Refugees continue to report the use of white phosphorous weapons-of seeing dead bodies with no bullet holes in them, just scorched patches of skin. A leading campaign group has demanded an urgent inquiry into a report that US troops indiscriminately used a controversial incendiary weapon during the battle for Fallujah. Photographic evidence gathered from the aftermath of the battle suggests that women and children were killed by horrific burns caused by the white phosphorus shells dropped by US forces.

So the U.S. is no paragon of virtue, but the funny thing is that most Americans don't realize it, or if they do, then they don't generally care much about it. They maintain a mental image of America the righteous, the virtuous, spreading peace and democracy everywhere it goes, and they quickly forget the horrors it spreads.

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Unfortunately for the opposition’s political prospects, the current premium price of oil has afforded Chávez the opportunity to win the overwhelming loyalty of Venezuela’s poor – who make up more than half of the country’s population – through meaningful programs which advanced social justice. The progress that he has made with initiatives focusing on health, nutrition, housing and sports have only widened his political success. The opposition on the other hand, despite its control of most of the major media, has remained on the sideline, more interested in beseeching their Washington backers to somehow intervene in Venezuela’s affair, than wholeheartedly participating in Venezuelan democratic procedures. In the decision to boycott the elections rather than face the embarrassment of a crushing defeat, the opposition has proven itself, in the British sense of the phrase, to be the disloyal rather than “the loyal opposition,” ready to pick up its marbles and leave the game once it could be clearly seen that the vote would go against them.