November 19, 2007     The Editors of ECrisis have alone stated that we believe that Chavez has crafted a new bloc of nations and that his massive weapons build up will form a military blockade around Latin America. We are not happy to state this fact and would prefer to report on happier news. The facts are starting to trickle out and much more needs to be done. Today we commend Kate at A Colombo-Americana site for reporting on Chavez's massive- beyond $40 billion weapons build up in Venezuela, which to Chavez now includes Cuba, Bolivia, Nicaragua and Ecuador in his new bloc. Just ask Chavez...and he will, as he is doing much lately, detail that these nations are part of his new bloc. The current update from Forecast International references beyond $30 billion in weaponry build up by Chavez; (read it all here) and reports, "Brazil's Defesanet reports that Russia's Rosoboronexport expects to double or triple its defense industry contracts with Venezuela, which currently amount to around $4 billion for 24 SU-30MK fighters, 50 helicopters (Mi-17, Mi-35 Pirana attack, giant Mi-26 transport), 12 Tor-M1 anti-air missile sets, and 100,000 Kalashnikov rifles. Rosoboronexport official Sergei Ladiguin has reportedly referred to additional deals in the works for ships, aircraft & helicopters, missiles, and land forces equipment. " We believe the entire package comes in at around $40 to $60 billion today with add ins for basic military expenditures such as staff, standard equipment, food, housing, etc. not included which can easily take the full package upwards of $90 billion as Chavez explains his new million person armed force majeur. Never mind that none trust dictator Chavez's training manuals and his total control of the police and military. What you should pay attention to is local infiltration for now and the purchase of long range surface to air missiles which, like Correa and Chavez's new FARC allied hybrid heroin poppies, have no place- no place at all- in this hemisphere and must be removed by any means necessary.
 
From Defense Industry Daily showing a few of Chavez's new attack weapons units:

            

To all our friends who enjoy declaiming crude misinformation, also called lies, that Chavez's weapons build up is "peaceful" and that Chavez is building...what do they call it? - a paradise of love... we ask you to seriously answer this question: does this look like a peace time helicopter used for...purposes of love? Is this the sort of rescue chopper used by the Red Cross? Notice the major attack capabilities. So please...stop lying about Chavez and his love and peace plans, however much you are paid or sympathetically idiotic: we hold you all accountable. Moreover, please stop misinforming that none of Chavez's massive arsenal will function for intended deadly effects.

Does this look like a rust bucket to you? We are sure that while perhaps not the globe's best equipment, much of it will have and hold the intended deadly affects sought by their owners. As such, the above list is not conclusive either. No mention of Rafael Correa's participatory weapons build up which includes unmanned drones or Chavez's 10 or so nuclear submarines said by some to be based in Manta, Ecuador after hastily taking over the current USA base there for all the wrong reasons, however much Correa lies and tells the world he is ardently fighting the FARC when he...is not. None of these financial estimates includes the expense of planting massive numbers of Chavez's so called diplomats- also called spies, propagandists, PR agents, politicians in their pockets, journalists of some stripes, and military operatives- in almost every western nation. Surprisingly, none seem willing to identify these covert agents of crime, also called Correa and Chavez's diplomats and minders. And none have yet to kick out these criminals, as should be the case, even as they are crawling all over Quito, Nicaragua, Cuba, La Paz, Washington, D.C. and all points south of the Rio Grande River cheerily  crafting massive campaigns to infiltrate and lie before formal governments, buying up real estate for propaganda offices, operating out of so called embassies and other so called "NGOs" or think tanks, and laundering illicit drug monies and terror-group laced/co mingled monies from Iran in the process, as is particularly the case in the USA. With far more than enough probable cause, we are not sure what the USA, Canada, Mexico, Peru, Colombia, and Chile [OK- we get it about wimpy Chile- Bachelet is soft on Chavez and Insulza, currently abusing his current office at the OAS while busily campaigning to be Chile's next Chavista president, but both Chavez and Soros-backed actors will ruin Chile if continuing] are waiting for to stand on principles and boot- or arrest- these racketeering thugs. Soon they will be in striking distance...90 miles from Florida and also in striking range with Chavez's new "peaceful" missiles on order... to defend their criminal empire, called Bolivarianism which is today chirpily in bed with Iran's mullahs whose aim is somewhat different but according to Chavez and Correa...useful for now. We have a feeling that Ahmadinejad sees this quite differently, committed as he is to unabashedly destroying western civilization.
 
None are surprised that the U.S. CIA has said anything meaningful about Chavez. Moreover, none are surprised that the U.S. Department of State has again failed to boot these spies and agents of crime from the USA rank and file. They should commence with booting the always lurking at key holes Bernardo Alvarez and his PR and lobbying pal Ecuador's Gallegos and move forward. Like Chavez's new weapons of "peaceful diplomacy," we remind that Chavez's agents of diplomacy are not present for anything diplomatic, honest or democratic: they are agents of deception and stand uniquely free of accountability and transparency because we turn the other way and let them. Just ask government union members in Quito: their offices are crawling with Chavez's agents from Cuba, Iran and points unknown. They are paid minders...minding the store for Castro, Chavez and Correa. We do not know what the Bush administration thinks they will accomplish by encouraging these double agents and agents of infiltration: U.S. courtesies do not apply to spies, traitors, and minders. We understand that it took far far too long to remove a handful of Cuban spies and ponder how long it will take to remove the rest. While some, like Congressmen Serrano and Delahunt plus Senator Dodd actively promote their ill gotten links with Castro, Chavez and Correa, they are known to us and identifiable even as they aid and abet. All schools in Venezuela now have major inflows of school minders, also called spies, who report back to Chavez's brother cum spy manager, on the pesky students and faculty who abhor a daily menu of Marxism and worship to Chavez. Correa has laid out his same plans for Ecuadorean schools. Pax Americana is now Pax Cubana and as such, neither Venezuela nor Ecuador will henceforth permit Catholic schooling outside their religion of peace- Chavez's religion that is. We say: no más.
Frankly we care not at all that Dodd, Delahunt and Serrano think this is a good idea. We are not afraid of their opinions and we know well where they would lead us which is not where we will go.
 
Even as Chavez secured what he sought in Chile...which was the unanimous consent of the entire gaggle of fools to stand with Chavez in condemning the USA's principled position against tyranny and communist oppression, sometimes called the U.S. embargo on Castro's murderous communist, criminal regime in Cuba, Chavez took it one step further. Chavez you see considers that he and Castro are one and the same: that is, that Cuba and Venezuela are one and the same. A slight against Cuba's terror-training murderous thugs, which Chavez calls democracy, is a slur against Chavez, so he thinks. And an arms embargo against Castro's Cuba is an arms embargo against Chavez, or so he thinks. Then again, far too many idiots think that no weapons embargo against Havana or Caracas is warranted. They believe- and tell us a lot- that Chavez and Castro and Correa are reasonable, good men and can be handled diplomatically, like democracy. Contrary to these lies, democracy is not negotiable, neither Chavez nor Correa's "reforms" are reforms, while democracy cannot be manipulated in its full meaning, which of course contains the pillars of freedom which have been cut out in Cuba, Venezuela and Ecuador, leaving these nations bereft of functional liberties.
 
Here is a superb visual of the cry of the heart from Venezuela to Chavez, calling Chavez's so called reforms for what they are-a full installation of dictatorship's evils:

                                                            

Democracy is not negotiable they say. Democracy is not Chavez-Correa-Castro's communism and is never some daffy alternative, as they like to sell us.

The students in Venezuela have the right of it these days: freedom is not negotiable. Read a superb piece on this here by Mary Anastasia O'Grady in today's WALL STREET JOURNAL. She correctly notes, "Mr. Chávez has already consolidated his power by getting control of Venezuela's political institutions. But now he wants to close any remaining loopholes by writing his absolute rule into the 1999 constitution...Mr. Chávez has been working to remove any counterbalances to his power for almost nine years now. Over that time he has met strong resistance from property owners, businesses, labor leaders, the Catholic Church and the media...

It's easy to see what Mr. Chávez is after. Besides lifting presidential term limits, the referendum proposes to allow the media to be censored and civil liberties suspended under a state of emergency, to permit the government seizure of private property, to mandate a six-hour work day, to increase presidential power over state authorities and to end central bank autonomy.

Up to now the fiery orator has had a rather easy time of rolling over his opponents. To counter their claims that he is taking Venezuela down the Cuban path, he has simply sounded the battle cry of class warfare and pointed to the corruption of former governments. The opposition has been fragmented and easily thwarted by a demagogue who promises to spread the oil wealth more equally...Nevertheless, just as Pérez Jiménez found, holding the vote can't reverse Mr. Chávez's political fortunes if he has fallen from grace. Surely he knows this and it is why he has been preparing for a showdown. His supporters are armed, as we saw on Wednesday when students returning to the university from a protest march were ambushed by gun-toting pro-Chávez goons. One student was shot. Tragically, if Venezuelans decide Mr. Chávez should go it is not likely to happen without more such violence." How negotiable is democracy and freedom?

We have not seen one single poster like this from any neighborhood effort in Ecuador and would be proud to post and share any identical/similar freedom-loving posters inasmuch as Ecuador faces the identical loss of liberty.
 
Who stands with us that democracy is not negotiable?
 
-Pedro Camargo for ECRISIS