Venezuela May Give U.S. Ambassador the Boot

A lot of people are justifiably worried the U.S. may decide to invade Iran before Bush's dictatorship enters its eight year. But if the latest development in Venezuela is any indication, Americans concerned about ever-rising oil prices may have even more cause for concern: Hugo Chavez threatened to expel the U.S. Ambassador.

Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez on Sunday threatened to expel the US ambassador after accusing him of provoking tensions in a warning that will further strain diplomatic ties.

The threat came two days after pro-Chavez demonstrators lobbed eggs, fruit and vegetables at the ambassador's car and the State Department warned Venezuela it could face consequences if it did not protect the US envoy.

This is but the latest example of the Bush regime's open hostility to countries that don't tow the line on U.S. foreign policy resulting in more hostility in return.

Iit doesn't help that Bush failed to reign in the excesses of fellow fraud Pat Robertson when the latter called for Chavez's assassination last year. The lying sack of shit who has business dealings in the diamond industry in Africa and oil interests in South America, who is also founder of the 700 Club--a nationally sybdicated daily round of hate-speech, is a big name in both the religious right and in the neoconservative political movement.

Small wonder then Chavez thinks America is out to topple him from power, especially since Venezuela sits on oil reserves from which the U.S. derives a significant portion of its foreign oil imports.

But this isn't the first time this year the U.S. and Venezuela have kicked each other's officials out of their country; Chavez expelled a U.S. naval attache whom he accused of spying, and America in turn told a Venezuelan embassy official to leave.

George W. Bush and Dick Cheney being big oil men greedy for foreign oil, count on any open military conflict they start with with Iran to spill over into South America.

But I digress. The U.S. ought to have learned by now it cannot embrace an antagonistic diplomatic policy without incurring any consequences. America is a superpower in decline, with China rising to its own superpower status. If Chavez decides he can broker a better deal with that country--which owns a sizeable chunk of U.S. debt and has recently begun pegging its currency to the Euro and away from the U.S. dollar--any further pissing contests could end up doing us more harm than anyone else.