Chavez had long courted all our enemies; funding Al-Qaeda after 9/11, bringing in Russian arms and Libyan Katushka missiles & technicians, funneling Middle Easterners through their Oni-Dex citizen registration process before issuing them Venezuelan passports on there way to North America, depositing 4.5 billion $'s with China who does more business with them now than the rest of South & Central America combined, Venezuelan govt envoys visiting, consorting & praising N Korea, Chavez first head of state to visit Iraq in supporting Saddam Hussein after first Iraq war, receiving secret C-130 shipments from Iraq right before last Iraq war. Chavez trading arms for narcotics with Colombian narcoterrorists FARC/ELN. And, of course, Castro was his mentor and Chavez was Cuba's essential oil source. And, one of Castro's bio-weapons facility with technicians was shipped to Venezuela. Oh, yeah, did I also mention Chavez had been for years pushing France to release 'Carlos the Jackal', brother of Raphael Ramirez, Chavez's former Minister of Energy & Mines and current President of PDVSA, to Venezuela to 'serve out' his prison term there. I'd first gotten most of the above direct from his former top military staff; Commanding General's of the army, air force, navy, national guard and military academy and civil ministers down there, including the head of Oni-Dex office, and his personal presidential airbus pilot Major Diaz, who all quit him in disgust & public protest in late 2002. Helped get Major Diaz, in fear for his life, secreted out to Miami and arranged for extensive debriefing by FBI there, along with lots of documentation provided then, too. Tried to reveal some of what I'd learned back in 2002 & 2003 via major media up here, including Major Diaz first-hand knowledge of Chavez giving Taliban $1 million AFTER 9/11, which then made front page news all across Venezuela when we released it... ...but could only get traction via the internet up here... http://www.financialsense.com/node/223 http://www.wnd.com/?pageId=1659 http://www.aim.org/aim-report/aim-report-joe-mccarthy-was-right/ http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/802763/posts http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/showthread.php?t=50657 Some of the internal links and photos in the stories above don't come up, as the protest site militaresdemocraticos run by a friend of mine is now down, but archive here still shows many of them from then, when I was there, of what all was going on... http://web.archive.org/web/20060518011401/www.militaresdemocraticos.com/en/oficiales.html That archive site also links to more in-depth articles of all of Chavez diverse shenanigans. While I was stunned to see the lack of interest by our major media and our govt back then, I did get confirmation later about unseen agenda's behind the scenes leaving us unintentionally, or not, vulnerable. Love to see some wikileaks to & from our U.S. embassy in Venezuela from back then, as they were clearly, contrary to popular belief, not supportive of Chavez being ousted then. (USA needed to assure uninterrupted fuel with upcoming Iraq invasion, was what we were later told privately by Congressional sources for hands-off regarding Chavez then.) Which was a terrible shame and lost opportunity, as popular sentiment in Venezuela then already had him packing his bags with plane waiting to take him to his prepared hacienda in Cuba. (I knew this for a fact because many still close to Chavez regime were giving hourly updates to top military who had recently resigned in protest.) If only Bush had come out and publicly added him to his short list of evil axis nations back then, he'd be gone today, I have no doubt. Just international coverage and outrage of his support of Taliban after 9/11 would have done it, he was that close to leaving, one foot out the door. All our future problems with Chavez regime need not to of been. Yes, Chavez is now gone, but his legacy persists, unfortunately. Shane Connor www.ki4u.com Shane Connor is the CEO of www.ki4u.com. Consultants and developers of Civil Defense solutions to Government, NPO's and Individual Families. Everyone is invited to copy, post, print, and distribute this article anywhere, as long as they do so without charging anything for it. It must be reproduced in entirety, including this notice, and not be altered or edited. To contact the author with comments, e-mail: Shane Connor at shane@ki4u.com