Havana-Caracas Axis

WorldNetDaily: New Cuba-Venezuela alliance:
"Cuba's Fidel Castro welcomed Venezuela's Hugo Chavez to the Karl Marx Theater in Havana and signed an agreement of unity that is designed to be an alternative to the North American Free Trade Agreement."

Actually, as a quote from Cuban announcement later in this story makes clear, this Bolivarian Alliance for Latin America (ALBA in Spanish) is intended as a counterpoise to the proposed Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) rather than NAFTA.

If you find this development troubling, be sure to thank the US State Department and other elements of our government which worked to ensure that Hugo Chavez was not ousted in a coup.

And, just in case someone thinks my recent defense of Gen. Augusto Pinochet was inappropriate, note this part of the news item: "Chavez praised Castro, Che Guevara and Salvador Allende, the deposed leader of Chile."

The significance of the term "Bolivarian" may be lost on Norte Americano audiences. Simon Bolivar led the revolution of the creoles against the Spanish crown and its Spanish-born colonial officialdom in the early 1800s. His dream was to create a single republic in all the lands colonized by Spain in South America. While he and his fellow revolutionaries succeeded in ridding the continent of Spanish colonial control (due in no small part to the Monroe Doctrine in which Britain was a silent partner with the US), local rivalries prevented the fulfillment of his dream of uniting the former Spanish colonies. What Castro and Chavez are signalling is the revival of Bolivar's unification project to create a single communist state covering the continent.