Neg for Venezuela Practice Debate

---Laundry List

Our GOP, Appeasement, Cuba Lobby, Committee and Rubio Links

Mazzei, 12

Patricia, and Erika Bolstad, Miami Herald, 7/11/12, http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/07/11/v-fullstory/2891728/republicans-attack-obama-for-chavez.html

Mitt Romney, GOP howl over President Barack Obama’s remark about Hugo Chávez Republicans criticize President Obama for saying Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez has not threatened U.S. national security. The region’s experts, however, side with Obama. Republicans, led by Mitt Romney and Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, pounced on President Barack Obama on Wednesday after he told a Miami TV anchor that Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez does not pose a “serious” national security threat to the United States. Republicans wasted no time in firing up a key South Florida constituency coveted by both Romney and Obama: Cuban-American voters who hate Chávez for his close ties to the Castro regime in Cuba. “President Obama hasn’t been paying attention if he thinks that Hugo Chávez, with buddies like the regimes in Cuba, Iran, and Syria, drug cartels, arms traffickers, and extremist groups, is not a threat to the United States,” said Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen of Miami, chairwoman of the House Foreign Affairs committee and co-chair of Romney’s National Hispanic Steering Committee. “I am deeply disappointed that this administration continues to bury its head in the sand about threats to U.S. security, our interests, and our allies.” Rubio said Obama “has been living under a rock” when it comes to Chávez, and said the president “continues to display an alarmingly naïve understanding of the challenges and opportunities we face in the western hemisphere.” Other Cuban-American lawmakers issued statements in the same critical vein, and Senate candidate Connie Mack, a Republican congressman from Fort Myers, tied his opponent Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., to the president’s remarks. Experts in the region, though, called Obama’s comments reasonable. Chávez is “certifiable,” with a tremendous ego fueled by the power that comes from sitting on vast oil reserves — but he’s not as dangerous as the leaders of other less friendly regimes, said Riordan Roett, the director of Latin American Studies Program at the School of Advanced International Studies at The Johns Hopkins University. The Republican criticism is “just pure electoral politics,” Roett said. “He poses no security threat to the United States or anyone else,” Roett said. “Hugo Chávez is not going to attack us, he’s not going to occupy our embassy, he’s not going to bomb U.S. planes arriving in Caracas at Maiquetía Airport. He is a loudmouth who enjoys listening to himself, and has built up on the basis of oil revenue, a very, very populist, dependent regime that can’t deliver on basic services, on goods and commodities to his own people.” Here’s what Obama told Oscar Haza, a Spanish-language broadcast journalist and anchor in an interview with Obama that aired Tuesday night on A Mano Limpia (which roughly translates to “The Gloves Are Off”), Haza’s nightly show on WJAN-Channel 41: “We’re always concerned about Iran engaging in destabilizing activity around the globe,” Obama said. “But overall my sense is that what Mr. Chávez has done over the last several years has not had a serious national security impact on us. We have to be vigilant. My main concern when it comes to Venezuela is having the Venezuelan people have a voice in their affairs, and that you end up ultimately having fair and free elections, which we don’t always see.” Romney called Obama’s comment “stunning and shocking” and said in statement it’s a sign of “a pattern of weakness” in the president’s foreign policy. “It is disturbing to see him downplaying the threat posed to U.S. interests by a regime that openly wishes us ill,” Romney said. “Hugo Chávez has provided safe haven to drug kingpins, encouraged regional terrorist organizations that threaten our allies like Colombia, has strengthened military ties with Iran and helped it evade sanctions, and has allowed a Hezbollah presence within his country’s borders.” White House press secretary Jay Carney declined to answer questions about the president’s remarks. The president’s campaign spokesman, Ben LaBolt, said Romney is only “playing into the hands of Chávez” and his “outdated rhetoric” by giving him any attention. “Because of President Obama’s leadership, our position in the Americas is much stronger today than before he took office,” LaBolt said. “At the same time, Hugo Chávez has become increasingly marginalized and his influence has waned. It’s baffling that Mitt Romney is so scared of a leader like Chávez whose power is fading, while Romney continues to remain silent about how to confront al-Qaeda or how to bring our troops home from Afghanistan.” Michael Shifter, president of the Washington D.C.-based think tank Inter-American Dialogue, cautioned that it’s up to the president to judge in an election year whether it’s politically smart to talk about Chávez in a way that draws such heated Republican response in South Florida — especially considering how valuable the swing state’s votes are to Obama’s prospects.

---Cuba Lobby (Assumes Maduro)

Venezuala and Cuba policies inherently tied – even after chavez

Toro, 13

Fransisco Toro, Venezuelan journalist, political scientist, reported for the Washington Post, the New York Times and the Financial Times, and was Editor of VenEconomy, Venezuela's leading bilingual business magazine. Since 2002, he has run Caracas Chronicles, the must-read English-language blog on all things Venezuelan He holds a BA from Reed College (1997), and MSc from the London School of Economics (1999) and is currently a doctoral candidate in Political Science at the University of Maastricht, in The Netherlands. New Republic, 3/5/13, http://www.newrepublic.com/article/112596/hugo-chavez-dead-cuba-defined-him-much-venezuela-did#

What Fidel Taught Hugo Cuba defined Chávez's career as much as Venezuela did Hugo Chávez died today in Venezuela at the age of 58, but his battle with a never-specified form of cancer was waged largely in a Cuban hospital—a telling detail, as Cuba loomed just as large in his political imagination as his native country. It's a point that my gringo friends up north always struggle with. The Cuban Revolution's immense influence on the region has been constantly underestimated and misunderstood from day one. It's only a slight exaggeration to suggest that everything of note that's happened south of the Rio Grande since 1959 has been an attempt either to emulate, prevent, or transcend the Cuban experience. Chávez will be remembered as the most successful of Fidel Castro's emulators, the man who breathed new life into the old revolutionary dream. Starting in the 1960s, guerrilla movements throughout the hemisphere tried to replicate the Sierra Maestra rebels' road to power, to no avail. In the '70s, Chile's Salvador Allende tried the electoral route, but he didn't have a clear majority. In the '80s, Nicaragua's Sandinistas had the majority and rode it to power, but took over a state too bankrupt to implement the social reforms they'd always championed. Chávez had all three—power, votes, and money—plus charisma to boot. His was the last, best shot at reinventing Caribbean Communism for the 21st century. At the root of the extraordinarily close alliance Chávez built with Cuba was a deep, paternal bond between two men. A fiercely independent figure, the messianic Chávez was never seen to kowtow to anyone. But there were special rules for Fidel. Chávez's extraordinary devotion sprung from Castro's status as the mythical Hero-Founder of Latin America's post-war hard left. Chávez loved to brag of his frequent, spur-of-the-moment trips to Havana to seek Castro counsel. When he was diagnosed with the cancer that ultimately killed him, Chavez got invites from high-tech medical centers in Brazil and in Spain, but it was never in doubt where he would seek treatment. Chávez trusted Fidel, literally, with his life. There's no comparable relationship between two leaders in contemporary world politics, and it had its political consequences—especially for Chávez. In a Cold War throwback, his government welcomed tens of thousands of Cuban doctors, trainers, and "advisors"—including, por supuesto, an unknowable number of spies—to Venezuela. And tens of billions of petrodollars flowed in the opposite direction, a resource stream that propped up the last bastion of totalitarianism in the Western Hemisphere long past its sell-by date. For Fidel, who had had his eyes on Venezuela's oil riches since the 1960s, Chávez's election was an unbelievable stroke of luck. Much has been written about the way Venezuela stepped in to fill the fiscal and strategic void the collapse of the Soviet Union left in Cuba, but the reality is much stranger than that. As the unquestionably senior member of their Cold War alliance, the Soviets treated Cuba as just another satellite state; Fidel's subjugation to a cold war superpower was always something of an embarrassment to him. In the Caracas-Havana axis, by contrast, the paymaster doubled up as the vassal. Venezuela effectively wrote a fat petrocheck month after month for the privilege of being tutelaged by a poorer, weaker foreign power. The extent of this reverse colonization was startling. Cuban flags eventually came to flutter above Venezuelan military bases and Venezuelans witnessed the surreal spectacle of a democratically elected president telling them that Venezuela and Cuba share "a single government" and that Venezuela "has two presidents." Cuban military advisors kept watch over Venezuela's entire security apparatus, and had exclusive control over Chávez's personal security detail. Through most of his 20-month battle with cancer, the Castros had better information about the president's condition than even his inner circle back home, and they maneuvered successfully to ensure a pro-Havana diehard, Nicolás Maduro, won the tough battle for succession.

Economic support for venezuala is key factor in Cuba policy – Maduro changes nothing

Ponce, 13

Dr. Carlos Ponce, general coordinator of the Latin American and Caribbean Network for Democracy, co-editor of the political magazine “Nueva Politica”, lecturer in several U.S. and Latin American Universities and member of the Steering Committee of the World Movement for Democracy and the ISC of the Community of Democracies, 1/12/13, http://www.capitolhillcubans.com/2013/01/venezuelas-coup-made-in-cuba.html

Hugo Chávez was aware of the potential complications of this new surgery and he clearly said that in case he became unable to take oath on January 10th, or in case of his death, his chosen one to run for president was Nicolás Maduro. And the Constitution in Venezuela is clear: the mandate began on January 10th, 2007 and ends January 10th, 2013, and if the elected president can’t take the oath that day the Assembly’s President assumes power temporarily and calls for new elections within a maximum of 30 days. But for Cuba, which receives more than $10 billion a year plus other benefits from Venezuela, this is not acceptable. Fidel and Raúl Castro have been close friends and supporters of Chávez's regime for economic reasons. Thanks to Hugo Chávez and his fake revolution, the Cuban dictatorial regime has been able to survive this past decade. For Castro’s regime, the future of Chávez will also mark Cuba’s future. The Castro brothers have become the conciliators and advisors of the two most powerful acolytes of Chávez as well as of some fractions from the military. Castro has been coordinating the meetings among Diosdado Cabello, the president of Venezuelan National Assembly, Vice President Maduro, Chávez’s family and some sectors of the military.