NEWS: Venezuela Going Nuclear??

This is a very ominous, if not alarming, news:

To the minute number of people who understand the threat Chavez poses to the United States, his recent hosting in Caracas of Iranian President Mohammad Khatami was disturbing enough. But a high-ranking official for a Latin American government has disclosed to me details about that visit that should send shock waves throughout our government.

During a private meeting between Chavez and Khatami, I was told, Chavez made it known to the Iranian leader that he would like to "introduce nuclear elements into Venezuela." My contact said "nuclear elements" meant "nuclear weapons."

www.lanuevacuba.com...

This could give Bush a darn good reason to confront Iran head-on. Chavez must be going nuts to ask Iran for some nuclear "elements".

the threat Chavez poses to the United States?
Bwa ha ha ha!
You mean the oil reserves that they might stop selling us tommorow because they are sick of CIA and MOSSAD agents running aorund arming radical terrorists there?
Wake up.
Is this anything like the threat posed to us by Lybia? Grenada? Vietnam? Germany? Iraq? Korea? Iran? Afganistan?
Surely to god you can see a pattern there.

Douglas MacKinnon just has it in for Chavez and has authored many, many negative articles about him. He says Powell didn't see this evil because "Powell fell victim to the career apologists of socialism and tyranny within the State Department."
After being legitimatly elected to his position in the Venzuelan government and winning an internationally monitored recall referendum, MacKinnon still refuses to admit his legitimacy. The guy even goes so far as to lie about the pre-referendum poll numbers.

I wouldn't look to this guy for an accurate account of what's happening in Venezuela.

washtimes

Fear of ever-rising oil prices and OPEC's growing anti-American sentiment, must alert our State Department and government that there is a clear and present danger to our national security within our own hemisphere. A leading politician in Spain just labeled it "A haven for terrorists."
This is revealed in a person ultimately more dangerous to us than Osama bin Laden, Abu Musab Zarqawi, Ayman al-Zawahiri, or any other terrorist operating out of the Middle East. What person represents such a grave threat to our well being? Hugo Chavez, "leader" of Venezuela.

[edit on 23-5-2005 by AceOfBase]

OK, here's the CNN story and it doesn't say nuclear elements meant nuclear weapons.

CNN
Chavez, a fierce critic of the United States and a leftist ally of Communist Cuba, said Venezuela and other Latin American countries could develop nuclear energy as an alternative power source for civilian purposes.

"We are interested too, we must start working on that area... the nuclear area. We could, along with Brazil, with Argentina and others, start investigations into the nuclear sector and ask for help from countries like Iran," Chavez said on his regular Sunday TV program.

well, bush has no one to blame for this but himself. If he wasnt so damn aggresive countries wouldnt be trying to develop nukes like mad.

stop it...youre acting like the world was perfect pre-Bush and that none of these countries had nuclear ambitions before Bush...get real....

You guys really don't want to get into a Chavez debate with any half educated liberal, trust me. The evidence is overwhelming against the US, not to mention a good 1/3 of that gas in your car is comming out of his "regime".

phan has a point. why is it all of a sudden that we are seeing countries race towards nukelear weaps? perhaps it is a very real FEAR of the us that is driveing this. after all if they have nukes then they have a valid threat that the us would HAVE to take seriously. might this be a wake up call that all is not peachy keen in the whitehouse and underlyeing organizatioms? why would not just one but many countries be frightened enough to want all the protection that they can muster? what do they perhaps KNOW that most of us without spy agencies don't? sure distrust and relationships havn't always been cordial, but why this masive starting producton and reserch for possible nukes?

also why is the states so concerned about it? that is what the foucus should realy be. like i have stated an many occasions, if the us and other countries want to keep others from haveing nukes, then first thjey need to get rid of ALL of theirs FIRST. otherwise it is a rather hypicratical stance. i can have them but you can't? isn't that just a little bit on the biased side of things? the "haves" telling the "have nots" what they are entitled to have? yup hypocracy at it's worst. get off that "moral highground" and actualy let people with morals upon it. it would be the same as me who has a gun, telling a neibour that he can't have one just because i don't trust him. now what exactly is it that would make me any more trustworthy then him? who am i to decide what HE can have? especialy since i already own a gun.

now of course we need to ask how reliable any info comeing from any paticular countrie's news services are? afterall news sources are a very good proppiganda tool. almost anything can be twisted to form the meaning that somebody wants it to have. "nuclear elements" for example. now it COULD mean almost anything. it could be nuke weaps, fuel for reators, trittium for watch dials. or even raw uranium that has been mined. now in this case we are being told that it means nuke weaps by one person. but what is it realy? see just how easily these two words out of who knows how many could be taken as a serious threat or something totaly benine. TWO WORDS that depending on the MEANING ATTRIBBUTED to them could drasticaly alter perception, all based on INTERPITATION of their meaning.

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In fact, in the present multilateral security setting, i think the world is safest when every menace is met with a proper countermenace. The US's menace to the middle east would be met by iran, the US's menace to latin america would be met by venezuela. That would augment the US's aggression threshold and lead to a safer world.

Wrong.

Any country seeking nuclear energy on its own terms is asking for trouble. Chavez is asking for trouble, plain and simple.

The United States have no historical aggression against Venezuela. The problem isn't with Bush. The problem is sheer political idiocy by other anti-US countries seeking nuclear "elements" on a flimsy basis of US aggression.

Perhaps there are too many simple-minded idiotic leaders in those countries who are unable to grasp the large picture. I have stated before that without the American economy, the economies of other countries and the global economy, as a whole, have no legs to stand on and no arms to move around. If Bush was so eager and so confident with the American troops crushing and ousting the Taliban from Afghanistan and the Saddam regime from Iraq, he would have done with other anti-US countries on April 10th 2003.

But, please. Get. Real.

Originally posted by the_oleneo
The United States have no historical aggression against Venezuela. The problem isn't with Bush. The problem is sheer political idiocy by other anti-US countries seeking nuclear "elements" on a flimsy basis of US aggression.

I don't think so. historically, it was Bush attacking (by means of assassination attempts and failed military coups) Hugo Chavez because of his oil and because of his friendship with countries that Bush likes to lie about (Iran, Cuba). Now, after these attempts, it is Chavez deciding nuclear technology, not the other way around...


[edit on 23-5-2005 by Moretti]

The United States have no historical aggression against Venezuela.

Boy oh boy, you really need to cut the tv off and read up on US/Venezuela foriegn policies. The American Propoganda machine is pretty effective, as alot of people like you are swallowing that garbage. You would be sickened by some of the crap we have been pulling in South America, if you bothered to really research it.
Educate yourself, then form an opinion.
www.google.com...
www.handsoffvenezuela.org...

www.zmag.org...
When it comes to Venezuela's rocky diplomatic relations with the United States, Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez is usually given the blame. His frequent denunciations of U.S. "intervention" in Venezuela are taken as indications that he is hostile to America.

But the evidence is mounting that Washington is the party responsible for friction with our third largest oil supplier. Last week the New York Times reported on recently released CIA documents showing that our government had advance knowledge of the military coup that briefly overthrew Venezuela's democratic government on April 11-13 of 2002. The Bush Administration not only failed to warn Venezuela of the coup, but actually pretended that it wasn't a coup at all.

"They lied about not knowing about coup threats before April 11th, and when they claimed that the coup was a popular uprising when they knew that it was actually being planned for weeks," said U.S. Congressman Jose Serrano of New York City today.

www.venezuelanalysis.com...
Philip Agee is a former CIA operative who left the agency in 1967 after becoming disillusioned by the CIA’s support for the status quo in the region. Says Agee, “I began to realize that what I and my colleagues had been doing in Latin America in the CIA was no more than a continuation of nearly five-hundred years of this, exploitation and genocide and so forth.

www.wsws.org...
With a “strike” organized by Venezuela’s employers now entering its second week, there is every indication that the South American country is being subjected to a classic destabilization campaign organized in collaboration with US intelligence.

Having failed to topple Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez in a US-backed coup last April, Venezuela’s ruling circles, working in conjunction with Washington, are attempting to force him to resign or provoke a new military seizure of power.

The threat that Washington will intervene directly in Venezuela—a strategic source of imported petroleum for the American market—cannot be ruled out.

bellaciao.org...
Federal agents detained the anti-Castro Cuban terrorist Luis Posada Carriles in Miami Tuesday shortly after he held a press conference where he told reporters that the government was not looking for him and he felt no need to hide.

The arrest, in which Posada was whisked away in a Blackhawk helicopter to an undisclosed location, followed weeks of implausible denials by the US State Department that it had any knowledge as to his whereabouts or even whether he was in the country.

Venezuela’s government last week issued a formal request for Posada’s extradition from the United States to face trial on charges of organizing the 1976 bombing of a civilian Cuban airliner in which all 73 passengers were killed. At the time of the terrorist attack, the Cuban exile was both a long-time asset of the US Central Intelligence Agency and a former senior official in DISIP, Venezuela’s secret police.

www.propagandamatrix.com...
Videotapes show secret CIA & Venezuelan terrorists conspiring another coup d'etat
V Headline
Video-taped images filmed by Venezuelan intelligence agents are to be screened in Los Angeles (Calif., USA) later this month under the title: "Agenda Oculta" (Hidden Agenda) showing one of the most recent hidden conspiracy meetings between the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and Venezuelan opposition terrorists in the act of planning another bloody coup d'etat against the democratically-elected government of Venezuela.
The Spanish-language presentation will be at the Echo Park Film Center at 1200 North Alvarado Echo Park, Los Angeles at 7:00 p.m. and 9:00 p.m. Thursday, February, 26, with English subtitles.
One of the most astonishing moments in the video is when someone says "we cannot walk around telling everyone we're with the CIA...” The video maps a series of references made to the US Embassy in Caracas and US Ambassador to Venezuela Charles S. Shapiro. It verified the attendance of a US Embassy staffer and a former US Army Colonel (identified only as a Col. Corry) speaking of operative modes, discretion, etc.

www.colombiasolidarity.org.uk...
Chavez revealed that his government is in the possession of a video, which his security forces secretly recorded, of a CIA officer giving a class to Venezuelans on surveillance. Joking he said, "The technique could not have been very good, since we did manage to film him." He argues that this is evidence that the CIA is involved in clandestine activity in Venezuela, after the coup attempt, in addition to the evidence he has of U.S. involvement before and during the coup; but his government has so far not issued a formal complaint to the U.S. government. Some day, he said, these pieces of evidence will be released, but he does not know when.

www.handsoffvenezuela.org...
In an interview on Miami’s Spanish-language channel 22, the former CIA agent Felix Rodriguez said that the U.S. government has plans to “bring about a change in Venezuela.” When pressed as to what type of plans these might be, Rodriguez responded that the Bush administration “could do it with a military strike, with a plane.”

The former CIA agent’s comments were made last week, on Thursday, during the talk show of a well-known supporter of the anti-Castro movement, Maria Elvira Salazar. Rodriguez affirmed during the program, “According to information I have about what is happening in Venezuela, it is possible that at some moment they [the Bush administration] will see itself obliged, for national security reasons and because of problems they have in Colombia, to implement a series of measures that will bring about a change in Venezuela.”

www.canadiandimension.mb.ca...
CIA OPERATIVES NOW IN PLACE IN VENEZUELA
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Roy S. Carson
VHeadline.com
February 9, 2004
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sources in Washington D.C. have revealed that Bush 2 administration officials are again seeking to "stimulate" a regime change in Venezuela after a USA-backed coup d'etat against democratically-elected President Hugo Chavez Frias failed, when US puppet dictator Pedro Carmona Estanga moved to dissolve parliament, the judiciary and the constitution in one fell swoop.

Our sources, which must remain confidential, but have been verified, say that Venezuelan nationals, recruited on the promise of fast-track US citizenship and benefits, have been trained in the arts of USA terror tactics at the US Army School of Americas-SOA, renamed 3 years ago as the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation-WHISC, at Fort Benning, Georgia, were relocated to training camps at Iquitos in the northern jungles of Peru under the direction of US Southern Command, Latin America & Caribbean, regional HQ at Fort Buchanan, San Juan, Puerto Rico.

SOA/WHISC commanders are said to be "smarting" over their failure to impose a US-backed military/civilian dictatorship in Venezuela in April 2002 when democratically-elected President Hugo Chavez Frias was swiftly returned to power after US-puppet dictator Pedro Carmona Estanga dissolved parliament, the judiciary and Venezuela's constitution in one fell swoop. Carmona Estanga was not able to control the massive surge against him as millions of Venezuelans took to the streets repudiating his imposition and demanding the return of reformist Chavez Frias.

Covert US Central Intelligence Agency operatives are already in place in Venezuela as the SOA/WHISC prepares for what it is calling "a second bite at the cherry." The Bush 2 official in charge of the Latin American desk Otto Reich has been holding toplevel meetings with strategists from the Venezuelan political opposition in Washington D.C. who also had meetings there last week with shadowy Venezuelan billionaire Gustavo Cisneros and former US White House insider Henry Kissinger.

www.gwu.edu...
Washington D.C. May 18, 2005 - The National Security Archive today posted additional documents that show that the CIA had concrete advance intelligence, as early as June 1976, on plans by Cuban exile terrorist groups to bomb a Cubana airliner. The Archive also posted another document that shows that the FBI's attache in Caracas had multiple contacts with one of the Venezuelans who placed the bomb on the plane, and provided him with a visa to the U.S. five days before the bombing, despite suspicions that he was engaged in terrorist activities at the direction of Luis Posada Carriles.

Both documents were featured last night on ABC Nightline's program on Luis Posada Carriles, who was detained in Miami yesterday by Homeland Security.

www.csun.edu...
CBS News Transcripts, November 21, 1993, Sunday

what he calls drug trafficking by the CIA, in partnership with the Venezuelan
national guard. While rumors of CIA involvement in drug trafficking have
circulated for years, no one in the US government has ever before publicly
charged the CIA with this kind of wrongdoing. It is not the kind of accusation
anyone in government would make without thinking long and hard.
MIKE WALLACE: Let me understand what you're saying. A ton of coc aine was
smuggled into the United States of America by the Venezuelan national guard...
Judge ROBERT BONNER (Former Head, Drug Enforcement Administration): Well,
they...
WALLACE: ...in cooperation with the CIA?
Judge BONNER: That's what--that's exactly what appears to have happened.
(Footage of Wallace and Bonner walking)
WALLACE: (Voiceover) Until last month, Judge Robert Bonner was the head of
the Drug Enforcement Administration, the DEA. And Judge Bonner explained to us
that only the head of the DEA is authorized to approve the transportation of


CBS News Transcripts, November 21, 1993, Sunday

any illegal narcotics, like coc aine, into this country, even if the CIA is
bringing it in.

ciadrugs.homestead.com...
A Central Intelligence Agency anti-drug program in Venezuela shipped a of nearly
pure coc aine to the United States in 1990, Government officials said today.

No criminal charges have been brought in the matter, which the officials said appeared
to have been a serious accident rather than an intentional conspiracy. But officials say
the coc aine wound up being sold on the streets in the United States.

One C.I.A. officer has resigned, a second has been disciplined and a Federal grand jury
in Miami is investigating.

The agency, made aware of a "60 Minutes" investigation of the matter scheduled for
broadcast on Sunday, issued a statement today calling the affair "a most regrettable
incident" involving "instances of poor judgment and management on the part of several
C.I.A. officers."

www.serendipity.li...
CIA facilities in Venezuela are used to store 1000 kilos of coc aine that is
shipped to Miami.

"If the people were to ever find out what we have done, we would be chased down the streets and lynched."

-- George Bush, cited in the June, 1992 Sarah McClendon Newsletter

Originally posted by BasementAddix
stop it...youre acting like the world was perfect pre-Bush

Hmm... Sometimes is certainly looks this way, now doesn't it Too bad we didn't appreciate it the way we had it then...

Back to the topic: Venezuela is not the enemy of the United States. I don't know what else to say about it. Demonizing Chavez is, well, stupid. He may be radical (or not) in his domestic policies, but that's Venezuela's internal business.

Venezuela has no business trying to run it's own affairs, especially when it has all that oil...the idea is preposterous
It's the job of the US government to do that and help the oil companies pump it all and pay no taxes with the help of a friendly paid-off leader

Presidente Chavez, has taken upon himself to antagonize our government with everything to be against the US, including relations with Castro, Iran and others less desirable regimes in the eyes of our government.

Why he chooses to do so . . . is obvious, our government has done everything to help Chavez enemies overthrow him from Venezuela and impose a more friendly regime.

We did a very good extensive research on Chavez. The US and the failed coup in one of the threads a few months back.

If any wants to read it just do a search.

It has plenty of information on who is who when it comes to Presidente Chavez enemies and the ones that writes the propaganda.

Now antagonizing the US with rumors of seeking nuclear power is either very bold or very stupid but I think he is trying to prove a point to the rest of the world went it comes to standing against the wishes of our government.

Twitchy
You are desperately needed here on ATS, please don't ever leave.

Chavez is emulating Castro..I hope for his sake Chavez has equal or better security people.

The US has a long and storied tradition of terrorism..except when we do it, it's called regime change, or nation building, or social engineering. That's nonsense. Call a spade a spade.

We're the largest state sponsor of terrorism, and the only reason things are so bad, is because most American people DON'T KNOW that. Venezuela has a rough time ahead of it, I hope they pull through with minimal deaths.

Whoa, a lot of Chavez's butts-kissers here. That's alright, as long as there are Chavez's butts-kissers, there are Bush's butts-kissers as well. But I kiss no one's butts and can't even kiss mine. Oh, well.

Here's what William F. Jasper have to say about Hugo Chavez:

No one appears better poised, at this time, to assume the mantle of leadership of the revolution in Latin America from Cuba’s aging dictator than Hugo Chavez. Since winning Venezuela’s 1998 presidential election, Chavez has been taking his country ever leftward toward dictatorship. He has rewritten the constitution and assumed more and more powers. He uses his “Bolivarian Circles” — armed thugs and neighborhood spies, patterned after Castro’s Committees for the Defense of the Revolution — to beat, intimidate and murder his opposition.

During his 1999 visit to Beijing, Chavez praised mass murderer Mao Zedong and declared: “I have been very Maoist all my life.” Communist China has stepped up investing in projects in Venezuela, one of the world’s top oil producers and one of the major foreign suppliers of oil to the U.S. Chavez has given hugs and praise to Fidel Castro, Saddam Hussein, North Korean dictator Kim Jong Il and Libyan terrorist-in-chief Col. Qaddafi.

Castro, whom Chavez refers to as “dear brother,” has sent his KGB-trained DGI agents to help Chavez transform Venezuela’s internal security service, the DISIP, into a Soviet-model secret police force. After his failed 1992 coup attempt, Chavez went to Cuba, Libya and Iraq. He came back with plenty of money to launch his political campaign. He is a veteran member of the Sao Paulo Forum terrorist network and has opened Venezuela to al-Qaeda, Hezbollah and the ELN and FARC narco-terrorists of Colombia. Hakim Mamad Ali Diad Fattah, a Venezuelan-born Arab who is now back in Venezuela, may have been another intended hijacker on September 11, 2001. Fattah entered the U.S. with forged documents (most likely provided by the DGI-DISIP) and took lessons at the same New Jersey flight school attended by Hani Hanjour, who authorities say crashed American Airlines Flight 77 into the Pentagon. According to the FBI, Fattah had talked about blowing up an airliner. After 9-11, Chavez refused to provide information on Fattah and other individuals raising money for Hezbollah in Venezuela. In 2002, General Marcos Ferreira resigned as head of Venezuela’s Border Security because Chavez was ordering him to destroy files on Hezbollah terrorists and to allow known terrorists to cross Venezuela’s borders in transit to Cuba and Colombia.

Despite his notorious words and deeds, the CFR brain trust has been all too willing to look benignly upon Chavez’s militant revolutionary plans. One reason is obvious: Along with Brazil’s Lula (see above) he is pushing for Mercosur integration, a major stepping stone to the FTAA.

From: Rogues' Gallery: False Opposition

I'm really questioning with some of you with how much you truly know of Chavez's background, what kind of person he is and so on. The man is already a dictator in his own country, having way too much powers already on the account of popularity from the poor.

Hugo Chavez's bio

Knowing what sort of devil he is..that goes without saying.

Knowing what sort of devils abound in politics and around the world..it makes him just another shark willing to eat its own kind.

The people have always been minnows and mackerel, and the smart ones survive by learning to recognize sharks.

Power corrupts, and even the best intentioned among us have a chance to falter under that weight...

He's only human...

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BHR