Hugo Chávez’s anti-imperialistic rhetoric has paid off - if not yet completely here on his own turf, where his totalitarian schemes still faces stubborn yet erratic opposition, then certainly in the hearts and minds of many Latin Americans who see him as Fidel Castro's historic relief pitcher when it comes to relentless anti-Americanism.

Chávez likes to talk during his Sunday morning talk-shows about turning every Venezuelan citizen into an "asymmetric warrior," always on alert to repel any American military attempts to Chavez's influence on the rest of the continent.

Many of his political opponents here once dismissed these tirades as empty prattle whose only effect was to secure more corrupt arms deals with the Russians. But when several months ago he created a "people's militia," which trains every other weekend under the eyes of Cuban military advisors, those tirades no longer sound so preposterous.

Clearly, these middle-aged, undisciplined squads of beer-paunch milicianos who drag their feet through utterly laughable war games while dreaming only of their paychecks would be no match for any U.S. airborne battalion. Their real mission is to beef up large units of heavily-armed civilians to deter any democratic opposition to Chávez. The same is true for the gangs of gun-toting thugs who ride motorbikes, taunt and even shoot at opposition rallies, wounding and on occasion killing unarmed demonstrators or members of independent television crews.

Venezuela's recent ties to Iran are feeble and mostly symbolic: broken Iranian-made tractors already rust under the sun in abandoned Venezuelan sugar cane communes that despite Cuban technical advice (or perhaps because of Cuban technical advice) never went into production. But those ties have prompted Mr. Chávez to boast of being Mr. Ahmadinejad's true Latin American ally.

Should a U.S. air strike against Iran ever occur, Mr. Chávez says, he wouldn’t hesitate to shut off the Venezuelan oil supply to the U.S. Humbug or not, there is no denying that Mr. Chávez has earned a reputation of putting Venezuela's petrodollars where his mouth is.

Mr. Bush's reckless talk of war on Iran is just one of the thousand ways Washington is forcefully helping Mr. Chávez's unapologetic totalitarian schemes come true.

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ADDENDUM

This post is in response to Dimik's "ad hominen" commment:

Even the shortest foray into the net would let you know that I was among the few Venezuelan journalists, if not the only one, who denounced the privately-owned news blackout during the 2002 coup against Mr. Chávez. Those privately-owned media included the daily to which you allude, and for which I no longer write. [ I promise to update my resumé: I now write for the daily "Tal Cual". I also intend to post a more becoming photograph of myself.]

The constitutional reform that Mr. Chávez recently advanced includes bending more than 30 articles in such a way as to enable his "revolutionary and democratic government" to restrain the Venezuelan people's most elementary human rights - notably the right to be informed, during exceptional circumstances such as a military coup. Pinochet did not have it so easy.
I, of course, cannot but denounce such intentions, just as I did during the 2002 coup against a legitimately elected president whom I did not vote for.

Still, I wonder why should an independent columnist be deemed guilty of being just a pawn of the owners of the paper that runs his opinions?

Does that logic apply to the contributors to, say, Le Monde Diplomatique? Are they all, as you seem to imply, just well-paid propagandists of "progressive" governments like those of Castro, Morales, Ortega and Chávez?