Is it not funny that America or Georg Bush as he seems to be America now adays only has interest in countries with large oil resources why didt he trouble countries like Poor African countries or are they too poor n you dont think u will gain anything yourself when you invade them.Anyway i just think its a pity that the world is just sitting by watching the Bush Administration destroy the lives if innocent poeple in Iraq and would possibly do so in Venezuela if Charvez allows him.Talking about respect for human rights i dont think America has the least respect for human rights or human life they are just using it to lead the world in to believivg it to be the mighty country in the world.If they had any respect for human rights or human life i dont think they would have bombed those innocent poeple,children,women breathing human beings for crying out loud! in to pieces in that poor Somalian village because they believed that there was the presence of terrorist,i think that whole episode of killing a thousand people in other to get rid of a few terrorists was very inhuman and doesnt make any sence.Why do we hate terrorists in the first place is it not because the kill and destroy innocent lives? in that case i ask the world this question does it make any sense killing thousands of those innocent poor Somalians in the fight against terrorists you were not even sure were actually there? i think America is a pack of self centered callous people.But as powerful empires before America fell America will surely fall And the American people will surely see the unrealistic life they have been leading.

Mr. Tokatlian's proposal is a noble attempt to be inclusive and non-offensive. But I disagree on two points. I think Chavez should continue his efforts to unite Latin America as a deterrent to outside imperialist mischief. And I disagree that the United States should even want to influence Latin America, because the US has little to teach and a lot to learn. The things Washington should concentrate on in Latin America it should concentrate on at home.

Juan Gabriel Tokatlian sets out (from a US perspective, which amused me) what he suggests are the four options for dealing with the problem of Venezuela; coup, destabilisation, military conquest, and dialogue.

Juan favours the last option, but his argument raises more questions than it answers.

Missing from his analysis is any examination of the socio-economic divide within Latin America and the way in which that is driving the political changes across the region. This divide is linked to, and not separate from, Latin America�s relationship with the USA. Chavez cannot be simply left alone to peacefully construct socialism as Juan suggests (see my Guardian piece here: http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/calvin_tucker/2007/01/post_984.html), although US attempts to derail the Venezuelan Revolution may indeed ultimately fail for reasons I cite in my Guardian piece.

There seems to be an implicit acceptance that the US has "interests" in Latin America, but it is far less clear that Juan understands what they are. He appears to have taken at face value the official mantra that the US interest is (or ought to be if only those silly neocons realised it) essentially about delivering "democratic strengthening, diplomatic dialogue and political reform". According to Juan, preventing "authoritarianism, failed states, and violent upheavals" is the end product the US seeks. Like motherhood and apple pie, who could argue with that?

Yet actions and policies speak more loudly than stated intentions. Juan mentioned US complicity in the 2002 Venezuelan coup, and of course there are few, if any, Latin American countries that have not at one time or another, found themselves on the wrong end of the Norteamericano boot.

Has the US demonstrated consistent support for democracy and the rule of law, either historically or in the present day? Did Bush utter a single word of condemnation about the continuing murder of thousands of trade unionists and activists in Colombia, when on his regional tour?

If not, the question arises: why not?

That Juan raises the military and coercive alternatives to dialogue with Venezuela, suggests that, at some half thought out level, he realises that US interests might not be as honourable as advertised.

One thing that needs to be understood about US socio-economic and foreign policy is that it is not the same everywhere or all of the time. The US has shown great flexibility in adjusting policy to fit the circumstances.

In the Marshall Plan phase of US policy, the US did not always side with the narrow interests of foreign oligarchies. Social democratic policies were sometimes encouraged as a counterweight to the example of socialist countries, as in the case of South Korea where land reform was supported. Yet even during this state interventionist and "social democratic" phase, policy inconsistency was rife. In 1953 in Guatemala the US sided with the landed oligarchy against liberal democracy.

In the 1980�s, the United States, through the IMF and other institutions, imposed neo-liberal policies on Latin America (crystallised in the Washington Consensus of 1989) with economically disastrous and socially divisive consequences.

In the post cold war world, free health care and education and a welfare state are considered radical (almost revolutionary) policies in Latin America. Resistance from the Latin American oligarchs is fierce, despite the Venezuelan reforms being thoroughly democratic and having clear majority support (a 2005 Latinobarometro survey found that more Venezuelans consider their country totally democratic than any other in Latin America � this figure had risen significantly under the Chavez administration). For the deposed oligarchs and the compliant corporate media, the words democracy, human rights and authoritarianism are merely the adopted slogans under which they wage their war of attrition against Venezuela. The closest allies of Washington have the worst human rights record. In Latin America, it is the left who are the democracy promoters, substantive as well as formal.

It is not clear whether Juan is simply pleading for us all to "get along", or whether he is arguing for a more substantial policy shift in US thinking, namely that the US should retreat from its neoliberal economic policies, which arguably are driving the red tsunami that is engulfing Latin America.

If Juan is arguing for a return to the social democratic phase, he needs to frame this in historical context and explain both why he thinks this is in the US "national interest" today and examine the implications. It is should be noted that the US adopted the New Deal and the Great Society, and Britain the 1945 post-war nationalisations and construction of the welfare state, within the context of the existence and example of Soviet socialism - a far more serious threat than Venezuela�s 21st century attempt. Por ahora.

Calvin Tucker

Co-editor, http://www.21stcenturysocialism.com/

Why do we have to position ourselves beside America on this question?

Why do we have to see Chazev as a problem that has to be dealt with? He has much more of a mandate than almost any leader in the west, and compared to Bush, he is shining example of what a democratic leader should be.

A democratic leader should have the mandate of the majority, and should serve to improve the conditions of the majority. Chazev 2, Bush Nil.

There is also far less interferance with the press in Venezuela than in the US, where Rupert Murdoch, a card carrying republican, presides over a horrifically partisan media empire.

Finally,why should America have control and influence in South America. Only by the brute calculus of power is it so. America no longer has any ideological legitimacy to export. It's postwar championing of Democracy has run out of steam in Iraq, where freedom has become slaughter.

Has "open democracy" slipped into them and us thinking?

I thought the American's had already taken their souls away from them. What is happening now is they are trying to take back their souls.

That Bush could even mention the word poverty on his trip was blasphemous. Excuse me, wasn't it John Foster Dulles who ordered the murder of thousands of Latin Americans,because they wouldn't pay a few cents more for their bananas, which they grew by the sweat of their brow.

America's puppets that are still left, will fall.

Their is one thing we can be as certain of as dying, is that all Empire's fall.

If you need 20 thousand police and soldiers to protect you from the people, you might think there is something amiss!!!

You might notice they were turned against the people, not the exploiters and dispots.

Johanna Moren.

This is the classic assumption that changes have to be forced upon the rest of the world, instead of changing the US from within. That`s the fifth approach: allowing for a true democratic change into USAmerican politics through a humanistic revolution aimed at removing the parallel government that is ruling the world (the new mutation of imperialism that I`ve called USrael).

Bush is just a puppet, the next sacrificial lamb that is going to be politically slain in public to provide USamericans the comfort and relief coming from the perception that the system corrects its own problems and punishes the guilty ones-nothing farther from truth. And, meanwhile, the carnage goes on or moves to another front. What a pity.

Franco Munini.