By Andrew L. Jaffee

President Hugo Chavez threatened on Monday to take over any private schools refusing to submit to the oversight of his socialist government, a move some Venezuelans fear will impose leftist ideology in the classroom. …

- Associated Press

First of all, there’s nothing “socialist” about Hugo Chavez’s Venezuelan government. Marx and Engels wanted to create a utopian “state in which the working class and poor peasantry exercised direct control on management of industry and society through democratically elected soviets or councils.” Chavez is concentrating all power in his own hands. He’s clamping down on the free press and is paling around with the very anti-Semitic Iranian President Ahmadinejad. Chavez has taken direct control of Venezuela’s oil wealth, as well as the country’s electrical and telecommunications companies. The money will certainly go into his own pockets. Most recently, Chavez has moved to take direct control of Venezuela’s central bank and military, and is busy editing the constitution to make himself president for life.

There is nothing “socialist” going on in Venezuela, just the exploits of another cheap thug following in the Castro/Mugabe/Milosevic tradition: absolute power forever. Will Venezuelan students be able to differentiate between Chavez’s megalomania and Marx and Engels’ teachings?

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By Andrew L. Jaffee

El Jefe, Hugo Chavez wants to change Venezuela’s laws to allow him to own and control everything — all of his country’s wealth, human rights, ideas, news, etc. In other words, Chavez is about to become the next dictator in the Castro/Mugabe/Milosevic tradition: absolute power forever. Still want that Che Guevara t-shirt? From the AFP:

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By Andrew L. Jaffee

Fearless Leader Robert Mugabe sure has devastated his country. But what’s Mugabe got to worry about? He’s rich, safe, and comfortable, and to heck with his own people, whom he calls “filth.” While Zimbabwean “inflation has risen to more than 4500 per cent,” and “250 grams of butter [is] $Z497,000,” Mugabe’s cupboards are full. From The Sydney Morning Herald, entitled “Mugabe’s elite shops in style as a nation starves:”

ROBERT MUGABE’s local supermarket is unlike any other shop in Zimbabwe. Elsewhere there are empty shelves where bread, butter, sugar, meat and the staple maize meal should be.

But at the Spar in Borrowdale Brooke - a suburb of the capital, Harare, near the President’s palatial home - almost anything is available, including focaccia, sun-dried tomatoes and cigars.

The difference typifies a nation where a ruling elite enjoys wealth and privilege, while the vast majority exists in grinding poverty and struggle to survive. …

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By Andrew L. Jaffee

North Korea test-fired a long-range missile and five shorter-range rockets on July 4, 2006. It tested a nuclear bomb in October 2006. Today, Kim Jong-il’s workers’ paradise “fired several short-range guided missiles into the sea that separates it from Japan.” The North has a 1.1-million-man army, the fourth-largest in the world. This is downright alarming, unless you’re some kind of politically-correct sissy “analyst:”

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By Andrew L. Jaffee

Syria sure is ruled by a weird tribe: a Baathist/Socialist/Alawite minority led by an ophthalmologist, Bashar al-Assad. Weird or not, they sure mean business when it comes to staying in power and squelching democracy. And please don’t tell me there are no Muslims who want democracy. From the BBC:

May 13, 2007:

A Syrian court has sentenced two democracy activists, Michel Kilo and Mahmoud Issa, to three years in prison. …

The men were arrested last year after signing a petition that called on Syria to improve its relations with Lebanon. …

Michel Kilo is a veteran democracy activist and one of the country’s leading writers.

Mahmoud Issa is a translator and former political prisoner who has already spent eight years in jail. …

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by Tony Badran*

The war in Iraq has exposed fissures in the structure of that modern Middle Eastern state earlier camouflaged by Arab nationalism and Saddam’s brutal rule. While Arab leaders speak of unity, the war has uncovered the clout of other power centers—ethnic, sectarian, regional, and tribal—that parallel the state and limit the power of central governments. At play are ancient traditions. And while it would be facile to suggest a direct continuity, precedents can matter. Recent scholarship about ancient Middle Eastern governance not only sheds light on the origin of traditions and structures but also enables comparative analysis for contemporary problems.

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By Andrew L. Jaffee

I wouldn’t put a lot of credence into what El Jefe Castro says. After all, he’s a “communist” leader worth $US900 million. His “communist” economy is a disaster, and Cuba is one of the poorest countries in the Americas. If not for tourism and money sent by Cuban expatriates, there would be complete economic collapse. Castro executed three Cubans for trying to escape their “worker’s paradise.” El Jefe jailed 75 poets, journalists, economists and other dissidents because they dared to express political opposition. Now Castro has gone off the deep end, criticizing the use of biofuels, which by the way “will lower carbon dioxide emissions, ensuring a cleaner environment.” Still think El Jefe is “progressive?” From the BBC:

Cuban leader Fidel Castro has written a second newspaper article within a week, again criticising US biofuels policy.

Writing in the Granma newspaper, Mr Castro said a US drive to back crop use for fuels would raise prices and cause more hunger in developing countries. …

He said [the use of biofuels] “…means none other than the internationalisation of genocide…”

So, Castro wants us to burn more fossil fuels? Damned if we burn fossil fuels and pollute more; damned if we burn ethanol and pollute less. Ah, we have a surplus of grains, so there’d be no effect on “developing countries…” Oy, amateurish economics and environmentalism…

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by Bill Levinson

The British hostages in Iran should feel no shame whatsoever for telling their kidnappers whatever their kidnappers want to hear, and they should have every confidence that the entire civilized world knows exactly what is going on. In retrospect, similar advice or even orders should have been given to American service personnel like John McCain, who were physically abused for refusing to make false statements against the United States: tell your captors whatever they want to hear, and don’t worry about it hurting your country.

The Hague and Geneva Conventions require prisoners of war to give their captors only their names, ranks, and serial numbers. The fact that the British hostages have given the Iranians more, in terms of “confessions” that they entered Iran’s territorial waters, plus Iran’s televising their pictures (it is a war crime to humiliate prisoners of war by broadcasting their pictures) has already told the civilized world what is going on. Iran obviously threatened its prisoners with physical abuse, and they need not be ashamed of complying with this pirate “nation’s” demands under duress.

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By Andrew L. Jaffee

It wasn’t enough that Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe had opposition party leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, beaten up. Tsvangirai refused to be intimidated, and pushed forward with a planned news conference. So Mugabe had Tsvangirai arrested. What’s Mugabe got to worry about? He’s rich, safe, and comfortable, and to heck with his own people, whom he calls “filth,” and who are suffering badly:

Zimbabweans are grappling with the world’s highest inflation - 1,700% a year - while unemployment and poverty are widespread.

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By Andrew L. Jaffee

Wow. Robert Mugabe’s out-of-control insanity against his own people in Zimbabwe is “finally pushing [his] African neighbors away from ‘quiet diplomacy’ into tepid protest.” Hold meetings to talk about future meetings? A definite maybe? These nations are hesitant to do anything about Zimbabwe because of — you guessed it — the race card. When might Africa finally graduate from post-colonialism into true self-determination? Life moves on. In its simplemindedness, the extreme Left would have you believe that opposing Mugabe means you support Apartheid. But the West is willing to help this time, not dominate.

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By Andrew L. Jaffee

What did Freud call it when criticism hits too close to home, and the neurotic person lashes out? Projection? Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe has a bad case of it. When faced with condemnation of his beating up opposition party members, he responded that Western critics can “go hang.” Very eloquent, and quite consistent with his previous behavior. He’s expropriated the homes of his own people, whom he calls “filth,” and has created quite a paradise in his homeland:

More than 80% of Zimbabweans are living in poverty, with chronic unemployment and inflation running at more than 1,700% - the highest in the world.

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By Andrew L. Jaffee

I had thought last November’s elections might send a message of moderation to both Republicans and Democrats, but the Pelosi/Murtha/Reid axis of inanity believed the vote was an endorsement of their extremist, left-wing agenda. Good thing they were wrong. Too bad I was wrong — about the Democrats.

The Democratic “leadership” was all ready to sell the security of the U.S., Europe, and Israel down the river today. They really want to believe (X-Files) in placating Iran’s Islamist dictators, who’ve promised to “wipe Israel off the map,” and who chant mantras like “all of us should mobilize to kill.” Ahmadinejad has threatened the U.S. with “harm and pain” and is obsessed with ushering in the end of times. Iran’s rockets already threaten most of Europe, not to mention all of the Middle East. Imagine Tehran’s behavior if its WMD delivery media were tipped with nukes. All the more reason to placate Islamism? Uh, huh.

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By Andrew L. Jaffee

Chinese Yankee Traders in the People’s Paradise are upsetting the apple cart. The capitalist genie’s out of the bottle. All under the rubric of “communism,” many of the egalitarian masses are struggling — 20,000 rioting now — some are honestly capitalizing, while China’s “communists” have gotten loaded in pursuit of the almighty dollar, er, ah, Yuan:

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By Andrew L. Jaffee

Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe has expropriated the homes of his own people, whom he calls “filth,” yet he remains one of those world leaders like Castro, Chavez, and Ahmadinejad, that the fashionably correct like to respect. Today, Mugabe’s goon-squad literally smashed Zimbabwe’s political opposition:

The leader of Zimbabwe’s opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) is in a bad state after being beaten by police in custody, says his lawyer.

Morgan Tsvangirai’s head was bandaged and his face swollen, said lawyer Innocent Chagonda, who saw him from a distance of about 10 metres.

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by Jonathan Winer*

How do you get an evil dictator who starves his people to understand that you really mean business when you say he has to stop his nuclear proliferation program?

Treasury has decided you do it by taking away his iPods, sports cars, and booze.

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