If you haven’t had a chance to hear or read the transcript of Hugo Chavez’s address to the UN Assembly, do yourself a favor and check it out here:
[link]

If you listen to the US corporate-controlled media, all you have heard is the “devil” remarks, and there are so many more substantive comments made in this wonderful, gutsy speech!

The uproar caused by these remarks is really quite interesting. The condemnations in the media have been virtually universal, ranging from liberal Democrats like Congressman Charles Rangle of New York who said "You don't come into my country; you don't come into my congressional district and you don't condemn my president," and Democratic Speaker of the House Nacy Pelosi, who called Chavez “a common thug” (boy,with friends like these, who needs enemies?) to conservatives like US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice who said she would "not dignify" the attack with a comment. "It is not becoming of a head of state," and US Ambassador John Bolton who said "We're not going to address that sort of comic strip approach to international affairs".

The real question posed by Chavez' remarks is not whether we think they were out of line, but why his audience at the UN applauded them (the Secretary had to finally gavel the session to order after several minutes of applause). As is its custom, the US media has ignored the very specific charges Chavez made, and focused only on the inflammatory remarks. In this case, the devil really is in the details. Chavez made the following points:

1) The US used its veto to block UN attempts to stop the Israeli attacks on Lebanon. This is undeniable.

2) The US refuses to extradite Luis Posada Carriles who perpetrated the 1976 bombing of a Cubana Flight 455 in which seventy-three people were killed, including the entire teenage Cuban Olympic fencing team. Carriles is a Venezuelan citizen, and Venezuela's Supreme Court has formally requested his extradition so that he can be tried for this terrorist act. In spite of the fact that the US has an extradition treaty with Venezuela, the US has refused, claiming he 'faced the threat of torture in Venezuela'. This also undisputed, and rings particularly hollow this week, with Bush advocating torture and with the Canadian government's findings that an innocent man, Maher Arar, was rendered by the US to Syria where he was tortured and imprisoned for 10 1/2 months.

3) The Bush administration condoned and supported the 2002 coup attempt against Chavez that was stopped by massive civilian demonstrations in the streets of Venezuela. This has been denied by the US, but widely reported throughout the world in respected publications like The Observer:
"The failed coup in Venezuela was closely tied to senior officials in the US government, The Observer has established. They have long histories in the 'dirty wars' of the 1980s, and links to death squads working in Central America at that time."

If these specific charges are news to you, it's because they have been ignored in this country. The US news media has abetted those politicians who want to keep America distracted from the real complaints the rest of the world has about our actions. Unfortunately, by calling Bush the Devil, Chavez gave them a sound bite, which they happily used to drown out the substance of his remarks.

As an aside, after Chavez recommended that anyone wishing to understand "what has been happening in the world through the 20th century" read Professor Noam Chomsky's 2003 work, Hegemony or Survival: America's Quest for Global Dominance, sales of the book soared. On Amazon.com's best-seller list, it leapt from 160,722nd position overnight to 2!! This is really a fantastic book dealing with the truths about US imperialism over the last century. If you haven’t read it, pick it up! (or ANY books by Noam Chomsky, for that matter )