Are Iran and Venezuela to be feared or pitied?

[MAMALOCHA!]

It's mostly because Iran and Venezuala have broken the mould and demanded payment in non-US dollar currency. The US don't like this because it means they have to draw on their gold reserves rather than just printing worthless dollar bills to buy oil from these countries, so they have started a propaganda campaign to paint these countries out to be evil rogue states in an attempt to get the rest of the world to impose economic sanctions and force them to do business on their terms.

 

I must admit that I know very little about Venezuela, but while there are certainly aspects of the Iranian regime that come across as distasteful to the western world, I do not believe that Ahmedinijad is anything like as dangerous as the western media likes to portray him.

 

not so smithster a change in the iranian government stance it seems

 

clicky

[Phanerothyme]

Hugo Chavez is a Grade "A" Lunatic Demagogue. It's such a shame.

[Cavegirl]

I guess the reason I started this thread was because firstly, I don't have a good enough grasp of the history/ details involved as yet to make a reasonable judgement for myself on these issues, but secondly I noticed that it was the US warning Europe about an imminent attack and not a European state warning Europe.

 

Do we not have Intelligence Agencies in Europe that could determine these things and offer a warning? Of course we do, so that implies that the US has a particular motive for stating this threat. I haven't seen any reports of European warnings- are there any?

 

Are we being manipulated by the US with the same old politics of fear and manipulation that Bush/ Blair were so good at, which was my immediate response? Or can you see another motive, something I'm missing?

[Wildcat]

Do you have a source for the US making these claims?

 

All I can find is Israeli intelligence stuff on it, repeated in the usual US media outlets. As such so far as I can see then yes it is scaremongering propoganda facilitated by the republican right for the joint political aims of bolstering Israel after killing those peace activists, and undermining the opposition to US imperial ambitions in south american countries.

[Cavegirl]

As I said in my OP, the statement was made on the BBC News shortly after the Chavez HARDtalk interview was aired. It was a one line statement, not backed up with any evidence, which was what made me suspicious about it. I think it's very manipulative of the BBC to make this kind of statement and not provide any reasoning behind it.

 

I doubt they would offer a one line piece of rhetoric stating that Chavez claims the US has an agenda for world imperialism- which would be objective reporting from both sides of the argument.

[MadnBad]

Chavez is a nutter why on earth does he keep threatening us over the falklands, he is just another tinpot despot after a few lines in a histoy book.

And Ahmedinijad is just a lapdog for the religious nutters who really run the country and fix their elections "allegedly".

[Vague_Boy]

On Shortly after the program the BBC announced that the US had given warning to Europe that Iran could use missiles against European states at any moment.

 

Capable of being deployed in 45 minutes perchance?

 

People will believe it, they did last time.