Most newspaper headlines categorized Hugo Chavez' comments at the U.N. as "un-American". Is this true? I didn't really find anything un-American about his comments. It would be much more accurate to say his comments were "anit-Bush".

It's obvious he made the "devil" comments to get attention to what he had to say. Unfortunately, most big media ignored the other 95% of his speech, which would have encouraged some good dialogue on some urgent issues.

But I guess honest and open discussion about today's most important issues is too much to ask of a media that has lost it's balls.

FreeMindMuseum wrote:
Most newspaper headlines categorized Hugo Chavez' comments at the U.N. as "un-American". Is this true? I didn't really find anything un-American about his comments. It would be much more accurate to say his comments were "anit-Bush".

It's obvious he made the "devil" comments to get attention to what he had to say. Unfortunately, most big media ignored the other 95% of his speech, which would have encouraged some good dialogue on some urgent issues.

But I guess honest and open discussion about today's most important issues is too much to ask of a media that has lost it's balls.

What? Of course his comments are un American! He's not from this country! Even though I don't like him, he cannot be labeled "un-American" unless he's an American. How can we harass someone for un-American comments if they are not American? If we kept doing that, then the whole world is un-American.

you are correct about the "un-American" part, but...

I think what was meant was "anti-american" and not "un-American". In other words, I would say that Chavez was anti-bush, but not anti-american. He is opposed to our government, for good reason (see: 2002 Coup attempt), but I don't think he is against the american people. He should not be likened to Hitler, as Donald Rumsfeld has said.

He has legitimate issues that should be discussed and not written off just because he won't play the game the way Washington would like him to.

Yeah he may be all those things but we have supported all kinds of horrible dictators. Castro, Hussein, Norriega, BIN LAUDEN( because of soviet invasion of afaganistan in 1980) Diem in vietnam, and etc. Our governmant would not attack him if he supported our "freedom " cause.

I do agree that his comments are "anti-american" but lots of people and politicans everywhere around the world make anti-american comments. If we went after everyone who did, we'd be in alot of business for a while. We should just blow it off.

I don't know that he is any of those things. He could be... or he might not be. I have not seen or read any evidence of any of those things myself. have you? point me to them, if you have.

first, he was democratically elected in the late 90's. And in 1992 he led an attempted coup to overthrow the then dictator.

As for the drugs... don't make me laugh. I think there is a rich history of CIA cooperation with drug cartels around the world. But if he is a drug dealer, (I've not seen anything about that), then he should be dealt with on that level. Like, Tim says, deal with him only when it's a threat to the safety of the United States.

Chavez has never been sucked into the U.S. loan sharking to "help" him rebuild his country. That only "helps" a country become beholden to the United States. Like Michael said, being a thug never stopped us from supporting leaders in the past. So there must be something else that makes him different.

His lack of cooperation with the U.S. banks, more than anything else you may mention, is the biggest reason Washington puts out negative statements about him.

Tim wrote:
I think we should become involved when it effects the safety of America.

I agree with this staement but at the same time, I do not. I do want safety for America but with the way our current adminstartion has been running it, they will go after the wrong people! I feel we should go after people with feeble threats to America, but focus on real ones like Osama or Kim Ill Sung.

I'm sorry I meant Kin Jong Ill

it's true. there's a good way and a bad way to do everything. The United States went to war with Iraq, and even if there were good reasons to do so, it doesn't automatically make everything we do just and correct.

It's not only what we do, it is how we do it. The way we went into a war with Iraq without any kind of plan was criminal. And the way we disregard Chavez as a brute dictator without taking a minute to examine what he is saying is wrong. That only leads us into more war.

Ignorance is bliss

Tim wrote:
I dismiss Hugo Chavez, the same way I dismiss Che Guiverra .

We can talk about dictators, tyrannts, and everything for days but they serve a point. The emancipations and freedoms that we have lead to a mass amount of corruption. Like Putin and Castro those are dictators who got rid of the rampant mafia in their countries by being meaner and more ruthless than the cartels. I hate to say it but the people are better off for that to.

Hugo Chaves is a dictator set up by the Mafia. When it all comes down to it, he's not going to do anything except get people killed. Just like Che Guiverra, who only got what 1.2 million people killed? (I'm not exact on the atual number).

You can look at America with one of the worst crime rates ever in history and compare it with people who live in a tryannical state, they are safer. Then Benjamin Franklin said something similar to "Those who give up a little freedom for a little security, deserve neither". So if gang members can come in and kill you or some secret police can, do you choose corruption or tyranny?

Back to the point of the thread, Hugo Chavez is an idiot in my opinion who while given backing by corrupt forces of huge drug cartels, his ideals are right. Then again I'm an old school Republican that believes in the basic libertarian beliefs. I think we all need to wake up and be more ruthless and fight fire with fire.

Are you implying that our governmant needs to become more tyrannical to fight terror?

Now THAT I do agree with!

I do understand what you are saying, Tim. There are examples throughout history of good and bad democracies and good and back dictators (Kings included). Yes, on paper tougher control can sound like a good idea in certain situation.

But to advocate and put more tyrannical behavior in the world is a slippery slope. I think you're asking for trouble. After all, we encourage Saddam in Iraq to take control in the middle east in the 80's... and look what happened with that. My point is that encouraging tyrannical policies doesn't even come close to guaranteeing safety, or that the dictator will be friendly to the United States and the world.

another example:
I think we can agree that Russia in the early 80's had lots of tough control build into their system of government. They sent their army into Afghanistan without television cameras, without anyone checking on their torture techniques. In other words, they went in with a tyrannical system with total annihilation in mind, without anyone watching... and what happened? That system failed.

You can say that the only way to really "win" a war is to go at it without conscious and with total annihilation in mind, (Kill 'em all), like we did with native americans, and like Hitler did. I really don't think that breeds safety, though. It breeds more hatred and war.