Colin Powell, 2003:“It cost a great deal of money to prosecute this war. But the oil of the Iraqi people belongs to the Iraqi people; it is their wealth, it will be used for their benefit. So we did not do it for oil.”London’s Independent, 2007:

Iraq’s massive oil reserves, the third-largest in the world, are about to be thrown open for large-scale exploitation by Western oil companies under a controversial law which is expected to come before the Iraqi parliament within days. The US government has been involved in drawing up the law, a draft of which has been seen by The Independent on Sunday. It would give big oil companies such as BP, Shell and Exxon 30-year contracts to extract Iraqi crude and allow the first large-scale operation of foreign oil interests in the country since the industry was nationalised in 1972.The huge potential prizes for Western firms will give ammunition to critics who say the Iraq war was fought for oil. They point to statements such as one from Vice-President Dick Cheney, who said in 1999, while he was still chief executive of the oil services company Halliburton, that the world would need an additional 50 million barrels of oil a day by 2010. “So where is the oil going to come from?… The Middle East, with two-thirds of the world’s oil and the lowest cost, is still where the prize ultimately lies,” he said.Oil industry executives and analysts say the law, which would permit Western companies to pocket up to three-quarters of profits in the early years, is the only way to get Iraq’s oil industry back on its feet after years of sanctions, war and loss of expertise.

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His victory was determined by electronic voting machines that are indirectly under his control, he’s consolidating the Media and the now virtually one-party state under his command, and he’s planning to assume special legislative powers – powers previously outside the domain of the executive branch. For those of us who’ve criticized the GOP’s determination to govern without Democratic input the past five+ years and their tendency to ignore or support the President’s legally-dubious domestic spying, it’s tempting to say he’s George Bush’s Liberal mirror image. But here’s one major distinction (among several): Bush and his party never tried to eliminate Presidential term limits. I think it’s necessary to say now that what we have in Venezuela is an incipient dictator.From Yahoo News:

A leading anti-U.S. voice in the world and in the vanguard of a shift to the left in Latin America, Chavez now wants to scrap presidential term limits and lead the OPEC nation for decades. 

Many of us agree with most of Chavez’s stated goals; chief among them the novel idea that Venezuelans should benefit more than foreign investors do from their own natural resources, and that the United States’ Monroe Doctrine (used by Presidents to justify numerous invasions and subversions of Latin American governments) is an anachronism. We agree with Chavez that the nations of Latin America have a right to self determination, they have a right to deny foreign exploitation of their own resources and to insist that the United States stay out of their political affairs. But we cannot turn a blind eye to the very real prospect that an even more fundamental right – the right of people to govern themselves – looks like it may be endangered in Venezuela.If Hugo Chavez grows a long beard, we’ll know it’s game over in Caracas.***EDIT: As a reader points out in the comments to this thread, the leaders of Chile and Brazil – whose acceptance has been credited in no small part to the popularit of Hugo Chavez – have so far demonstrated that socialist values are not incompatible with Democracy. Perhaps the teacher should start taking notes.

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OK, let me get this straight: If you criticize Sean Hannity and call for the impeachment of George W. Bush, that makes you an “Enemy of the State.” (I know, I know, Hannity and his kind confusing a man – whether himself or the President – with “the State” isn’t anything new).I don’t know what’s worse — the fact that Hannity chose to name a segment of his show after the favorite phrase of every dictator from Caesar to Hitler, the fact that anyone is actually watching that show, or the fact that I’m wasting my time commenting on it. At this point, commenting on the irresponsible behavior of the Fox News personalities may be no more necessary than pointing out how water is really, really wet.

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