Interview with President Hugo: "Why Chavez Verbally Attacks bush"

[leftchick]

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TIME: Why do you attack President George W. Bush with such jolting language?

CHAVEZ: I believe words have great weight, and I want people to know exactly what I mean. I'm not attacking President Bush; I'm simply counterattacking. Bush has been attacking the world, and not just with words--with bombs. When I say these things I believe I'm speaking for many people, because they too believe this moment is our opportunity to stop the threat of a U.S. empire that uses the U.N. to justify its aggression against half the world. In Bush's speech to the U.N., he sounded as if he wants to be master of the world. I changed my original speech after reading his.

TIME: But doesn't your rhetoric--referring to Bush, for example, as an "alcoholic"--risk alienating potential allies?

CHAVEZ: First of all, Bush has called me worse: tyrant, populist dictator, drug trafficker, to name a few. I was simply telling a truth that people should know about this President, a man with gigantic power.

TIME: Is all of this mostly for domestic consumption back in Venezuela?

CHAVEZ: No. American author Noam Chomsky in his book talks of two superpowers in today's world--one is the U.S., which aggressively wants to dominate the world, and the other is global public opinion. I don't consider what I'm saying personal attacks on President Bush--I want to wake up U.S. and global public opinion about him.

TIME: Do your feelings about Bush reflect your feelings toward America in general?

CHAVEZ: No. I revere America as the nation of Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King and Mark Twain--who was a great anti-imperialist, who opposed U.S. adventurism in the Spanish-American War.


...much more.

http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/articles.php?artno=1831