The Paraguaná Peninsula is the little frying pan shaped extension on the west end of the coast directly below Aruba.

Back in December, NYM quoted a Hudson Institute article by the Moroccan-Italian journalist Anna Mahjar-Barducci discussing a report (English translation) from the German newpaper Die Welt which quoted “Western security sources” on Hugo Chavez’s Venezuela signing an agreement with Teheran last October 19th to permit an Iranian missile base on Venezuelan soil.

It was reported in December that construction was intended to commence late in 2011, and the Jerusalem Post repeats a report from last Friday’s Die Welt noting that Iranian engineers have already been on-site.

The location selected for the missile base is at the western edge of Venezuela’s northern coast, as close as possible to American targets.

The Iranian government is moving forward with the construction of rocket launch bases in Venezuela, the German daily Die Welt wrote in its Friday edition.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is Teheran’s most important South American ally.

Iran is building intermediate- range missile launch pads on the Paraguaná Peninsula, and engineers from a construction firm – Khatam al-Anbia – owned by the Revolutionary Guards visited Paraguaná in February. Amir al-Hadschisadeh, the head of the Guard’s Air Force, participated in the visit, according to the report. Die Welt cited information from “Western security insiders.”

The rocket bases are to include measures to prevent air attacks on Venezuela as well as commando and control stations.

The Iranian military involvement in the project extends to bunker, barracks and watch tower construction. Twenty-meter deep rocket silos are planned. The cost of the Venezuelan military project is being paid for with Iranian oil revenue. The Iranians paid in cash for the preliminary phase of the project and, the total cost is expected to amount to “dozens of millions” of dollars, Die Welt wrote.

The Paraguaná Peninsula is on the coast of Venezuela and is roughly 120 kilometers from America’s main South American partner, Columbia.

According to Die Welt, the clandestine agreement between Venezuela and Iran would mean the Chavez government would fire rocket at Iran’s enemies should the Islamic Republic face military strikes.

Shahab 3 missile test launch (photo: ISNA - Rooholla Vahdati)

Anna Mahjar-Barducci, writing for the Hudson Institute, informs us that a replay of the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis is right around the corner. This time, it will not be Russia but the crazed mullahs of Iran placing potentially nuclear-armed medium range ballistic missiles within range of US cities.

Iran is planning to place medium-range missiles on Venezuelan soil, based on western information sources, according to an article in the German daily, Die Welt, of November 25, 2010. According to the article, an agreement between the two countries was signed during the last visit o Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez to Tehran on October19, 2010. The previously undisclosed contract provides for the establishment of a jointly operated military base in Venezuela, and the joint development of ground-to-ground missiles.

At a moment when NATO members found an agreement, in the recent Lisbon summit (19-20 November 2010), to develop a Missile Defence capability to protect NATO’s populations and territories in Europe against ballistic missile attacks from the East (namely, Iran), Iran’s counter-move consists in establishing a strategic base in the South American continent – in the United States’s soft underbelly.

According to Die Welt, Venezuela has agreed to allow Iran to establish a military base manned by Iranian missile officers, soldiers of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard and Venezuelan missile officers. In addition, Iran has given permission for the missiles to be used in case of an “emergency”. In return, the agreement states that Venezuela can use these facilities for “national needs” – radically increasing the threat to neighbors like Colombia. The German daily claims that according to the agreement, Iranian Shahab 3 (range 1300-1500 km), Scud-B (285-330 km) and Scud-C (300, 500 and 700 km) will be deployed in the proposed base. It says that Iran also pledged to help Venezuela in rocket technology expertise, including intensive training of officers

Venezuela has also become the country through which Iran intends to bypass UN sanctions. Following a new round of UN sanctions against the Islamic Republic, for example, Russia decided not to sell five battalions of S-300PMU-1 air defence systems to Iran. These weapons, along with a number of other weapons, were part of a deal, signed in 2007, worth $800 million. Now that these weapons cannot be delivered to Iran, Russia is looking for new customers; according to the Russian press agency Novosti, it found one: Venezuela. ...

If Iran, therefore, cannot get the S-300 missiles directly from Russia, it can still have them through its proxy, Venezuela, and deploy them against its staunchest enemy, the U.S..

But that is not all. According to Reuters, Iran has developed a version of the Russian S-300 missile and will test-fire it soon, as declared by the official news agency IRNA, two months after Moscow cancelled the delivery to comply with United Nations sanctions. Iran, in fact, has its own capabilities for constructing missiles that could carry atomic warheads. According to a study recently released by the International Institute of Strategic Studies in London, Iran is presently aiming to perfect the already existing solid-fuel, medium-range missile that can carry a nuke to hit regional targets, such as Israel. If a missile base can be opened in Venezuela, many US cities will be able to be reached from there even with short-medium range missiles.

The situation that is unfolding in Venezuela has some resemblance to the Cuba crisis of 1962. At that time, Cuba was acting on behalf of the USSR; now Venezuela is acting on behalf of Iran. At present, the geopolitical situation is very different: the world is no longer ruled by two superpowers; new nations, often with questionable leaders and the ambition of acquiring global status, are appearing on the international scene. Their danger to the free world will be greater if the process of nuclear proliferation is not stopped. Among the nations that aspire to become world powers, Iran has certainly the best capabilities of posing a challenge to the West.

Back in the 1962, thanks to the stern stance adopted by the then Kennedy administration, the crisis was defused

Nowadays, however, we do not see the same firmness from the present administration.

Unlike Nikita Krushchev who obviously did not desire a shared nuclear apocalypse, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is an arch-fundamentalist Shiite Muslim who believes in, and eagerly awaits, the appearance of the 12th “Hidden” Imam, the Mahdi, who will return suddenly accompanied by Jesus to announce the arrival of the universal conversion of mankind to Islam, and Ahmadinejad has given ample evidence that he believes the time is ripe for the arrival of the Mahdi and believes that he is in a position to hasten his appearance.

The United States in 1962 had decayed to the point of abandoning the Monroe Doctrine, which had previously placed the Americas under US protection against foreign colonization, and President Kennedy got rid of the Russian missiles via a face-saving secret surrender presented publicly as a US foreign policy triumph. The US gave Russia a pledge never to invade Cuba or overthrow the Communist regime 90 miles from Havana, and withdrew US missiles from Turkey.

Today, America is in general far weaker in character, infinitely more pacifistic than in 1962. We have Barack Obama, not WWII Navy veteran John Kennedy, in the White House. What will Obama do or not do? The prospect is depressing.

A nuclear-armed Shahab-3 could arrive from Venezuela to Southern US cities in roughly half an hour from the moment of being launched.

At the recent Miss Universe Pageant, outgoing 2009 Miss Universe winner, Stefania Fernandez, on her final appearance, defiantly displayed the 7-star, pre-2006 Flag of Venezuela, symbolizing her personal opposition to the socialist dictatorship of Hugo Chavez (who as one of many expressions of his crackpot devotion to the liberal revolutionary Simon Bolivar, whose politics were really the opposite of Chavez’s own, brought about the adoption in 2006 of Bolivar’s proposed 8-star “Flag of Angostura”).

As Francisco de Miranda said: “Muerte a la tiranía. Viva la libertad!” (Death to Tyranny. Long live Freedom!)

Hat tip to IBD via Scott Johnson.

A Gulfstream jet detained in Guinea Bissau, found in 2008 to be carrying 600 kilos of cocaine

Reuters is reporting that Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) is operating an illicit air traffic operation crossing the Atlantic Ocean from West Africa to the Andes, using a fleet of twin-engine turboprops, executive jets and retired Boeing 727s, transporting arms and carrying drugs supplied by FARC (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia—the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia) for ultimate European distribution.

What is alarming international authorities is the recent addition of several Boeing 727 aircraft, significantly enhancing these outlaw organizations’ transport capabilities.

Alexandre Schmidt, regional representative for West and Central Africa for the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, cautioned in Dakar this week that the aviation network has expanded in the past 12 months and now likely includes several Boeing 727 aircraft.

“When you have this high capacity for transporting drugs into West Africa, this means that you have the capacity to transport as well other goods, so it is definitely a threat to security anywhere in the world,” said Schmidt.

The “other goods” officials are most worried about are weapons that militant organizations can smuggle on the jet aircraft. A Boeing 727 can handle up to 10 tons of cargo. ...

[Now] militant organizations—including groups like the FARC and al Qaeda—have the “power to move people and material and contraband anywhere around the world with a couple of fuel stops.”

Soon to be made in Venezuela for export throughout the hemisphere

It’s convenient for Putin and Chavez having Barack Obama in the White House. Not a lot of chance that we’ll be hearing about the Monroe Doctrine from this president.

Reuters:

Russia is building arms plants in Venezuela to produce AK-103 automatic rifles and cartridges and is finalizing contracts to send 53 military helicopters to the Andean nation, Moscow’s envoy to Venezuela said Monday.

Ambassador Vladmir Zaemskiy told a news conference that Russian engineers and Venezuelan construction firms were building the rifle and cartridge plants which, when operational, would employ more than 1,500 workers.

He gave no completion date for the plants under construction in the central state of Aragua.

So much for that “reset relations” button that Hillary delivered to the leaders of the Kremlin.

The Russians have an almost 50 year old tradition of testing democrat wimp presidents. John F. Kennedy conspicuously failed that test in 1962 when he abandoned the Monroe Doctrine, and traded US missiles in Turkey and a promise to leave Castro in place for Russian removal of missiles from Cuba and an ersatz public victory.

Now it very well may be Barack Obama’s turn.

Reuters:

A Russian general said on Saturday Venezuela has offered the use of its La Orchila island airfield for Russian strategic bombers on long-range flights.

Russia has been keen to build relations with a rival to the United States in the Western hemisphere in an effort to counter U.S. influence in formerly Communist countries in eastern Europe and central Asia.

“If certain political decisions are taken, it is possible (for Russian bombers to use the base),” Interfax news agency quoted the head of Russian strategic aviation general-major Anatoly Zhikharev as saying.

Zhikharev also said Russian bombers would be prepared to use four or five airfields on Cuba if the political leadership of the two countries allowed the use of Cuban bases.

Two Russian long-range bombers flew to Venezuela last year in a visit designed to show off Moscow’s military strength and build ties with a foe of the United States.

Peter Zeihan, at Stratfor, discussing the impact of the ongoing collapse of oil prices from to a current $40 a barrel from $147 last July.

Happily, the list of losers is headed by the worst outlaws.

Venezuela and Iran top this list by far. Both are led by politicians who have lavished vast amounts of oil income on their populations to secure their respective political positions. But that public approval has come at its own price in terms of economic dislocation (why diversify the economy if strong oil prices bring in loads of cash?), low employment (the energy sector may be capital-intensive, but it certainly is not labor-intensive), and high inflation (high government spending has led to massive consumption and spurred rampant import of foreign goods to satiate that demand).

Of the two states, Venezuela is certainly in the worse position. By some estimates, Venezuela requires oil prices in the vicinity of US$120 a barrel to maintain the social spending to which its population has become accustomed. Iran’s number may be only somewhat lower, but President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is in the process of at least beginning to bow to economic reality. On Dec. 5, he announced massive cuts in subsidy outlays with the intent of reforging the budget based on a price of only US$30 a barrel.

Read the whole thing.

Reuters reports on the International epidemic of laughter resulting from the embarrassment of one of the Chavez regime’s revolutionaries observed to be a luxury consumer while in the midst of a rant against Capitalism.

Venezuelan Interior Minister Pedro Carreño was momentarily at a loss for words when a journalist interrupted his speech and asked if it was not contradictory to criticize capitalism while wearing Gucci shoes and a tie made by Parisian luxury goods maker Louis Vuitton.

“I don’t, uh … I … of course,” stammered Carreño on Tuesday before regaining his composure. “It’s not contradictory because I would like Venezuela to produce all this so I could buy stuff produced here instead of 95 percent of what we consume being imported.”

0:30 video

And, David Goldstein, at the Huffington Post, responds to the bad news, thusly:

The Bushies have called Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez a dictator and a tyrant… but since when do dictators lose elections? ...

Now if only Bush had accepted the will of the people as graciously as Chávez.

A glass monument to a villain like Che? Not the wisest choice.

AP:

A glass monument to revolutionary icon Ernesto “Che” Guevara was shot up and destroyed less than two weeks after it was unveiled by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez’s government.

Images of the 8-foot-tall glass plate bearing Guevara’s image, now toppled and shattered, were shown Friday on state television, which said the entire country “repudiated” the vandalism.

If any of the shooters should ever find themselves in the United States, they should be sure to contact the author of this blog who will be glad to buy them a drink.

It was just occurring to me: presidents of the United States are a lot like cats, and adversaries of the United States are a lot like mice.

George W. Bush is like some cats I’ve had. The mice made a mess on 9/11, and Bush responded by desultorily playing with Afghanistan and Iraq in much the fashion some cats will enthusiastically start tackling a given mouse, but simply bat him around a bit, and then lose interest and go to sleep, while the mouse recovers and scuttles off to violate one’s domestic order another day.

In the case of Iran, Syria, Hezbollah, and Venezuela and a growing list of leftwing dictatorships in Latin America, Bush is worse, more like an old, lazy, and utterly indifferent spoiled housecat, who does no mousing at all.

When one thinks about it, one realizes that in the last 50 years we’ve had good looking presidents and ugly presidents, presidents who had a lot of charm and presidents who made Americans go out and throw up in the street. We’ve had presidents who talked a good game, presidents who screwed up everything, and Ronald Reagan who had a special grace. Besides Reagan, though, we’ve hardly had a president, since the time of FDR, who was any kind of mouser at all. And by my standards, even including Reagan, we have not had a really serious mouser.

I used to have a small grey cat who’d nail one foreign enemy, at least, every night. Our cellar was full of corpses of mice, and voles, and shrews. She didn’t just play with them. After a short session of batting her victim around, she’d administer a lethal, leopard-like bite to the back of the neck, and that was that.

How can a US administration just sit there, and let some idiot like Chavez take over a nearby country, nationalize property (including the property of US corporations), denounce the United States and embark on a campaign of Hemispheric subversion in alliance with our enemies? One really wants to take one’s slipper, and whack that sleeping president a good one, and say: “Over there! Mouse. Go get him! Hunt him up. Kill, kill, kill.”

The BBC reports that Hugo Chavez, the tin-horn dictator of Venezuela, has followed Adolph Hitler’s example, and gotten his rubber-stamp parliament to start passing legislation permitting him to rule by decree, and remain in power forever.

Venezuela’s National Assembly has given initial approval to a bill granting the president the power to bypass congress and rule by decree for 18 months. President Hugo Chavez says he wants “revolutionary laws” to enact sweeping political, economic and social changes.

He has said he wants to nationalise key sectors of the economy and scrap limits on the terms a president can serve.

Mr Chavez began his third term in office last week after a landslide election victory in December.

The bill allowing him to enact laws by decree is expected to win final approval easily in the assembly on its second reading on Tuesday.

Venezuela’s political opposition has no representation in the National Assembly since it boycotted elections in 2005.

Chavez has been hosting Iran’s Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and is doubtless plotting ways and means to extend the reach of our enemies into this hemisphere. The Bush Administration will be guilty of criminal negligence every bit as bad as Clinton’s, if it fails to remove this revolting communist thug from power before he does further violence to the rights of his own people, and before he creates a functioning base for terrorism in the Western Hemisphere.

TCS Daily reports:

In a forthcoming study for the Institute for Counter-Terrorism at Israel’s Interdisciplinary Center in Herzliya, senior researcher Ely Karmon raises the alarming prospect of Hezbollah affiliated groups bringing the Lebanese terrorists’ brand of violence to the Americas. While acknowledging that it is too soon to draw clear conclusions about the nature and objectives of these Hezbollah “franchisees,” Karmon nonetheless notes that “successful campaigns of proselytism in the heart of poor indigene Indian tribes and populations by both Shi’a and Sunni preachers and activists” have contributed to the growing attraction of Islamist terrorist groups in Latin America. Karmon also observes that “there is a growing trend of solidarity between leftist, Marxist, anti-global and even rightist elements with the Islamists,” citing inter alia the September 2004 “strategy conference” of anti-globalization groups hosted by Hezbollah in Beirut.

Evidence of this was already available in the Washington Post’s front page coverage of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah’s September 22 mass rally, which mentioned that among those in attendance was a Lebanese expatriate who had flown in from Venezuela for the event and that “[a]t the mention of Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, a critic of America, cheers went up.”

As it happens, one month after the demonstration in Beirut, on October 23, Venezuelan police discovered two explosive devices near the U.S. Embassy in Caracas. According to a statement in El Universal from the acting police commissioner of the Baruta district, law enforcement officials arrested a man carrying a “backpack containing one hundred black powder bases, pliers, adhesive tape, glue, and electric conductors” who “admitted that the explosives had been set to detonate within fifteen minutes.” The man arrested was José Miguel Rojas Espinoza, a 26-year-old student at the Bolivarian University of Venezuela, a Chávez-founded institution whose website proclaims that it offers a free “practical and on the ground education” contributing to “a more just, united, and sustainable society, world peace, and a new progressive and pluralist civilization.”

Two days after the failed bombing, a web posting by a group calling itself Venezuelan Hezbollah claimed—“in the name of Allah, the Compassionate, the Merciful”—responsibility for the attack. The bombing was meant to publicize Venezuelan Hezbollah’s existence and its mission to “build an Islamic nation in Venezuela and all the countries of America,” under the guidance of “the ideology of the revolutionary Islam of the Imam Khomeini.”

Anchorage Daily News:

Leaders from four Western Alaska villages have rejected an offer of free heating oil from a Venezuelan- owned company because that nation’s president this month called President Bush “a devil” and made other inflammatory comments about the United States.

“Despite the critical need for fuel in our region, the Unangan (Aleut) people are Americans first, and we cannot support the political agenda attached to this donation,” read a statement from Aleutian Pribilof Islands Association released late Thursday.

Under a program from Texas-based refiner Citgo, which is owned by the Venezuelan government, that is giving cheap and free heating fuel to poor people across the country, more than 12,000 rural Alaska homes in about 150 villages are scheduled to receive 100 free gallons this winter.

Valued at about $5 million, the gift to Alaska is welcome by people in many poor, remote villages. Heating fuel exceeds $7 a gallon in the remotest villages.

Last year, 50,000 spongers in Massachusetts accepted more than 4 million gallons of discounted heating oil from the Venezuelan dictator’s program devised to score a public relations victory over the United States.