VHeadline editor & publisher Roy S. Carson writes: Somehow, I don't really think the rooftops around the venue of the British Labour Party will be bristling with any more police snipers today ... and I don't really believe that any SWAT squads or Special Branch police ... or even MI5 spooks ... will be tailing Venezuela's London Ambassador Samuel Moncada and/or his Charge d'Affairs Felix Plasencia any closer than they usually do, following today's Daily Express opinion page headline "Could this woman be Gordon Brown's smiling assassin?"
The editorial, penned by the Express' chief political commentator, pictures Prime Minister Brown's Communities' Secretary (Minister) Hazel Blears and highlights the fact that she is one of a group of Cabinet "rebels" in the British Labour Party who are actively seeking Brown's demise...
Switch a few thousand miles south and west to the shores of the Caribbean and, in quite another political setting, what would the chances of Minister Blears physical survival be after being headlined as a "Smiling Assassin!"
How soon, indeed, would she be burned alive and at the stake, if Venezuela's former Education Minister, Aristobulo Isturiz' had any hand in it?
Ms. Blears is probably counting her many blessings, though, that she doesn't have to contend with Isturiz today ... although, she may have caused much petulation in Brown's immediate fawning circle ... much of a muchness with President Hugo Chavez Frias' own attending courtiers presently sampling the delights of Beijing en route for Moscow and beyond.
The Express headline highlights what some may consider to be a cultural difference inherent in various shades of democracy ... not to speak of presidential or prime ministerial security!
VHeadline's radio anchorman John Sanchez caught the 'nicety' nicely on Monday's VHeadline Venezuela Newshour on the American Voice Radio Network (AVRN) when he questioned President Hugo Chavez Frias patent paranoia over the A-word!
And just because it is paranoia, it doesn't mean that there's nobody out there waiting for an opportunity to assassinate Venezuela's democratically-elected President! In fact, if there wasn't a would-be assassin lurking somewhere in the wings to take a pop at the President, Chavez could surely have occasion to ask himself why?
Hey, let's be realistic about it!
Besides all the mentally unbalanced would-be hit-men, and the quasi-legitimate 'James Bond'-type licensed-to-kill characters, there's surely a plethora of hinged and otherwise un-hinged possibilities out there just biding their time, waiting, waiting! It's all part of the shady world of international diplomacy (or lack of it) and anyone who believes otherwise is probably plucking harp-strings on some remote cloud in their own special seventh heaven!
Like if you ACTUALLY believe there aren't such hired-assassins in George W. Bush's stable, we've got a beautiful bridge to sell you somewhere!
So what's it REALLY all about? YES! We can agree that, perhaps, Hugo Chavez Frias has placed himself right on the bull's eye as a potential target if not actually trimmed the bullet with his name on to cold steel precision! It's all in the nature of the man! In one form or another its what anyone can expect when they stick their head up above the parapet and use sledgehammers with bruising effect on 'delicate toes'!
We at VHeadline have trod on supremely delicate toes when, several years ago, we highlighted the fact that Venezuela's Ministry of Communications & Information (MinCI) in Caracas was a rat's nest of false-flagged Chavistas and that then-Vice Minister Yuri ('I have been a revolutionary for 25 years') Pimentel was doing to Venezuela's domestic and international media image roughly what a wild bull could effectively achieve in a china shop! Since then, of course, Yuri has "progressed" as a self-professed "revolutionary" through the vice presidency of TeleSur on the tail-coats of his bosom buddy Andres Izarra and lately to cause chaos at Venezolana de Television (VTV) as though it weren't already in enough chaos before he started on it! Back then "Revolutionary Yuri" had thrown a hissy-fit because we dared tell the inside story ... but we haven't sought to assassinate HIM! ... he's doing a good enough job of self-destruction all on his own!
But way back in Manchester (UK) and under the intense scrutiny of Venezuela's London Ambassador Samuel Moncada (a close confrere of "burn 'em alive" former Education Minister Isturiz), Hazel Blears need not, reasonably, fear a physical blade in her back or a silver bullet in the back of her head. As the Daily Express' appointed 'Smiling Assassin' she may perhaps display a momentary grimace but she'll soldier on about her political responsibilities without needing to be wary of the approach of either Moncada or any Isturiz emissary!
You could say the English, MI5, MI6, James Bond, whatever, don't do things like that ... but you'd be wrong! ... they just do it with a little more finesse!
Their United States' counterparts may be 'gung-ho' and more heavily-holstered, but they don't necessarily let their targets know in advance of when the lights are about to be switched out!
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