Gold9472
01-23-2006, 07:57 PM
Venezuela tells McCain "go to hell" for wackos jibe
http://go.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=domesticNews&storyID=10941964&src=rss/domesticNews
(Gold9472: Yeah John McCain, GO TO HELL!)
Mon Jan 23, 2006 03:50 PM ET
CARACAS, Venezuela (Reuters) - Venezuela's vice president on Monday told top U.S. Republican Sen. John McCain he could "go to hell" for suggesting that "wackos" were governing the oil-producing South American country.
Commenting on U.S. reliance on foreign oil supplies, McCain told Fox News Sunday, "We better understand the vulnerabilities that our economy and our very lives have ... when we're dependent on Iranian mullahs and wackos in Venezuela."
Venezuela, the world's fifth-largest oil exporter and an OPEC member like Iran, supplies 15 percent of U.S. energy imports. But ties between Washington and left-wing President Hugo Chavez have deteriorated rapidly since his 1998 election.
"He can go to hell," Vice President Jose Vicente Rangel said responding to remarks by McCain, a prominent Republican and a possible U.S. presidential candidate in 2008.
"Maybe he has got nothing to do over there in the United States," he said.
Venezuela and the United States often trade barbs over Chavez's self-described socialist revolution, his close political ties with U.S. foe Cuba and his criticism of U.S. foreign policies.
A former army paratrooper prone to quoting Ernesto "Che" Guevara and Karl Marx, Chavez presents his revolution as a counter to U.S. free-market proposals for South America. He often accuses Washington of plotting his overthrow.
U.S. officials dismiss that as populist rhetoric, but say they worry Chavez has become a destabilizing influence by interfering in the politics of his South American neighbors.
© Reuters 2006. All Rights Reserved.
http://go.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=domesticNews&storyID=10941964&src=rss/domesticNews
(Gold9472: Yeah John McCain, GO TO HELL!)
Mon Jan 23, 2006 03:50 PM ET
CARACAS, Venezuela (Reuters) - Venezuela's vice president on Monday told top U.S. Republican Sen. John McCain he could "go to hell" for suggesting that "wackos" were governing the oil-producing South American country.
Commenting on U.S. reliance on foreign oil supplies, McCain told Fox News Sunday, "We better understand the vulnerabilities that our economy and our very lives have ... when we're dependent on Iranian mullahs and wackos in Venezuela."
Venezuela, the world's fifth-largest oil exporter and an OPEC member like Iran, supplies 15 percent of U.S. energy imports. But ties between Washington and left-wing President Hugo Chavez have deteriorated rapidly since his 1998 election.
"He can go to hell," Vice President Jose Vicente Rangel said responding to remarks by McCain, a prominent Republican and a possible U.S. presidential candidate in 2008.
"Maybe he has got nothing to do over there in the United States," he said.
Venezuela and the United States often trade barbs over Chavez's self-described socialist revolution, his close political ties with U.S. foe Cuba and his criticism of U.S. foreign policies.
A former army paratrooper prone to quoting Ernesto "Che" Guevara and Karl Marx, Chavez presents his revolution as a counter to U.S. free-market proposals for South America. He often accuses Washington of plotting his overthrow.
U.S. officials dismiss that as populist rhetoric, but say they worry Chavez has become a destabilizing influence by interfering in the politics of his South American neighbors.
© Reuters 2006. All Rights Reserved.