To applause and disbelief, Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez denounced US hypocrisy before the UN General Assembly on Sept. 20. What was he thinking? He alluded in his talk to decades of US-sponsored terrorism against Latin America, including Orlando Letelier's 1976 assassination. Doesn't he understand that he is inviting a similar fate? He has already narrowly survived one US-backed coup. Toe the line, Chavez! Or, is it possible - imagine this! - that he believed what he said? Could it be that with his words he actually was trying to sway the international community, to alert them to the grim danger in which they - we - are already embroiled, to urge them - us - to act?

He claimed nothing less: "The hegemonic pretensions of the American empire are placing at risk the very survival of the human species. We continue to warn you about this danger and we appeal to the people of the United States and the world to halt this threat, which is like a sword hanging over our heads."

Aggressive and escalating wars, nuclear proliferation, massive curtailment of civil and human rights in the United States and around the world, rampant inequity, a burgeoning, global environmental crisis unlike any the human race has ever faced - one can hardly accuse Chavez of hyperbole with his diminutive overhanging sword imagery. So let's call him a "nut," like Fox's Neil Cavuto did in his Sept. 20 interview with Colombian president Alvaro Uribe. American policies have systematically exacerbated the perils listed above - but, however nihilistic, that isn't crazy. No, what's crazy is any acknowledgment, however slight, of our grave danger and equally grave responsibility. What's crazy is addressing the UN General Assembly as if all the countries and peoples represented there mattered, as if their concerted actions to save themselves could go beyond the cosmetic posturing that passes for public diplomacy. Chavez, haven't you been paying attention? The United Nations is supposed to be a platform for preaching sweet platitudes that the powerful can use later to freshen the fragrance of their atrocities.

After all, Chavez, just a day before you, the man you called "the Devil" dared to pronounce before the General Assembly's revered body that "from Beirut to Baghdad, people are making the choice of freedom." What better examples could he have given of people choosing to be free and frolicking in the blood-dimmed tide? He even condescended to address the people of Syria and Darfur directly, as if their opinions, concerns, hopes and lives mattered to him. To his credit, Chavez asked a question that doubtlessly did not occur to President Bush: Chavez wondered "what those peoples of the world [would] tell him [Bush] if they were given the floor."

What an odd democracy to fight for, one where the peoples of the world are expected to sit, be lectured at and not respond. One that is imposed. "Aristotle," Chavez suggested, "might not recognize it."

As if to add ironic poignancy to Chavez's mad soliloquy, a day after his speech a great compromise was struck between the White House and renegade Republicans who challenged the President's plan for detainee treatment and trial. Much of the American media jubilantly rang bells and threw rose petals in the air in celebration. See what reasonable people can accomplish when they put their heads together?

The very first provision of Section 7 of the "compromise" agreement announces that the Geneva Conventions cannot be invoked in any habeas or civil action involving the American government or its representatives in a US court. It also grants the President the sole authority "to interpret the meaning and application of the Geneva Conventions." Furthermore, the "compromise" specifically states that these interpretations will be issued by Executive Order, thus circumventing legislative oversight, however vestigial. Perhaps most significantly, the "compromise" replaces paragraph 3 of the definition of a war crime from the federal criminal code pertaining to war crime offenses (Section 2441 of Title 18, Part 1, Chapter 118).

According to the old paragraph 3, the term "war crime" means any conduct "which constitutes a violation of Common Article 3 of the international conventions signed at Geneva, 12 August 1949, or any protocol to such convention to which the United States is a party and which deals with non-international armed conflict."

The new paragraph 3 instead cites conduct "which constitutes a grave breach of Common Article 3 as defined in subsection (d) when committed in the context of and in association with an armed conflict not of an international character."

Notice the difference? Implicitly, violations are now tolerable; only grave breaches are punishable. Subsection (d) then lists and defines the nine breaches that are considered grave, including torture, murder and rape. These definitions themselves merit careful scrutiny: in particular, one should ask what this administration considers "severe" or "serious" bodily injury, pain or suffering. Read the definitions and the compromise for yourself at: natseclaw.typepad.com/natseclaw/files/Admin.SASC.Agreement.pdf and balkin.blogspot.com/bush.mccain.OtherIssuesAgreement.pdf. There are loads of other surprises, such as provisions that enable the use of secret evidence against detainees.

Like Chavez, sniffing through a fog of hypocrisy and cynicism, I smell sulfur. For that reason, I'm not inclined to view his speech as a mere stunt for personal aggrandizement - though it may also have been that. I read it instead as a warning and an appeal that we and the rest of the world must heed. The evisceration of the Geneva Conventions is only another example that demonstrates the urgency of our situation.

[Ed. note: Chavez's speech to the UN can be read at commondreams.org/views06/0920-22.htm.]