Exactly a week ago Hugo Chávez was saying that an American “mercenary” was arrested and was being interrogated in Venezuela.

Many (myself included) took it as one of Hugo’s many tall tales, particularly since – after saying that the man is a Hispanic Marine – Hugo added this detail,

The president said the man was carrying a U.S. passport with entrance and exit stamps from countries including Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya

Hugo also now says the man’s passport had a stamp from Jordan, too.

Jordan, Libya, whatever.

Now the latest on the mysterious Marine story is this,

U.S. officials will be allowed access on Wednesday to an American citizen arrested in Venezuela on suspicion of being a mercenary

Clearly implying a plot was afoot less than two months before a presidential election, the socialist leader has said the man was detained entering illegally from Colombia a week ago and sought to destroy some coordinates in a notebook at the time.
…
CONCILIATORY CHAVEZ

Chavez was conciliatory in his latest comments.

“Of course we are going to collaborate with the U.S. government, and I hope they will collaborate with us. The signs we have received, (Foreign Minister) Nicolas (Maduro) tells me, are positive,” he said.

Don’t get too excited over that “conciliatory” thing:

El Nuevo Herald has documents showing that Chavez will send out a militia of 2,000 to “patrol and control” electrical power installations during the upcoming election. Chavez insists that the USA is plotting with the opposition to disrupt the electoral process, after which he says the USA will invade Venezuela.

As if that’s not nuts enough, one of the documents states that the plot

“is organized in the United States of North [sic] America with the support of the Venezuelan extreme right and transnational businesses, and with the technical support of Corpolec (state agency that took over all the electrical suppliers in the country) specialists, both active and retired, which support it.”

And then people wonder why I don’t read fiction anymore.

Far-fetched and downright delusional as all this sounds, it’s worth noting that the militia’s allegiance is to Chavez’s Bolivarian Revolution, unlike the Army, whose allegiance is to Venezuela. Chavez, as long-time readers of this blog know, has committed to creating a militia 1,000,000 strong, while embarking in an armaments race with the help of the Russians.

Cross-posted at Fausta’s blog

This post was promoted from GreenRoom to HotAir.com.
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