Welcome to Cold War II, The One Russia Won't Survive
First it was military aid and comfort to Iraq, then Iran, and now for the capper, a la Cuban missile crisis, it's Venezuela. If the USSR couldn't win a cold war against the U.S., how insane is it for Mad Vlad to think Russia can do so now? How long before, with perfect justification, America starts arming the Chechen rebels and calling for international recognition? This is the folly that is modern Russia gone completely Neo-Soviet haywire. Reuters reports:
CARACAS, Venezuela (Reuters) - Russia will help Venezuela build plants to make Kalashnikov rifles and ammunition after the United States restricted arms sales to the South American nation, President Hugo Chavez said on Tuesday.
Chavez also told a press conference in Quito, Ecuador, that a delivery of 30,000 Kalashnikov automatic rifles was due to arrive from Russia in early June.
"The Russians are going to install a Kalashnikov rifle plant and a munitions factory. So we can defend every street, every hill, every corner," he said in remarks broadcast in Venezuela.
Washington banned all weapons sales to Chavez's leftist government this month because of U.S. concern about his ties with Cuba and Iran and what it called his inaction against guerrillas in neighboring Colombia.
The sanctions led to a diplomatic freeze with Venezuela, a major U.S. energy supplier and the world's No. 5 oil exporter.
Chavez rattled the White House earlier with a deal to buy 100,000 Russian automatic weapons.Chavez charges the United States with orchestrating a 2002 coup that briefly toppled his government and frequently accuses the United States of planning to invade Venezuela.
"The invasion plan is prepared, we even have part of this plan. They change it of course," Chavez said, although he added he was working to avoid such an attack. Washington denies it plans to invade Venezuela and says Chavez is destabilizing the region. Russia is the world's No. 2 oil exporter. Russia's Gazprom is exploring for natural gas in Venezuela, and Russian oil major LUKOIL says it wants to invest up to $1 billion in developing Venezuelan deposits.
7 comments:
For your next assignment class, list those nations suppressing democracy to which Russia is currently offering support. It will take some time as the list gets longer every week.
This is getting like the old days.
And when these tinpot murderers get a phone call from Putin, suddenly they believe they are important and that their cruelty is justified. Is must be - why else would a great (sic) nation like Russia rally to support them?
Why indeed...
This type of callous political game playing contributes directly to the repression of thousands of people around the world. And, sometimes, their deaths.
But then, they are foreigners, not Russians, so I suppose it doesn't matter. Actually, if they were Russians, it wouldn't either.
Holy smokes this is a tediously didactic site.
Why bother? You're not even getting as many hits as the Accidental Russophile!
Maybe try turning down the "earnest" dial, and injecting a bit of humour, or something.
I heard about your website because people thought I was a bit Russophobic myself, and told me about this.
But jeepers -- you're an embarrassment to the cause!
Are you one or more people? I can only imagine you either spend all day doing nothing but working on your scarcely-read blog, or you're several different people.
Strange one.
ANONYMOUS: gosh I wish I'd said that. No fair out-la-russophobing La Russophobe! Thanks for the comment.
JEREMY: La Russophobe finds loss of 700,000 Russians each year to negative population growth and pandemic race murder and the re-rising of the USSR to be rather serious matters hardly deserving of frequent levity (though she does feature the Sunday Funnies, and urges you to check them out). She's sorry you don't agree. Martin Luther King said people like you are part of the problem, worse than the racists themselves.
JEREMY: Not much logic in your criticism.
Funny how many critics rubbish this blog for not being widely read.
That's a marketing issue, not a truth issue.
Since when has the validity of a cause been defined by the number of people who support (or read about) it?
Oh dear. Not very clever argument that one.
Sounds like a Russophile pretending to be an oh-so-reasonable Russophobe to me...
Anonymous -- I think you missed my points.
I like some of Russophobe's content. The problem is the tediously strident hectoring undermines his/her/their (whoever russophobe is) cause a touch.
It's like being lectured at by your slightly mad old aunt. She may have a point, but by god, she doesn't half flog that poor old horse to death.
It's also totally humourless and overly earnest -- two big crimes for any would-be writer.
JEREMY: Isn't it rather odd, sweetie, for you to say you don't know who I am and then to say that I'm a would-be writer?
By the way, little boy, "humorless and overly earnest" are just the kinds of things they used to say about Gandhi, Malcolm X and Martin Luther King. So, thanks for the compliment!
Nobody has ever said Gandhi, Malcolm X and Martin Luther King were either humourless or overly earnest, beacause they were none of things. Your attempt to compare yourself to such people is about the only funny thing you have written. And I'm assuming that humour is unintentional.
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