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Friday, April 18, 2008
Hugo Chavez stealing all the sugar
When last we heard about Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez, he was nationalizing the cement industry, apparently because foreigners were buying too much cement. Now the glorious socialist revolution continues.
From the LA Times:
Venezuelan armed forces occupied 32 sugar plantations Thursday, the latest in a wave of takeovers that some say is a bid by President Hugo Chavez to regain political momentum and reverse his recent slide in the polls.
The farms in Lara state were taken over by army units at the request of the Chavez government's National Land Institute, or INTI. The institute in recent years has handled the takeover of thousands of acres of farmland and turned them over to worker cooperatives.
...
INTI President Juan Carlos Loyo told reporters that the farm seizures were ordered after inspections showed 80% of them were idle.
There's no reason to trust the result of INTI's inspection. But suppose a large portion of sugar plantations really are idle. I wonder if that fact could have anything to do with this?
From the New York Times, February 17:
Faced with an accelerating inflation rate and shortages of basic foods like beef, chicken and milk, President Hugo Chávez
has threatened to jail grocery store owners and nationalize their
businesses if they violate the country’s expanding price controls.
...
With shoppers limited to just two large packages of sugar, a black
market in sugar has developed among street vendors in parts of Caracas
...
José Vielma Mora, the chief of Seniat, the government’s tax agency,
oversaw a raid this month on a warehouse here where officials seized
about 165 tons of sugar. Mr. Vielma said the raid exposed hoarding by
vendors who were unwilling to sell the sugar at official prices. He
and other officials in Mr. Chávez’s government have repeatedly blamed
the shortages on producers, intermediaries and grocers.
Those in the food industry argue that the price controls prevented them from making a profit after inflation rose and the value of Venezuela’s currency plunged in black market trading in recent weeks.
Hm. So Chavez has clamped down on the price of sugar, rationed it, and done his best to stamp out the black market in the stuff, and now he's complaining that sugar plantations are sitting idle? Is he evil or just stupid?
I'm sure once Hugo's handpicked goons are in charge of the plantations, more sugar will be produced than ever before -- sugar gleaned from the dirt by the spirit of Karl Marx channeled through machines that run on atmospheric static electricity.
Posted by Terrence Watson on April 18, 2008 | Permalink
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Comments
Hugo Mugabe,
Stealing all the sugar? I guess he's hoping that will make him a sweet guy.
The Venezuelans are getting the government they deserve.
Posted by: John West | 2008-04-19 6:32:04 PM
For a country wealthy in oil wealth this seems a very sensible policy. The best way to combat rising inflation in a country with very high poverty levels is to artificially set food prices, and this can be offset by oil revenues. The thing is Venezuela is changing dramatically to a more equal society, the President is popular and growth is the highest in Latin America whilst the US plunges into recession. Cheap comments cannot blunt Chavez's sharp political and eocnomical skill - it may just be that twentiyfirst century socialism has had ten years of success whilst capitalism has been floundering, and the USA finds it hard to watch its empire crumble and influence receed.
Posted by: Ted | 2008-04-20 3:21:55 AM
Ted - You might want to study history. Price caps on food, in the absence of forced labor, always leads to shortages and production shortfalls. Probably the best case study of this would be the former soviet union, but the US had some experience with this in the 70s. You and every other person cheerleading for price controls should consider reading Adam Smith's "Wealth of Nations" to get an idea of how an economy functions. Understanding what is said in that book makes it clear why shortages occur in price controlled environments that don't use forced labor.
As for this comment "it may just be that twentiyfirst century socialism has had ten years of success whilst capitalism has been floundering"
Let's examine this rationally... China has been anything but floundering and it isn't socialism or communism that's at work there. China's economy is a robust capitalist economy capable of producing everything from Spinach to SemiConductors. Just 20 years ago it was a country lost in time, mired in maoist dogma with a technological level equivalent to about 1930s america. It was not socialism or communism that led to the rapid advance of the Chinese, it was capitalism. They achieved dominance as a major world economic player without needing a special horde of resources.
Venezuela's "twentyfirst century socialism" is built on the back of record oil revenues made possible by a capitalist created world economic demand. What Chavez is doing would not be successful at all without the capitalist societies and their demand for oil. As a result of this, this "twentyfirst century socialism" isn't viable anywhere but in an oil rich nation, and isn't sustainable without a capitalist nations creating huge demand. Furthermore, it is only sustainable for as long as world trade as we know it continues, and it will get hit hard when the world either does something about climate change, or reaps the effects of it.
As for the US plunging into recession, it is hard, but put it in context. We just came off of decades of unprecedented economic growth, unrivaled anywhere but perhaps China. Contractions are completely normal after long growth periods. If we lost half our buying power, we would still have higher standards of living than that found in Venezuela. To put it another way, in the coming world food shortages, whose poor do you think will be hit harder? A man can cut back on his gas usage, as oil is a privelege, but food, that's a neccesity. I haven't heard of anyone in the US fleeing to Venezuela to escape unbearable economic hard times. I also know that I haven't had problems getting milk, eggs, sugar, or anything else. Call me a crazy gringo, but I prefer a full pantry and fridge to a full tank of gas.
Posted by: Benjamin | 2008-04-20 8:56:42 AM
Benjamin:
You've got to give marxists like Ted one thing ... they're persistent.
Ted has been trolling another popular Saskatchewan-based site for a while now and not finding many buyers for his brand of politics, which history has proven to be poisonous to the human condition.
I feel sorry for the populace of Venezuela, who now have to suffer as did those under the Soviet yoke and, more recently, the Chinese.
China, of course, exploits its labour force and will experience further growing pains.
Posted by: set you free | 2008-04-20 9:40:08 AM
I've never heard someone impute to Hugo sharp skills in economics before. He must hide them well. Does it make sense to set artificial price caps and then blame producers for not continuing to produce as they did before the price controls?
Maybe Hugo, like Mugabe, thinks that transferring control over production to people picked for their connections to the ruling regime rather than, you know, proven skill in making sugar will actually increase production. Good luck with that. Such policies have worked so well in Zimbabwe.
As for capitalism floundering: socialists are always saying this. Perhaps U.S. influence IS decreasing -- but the market is expanding its influence everywhere. We'll know capitalism is truly foundering when socialist workers cooperatives can finally compete with multinational corporations; when, that is, they can offer products people want for a price those people are willing to pay.
Ah, screw the market. We already know what people want, or what they should want, right? And demagogues like Hugo will ensure that they get it, good and hard.
Posted by: Terrence Watson | 2008-04-20 3:45:15 PM
Stupid western arrogant drivel. What gives you the right to preach to Venezuela. They happened to elect Hugo Chavez as to do what they wanted him to do and this is what they want for their country. And they don't want the stink of canadian and american ex european barbarians and convicts around them. The IMF is a shadow of its former self, the US and Canada are on the brink of recession, and the Iraqis and Afghans are draining your militaries. So all you have to intimidate South American nations is your mouths. Come to think of it, I don't like what George Bush is doing to the US and what his boot licking clone Harper is doing to Canada's economy and environment. Both of them are demagogues. So please shut up once and for all, quit massacring seals and go back to catching fish from your ice floes since that is apparently your only skill.
Posted by: Mark | 2008-05-01 12:16:55 AM
We aren't writing in Spanish are we Mark?
No.
Then we aren't preaching to Venezuela are we.
We're discussing Venezuela amongst ourselves.
What gives us the right?
Well, we've got freedom of speech don't we, Mark?
Well yes the people of Venezuela did elect Chavez didn't they.
How long did they elect Chavez for?
Did they know they were electing him for life?
I don't think so.
Are the Iraqis and Afghans draining our militaries?
No.
Canada lost more troops in a single day at Dieppe than the U.S. has lost in 5 years in Iraq.
The CF has a 400/1 kill ratio in Afghanistan.
We're training their Armies though.
Yup and in Iraq, where most of our effort has been, the Iraqi Army is standing up and kicking al-Qa'eda ass and wiping Sadr's Army from the face of the earth.
The virgins are busy busy busy in that Islamic Bordello in the Sky!
You bet'cha Mark.
Mark is a good nic for you.
You really are a Mark.
Oops! Gotta go.
My seal kabobs are nicely grilled.
Posted by: Speller | 2008-05-01 12:46:38 AM
Mark
"What gives you the right to preach to Venezuela. They happened to elect Hugo Chavez as to do what they wanted him to do and this is what they want for their country. And they don't want the stink of canadian and american ex european barbarians and convicts around them. "
What right? It's called freedom of speech. Something we still have with our elections and Venezuelans are losing with theirs.
Posted by: h2o273kk9 | 2008-05-01 12:55:50 AM
Ted,
"...the President is popular and growth is the highest in Latin America whilst the US plunges into recession. Cheap comments cannot blunt Chavez's sharp political and eocnomical skill -"
Growth is highest in Latin America? They've got a few decades of growing to do before reaching the depths of US plunging. Your sense of proportion needs a reality check. Then again, communists and their sympathizers never were very good with economic numbers.
Posted by: h2o273kk9 | 2008-05-01 1:00:01 AM
Just what the West needs--its very own Robert Mugabe. Sorry to burst your bubble, Ted, but state-run economics and socialism in general have been miserable failures everywhere they've been tried. Like Mugabe in Africa, Chavez will destroy the economy in Venezuela because he's chasing away all the people who make the economy go round in the first place. We've seen this before, even in South America. Argentina was the fifth economy in the world back before the socialists took power.
"21st-century socialism has had ten years of success"--my God. It is the economic condition of the MIDDLE class, not the working class, that is the true bellwether of a country's economic health. And thanks to Chavez, Venezuela no longer even HAS a middle class. His country is going to fall to pieces the way Zimbabwe fell to pieces, and Venezuelans will have no one to blame for it but themselves.
Posted by: Shane Matthews | 2008-05-01 7:29:59 AM
Mark von Troll wrote: “Stupid western arrogant drivel. What gives you the right to preach to Venezuela?”
Venezuela is in the western hemisphere too, you motherless offal. It’s also in the northern hemisphere. You DO know how to use a globe, right?
Mark von Troll wrote: “They happened to elect Hugo Chavez as to do what they wanted him to do and this is what they want for their country.”
Poor people are always hollering for handouts at the expense of the rich. But it doesn’t matter how much money you throw at them; in a matter of weeks they’ll be destitute again. The only thing that will truly lift them out of poverty is education, jobs, and opportunity. Chavez isn’t providing those because he CAN’T provide them. No leader can. Only capitalism can.
Mark von Troll wrote: “And they don't want the stink of canadian and american ex european barbarians and convicts around them.”
Why? Are they afraid the wetback farmers in the shitty tin-shack slums will be out-stunk?
Mark von Troll wrote: “The IMF is a shadow of its former self, the US and Canada are on the brink of recession, and the Iraqis and Afghans are draining your militaries.”
In which country would almost anyone (except perhaps for you) rather reside? Follow the traffic, chuckles. We get more immigrants from South America than they get from us.
Mark von Troll wrote: “So all you have to intimidate South American nations is your mouths.”
And the spectre of what history has done time and time again to those using Chavez’s tactics. But hey, what’s a famine or two between friends?
Mark von Troll wrote: “Come to think of it, I don't like what George Bush is doing to the US and what his boot licking clone Harper is doing to Canada's economy and environment.”
Yes, and the way South Americans treat their environment, like the Amazon rainforest, is so much better.
Mark von Troll wrote: “Both of them are demagogues.”
But neither steal private property. Whoops, I forgot—property is theft.
Mark von Troll wrote: “So please shut up once and for all, quit massacring seals and go back to catching fish from your ice floes since that is apparently your only skill.”
And what lofty nationality is yours, that lets you sneer at our humble selves?
Posted by: Shane Matthews | 2008-05-01 7:38:37 AM
Canadians are not all they seem or pretend to be to the world. "let me go back to my seal kabobs?" What's next after perpetrating the largest and most brutal massacre of marine mammals the world has ever witnessed, the destruction of all the northern forests? After driving the hundreds of millions of cod and other fish species to extinction with your industrial "draggers", ignoring the urgent advice of even your own scientists. You also managed to destroy your own east coast economy in the process and put 50,000 out of work with your bloodthirsty greed, are you proud of that? Now you are practicing the same sickening destruction on one of the last environmental treasures of the earth and upsetting the ecological balance forever. Arctic seals are a world heritage, just because they fall within the artificial borders of european ex convicts doesn't give you the right to practice your bloodthirsty specicide on them. By the way, Canada is the the biggest arms dealer in the world next the US, and Harper is a sickening bush clone and demagogue who jumped at the chance to invade Afghanistan all the while pretending that Canadian hypocrites are "peace loving, friendly" people. Don't make me gag.
Posted by: Mark | 2008-05-01 11:50:58 AM
Chavez and Morales are at the forefront of getting rid of you barbarians for good. With your wonderful "capitalist help" you installed dictators, cia sponsored death squads such as in El Salvador, brought IMF and World Bank enforced poverty and civil war to all South America. Pinochet the former dictator is obviously the height of your shining "capitalist help". Chavez is one of the first to stand up to you and promot populism and independence from rapacious western countries like the US and canada. He brought education, health care, equality and economic opportunities to the poor of his country and he may have a long way to go to bring it back from the ruins of colonialism, but the populism he chooses to do it with and Venezuela's affairs are none of your business. Making it your business would be like putting the affairs of a mrudered family into the hands of Jeffrey Dahmer. You only have a tenuous hold on Mexico and Columbia and the government of Peru, and even they are realizing what you stand for and the carnage and destruction you have brought to South America and are turning away from you. Throughout Latin American, U.S. officials and allied governments are having seizures about Chavez's spreading influence, be it political, diplomatic or financial. From Mexico to Chile, you are losing. How does it feel not to be able to enslave and exploit South Americans for your ill-gotten gains?
Posted by: Mark | 2008-05-01 12:19:30 PM
Speaking of Canadian induced extinctions, an impoverished Newfoundland joined Canada after they had exterminated the Beothuk Indians, the Labrador Duck, the Giant Auk, the Walrus, the Newfoundland wolf and ravaged the populations of sea-birds and pilot whales. They fed pilot whales to mink in cages until the whales just simply disappeared. They joined Canada reluctantly because Canada offered them the baby bonus - they would receive money just for having kids. That was the deal clincher for Newfoundland. Now the whole of Canada joins Newfoundland in their destruction of the Northern environment.
Posted by: Mark | 2008-05-01 12:26:22 PM
>"After driving the hundreds of millions of cod and other fish species to extinction with your industrial "draggers", ignoring the urgent advice of even your own scientists."
the Marksist
As a matter of historic fact, it was the Spanish, Russian, and Japanese fishing trawlers that over fished the Canadian cod stock and other fish that shared the same territory.
Also the damage that a moratorium on sealing caused cannot be minimized.
Harp seals DO EAT COD.
What did you think seals eat, Marksist, marshmallows?
Posted by: Speller | 2008-05-01 12:36:45 PM
Thank you Speller, I was about to point out who really destroyed the fishing industry. The Russians had floating fish plants that were about the size of an aircraft carrier. They constantly overfished, and rarely had to face any sort of real sanctions. The Spanish would scrape up anything with fins, then head for open water. Canadians did not destroy the fishing industry.
Mark has obviously never experienced the joy of wearing baby sealskin boots. Not only are they stylish and comfortable, they are warm and waterproof. When you buy a pair of seal boots, you are helping the maritime economy, and controlling the seal population at the same time. And don't forget, for every dollar you spend on seal or other fur products, 5 cents goes toward helping starving children in Togo.
Posted by: dp | 2008-05-01 12:56:11 PM
More of the same propaganda direct from the Fisheries mafia, spouted by the zombie canadians who have no mind of their own.
Wrong. There were foreign ships before 1978 and the cod numbers declined about a third but then foreign ships were BANISHED. Instead of managing the stocks the government and investors in fishing were thinking big. Soon, the stern FACTORY-TRAWLERS, or DRAGGERS as they became known, became the MAINSTAY of Canada's Atlantic offshore fishing fleet, and the northern cod catch started as a result. By the mid-1980s, it was the CANADIANS who were landing more than 250,000 tonnes of northern cod annually.
The "Draggers" used by Canadians hauled enormous, baglike nets, as long as a football field, held open by huge steel plates and heavy chains and rollers that plowed and scraped the ocean bottom. They would drag up whole schools of fish and anything else in the way, damaging juvenile target and non-target fish and the bottom-dwelling community. They not only destroyed critical habitat, but they also destabilized the ecosystem of the northern cod.
Seal populations have been around for millions of years and the original population of seals when the settlers arrived was close to 40 million. Now they are at three million and dropping rapidly because of loss of sea ice due to global warming and your criminal massacres. When the seal populations were at their highest the cod populations were also at their highest. Suprised? Well geniuses if you can think beyond your own selfish interests and your ignorant propaganda, you would know only three percent of the diet of seals is cod, they eat herring and squid, and most importantly there is something called ECOLOGICAL BALANCE, which you european ex convicts know nothing about. Without that the Cod and the seals would have died out before you ex convicts even showed up.
Posted by: Mark | 2008-05-01 1:38:45 PM
>"Seal populations have been around for millions of years and the original population of seals when the settlers arrived was close to 40 million."
Mark | 1-May-08 1:38:45 PM
Marksist,
Believe me when I tell you that the settlers didn't give a shit about how many seals there were and certainly didn't bother to count them with survival itself being so difficult.
Whoever provided you with that information pulled that number straight out of their ass and the same goes for all your other disinformation.
Posted by: Speller | 2008-05-01 1:48:46 PM
The Canadian government's "management" plan still allows for the seal numbers to drop very very far below the lowest level they have ever reached, which was 1.8 million in the 1970s. The seal population is now endangered. The brutal slaughter of seals is a personally lucrative off-season activity conducted by a few 1000 east coasters. Their income is mainly from commercial fisheries such as crab shrimp and lobster throughout the year. Only a tiny fraction of their economy is from massacring seals. This year because of grossly inflated prices in 2007 and with existing boycotts and the European Union intention for a total boycott on seals the price of seal pelts has dropped to half what it was. fuel costs are also skyrocketing so many former sealers aren't even bothering to do this. The net income from this destructive practice is today about $12 million, after expenses about $6 million. Will Canada trade a $2 billion dollar fisheries industry for a pitiful $6 million? Think again. The Canadian government spends about $20 million in indirect subsidies on this barbarism, so you are ripping off even your own taxpayers. Canadian COD and other fish were wiped out by the gross incompetence and the corruption and greed of the Canadian D.F.O. IT IS VERY OBVIOUS that it is not the seals that have killed off the fish.
An ex resident of Newfoundland commented on this: "Having lived in Newfoundland, I know the truth. Fishermen do not rely on the hunt for survival, this is a fraction of their business, and it's big business, since those boats and high-tech equipment run close to $500,000 each. But it's a RITE OF PASSAGE, MALE BONDING, SEASONAL GETAWAY FROM THE WIFE -- and the sealers do nothing but guzzle cases of beer on board, most are on drugs too. They are crazed when they bash those pups, and it looks like it, doesn't it?"
The seal skins you so greedily covet to make a quick buck have never "helped Canada's maritime economy" They are a luxury item for a few and a huge liability for Canada. As for your "starving children in Africa" excuse, this is so laughable it doesn't even deserve comment. Canadian corruption and brutality is a crime deserving of punishment.
Posted by: Mark | 2008-05-01 2:01:35 PM
Would that ex-resident of Newfoundland be the new sectrtary that just tranfered into the PETA office at Victoria BC.
Yeah, I think that's her.
With such high opinions of her fellow Newfoundlanders I'm suprised she would even consider putting in that transfer in the first place.
I'm sure been she's missed.
Maybe next time they'll sober up and aim more carefully.
Posted by: Speller | 2008-05-01 2:09:30 PM
Guys, don't bother with Mark, he's clearly a troll.
Posted by: Shane Matthews | 2008-05-01 2:44:11 PM
Yeah, but I was just catching my stride.
Everyone knows that seal hunting isn't a rite(sic) of passage on the Rock.
The rite of passage is when you're old enough to get your first pogey cheque.
And seriously, knowbody would believe that Newfies drink or get stoned before clubbing,.... they do that AT the clubs.
8oD
Posted by: Speller | 2008-05-01 2:54:43 PM
What does the seal hunt have to do with that little brown commie's economic policies anyway?
At first I thought roger had resurfaced from a different address, but mark isn't quite as humorous.
Posted by: dp | 2008-05-01 3:19:02 PM
400 to 1 kill ratio? Sixty percent of Afghanistan is still controlled by the Taliban and their sympathizers, which includes the Pashtun and other tribes, and the majority of Afghanistan consider you as illegal occupiers, savages and thieves. Afghanistan is still a poverty-stricken country that supplies over 90% of the world's opium. Doesn't matter how many women and children you slaughter, you have missed the one important point, Afghans will not stop, they will fight forever to have their country back, and you don't have forever. You are in a country five thousand miles from home, and a change of ministers or the changing sentiment of the canadian public will be the end of you. Ordinary Afghans want the invading foreigners out of their lives and that means you. You are losing allies with wars that should have been a police action and the people you set out to fight are not based in Afghanistan. They have have shifted to Pakistan and other countries and graduated to more sophisticated weapons and IEDs. From the last State Department report they have returned to their old strength. Good job, tough guy, for your five years of wasting taxpayers' money farting and strutting around killing civilians in some of the weakest parts of the world. The illegal invasion of Iraq is an even bigger failure, "the surge is working", hahahah. The US can be defined as terrorists, who else besides Pol Pot, Stalin and Hitler were responsible for such a horrendous genocide as a million plus deaths, an equal number of wounded and maimed and four million refugees, and destruction and looting of a whole country as the US and its handful of allies were responsible for in Iraq. What a bunch of cowards and wimps.
Posted by: Mark | 2008-05-01 3:27:50 PM
>"Afghanistan consider you as illegal occupiers, savages and thieves. Afghanistan is still a poverty-stricken country that supplies over 90% of the world's opium. Doesn't matter how many women and children you slaughter, you have missed the one important point, Afghans will not stop, they will fight forever to have their country back, and you don't have forever. You are in a country five thousand miles from home,"
Marksist
How can we be thieves if they are poverty striken and the suppliers of 90% of the worlds opium?
What exactly are you pretending they think we are stealing?
It does matter how many we kill.
We're sending the girls to school right now and later they'll be getting college educations.
That'll be the end of the Taliban.
There's nothing like an educated woman to end senseless fighting and rip the nuts off a bearded throwback from the middle ages.
And seriously, I'm not 5,000 miles from home.
I'm AT home right now talking to an idiot on Al Gore's innernut.
Posted by: Speller | 2008-05-01 3:42:06 PM
Marksist:
You seem to forget that the action in Afghanistan was sanctioned by the United Nations.
We dhimmiphobes understand clearly that the Taliban are invading foreigners from Pakistan, trying to impose a way of life against the wishes of a democratically-elected government.
Ordinary Afghani citizens are human beings who cherish their freedom of choice, a freedon the Taliban are unwilling to give them.
That's why the UN sanctioned the action to rid the country of your brothers.
Posted by: set you free | 2008-05-01 3:45:58 PM
What a joke..soldiers are "sending the girls to school". They are going to school despite foreigners occupying their land. And actual polling gives no doubt the Afghans want the invading troops out, just as you would hate troops invading Canada. Taliban, Pashtun are tribes native to Afghanistan if you hadn't noticed. Decided to sidestep all the warlords and opium poppies you are responsible for, didn't you? That doesn't make for an economy, that makes for rich warlords and the rest of country in poverty, doesn't it? Forgot about all the people living on the streets in Kabul, while you occupiers and your stooges live in gated mansions. The Afghans don't like that. But maybe you don't "get" this since you are a traitor to your own country, apparently. They apparently have your full permission to invade Canada and do the same to you, since people who do that are your "brothers" and they would be "setting you free". (I'm getting a clearer idea of what Canadians really are from your stupid replies) By the way Afghanistan at one time was a prosperous society, with girls going to school, no less, before the US funded Al Qaeda and Osama and radical fundamentalists to overthrow it because they happened to have a home grown socialism. But anything your socialist or as you put it "commie" canadian government doesn't approve of you strangely label as commie, don't you?
Posted by: Mark | 2008-05-01 4:19:17 PM
I don't believe the Afghans want NATO out.
If they want foreigners out it'll be the Arab fighters they want gone.
If by some stroke of sheer happenstance you're right, Marksist, that Afghans want NATO out, it ain't gonna happen.
Building schools, protecting the girls from the Islamic nutjobs while they get an education, and even building a government in Afghanistan are a distant second from preventing the Taliban re-establishing terrorist training camps there.
Until the Taliban is no longer an existential threat to Western nations, the opinion of Afghans is irrelevant.
Posted by: Speller | 2008-05-01 4:28:48 PM
You better believe their opinion is relevant, you can't do that sort of thing forever. You won't succeed in making a whole population suffer because of what should have been a police action. Sorry, you're not as tough as you think, your time is limited, like it or not.
Posted by: Mark | 2008-05-01 4:33:52 PM
Mark,
"The illegal invasion of Iraq is an even bigger failure, ..."
Um, sorry to burst your bubble but Saddam is dead and Iraqis won't be invading other countries en masse, lobbing Scuds, or making nukes any time soon. The invasion is a huge success.
Posted by: h2o273kk9 | 2008-05-01 5:35:37 PM
Mark,
"By the way Afghanistan at one time was a prosperous society, with girls going to school, no less, before the US funded Al Qaeda and Osama and radical fundamentalists to overthrow it because they happened to have a home grown socialism. "
You seem to be saying it was ok for the Soviets to have invaded because they brought socialism.
Posted by: h2o273kk9 | 2008-05-01 5:37:49 PM
water dog:
That's how he earned his nic Marksist.
Posted by: set you free | 2008-05-01 5:52:16 PM
SYF,
I haven't yet seen Mark's denunciation of the Soviet invasion which left 10s of thousands of unexploded landmines. Perhaps, he's forgotten about the nasty habit of using children's toys as lures.
As for the US funding Al Qaeda, it didn't. It funded the Pakistani ISI and other organizations with the purpose of running weapons to Afghani fighters because the Soviets were the bigger threat at the time. If the Soviets had never invaded, the US would never had bothered giving weapons to these people.
Mark needs to get his geopolitical history straight.
Posted by: h2o273kk9 | 2008-05-01 6:02:22 PM
water dog:
Hey, Marksist's mind is made up.
Try not to confuse him with the facts.
Posted by: set you free | 2008-05-01 6:30:11 PM
Hey some tool named Mark is giving the rest of us a bad name. Please refer to yourself as Vladimir or Abdullah, please! You obviously adhere to the communist/jihadist mindset...maroon!
Posted by: Markalta | 2008-05-01 8:16:51 PM
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