Meanwhile, closer to home
At Insight Magazine, Martin Arostegui reveals From Venezuela, A Counterplot:

As Washington prepares a high-stakes military venture in the Persian Gulf, a growing physical threat is being posed by Iraq, Libya and Iran to the soft underbelly of the United States. Hundreds and possibly thousands of agents from rogue Arab nations are working hard to help President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela take control of South America's largest oil industry and create al-Qaeda-friendly terrorist bases just two hours' flying time from Miami.

Arab advisers now are reinforcing a sizable contingent of Cubans in efforts to reorganize Venezuela's security services, assimilate its industries based on totalitarian models and repress a popular opposition movement. "What happens in Venezuela may affect how you fight a war in Iraq," Gen. James Hill of U.S. Southern Command is reported recently to have told his colleague at U.S. Central Command, Gen. Tommy Franks.

"Chavez is planning to coordinate an anti-American strategy with terrorist states," says Venezuela's former ambassador to Libya, Julio Cesar Pineda, who reveals correspondence between the Venezuelan president and Libyan dictator Muammar Qaddafi about the need to "solidify" ties between liberation movements in the Middle East and Latin America and use oil as an economic weapon.

Exhorting his countrymen to return to their "Arab roots," Chavez has paid state visits to Libya, Iraq and Iran and signed a series of mutual-cooperation treaties with the rogue governments whose operatives now are flooding into Venezuela. There they can blend into an ethnic Arab community estimated at half-a-million.
...
Meanwhile, Iraqi VIPs, moving under the protection of Chavez's secret police -- the Department of Intelligence Security and Prevention (DISIP) -- came to the attention of Venezuela's regular military when government agents tried to use air-force planes to fly five of Saddam Hussein's agents into the interior of the country. Military pilots requested special clearances before allowing the Iraqis onto the C-130s.

Military sources also report that the recently arrived group of Libyans is billeted at the Macuto Sheraton Hotel in La Guaira, which they share with Cuban commandos who have been conducting strike-breaking operations around the nation's oil ports. Local units of the National Guard, the branch of the Venezuelan armed forces responsible for internal security, were reported to be refusing government orders to repress strikers.

According to Capt. Jose Ballabes of the merchant-marine union, the Cubans improvised floating concentration camps on board oil tankers, threatening officers and crews to get them to move the paralyzed vessels. When the Venezuelans still resisted, "such methods as sleep deprivation, often used against political dissidents in Cuba, are being systematically employed against our people," says Ballabes.

Some related news from James Anderson of the AP - Venezuelan Strike Leader Detained by Gunmen Identified as Secret Police:

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) - General strike leader Carlos Fernandez was seized at a restaurant by gunmen who identified themselves as secret police agents, Venezuela's largest business federation said.

Fernandez, president of the Fedecamaras business chamber, was the co-leader of a two-month strike that sought President Hugo Chavez's ouster.
...
The arrest followed the slayings and possible torture of three dissident Venezuelan soldiers and an opposition activist this week.

Human rights groups warned a continuing impasse between Chavez and opponents demanding early elections could lead to more violence.

All four bodies were found in the suburbs of Caracas with their hands tied and their faces wrapped with tape.

Darwin Arguello, Angel Salas and Felix Pinto and opposition activist Zaida Peraza, 25, had multiple bullet wounds and showed signs of torture, Raul Yepez, the deputy director of Venezuela's forensics police, said at a press conference on Wednesday.

According to the New York-based Human Rights Watch, a witness to the abductions saw the victims being forced into two vehicles by men wearing ski masks, not far from the plaza that has become the central rallying point of the opposition. Yepez said the abduction took place on Saturday night.

The biggest penalty of the UN caused delay over Iraq is that all the rats are playing while the cat is otherwise occupied. As I've said before, can't we spare a Predator and a few Hellfires to send Thug Hugo on his way? Hell's only half full.

UPDATE: As usual, Devil's Excrement has all the dirt on Hugo's latest thuggery.