to export democracy to the Middle East can now find himself offering $20 billion arms deals to Saudi Arabia, one of the least democratic nations in the region; it's like he's literally making it up as he goes along.

What I find interesting here are not so much Chavez's comments but rather how they fit into a narrative that has developed under the Bush presidency. Chavez joins Ahmadinejad and Kim Jong-il in sticking a finger up at the American empire, knowing full well that Bush is far too tied up in Iraq and Afghanistan to be able to anything about it.

The neo-cons claimed that they were going to use America's military superiority to impose what they saw as a new American century upon the world. And yet, after seven years of their military imperialism, the US appears weaker on the world stage than it was before they began their failed experiment.

And that is because the central theme of the Bush presidency - the Bush doctrine - which is basically an arrogant policy of preemption - has failed to produce any viable, sustainable, results on the ground. Which is why people like Chavez can now openly call for people to unite against the US.

It's just another tiny example of the many, many ways that the Bush presidency has actually weakened the US global position.

UPDATE:

There's a great article in today's New York Times magazine that explains this phenomenon much more eloquently than I could. It's well worth reading:

Waving Goodbye to Hegemony

Turn on the TV today, and you could be forgiven for thinking it’s 1999. Democrats and Republicans are bickering about where and how to intervene, whether to do it alone or with allies and what kind of world America should lead. Democrats believe they can hit a reset button, and Republicans believe muscular moralism is the way to go. It’s as if the first decade of the 21st century didn’t happen — and almost as if history itself doesn’t happen. But the distribution of power in the world has fundamentally altered over the two presidential terms of George W. Bush, both because of his policies and, more significant, despite them.

It says this about Chavez:

Hugo Chávez, the country’s clownish colonel, may last for decades to come or may die by the gun, but either way, he has called America’s bluff and won, changing the rules of North-South relations in the Western hemisphere. He has emboldened and bankrolled leftist leaders across the continent, helped Argentina and others pay back and boot out the I.M.F. and sponsored a continentwide bartering scheme of oil, cattle, wheat and civil servants, reminding even those who despise him that they can stand up to the great Northern power.

Click title for full article.

Tags: Chavez, Venezuela, Bush, United States, neo-cons, Bush doctrine, South America