Terrorizing South America

The US is looking to push the War on Terror to South America through further demonization of Venezuela. This isn't new. But it has gained... traction through a concerted effort and by Venezuela's insistence on going its own way in relations with Iran.

The VenIran low-rise tractor factory in remote eastern Venezuela is one of the signs of Iran's growing presence in Venezuela, which is being monitored by a U.S. government on alert for any evidence that Iran may be exporting terrorism.

Such evidence would come in handy to the United States, which is engaged in a pull-out-the-stops campaign to prevent Venezuela from securing the rotating Latin American seat on the United Nations Security Council. The vote is scheduled for October.

See also (via Duck ofMinerva) this piece on Ahmadinejad (as well as my earlier post on Ahmadinejad's tactics re the US).

On another note, Oil Wars spots another bit of counterargument to the claim of state collapse in Venezuela.

...new unemployment numbers came out today and showed the unemployment rate in May was 10.2%. But within the report there was an even more important set of numbers. And that is that the number of formal sector jobs in May 2006 was 5,836,163 versus 5,401,526 in May 2005. In other words, 434,637 new jobs were created last year in Venezuela last year. So the notion that Venezuela is experiencing "jobless growth" is simply false.