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» babble   » current events   » international news and politics   » Chavez Says That He Too, Is Going Nuclear

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Author Topic: Chavez Says That He Too, Is Going Nuclear
Cougyr
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posted 06 October 2005 01:01 PM      Profile for Cougyr     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Now this should get Bush's hackles up.
quote:
The Venezuelan leader has said that every country on earth must have the right to develop atomic energy. He has pointed to Brazil's program, which has also been criticized by the United States, as an example for the nations of the rest of the world.
Watching America

From: over the mountain | Registered: Nov 2002  |  IP: Logged
arborman
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posted 06 October 2005 03:55 PM      Profile for arborman     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Bush has clearly shown that the one way to ensure you won't be invaded is to have WMDs (I mean actually have them, not pretend have them).

I suspect that there is no way they would have invaded Iraq if they actually thought they might have WMDs.

Chavez has seen this, as has every other country that might want to disagree with the US. Particularly those with oil.


From: I'm a solipsist - isn't everyone? | Registered: Aug 2003  |  IP: Logged
WingNut
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posted 06 October 2005 04:02 PM      Profile for WingNut   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Chavez should not trip up over something stupid. This is worrisome to me. I have no doubt that he intends a peaceful nuclear program but the Bush regime will paint it otherwise and could possibly use ot to justify a military action. Meanwhile, US opens new base in Paraguay.
From: Out There | Registered: Aug 2001  |  IP: Logged
America is Behind
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posted 06 October 2005 04:46 PM      Profile for America is Behind     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
I strongly agree with Chavez's going nuclear: His democratically elected government has done a lot of good for Venezuela, but he and the people have powerful enemies outside of their borders who are Hellbent on undoing every single one ounce of progress his government has made. Unless Venezuelans want another half-century of misery, censorship, and subservience, Chavez and his government have no other option.

Then again, if I had my way, Lee Teng-hui would be Peesident of Taiwan and blowing the fuck out of the Three Gorges Dam about now.

[ 06 October 2005: Message edited by: America is Behind ]


From: Canada | Registered: Sep 2005  |  IP: Logged
DrConway
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posted 06 October 2005 09:52 PM      Profile for DrConway     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
What Chavez could do to cover his fanny would be to see about preferential rates on electricity from Brazil in exchange for assisting in the construction and maintenance of nuclear plants in that country.

Then the USA can't say "WMDs" because Brazil's government is not as left-wing, and presumably some IMF rat scurries to Dubya Bush every time Lula farts.

[ 06 October 2005: Message edited by: DrConway ]


From: You shall not side with the great against the powerless. | Registered: May 2001  |  IP: Logged
Cougyr
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posted 07 October 2005 12:49 PM      Profile for Cougyr     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
WingNut, have you been able to find any sources on that American base in Paraguay by anybody other than Benjamin Dangl? He is all over the Net, and sort of looks like a one man crusade. I have no doubt about what he is saying, but I wouldn't mind an other voice.

Is there any evidence, or even rumour, that the base is being used as a torture prison like Diego Garcia. Mariscal Estigarribia is isolated enough to keep secrets.


From: over the mountain | Registered: Nov 2002  |  IP: Logged
WingNut
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posted 07 October 2005 01:57 PM      Profile for WingNut   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
There seems to be some disagreement. Some are calling it a base. The US is calling it a military excercise that "allows for the participation of 400 U.S. troops over a year-and-a-half period," according to this Reuters story. The Vermont Guardian calls it a base by any other name.

[ 07 October 2005: Message edited by: WingNut ]


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Rufus Polson
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posted 07 October 2005 04:38 PM      Profile for Rufus Polson     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Seems like he's playing some politics that rather need playing around the non-proliferation treaty.

Thing about it is, that treaty, which the US signed, is not merely an agreement not to develop nuclear weapons. It contains a bunch of other stuff too--the quid pro quo, the reasons why on earth non-nuclear states would ever have wanted to sign. These are reasons which the US has preferred to ignore.

Specifically, it sets out that peaceful development of nuclear power is allowed and if anything to be encouraged and enabled by signers with nuclear technologies. And, it specifies that signers with nuclear weapons commit to not using or threatening use against non-nuclear states. No nuclear blackmail.

So, both the US' military policy documents, which seem to fairly straightforwardly set forth policies of first use against non-nuclear states which annoy them in any of a number of ways (including but not limited to those states using "weapons of mass destruction"), and the US' military development programs involving new nuclear weapons designed fairly specifically for use outside the context of nuclear wars (bunker busters, new generation tacnukes), and, most directly relevant to this case, the US' insistence on trying to block the attempts of signatories to develop nuclear power, all violate the treaty. Their insistence on taking away all incentives to non-nuclear states in the NPT, combined with the increasingly widespread perception that having actual nuclear weapons is the best way to stop US aggression, are a major stumbling block in the attempt to stop nuclear weapons from proliferating, and make a mockery of their claimed policy of being anti-proliferation.

Chavez's public discussion of plans to pursue nuclear power seems like a gambit to get the NPT's support for the right to do so back on the table, and perhaps create an environment sufficiently full of nations doing precisely what Iran (or whoever the next target-of-the-day is) is doing that it becomes difficult for the US to get international co-operation with projects to turn countries into pariahs merely on that basis.

As to the actual nuclear power itself, I'm not a big fan.


From: Caithnard College | Registered: Nov 2002  |  IP: Logged

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