Venezuela is getting increasingly militarized. We know that from the photos of Hugo Chavez brandishing rifles, alongside his vow to start a Kalashnikov factory. That doesn’t mean his military is getting more professional, however. If anything, they are more incompetent, and easier to beat in battle than ever.

Chavez’s priority isn’t military excellence, but to expand and use the military to scare his neighbors. He’s wasting state funds on unproductive investments. He’s contributing to crime as extra rifles get into the hands of drug criminals. He’s intimidating Venezuelans.

Of all the things Venezuelans need … like, good roads, good bridges, good schools, baseball fields for kids, crime-free environments, oil-industry upgrades, easy business licenses, available housing … is a Kalashnikov factory really the investment Venezuelans should be most concerned about?

That’s the whole problem with Hugo Chavez.

Venezuelan bloggers are focusing on this issue and there are several good pieces out there:

Miguel Octavio at Devil’s Excrement has translated an essay by Ana Julia Jatar asking Hugo Chavez whom he thinks he’s pointing all those rifles at. She notes something I noted earlier this week, that Chavez was pointing his rifle and grinning at the same moment he was threatening to shut down the press. Like her, I think that’s significant. It’s a good essay, and it can be read here.

Miguel’s other essay, comparing the war-grade crime statistics of Venezuela, with Chavez’s clown-like obsession with a U.S. invasion, is a devastatingly good read, if you haven’t already seen it, here.

Daniel Duquenal at Venezuela News & Views has written his own essay on how the military has its hands into businesses, like tomato-processing factories, that it knows nothing about operating efficiently. Isn’t that the most tinpot thing, the army running tomato factories? It sounds like Soeharto’s Indonesia! It’s a money pit! And once again, though the country needs roads, somehow Chavez has the army running tomato factories! Read the disgusting details of this chavista fiasco here.

Here’s something else on the state of the Venezuelan military. Can you believe these guys are for real?

Source: YouTube