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January 26, 2010
Exclusive: We Ignore Chávez at our Own Peril
Presidential Policy: Does It Make the Grade?, James Jay Carafano, PhD
Last week was another rough one for the administration, with lots of carping over the pace of getting aid to Haiti. Much of the criticism is over the top. America is actually doing a good job. In fact, it is unlikely Washington could deal as well with a similar tragedy in this country.
The speed of aiding Haiti is not Obama’s number one problem in Latin America at the moment. One of the sharpest critics of U.S. disaster relief efforts in Haiti is the President of Venezuela. His problem is not that aid is too slow. His problem is the United States. “The Empire,” in other words America, Hugo Chávez declared, “is taking Haiti over the bodies and tears of its people.” Chávez added, “They [the U.S.] brazenly occupied Haiti without consulting the UN or the OAS [Organization of American States].” There is a temptation to ignore his populist rhetoric, but that would be a mistake. Chávez is dangerous.
The threat posed by Chávez is the subject of a recent study by the Heritage Foundation’s senior analyst for Latin America, Ray Walser, titled “State Sponsors of Terrorism: Time to Add Venezuela to the List.” In his study, Walser points out that the U.S. officially designates four countries as state sponsors of terrorism – Iran, Syria, Cuba, and Sudan. A careful review of the facts shows that it is high time to add Venezuela to the list. Far from being merely a populist showman and bully, Hugo Chávez is a reckless leader who collaborates with Colombian narcoterrorists and Islamist terrorists, pals around with brutal Iranian dictator Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, is a virulent anti-Semite, and is guided by a relentless anti-Americanism in everything he does.
Ignoring Chávez, which is what the White House is doing now, Walser concludes is just plain dumb.
Meanwhile, the White House also had a tough week here at home when Congressional hearings revealed the number and severity of mistakes made that allowed a bomber to get on a Christmas day flight bound for Detroit. As I reported before, not much of the fault for failure rests with the Department of Homeland Security. That did not keep Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano from getting grilled along with the administration’s top law enforcement and intelligence officers. Among the most stunning lapses was that the Attorney General did not consult any other top U.S. officials before turning the suspect over to the courts. Furthermore, months ago, the President took responsibility for interrogations out of the hands of the CIA and put it in the National Security Council and the FBI. In the hearings, it was revealed that that new interrogation regime has not even been set up yet.
This week the President will be delivering the State of the Union address to a joint session of Congress. He needs to act like a war president. During the speech he needs to declare that “terrorism is job #1” and “not winning in Afghanistan is not an option.” If he does anything less, then both allies and adversaries will question his commitment to winning the long war.
FamilySecurityMatters.org Contributing Editor James Jay Carafano, Ph.D., is a leading expert in defense affaires, intelligence, military operations and strategy, and homeland security at the Heritage Foundation.
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