Oil, paranoia and Venezuela

We would not wish for the people of any nation to be ruled by a dictatorial leader who is prone to believing the wildest conspiracy theories imaginable.

But the rule of paranoid President Hugo Chavez in Venezuela is particularly troubling because of his nation's vast oil supplies.

The United States imports a good deal of oil from Venezuela, sadly enriching the Chavez regime. But recently Chavez bizarrely suggested that the United States may be behind the fact that he and other leftist Latin American leaders have developed cancer.

He admitted to having no proof of this, but that didn't stop him from raising the "possibility."

Isn't this ludicrous accusation -- not to mention Chavez's previous threats to cut off oil to the United States -- good reason for us to develop our own big supplies of oil?

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