Obama criticizes Venezuela's ties to Iran, Cuba

[The Northerner]

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — President Barack Obama's sharp criticisms of Venezuela's human rights record and its ties to Iran are heightening tensions with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, who on Monday responded by calling Obama a "clown" and telling him to mind his own business.

Obama appeared to stiffen his stance toward Chavez in his remarks, which were published Monday by the Venezuelan newspaper El Universal. Some of Obama's Republican opponents have also been strongly critical of Chavez, and analysts expect the Venezuelan president could become a popular target of criticism as American politicians feud over foreign policy ahead of next year's U.S. presidential election.

While Washington has long criticized Chavez, Obama's remarks were some of his hardest to date. He pointedly raised concerns about what he described as threats to democracy in Venezuela.

"We're concerned about the government's actions, which have restricted the universal rights of the Venezuelan people, threatened basic democratic values and failed to contribute to the security in the region," Obama said in written responses to questions from the newspaper.

Read more: http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jcmxtFUK775JMcMwWRQwKA0czKXg

[newfie11]

1. The following sounds like it could be said of America

"We're concerned about the government's actions, which have restricted the universal rights of the Venezuelan people, threatened basic democratic values and failed to contribute to the security in the region,"


Maybe we should clean up our own house before bad mouthing others.

[tblue]

3. Yep.

No kidding. We sure should.

[dipsydoodle]

2. The actual origin of that is El Universal - a right wing rag.

El Universal is most commonly associted here on DU with the subject of "The revolution will not be televised" etc

Chances are they have spun whatever Obama actually said.

[Kolesar]

4. Good catch...eom

[dipsydoodle]

5. See here for details

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=1030870&mesg_id=1031463

[Kolesar]

12. From a half a year after the attempted coup in Venezuela

Greg Palast did a great recitation of the events on Democracy Now at about that time.

I hope I.G. is doing well, where ever she is.

[Enrique]

7. are you suggesting they misquoted him?

i find that unlikely.

[dipsydoodle]

8. I'm suggesting they spun it to their own RW advantage.

.

[redqueen]

15. +1

[mmonk]

6. What about his ties to the poor in the Northeast?

[SixthSense]

10. LOL those are poor people

Can't let the suffering of poor people have an impact on decisions that affect Big Oil, now.

[Autumn]

9. Kudos to Venezuela for stepping up to the plate

and helping poor people in America with their heating fuel. Personally I am more concerned about the American government threatening basic democratic values and failing to contribute to helping the poor people here in America .

[Fawke Em]

11. Showing Obama up, is he?

I don't hate Obama, but popping his mouth off about a leader who is helping poor people in the UNITED STATES when our own government(s) won't is pretty irksome.

[socialist_n_TN]

13. There were a couple of threads on stories on GD

the latter part of last week that I thought were telling. The first one told how the US Government was cutting back on heating oil subsidies. And the other thread talked about how Venazeula for the SEVENTH YEAR IN A ROW was giving heating oil to the poor in the NE USA. Both of those threads stayed on the GD front page for a while over the weekend.

Very telling.

[frylock]

14. blah blah blah..

speck of sawdust, brother.