Hugo Chavez is not a bad guy, thats US propaganda. He is legitimately elected by he people of his country and Venezuela is a peaceful nation. Watch the documentary "South of the Border" by Oliver Stone. You will see the truth about South America and Hugo Chavez, he is really a nice guy.
Leaving the Yanks' propaganda apart, I would not exactly call that man a "nice guy". He's a virtual dictator who has held onto power through force and silencing--similar to what the present AKP Turkish party is doing according to many Turks. Now don't get me wrong-- I am the last person to be a democracy puppy-boy. I got no qualms about how he rules his country; but Venezuela has seen some serious unrest from political opposition and Chevez clamping them down with force. He has nationalized all the oil companies and other industrial sectors bringing a serious level of red tapism and slowing Venezuela's industrial growth. There had been some riots a few months back on this in Caracas.
As for Yanks' words; they are getting shallower and shallower; some stupid rights body in their government puts India along Afghanistan in terms of religious "freedom" when we all know how much the Con party bends backwards for votebank and silencing of any "undesirable news". Another body suggests that our space activities must be monitored considering that we might 'weaponize' the space (Goodness knows what that means because it would be an industrial miracle if DRDO could make a 'Death Star' to scare the daylights out of US strategists.. LOL!).
To them Burma is the biggest threat in this part of the world when they are not taking action against a nuclear DPRK that is a threat to ROK and Japan and a fundamentalist-terror factory Pakistan that is a threat to everyone from Israel to India in this region. They question our transparency when a non-Muslim entering their darling Saudi is searched for some visible religious symbols that are simply thrown into the dumpster (there is this Swiss Hindu guy I chatted up on PDF who told me about this nasty truth he experienced in the KSA.. guess he is around this forum as well) and this is simply ignored.
And it would be great if our weaklings in Con party like MMS and rest of Sonia's Puppet Show don't give in to US pressures for big ticket deals that curb our political autonomy in the future.