Wednesday, June 18, 2008

US Treasury Department ties Venezuelan diplomat to Hezbollah Today the US Treasury Department identified two Venezuelan citizens as Hezbollah supporters, identifying their names, businesses and activities, accusing them of providing support for the terrorist organization and making fundraising efforts in behalf of that organization in Venezuela. The charge are not new, exiled reported Patricia Poleo made similar charges with even more details last week in her column in Nuevo Pais. Poleo gave names of people who come to Venezuela to train Venezuelans as well as Venezuelans who travel to Lebanon to train in guerrilla warfare. Poleo also linked one of the men designated by the Department of the Treasury as being linked to badass Chacin’s Vice-Minister Tarek el Ayssami. The Treasury Department froze the assets of the two Venezuelans. One of which is actually a new era diplomat for our country, who was in charge of the Venezuelan office in Syria and is now at the country’s Embassy in Lebanon. As I noted a few days ago, it was the new Minister of Finance Ali Rodriguez who took charge of destroying the country’s diplomatic service, replacing professionals with only supporters of the revolution with no qualifications. I am sure that tomorrow we will have Minister of Foreign Relations Maduro call this another attack on Venezuela and the usual empty garbage the thugs spew out when they are caught red handed, but I wonder whether Maduro will address such issues as: ---The Venezuelan diplomat Ghasi Nasr al Din is also known by eleven different names in the best tradition of badass Rodriguez Chacin. Maybe we can learn who was in charge when this guy was nationalized Venezuelan or how many ID cards, names and the like he has. ---The other character in this plot, Fawzi Kan’an is known by about seven other names, with a variety of birthdates and birthplaces. Maybe his ID number is fake, as the number is simply too low for someone who claims to have acquired the Venezuelan nationality in 1997. Maybe Maduro can also enlighten us on this. Kan’an or whatever his name is also accused of funneling money to Hezbollah, as well as setting up its office and community center in Venezuela. Of course, in a Government with no accountability or checks and balances, all we will get are denials by the same thugs and hoodlums that we have by now all gotten accustomed to. In any serious country there would be at least an investigation, but in “revolutionary” Venezuela, impunity rules if you are a friend of the process. Remember suitcases full of cash? Remember sugar concerns in Barinas? Remember structured notes? Thugs and hoodlums run and rule in Venezuela! 10:13:07 PM    comment []

Venezuela is being run by irresponsible, miserable hoodlums While there has never been any doubt that Minister of Interior and Justice Rodriguez Chacin is the closest thing to a hoodlum and a public gangster that there is in Venezuela, his irresponsible behavior either shows that the man is close to an intellectual retard or he thinks we are. During his various tenures as Minister, Rodriguez Chacin has assumed multiple identities, used them for personal enrichment, allowed FARC leaders to come to Venezuela legally, nationalizing them and even allowing them to vote, as he has flirted with the worst elements of the FARC, who impressed with his personal destructive qualities and inhuman nature, labeled him a badass. But he is much more than a badass, he is simply an irresponsible bastard, who has no respect for human rights and who does not assume the responsibility he has to share in the failure of the Hugo Chavez Government to stop the growth of crime and homicides during the last ten years. Because it has been ten years since Hugo Chavez got to power and for nine of them Hugo Chavez did not even acknowledge the crime was even close to a problem. He can ignore that the homicide rate had tripled in those nine years, he can ignore that he had promised to fight crime when he was a candidate in 1998, he can ignore that more Venezuelans have died in the last ten years than Iraqis in the war in Iraq, he can ignore ten years of absolute disregard for the human rights of Venezuelans, but neither Hugo Chavez neither his Minister of Interior and Justice can ignore their responsibility for the pain, the sorrow and the sadness that with their negligence they bring to so many Venezuelan homes everyday. But rather than accept that responsibility, like so many other failures of the empty Chavez revolution, instead Rodriguez Chacin shows what a miserable human being and “leader” he is when he begins classifying crime as relative, telling us last week that weekly deaths in Caracas were down to zero, but backtracking this week and acknowledging that there are 40 deaths per week in this city, absurd for a city of five million. But then he shows he is a man to be despised when he states that deaths between gangs are not part of citizen safety¨ and that “crimes of passion” are also second-class homicides, not worth his time or his tears. What´s next? Dismissing crimes against old people? Or opposition members? Give him one more week and this misery of a man maybe will tell us that stray bullets should also be ignored when compiling crime statistics and well, I guess suicides are also not his responsibility and cab and bus drivers are also asking for it by driving late at night trying to make a living. This is a socialist society after all... Because it has been ten years of total irresponsibility where all problems, whether inflation, shortages, crime, garbage, unemployment, kids in the streets, poverty and the like, are always the responsibility of some long forgotten Governments or people, who nobody remembers or cares for any more. People who had many faults, but at least there was respect for human rights and the law and while there was corruption, it was kept in check by the rightful institutions, which have been destroyed by Chavismo to protect their stupid project. Remarkably, Chavez, who claims to care so much for the people, not only brought back this man that should be in jail for stealing and killing fellow citizens, but keeps him in his all powerful position even if he legislates at will on his shadow the most absurd bill to control the population, while creating his own “badass” hierarchy of crimes. But “badass” Chacin is in the end just a poor soul who through his friendship with Hugo Chavez has managed to impose his non-existent system of values and his disregard for human life and rights on all Venezuelans. Who has managed to reach dozens of levels above his Peter principle, where death is irrelevant, human rights just a vague concept and playing at being soldier and guerrillas and being a tough guy, are more important than assuming the responsibility of running and managing his Ministry or upholding the laws of the country. The fact that this irresponsible Minister remains in charge today, is simply another sign of the tragedy that the Chavez Government has become for our beleaguered country. And Chavez and him are responsible for the deaths of close to one hundred thousand Venezuelans in ten years. A record for the type of miserable, irresponsible hoodlums they represent... 12:58:29 AM    comment []