Michael Rowan / The aggressor
Michael Rowan
Special for El Universal
When the conflict between Venezuela and the US calms down,
history will judge that it was Hugo Chavez and not the US who
was the aggressor. While the US is guilty of ignorance, arrogance,
and apathy about Chavez, it is not guilty of waging a war against
him. In fact, for a decade now Chavez has been an enigma
to the US. He is as unknown as Neanderthal Man. And this led
to mistakes right from the beginning, as when Chavez was denied
a visa to the US in his 1998 presidential campaign, a sign of
arrogant disrespect which he never forgot. But arrogance
is one thing, war is another.
Ten years of evidence says that the US is not trying to assassinate
Chavez, invade Venezuela, confiscate Venezuela's oil, or conduct
a regime change a la Iraq. Here's why: the US doesn't care that
much about Venezuela. If its oil doesn't go to the US, it will
go somewhere else. On the strategic map of US interests, the
only country in the hemisphere that truly qualifies is Mexico.
Remember when President Richard Nixon told a young Donald Rumsfeld
in 1971 "no one gives a damn about Latin America?" It's the
same today. The US doesn't really give a damn but Chavez figures
just the opposite is true. That's why he refused US engineers
to help after the Vargas flood; he dismissed US drug agents
as spies; he believed the US military in Fuerte Tiuna were planning
to overthrow him; he fired the technology firm, SAIC, for stealing
secrets from PDVSA. The truth is way more boring: the US isn't
thinking about Chavez.
But what gets US attention is the strategic alliance with Iran
that may involve nuclear weapons materials procurement; providing
safe havens and millions of dollars to the FARC; and money-laundering
for terrorist organizations. Ignoring those security threats
would be like President Kennedy ignoring Soviet nuclear missiles
headed to Cuba in 1961. But the US has learned a lot over the
forty years since the aborted Bay of Pigs invasion, the Vietnam
War, the 9/11 terror attack, and wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
The US has learned the hard way that invasion, regime change,
and assassination are not solutions but problems. The US will
deal with the threat from Chavez by playing defense, not offense,
whether the president is named Bush, McCain, Clinton or Obama.
Whatever happens after that depends on Chavez. It's all up to
him.
michaelrowan22@gmail.com
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