Investment banker/writer Christopher Whalen says President Bush isn't paying enough attention to growing danger from Hugo Chavez's radical Leftist government in Venezuela. This threat has been discussed earlier, and clearly more needs to be done. It exemplifies how a de facto do-nothing alliance between key elements of the Conventional Wisdom in Washington, D.C. -- the US State Dept. and Senate Democrats -- leads to paralysis now, and crisis later.
A year ago... House International Relations Committee Chairman Henry Hyde (R-Ill.) sent Bush a powerfully phrased letter warning that the triumvirate of political extremists leading economic powerhouse Brazil, oil giant Venezuela and the terrorist-sponsoring regime of Cuba had become an emerging Axis of Evil that the United States must stop. Nonetheless, the Bush administration studiously has ignored the deteriorating political situation in Caracas and, indeed, has gone out of its way to comfort and reassure the Chavez government even as he uses thuggish tactics to obliterate what remains of Venezuela's political opposition.Posted by Alan at November 16, 2003 07:28 AMHeritage Foundation senior policy analyst for Latin America Stephen Johnson argues that ignoring Chavez no longer is the best way to deal with him, if it ever was, and that the White House needs to articulate a clear policy toward this Castroite demagogue. Indeed, some U.S. officials believe that because of the growing presence of Middle East terrorists operating freely in the country, the Bush administration soon may be faced with a Caracas-based threat - or an actual attack on the U.S. homeland from radical Islamists operating from a training base in that country.
via Insight Magazine
Text of Henry Hyde's 2002 letter to President Bush