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dipsydoodle Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Aug-22-10 07:07 AM
Original message
Venezuela defends controversial flights to Iran and Syria
Source: CNN

Washington (CNN) -- Venezuela's ambassador to the United States is defending his country's controversial airline service to the capitals of Syria and Iran -- both countries that are designated by the U.S. as state sponsors of terrorism.

The scheduled flights to Damascus and Tehran were cited by the U.S. State Department this month as a cause for concern, and U.S. Rep. Eliot Engel, D-New York, raised questions about the flights in an interview last week with Voice of America.

According to the State Department's latest country report on terrorism, which covers 2009, "President Chavez continued to strengthen Venezuela's relationship with state sponsor of terrorism Iran. Iran and Venezuela continued weekly Iran Airlines flights connecting Tehran and Damascus with Caracas."

A 2007 report went further, raising concerns about the travelers from Syria and Iran who might be onboard. It said in part, "Passengers on these flights were not subject to immigration and customs controls at Simon Bolivar International Airport" in Caracas.

Read more: http://edition.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/asiapcf/08/21/venezuela.flights.iran/?hpt=C2#fbid=JgILNalFvEO&wom=false
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David__77 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Aug-22-10 07:51 AM
Response to Original message
1. Great news that Venezuela relations are strong with the developing countries.
Positive for world peace.
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Warren Stupidity Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Aug-22-10 08:45 AM
Response to Original message
2. Oh I must be outraged!
How dare Venezuela not toe the line? After all we have done for them? Seriously?
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truth2power Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Aug-22-10 09:46 AM
Response to Original message
3. I recommend that the heads of state of every country should check in with the US govt...
before they take a sh*t in the morning.

Since when do we have a right to tell any country to whom they're allowed to provide airline service. I guess it's ok that we provide airline service to certain state sponsors of terrorism in the ME.

Oh, and the US State Dept. shouldn't be talking about terrorist states. What a joke! :rofl: :rofl: Pot meet kettle.







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fascisthunter Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Aug-22-10 10:01 AM
Response to Original message
4. whose business is it, what they do?
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Wilms Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Aug-22-10 10:14 AM
Response to Original message
5. "controversial airline service"?
:shakes head:



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Peace Patriot Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Aug-22-10 10:28 AM
Response to Original message
6. There is no country on earth that has exported more terrorism than the USA.
ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND innocent people slaughtered in the bombing of Baghdad alone. A million dead, all told. Random arrests, random torture of prisoners in Iraq for the purpose of terrorizing the population. Deliberating induced chaos, looting and tribal warfare.

And that isn't even to mention Afghanistan, Colombia and other places where the U.S. is inflicting or funding mass murder, death squad assassinations, massive displacement, weapons proliferation and/or other horrors.

There is one reason and one reason only that the U.S. State Department is "concerned" about Venezuela, and that is that Venezuela has the largest oil reserves on earth (twice Saudi Arabia's, according to a recent USGS report), and half the oil revenues are going for social programs instead of into the pockets of Exxon Mobil executives.

China can have flights to Iran and Syria, but China is off the Pentagon's dart board, for the moment. In fact, most of the world flies in and out of Tehran and Damascus. But if Venezuela dares to do so--with all those oil profits being "wasted" on the poor, right in our own 'back yard'--look out! Venezuela is "promoting terrorism"!

The hypocrisy of the U.S. State Department knows no bounds.

And, beware, beware, beware! I think that the Pentagon is shifting targets, for fueling its great war machine, from the impossible mess they have made of Iraq to closer-to-home, "easier" targets: Venezuela, Ecuador, for sure, possibly others. I am pretty much convinced that these are not just lies from the State Department--not just bullying and politicking, in the service of multinational corporations. There is considerable evidence that the Pentagon has a war plan for Latin America on its Big Board, and all the long term, very intense psyops/disinformation that we have seen about the Chavez government, and all the recent efforts to paint Venezuela as "a supporter of terrorism" are part of that plan.

I also think that China and Russia have made a U.S. attack on Iran unfeasible. Too much risk of Armageddon. Those risks do not exist in our hemisphere, where peace reigns except for Colombia (adjacent to Venezuela) where $7 BILLION in U.S. military aid has stoked a 40+ year civil war into a regional threat--not to mention the U.S.-funded Colombian military slaughtering thousands of trade unionists, human rights workers, community activists, teachers, journalists, peasant farmers and others, and displacing 5 MILLION peasant farmers with state terror. Parts of Mexico are also a U.S.-funded "war on drugs" bloodbath. Everywhere else peace and democracy prevail--and conditions are especially pacific and hopeful in countries that have rejected the U.S. "war on drugs," have rejected U.S. military presence and have elected leftist governments to act in the interests of their people. There are many reasons the U.S. multinationals and war profiteers would want to destroy this peace and these positive developments. But their demonization of Venezuela tells us their main motive: oil.
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SOS Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Aug-22-10 01:41 PM
Response to Original message
7. British Airways flies to Syria
No problem!

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IndianaGreen Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Aug-22-10 01:43 PM
Response to Original message
8. Venezuela is not a puppet of the US or of Israel, it owes neither of them an explanation
The US has Cuba as a "state sponsor of terrorism," yet as we all know very well, the only terorists in this continent are either in Miami or at Langley VA.
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EFerrari Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Aug-22-10 02:19 PM
Response to Original message
9. Their source is a guy at the HERITAGE FOUNDATION
Edited on Sun Aug-22-10 02:20 PM by EFerrari
which has been pushing this story FOR YEARS to show that Hugo Chavez is selling yellowcake to Iran even though THERE ARE NO URANIUM MINES in Venezuela.

:rofl:

You gotta give the Heritage Foundation credit for media saturation. They're really good at it!
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and-justice-for-all Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Aug-22-10 03:05 PM
Response to Original message
10. Venezuela is a sovereign nation and can do what ever they want..nt
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Judi Lynn Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Aug-22-10 03:10 PM
Response to Original message
11. Can't believe ANY country would feel it has the right to publicly call out another country
for the flights it has ANYWHERE in the world. Absolutely astounding.

That's some kinda cancer running U.S. policy from the bowels of the Pentagon and the State Department.
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classysassy Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Aug-22-10 09:49 PM
Response to Original message
12. Did Bi Bi,call Hillary
and told her he is not in favor of those flights?
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