Venezuela Arms Buildup Concerns Rumsfeld

Rummy, you are the concern.

I don't know of anyone threatening Venezuela — anyone in this hemisphere."

I dunno if this dude is just a bit off the track or if he thinks that what he says is for real.

I am in Brazil half of the year and if there is one country that Dumbsfeld should be worried about in the South Americas when it comes to how people here think about him and his fellows in that freak show for an Administration, well, then it should be ALL of South America. The people of Brazil just as those in Argentina and most other countries expressed clearly that if there is one bad rough Nation to keep one very close eye upon and prepare to defend against, Guess what Dummy! It was with one overwhelmingly 80% that the US came through on that survey. LOL! LMAO! So much for concerns huh? ROFL!

Winsome, dude, seriously, just in case you missed it:

Venezuela's recent deal to buy roughly $3 billion worth of arms from Russia

with Chavez calling US the devil - that's not a very good state of affairs.

So if they bought $3 billion worth of arms from the US it would be OK? What makes buying weapons from Russia a bad thing? They want weapons, we wouldn't give them what they want so they went elsewhere. I thought we were past Russia being the evil empire. I guess some people are still stuck in the past.

I think nikitab was trying to make the point that Chavez, like most politicians, is being a hypocrite. That's all.

I don't seriously see how you or any american could seriously be threatened by Venezuela.
You're Russian born right? They were the evil empire, Ronnies tag, you were born evil, at what point in your naturalisation process did you renounce Satan?

Axis of evil, thats an american invention right?- that's not a very good state of affairs.

You may be tempted to think after a while that calling things evil is simply a political device rather than a satanic declaration. (you'd be right)

Although you have a point, recent history has shown that having world leaders talking to God and defining evil and fighting it, well it would be easier to just quietly put them to sleep.
It also begs the question, given more terrorists now than 5 years ago. Is this righteous war against terror increasing evil or decreasing it?
3 billion!! big deal.

The more complex a society the cheaper and easier it is to disrupt its systems and reduce or destroy confidence in it's administrators. 2 guys with one sniper rifle did it in DC.
you could do it with a phone if you thought sufficiently about it.
3 billion is 'don't @!$%# with us' spending, if you want to think of it as 'we're going to @!$%# with you' spending then that's your right. It's obvious that Venezuela's prime weapon is its oil.
The real politic of a third world expenditure in defense that equates to one or two stealth bombers worth of US expenditure is simply a popular military mans insurance against unpopular foreign politicians looking for new distracting ventures and some oil.

Don't expect you to agree. But then welcome to what's left of America :)

3 billion is barely change is weapons purchaces
and definately not even a fraction of what we spend.
But this is definately in following the pnac plan... after exerting our hegemoney, our goal is to reduce the convention weapons of the world until no country can stand against us.
Venezuela has never attacked anyone and isnt threatening its neighbours.
And if it is a problem ,it can wait until we are done with aphghanistan, and irag and have a new admin that can deal with iran and NK and then maybe we should think about lowely Venezuela.
But not with rumslfeld in charge of anything, that man hasnt been right a day in his life.

Winsome, we are in a different age now than we were before. Warfare is no longer always an explicit deal. I wrote about my concerns here.

More importantly, with extra arms, Venezuela can be aiming to become a major player in the region, which, in itself, is also not a good idea for so many reasons.

Point being, it's never a good idea to have weapons accumulating in volatile environments. I would not have a problem with France purchasing 3 bil worth of equipment (provided they were not going to resell it to Iran at a profit).

They want weapons, we wouldn't give them what they want so they went elsewhere. I thought we were past Russia being the evil empire.

It's only been 15 years since they stopped being the evil empire and terrorists took over. I doubt everybody in either country is over it yet.

America spends $3 billion on "defense" of Israel, $3 billion money to spend on US made weapons. Israel makes weapons too, and buys weapons from more countries than just the United States, the IDF is looking for $4+ billion just to cover the war on Lebanon, spending in 2005 was reportedly close to $10 billion. Venezuela has 27 million people, Israel has 7 million.

The US has a population of 300 million, "defense" budget of $440 billion. Who spends more on its military than the United States? I don't think any other state does.

America has no problem selling weapons to Israel, Turkey, Indonesia, or anywhere else, even though these weapons are going to be used to murder innocents, whether they're Palestinians, Kurds, or Indonesians.

So far I have heard no war crimes commited by Venezuela since Chavez was elected, I don't see the weapons of Venezuela being put to bad use. If I was being threatened by the world's only super power I'd want to spend money on defense too.

jjsonp
It's ok, I'm not advocating killing millions of people. It was irony, I use it with a shovel.

Do those guys have habeas corpus down there? I hear that in Venezuela you can be held indefinitely without charge. Country like that should be nuked for its own good.

As of last week you can truthfully replace the word 'Venezuela' with the words 'United States'
In the united states of america now you can be arrested and never told of the charges, you can be held indefinitely without charges and you can be tortured.

Now all we have to do is replace the words 'current administration' with 'gunshot victim' and the world will be at peace.
Please don't make me use smiley faces on my humor :(

ajzzz, someone needs to yank you back to reality. Israel, US - responsible decentralized states (even if you don't agree with their policies). Venezuela... well... not quite.

Responsible? History says otherwise.

also last year we spent 900 billion on the military
the next largest expenditure by the us is education at 56.8 and health at 53 billion

price of freedom pretty expesive concidering other countries do it for so much less
britian for one only spent 50 billion on it's military.

Although I agree with your overall point, I don't agree with your examples. Rumsfild is a creation of the cold war but not necessarily a relic of it. If he was he would have sent 500,000 troops into Iraq. In fact this has been a major criticism of him. He has tried (and failed) to transform the military into a more nimble fighting force. To say that we did not have any diplomacy with the Soviet Union is not true. Regardless if you agree with the methods used, they were successful (so far) at preventing a nuclear war.