When it came to thundering against the “Yankee imperialists!” Hugo Chavez sure talked a good one. But, despite his bluster and monkeyshines, he wasn’t crazy enough to lift a finger against his top customer, or even wish him (genuine) harm. It’s impolitic to reveal, but U.S. is –by far--the biggest customer for Venezuelan oil. Hugo Chavez was our fourth largest oil supplier, behind only Canada, Mexico and Saudi Arabia.
But that’s all behind the scenes. Now on stage we had a first-class vaudeville show:
"Yesterday the devil (President George Bush) came here! Right here. And it smells of sulfur still today." [Hugo Chavez at the UN, Sept. 2006)
“You are ignoramus, you are a burro, Mr Danger... You are a donkey, Mr Danger! You are a donkey, Mr George W Bush!”
“You are a coward, Mr Bush, a killer, a perpetrator of genocide, an alcoholic, a drunk, a liar, an immoral person, Mr Danger. You are the worst, Mr Danger. The worst of this planet! A psychologically sick man, I know it! “
"You are a fraud, Obama. ... Go and ask many people in Africa!..You are an Afro-descendant, but you are the shame of all those people!"
“Remember, little girl, (Condaleeza Rice) I’m like the thorn tree that flowers on the plain. I waft my scent to passers-by and prick he who shakes me. Don't mess with me, Condoleezza! Don't mess with me, girl!”
"Capitalism is the way of the devil and exploitation!” (Upon his death, btw, Chavez’ fortune was estimated at $2 billion.)
Fidel Castro probably cringed at his protégé’s antics. But his star pupil kept Castro’s Stalinist regime afloat with $6 billion a year in subsidies. His protégé (this gladiator against “imperialism!” and “foreign bullying!” this paragon of “national sovereignty!”) also allowed 10,000 of Castro’s KGB-tutored spies and soldiers to essentially run Venezuela.
Castro’s apparatchiks ran Venezuela right down to making up Hugo Chavez’ squad of bodyguards. Oh, I know, I know, the media (especially those networks bestowed Havana bureaus) dutifully recited that all 50,000 Cubans in Venezuela were selfless, “doctors and teachers,” Castro’s Peace Corps, minus only the Peter, Paul and Mary soundtrack.
Tell it to the Venezuelan demonstrators who for the past few months were burning Cuban flags, burning Castro in effigy while yelling “Cubans Go Home!” (What? You say the U.S. media—especially those outlets bestowed Havana bureaus--didn’t report this? They blacked out an item featuring the very type of scenes and soundbites the MSM habitually slobbers over?....Hummmm?)
Whatever their titles, the Cubans in Venezuela were essential for Castroite colonization.
“So I’ll overlook Hugo’s public buffooneries,” Castro must have reasoned.
In the case of Fidel Castro the Anti-Yankeeism was exactly reversed. As befit a genuine and shrewd Stalinist, as befit a regime nurtured from day one by the KGB, it was all smiles, handshakes and even abrazos on stage-- behind it, murder plots. Dons Barzini, Tattaglia and Corleone also knew this script.
In July 1961, for instance, JFK’s special counsel and Latin America “expert” Richard Goodwin met with Che Guevara in Uruguay and eagerly reported back to Kennedy:
“Che Guevara says that Castro wants an understanding with the U.S.,” gushed the ultra-educated Ivy-Leaguer Goodwin.
“The Cubans have no intention of making an alliance with the Soviets,” assured this luminary within JFK’s “Best and Brightest.” (Raul Castro had been assigned a KGB handler since 1953, btw, Che Guevara since 1955.)
Slightly over a year after this pledge of friendship the Butcher of Budapest received an urgent telegram from Fidel Castro that seriously rattled his humanitarian sensibilities. “WHAT!?” gasped Nikita Khrushchev. “Is he (Fidel Castro) proposing that we start a nuclear war? That we launch missiles from Cuba?....But that is insane!...Remove them (our missiles) as soon as possible! Before it’s too late. Before something terrible happens!”
In 1982, President Ronald Reagan (no less!) sent Alexander Haig to meet personally in Mexico City with Castro’s eunuch “Vice President” Carlos Raphael Rodriguez to sound out a possible rapprochement. Based on Haig’s promising report, Reagan then sent diplomatic troubleshooter Gen. Vernon Walters to Havana for a meeting with Fidel Castro himself.
So on stage things were again looking increasingly chummy, right?
For the scene backstage at this time we turn to former chief of the Soviet General staff, General Adrian Danilevich as reported in a declassified Pentagon study titled "Soviet Intentions 1965-1985." : “Mr.Castro pressed hard for a tougher Soviet line against the U.S. up to and including nuclear strikes. We had to actively disabuse him of this view by spelling out the ecological consequences for Cuba of a Soviet strike against the U.S.”
Three years into power Castro had already murdered more political prisoners (out of a population of 6.5 million) than Hitler murdered (out of a population of 65 million) in his first six years. Ten years into power Castro had jailed and tortured at a higher rate than Stalin during his Great Terror. Fidel Castro’s lifelong dream as to destroy the U.S.--and came within a hair of it.
Given his paltry attainments (by Castroite standards) in mass-murder, mass-torture, mass-terror and Anti-Americanism, it’s small surprise that Hugo Chavez amassed only a teeeeeenzy fraction of Castro’s American celebrity, tycoon and politician fan-base.
