Venezuela ships oil to Syria in violation of sanctions

I'm riffing off a Reuters exclusive here, and it's got to be just about the fishiest story of the day.

Yes, there's lots of oil in Venezuela, and most of it gets shipped to the US, but because Chavez is a bit of an independent thinker and likes to call American leaders nasty names, we don't like him. Therefore our independent Western media seldom misses a chance for an anti-Chavez smear.

So of course, the evil Chavez would violate sanctions that are intended to bring the despotic and freedom-hating al-Assad regime to its knees.

Never mind that Syria is herself an oil exporting country. Never mind that its next-door neighbor Iran, also rumored to have some oil reserves, maintains friendly relations with the al-Assad government. Never mind that Venezuela is not a party to any international embargo of trade with Syria.

It's just such a darn good story!

And Reuters manages to juice it up even more with speculation that Assad needs the oil to fuel the tanks and heavy artillery that have been busy firing on unarmed protesters these past eleven months!