Target: Venezuela

Has anyone been following the news coming out of Venezuela?

President Hugo Chavez has imperiled his country’s fifty-year history of democracy by restricting free speech, replacing military officers with his own supporters, arresting Supreme Court Justices and replacing them with his own judges, and using violence against those who disagree with his one-man rule.

Neighboring countries are accusing the revolutionary leader of supporting Marxist rebellions in their own countries, and he has begun taking land away from Venezuelan landowners.

This two-bit thug has become a destabilizing force in South America, and more attention should be paid to containing the terrorists coming out of Venezuela in addition to monitoring those terrorists who directly threaten the United States. Latin America needs international attention too.

Emerging democracies must be protected against totalitarianism. Chavez has no right to attack his democratic neighbors by arming terrorists and allowing them to use his territory to launch attacks on them, nor does he have the right to arbitrarily throw democracy out the window without the consent of the governed.

Here's the story.