South America

February 23, 2013 — Scott Johnson

Mark Falcoff: Venezuelan prognosis

Featured image Occasional contributor Mark Falcoff is resident scholar emeritus at AEI. He is the the author, among other books, of Modern Chile, 1970-1989: A Critical History and Cuba the Morning After: Confronting Castro’s Legacy. Mr. Falcoff comments on Venezuela’s future from a perspective that may have some resonance closer to home: Careful reading of news stories coming out of Venezuela these days lead one to an ineluctible conclusion: when president-for-life Hugo »
January 10, 2013 — Paul Mirengoff

Obama cozies up to Chavez’s leading anti-American accomplice

Featured image Has the Obama administration ever met an anti-American ruler it won’t give comfort to? The question arises again from reports that the State Department has extended the hand of good fellowship to Venezuelan Vice President Nicolas Maduro. Why? Because with Hugo Chavez soon to depart this world, State sees “an opening” through which it can “engage” hostile Venezuela. Whenever one hears President Obama or the State Department speak of “openings” »
January 7, 2013 — Scott Johnson

Chavez hit by Cuba’s surgical strike

Featured image We have been following the impending death of Hugo Chavez in Havana, most recently in “Weekend at Hugo’s.” Our friends at Investor’s Business Daily have now posted a terrific editorial on the subject. What are we to make of Chavez’s decision to opt for CastroCare over a modern hospital in Brazil or elsewhere in South America? Was Chavez perhaps an uncritical consumer of the gospel according to Ray Suarez and »
January 5, 2013 — Paul Mirengoff

Venezuela’s post-Chavez future — and Cuba’s

Featured image With Hugo Chavez nearing expiration, the New York Times presents a forum on the future of Venezuela. Richard Fernandez summarizes some of the more intelligent contributions to that forum and adds his throughts. The future of Venezuela isn’t bright. Moses Naim of the Carnegie Endowment for Peace writes: President Chávez has bequeathed the nation an economic crisis of historic proportions. The crisis includes a fiscal deficit approaching 20 percent of »
January 4, 2013 — Scott Johnson

Weekend at Hugo’s

Featured image When we last heard from Venezuelan strongman Hugo Chavez, he was declaiming: “It is absolutely necessary, absolutely essential, that I undergo a new surgical intervention.” Flanked by ashen-faced ministers, he added: “With God’s will, like on the previous occasions, we will come out of this victorious. I have complete faith in that.” And then he departed for Havana to avail himself of the best Cuban medicine had to offer. Say »
December 9, 2012 — Scott Johnson

Only the wrong survive

Featured image Is it wrong to pray for the death of a vicious bastard like Venezuela’s President Hugo Chavez? It’s premature to put this news in the category of answered prayers, but we’re heading in that direction. Yesterday Chavez confirmed that the rumored recurrence of his cancer is a fact, and that he is returning to the Communist museum of Cuba for more surgery. Reuters purports to have a pipeline into the »
October 8, 2012 — Scott Johnson

Mark Falcoff: Venezuela loses

Featured image Occasional contributor Mark Falcoff is resident scholar emeritus at AEI. He is the the author, among other books, of Modern Chile, 1970-1989: A Critical History and Cuba the Morning After: Confronting Castro’s Legacy. Mr. Falcoff comments on yesterday’s elections in Venezuela: The results are in. Hugo Chavez, Venezuela’s president-dictator (and would be president-for-life) has scored another knockout victory at the ballot box. While there may have been a slight fudging »