Empty Gestures
This is certainly a waste of time and paper: US bans arms sales to Venezuela.
Chavez doesn’t buy arms from the US. His last big deal was with Spain, and I think he buys AK-47s for his army.
The claim about Venezuela supporting Colombian guerrillas is a bit of smoke of mirrors. The Colombian military chased a guerrilla band into Venezuela, and the Venezuelan government got bent out of shape over the presence of Colombian troops on Venezuelan soil.
It’s not like the US would deploy thousands of troops to the US-Mexican border to prevent incursions… Oh, never mind.
Update: Via Michael in comments, Chavez is talking about selling Venezuela’s 21 F-16s to Iran or Cuba, since they can’t buy parts from the US.
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It gets better. I can’t swear to it in court, but I’m pretty sure I saw a trailer on CNN while eating lunch that said Venezuela was looking into the possibility (or at least claimed to be) of selling its U.S.-made fighters to Iran or some other country after the Shrubbery banned further sales to Caracas.
Thanks, Michael, I found it and will update the post.
One wonders when the Shrubbery is finally going to remember the old political adage that the toes you step on today may be connected to the ass you have to kiss tomorrow.
The US say Venezuela can’t do it because of the agreement they signed when they bought the planes, but Venezuela responded that the US voided the agreement when they refused to sell them parts for the planes.
The same garbage the US did to Iran. The equipment Iran originally bought for their nuclear program would have resulted in a program that would very difficult to convert to a military program for weapon’s grade uranium. The US blocked the delivery of the equipment to build reactors designed to generate electricity and nothing else, so Iran bought their system from Russia and Pakistan and they are eminently suited for military use.
Unintended consequences.