Monday, December 19, 2005
The Iraqicazo
As if things weren't going badly enough for the U.S. and their puppet regime in Baghdad now we have this. As we all know, the rocket scientists currently running that place can't even get oil production up to the levels of when Saddam Hussien was running the place. This puts the Iraqi government in a bind because they were counting on that money to run their government. So to make up for the shortfall in money someone came up with the brilliant idea of just raising the price of gasoline and cooking oil. Of course, this had the rather predictable effect of touching off riots and now the oil minister is trying to save his bacon by offering to resign.
To anyone with knowledge of Venezuelan history this is all too familiar. In Venezuela petroleum products have always been heavily subsidized by the government. In 1989 the government of Carlos Andres Perez, to please the IMF and foriegn banks, decided to raise gasoline prices. That touched off rioting which was brutally put down by the army at the cost of hundreds or even thousands of lives. This became known as the Caracazo and is seen as a seminal event in Venezuelan history and one of the precursors to Chavez's rise to power.
Interestingly enough, though Carlos Andres Perez has been very active in the Venezuelan opposition, up to and including advocating Chavez's assasination, he hasn't been seen in some time. Could it be he is now in the Baghdad Green Zone helping the gringos with their Iraq problem? If so, the U.S. is in much deeper trouble than I had thought.
|
To anyone with knowledge of Venezuelan history this is all too familiar. In Venezuela petroleum products have always been heavily subsidized by the government. In 1989 the government of Carlos Andres Perez, to please the IMF and foriegn banks, decided to raise gasoline prices. That touched off rioting which was brutally put down by the army at the cost of hundreds or even thousands of lives. This became known as the Caracazo and is seen as a seminal event in Venezuelan history and one of the precursors to Chavez's rise to power.
Interestingly enough, though Carlos Andres Perez has been very active in the Venezuelan opposition, up to and including advocating Chavez's assasination, he hasn't been seen in some time. Could it be he is now in the Baghdad Green Zone helping the gringos with their Iraq problem? If so, the U.S. is in much deeper trouble than I had thought.
|
