God Save us from war, but we have to defend the homeland” - Hugo Chavez

I really don’t pay that much attention to Venezuela and I suspect that most Canadians suffer from a similar apathy but every once and awhile something comes along that catches your eye and you think what the hell? Taken from Watching America and translated by Paula de Werken from El Universal:

To those who filled Bolivar Avenue, the speech of Hugo Chavez was focused on the call to defense by all means possible, including through arms, and the development of the Bolivarian Revolution: "I am going to accelerate building up the Military Reserve and Territorial Guard. I believe that the 100,000 recently contracted Russian rifles are not sufficient. Venezuela needs to have a million well-armed men and women. I have already begun contacting some countries, with whom the United States will have no power to impede the arming of this country."He added that he would speak as soon as possible with the President of the National Assembly, Nicolas Maduro, in order to speed up allocating the additional funds necessary for the acquisition of "a lot [of weaponry]."
(...)
"We don't want to arrive at such extremes. They must decide. What we want is that they leave us alone, that that government finally understands that Venezuela is free and will never again be a colony of the United States," he added.

Venezuela a “colony of the United States”, Chavez should be so lucky. Talk about illusions of grandeur. Watching America has more and pictures too, but I think I will never be able to wear my red roots Olympic beret again without associating it with this tool.