The good ole Hugo being good ole Hugo. Banning overflights of US airliners is just a move to show his people "look, I am a hero against the big old evil". On the other hand, we are hated in oil rich countries because we don't walk the walk, of the talk of democracy we keep preaching about. Shash's Iran, Fahd's S.Arabia, Al-Sabah family in Kuwait, The "Turkmenbashi" in Kazakhistan, or even Saddam in Iraq are good examples of tyranny we support just because the have oil.. I am drving a 1600cc car, you should all be doing that too.. Oh yeah, I am getting a Diamond TwinStar that burns 8.8 gallons/hr too. :) BAHA Fan of knowing my facts.. -----Original Message----- From: The Airline List [mailto:AIRLINE@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Travel Pages Sent: Monday, February 27, 2006 2:04 PM To: AIRLINE@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: Re: SFGate: Venezuela Delays Airline Ban Until March .... only increasing the nation's determination to rid itself of a dependence on foreign oil. It won't happen overnight, or all at once, but staying on that course should give exporting countries a wake-up call: convert your oil wealth today into an infrastructure that will keep you above starvation levels tomorrow. At the moment, this is not the case for nations like Venezuela that basically have a single export product. Should someone "decide" that driving gas to $7.50/gallon domestically is preferable to circuitously funding some unfriendly nations, watch out, because the effect would carry greater devastation than WWII and every subsequent military action: Rand Corporation's estimation of the size of the Third World famine (if the US stopped importing oil tomorrow) is on order of 200M+ people. No wonder we are hated in almost every country in which we drive an oil-based economy. We are the hand that feeds, and we know it all too well... and we're stating publically ("addicted to foreign oil" says POTUS) that we want to change this behavior. "Agarwalla, Niraj" <Niraj.Agarwalla@xxxxxxx> wrote: I can't help reading this as another attempt by Hugo Chavez to put a thumb in the eye's of the United States. Nevertheless, I think negotiations are the way to go to resolve any outstanding issues. -- Niraj Agarwalla --------------------------------- Yahoo! Mail Bring photos to life! New PhotoMail makes sharing a breeze.