Designate Venezuela a State Sponsor of Terrorism

     In my post in August of 2010, 2,000 Visits to My Blog, http://williamcinfici.blogspot.com/2010/08/2000-visits-to-my-blog.html, I mentioned a bill sponsored by United States Representative Connie Mack (R-FL) to require the State Department to designate Venezuela a state sponsor of terrorism. Current congressional hearings have given new weight to his cause.

     In addition to Venezuela’s support for the Marxist narcoterrorists, FARC (The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia), the regime of dictator Hugo Chavez supports the leftist Basque separatists, the ETA, a recognized terrorist organization, and its banks provide financial safe harbor to Iranian-sponsored terrorist organizations, such as Hezbollah, which has been expanding its influence in the Western Hemisphere. 

     Designation as a state sponsor of terrorism by the State Department triggers a set of harsh sanctions and restrictions on the regime. Currently, Cuba, Iran, Sudan and Syria are the only states on the list. Chavez, who admires Cuba’s Fidel Castro, has become a central figure in the Axis of Rogues I mentioned previously. He has established particularly warm relations with Iran, among other rogue states, and has attempted to spread his Marxist revolution throughout Latin America. Designating his regime as a terrorist sponsor would call attention to the threat he poses to liberty in the Western Hemisphere and help keep him in check by denying him the oil revenue he earns from Americans to fund his sinister machinations.