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This is an interesting website….

Muerte a Chavez! Muerte a Musulmanes! Muerte a Comunistas! Viva America! Viva Colombia!

elduende on March 2, 2008 at 9:43 PM

I love it when you talk like that…

eanax on March 3, 2008 at 10:54 AM

Well, first of all my comment stated it would be a good movie plot. But, since you brought it up it wasn’t any army that attacked us on 9/11. Look at the devestation, death and economic havoc that was wreaked on this country that day.

I say: go ahead and see what happens if Hugo crosses that line.

(Besides, without Vieques… Hugo’s Presidential Palace is almost convenient.)

Final thought: AEGIS vs. MiG?

I say AEGIS.

Charger73 on March 3, 2008 at 9:10 AM

I think you’re right. After a couple of “Deliverance” manuvers they would run away screaming.

In all seriousness, with all the gun laws we have today could our population really fight off an invasion that included heavily armed soldiers, tanks, and other heavy weapons. I doubt it. Much of today’s generation are a bunch of whiney brats who have never had to go through anything rough. After they saw someone get their head blown off they would probably roll up in a ball and cry.

I was just reading the Brazilian papers and they are claiming that Colombia has proof that Chavez has given FARC $300 million. Any word on that down there?

sweeper on March 3, 2008 at 3:10 PM

The story about the $300 million is in El Tiempo and also in El Universal (from Venezuela). Another interesting bit is the supposed purchase, or intent to purchase uranium…who knows why? For re-sale?

For me, I am still a bit struck by the fact that the Ecuadorean government appeared ready to supply the FARC with information about Colombian interests in Ecuador. That could have led (or may lead? who knows?) to bombings, killings and kidnappings there. It’s one thing to undermine a state, but it’s quite another, it seems to me, to set up civilians as targets.

Check out the part about Obama: “The gringos asked for an appointment with the minister to ask him to tell us about their interest in talking about the topics. They say their new president will be Obama, and they are interested in his countrymen. Obama will not support Plan Colombia nor will sign the FTA. We responded that we are interested in having relations with all governments on equal conditions and in the case of the United States it will require a public statement expressing their interest in talking with the FARC because of their eternal war against us.”

Who are the gringos???

But the biggest piece of damning info on FARC that has been disseminated from the laptop, is that FARC was in the process of going into the International Terrorism business and has been attempting to obtain quantities of Uranium. Most likely for ‘dirty bombs’ I would imagine. I wonder what else is on that laptop hard-drive!

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601086&sid=aMPbNS8tsmVo&refer=latin_america

This a great post and a development to pay attention to.
Could he be such a megalomanaic that he’ll join Allende in hell so soon?

Blaise on March 3, 2008 at 1:45 PM

Great post Blaise.
I was just reading the Brazilian papers and they are claiming that Colombia has proof that Chavez has given FARC $300 million. Any word on that down there?

Yeah, Bogota is awesome, but I fell in love with Medellin. Great climate, stuff to do, and the Paisa women are absolutely jaw dropping.

Golden Boy on March 3, 2008 at 2:42 PM

My wife’s Paisa. Great, great people.

The US will not allow Chavez to topple the elected government in Colombia. It would probably provide the only possible reason Washington would use military force against Chavez

It is the intent of Chavez to get the U.S. involved
With respect to Ecuador, there is another dynamic unfolding. Although there is no love lost between Ecuador and Colombia and infringement into a sovereign state by the Colombian military is questionable in itself, there is a brewing storm in the state of Guayas and more specifically Guayaquil concerning the Quito based government.
There are indications that in that coastal state, a growing movement to separate itself from Correa has gathered steam.
Correa’s “Robin Hood” approach to siphoning capital from the the more self-sufficient port city, which depends on healthy commerce with the U.S. is meeting with some powerful opposition. Essentially, there is a high probability that certain influences from within Ecuador itself, welcomed albeit aided the hit.
Chavez is doing his best to waken the “Sleeping Giant.”
In the process of concocting his witches-brew, he may be stirring up the stew of his own demise. His delusion as the new “Castro” in the region will be the source of his downfall. The U.S. wont need to get involved. Subtle intervention will be the tune of the day. At least for the time being.

Yeah, Bogota is awesome, but I fell in love with Medellin. Great climate, stuff to do, and the Paisa women are absolutely jaw dropping.

Blaise on March 3, 2008 at 2:22 PM

Made a brief visit in 76. It was pretty. My comment was more a worry over those HugoMigs.

Nice post Blaise. I don’t envy you Bogota but that 2800 meters has me thinking it is time to pull the Meade out again.

Limerick on March 3, 2008 at 2:08 PM

Thanks Limerick…gotta say, though, that Bogota’s an absolutely wonderful city. Trust me on this…if you ever come here, you won’t want to leave.

Blaise on March 3, 2008 at 1:45 PM

Nice post Blaise. I don’t envy you Bogota but that 2800 meters has me thinking it is time to pull the Meade out again.

“Mr. Chavez, please start this war.”

There are several components to this problem which do not appear at first impression.

1. Colombian Pres. Uribe has been going out of his way to stay silent in the face of the increasingly rude…even gross…utterances coming out of Caracas about him. It has been to no avail…Chavez just escalates his rhetoric. There are no limits on what he will say.

2. Some weeks ago, while propounding the idea that the FARC ought to be treated as a “belligerant” and that they had a legitimate “political project” in Colombia (which apparently includes blowing kids up with landmines), he said that Venezuela has a border with the FARC, not Colombia . This was meant to argue that Colombia does not control its frontiers; ergo, given that the FARC holds territory inside Colombia, it should be treated as a belligerant and a legitimate political player. The reality is different, of course; there are areas of Colombia that are dangerous, but the state has control over virtually the entire country.

3. When Chavez said, this past weekend, that Colombia ought not to do there what it did in Ecuador, it raised two possibilities. The first is that the FARC (contrary to Chavez’ protestations)in fact operates inside Venezuela, with the knowledge and support of the Venezuelan governemt. If this is true, then there are international law implications to this. The second possibility, of course, is that the FARC operates in the border areas without the knowledge of the Venezuelan governemt. If this is true, then it means that it is Colombia, and not Venezuela, which in fact has a border with the FARC.

4. Chavez may be nuts, but he has weaponry. They just bought 24 new Russian jet fighters, three new subs and are getting ready to order about 9 more. The newest and most modern aircraft in the Colombian Air Force are propeller driven. They actually are super modern…Brazilian Super Tucanos, which are ideal for air-ground operations…they have been the scourge of the FARC since they were obtained. That said, their existence as the backbone of the Colombia Air Force belies any suggestion that Colombia plans aggression against Venezuela (Colombia has about 12 old KFIR’s which are being refitted and will be obtaining about 13 more mothballed Israeli KFIRs, but they won’t be available until next year). The reality is that Colombia’s military is configured for anti-guerrilla work, not for invading anyone.

5. Chavez is trigger-happy. ‘Nuff said on that.

6. Getting “Raul Reyes” was a great success for the Colombian state and military. Perhaps it should be said that the Colombian military is quite professional now; they are well trained and have never been so well equipped for what they have to do. The operation against “Reyes”, and others shows they have great proficiency in combined operations.

7. That said, they did go into Ecuador. This is not the first time Colombia has violated Ecuadorean territory while pursuing FARC. They periodically enter Ecuadorean airspace, and there are also tensions about the alleged results of Colombia’s fumigation operations near the Ecuadorean border. Ecuador has been assertive about its borders and, in fairness, rightly so. Colombia must have taken a calculated risk when they decided to attack “Reyes” more than a mile inside that country.

8. That said, however, the FARC have been attacking Colombia from inside Ecuador (and Venezuela) for some time. One of the hostages released last week said that he had spent a lot of time inside Ecuador during his time as a prisoner. Colombia has claimed a right to “hot pursuit” but, while this has some limited application at sea it doesn’t actually have much legal force on land. Still, it was of great importance to get a member of the FARC’s top leadership for morale purposes, intelligence purposes and general practicality. So, they did it.

9. The fruit of the action has been both bitter and sweet. The bitterness has been the reactions from other states about the violations of Ecuador’s sovereignty. The sweet has been the intelligence gathering. In particular, the police have apparently been able to get into the three computers they captured and they say that the documentation shows a closer relation between Ecuadorean president Correa and the FARC than had previously been known. It seems that the Minister of Security had met with Reyes, and that a meeting with Correa was being set up. It seems that the Ecuadorean government was getting ready to “recognze” the FARC and that they were going to provide the FARC information about Colombian interests inside Ecuador (this is from today’s El Tiempo newspaper). If this is all true, then Ecuador has been blatantly interfering in the internal affairs of a neigbouring state and may be seen to have been actively engaged in destabilizing it. This is quite serious. It might also allow Colombia, if it can get its diplomatic act together, an ability to take the offensive against Ecuador’s complaints about the violation of its territory.

10 The last point is the means by which Colombian foreign policy is conducted. The reality is that it is a problem. Most countries have a Foreign Minister who carries out a foreign policy set by the governemt. Here it is not like that. First, a Colombian foreign policy may not exist, per se. They are quite reactive rather than pro-active. To the extent they have a policy it is about things like Free Trade with the US, other trade initiaties etc. Secondly, foreign policy is actually carried out by the President…the foreign minister really doesn’t have much say. The problem is that there are only 24 hours in a day, and Pres. Uribe is trying to do everything; he can’t. The result, though, is that the professionals in the Colombian Foreign Service are often overruled for political reason by political appointees. While this may be fine from time to time, and understandable in a democracy, it detracts from the continuity and even-handedness that is necessary when you have a guy like Chavez on your border.

11. There is also the problem with Nicaragua, which is now also in cahoots with Chavez. I am just waiting to see if Nicaragua will try to arrest a Colombian fishing boat inside Colombian waters (the ones that Nicaragua is claiming) so as to provoke an incident (by having Venezuela come to its assistance if Colombia tries to protect its boat).

I apologize for having blathered on for so long, but it was an interesting weekend here “2800 meters closer to the stars”.

The Bush Administration has been praying for an excuse to get rid of Chavez since he took power. The guy knows it too. He can’t be that stupid. Can’t be.

NorthernCross on March 2, 2008 at 9:53 PM

I hear what you’re saying and agree, but I don’t think he’ll invade Colombia because he’s stupid but because he’s a delusional leader with a rabid “all democracy is evil and must be eliminated” ideology combined with an inflated ego that blinds him to rational thought and decisions.

Chavez suffers from the same delusions of grandeur Saddam and Hitler had and if history is any teacher he more than likely will do something stupid, and stupid it would be if he invaded Colombia, just ask Saddam and Hitler how their delusions of grandeur worked out for them…oh wait, I forgot you can’t ask them because they’re DEAD!

Advice for El Grande Chavez, start reading your history books; those that forget the past are doomed to repeat its mistakes!

http://bellipotentdocs.blogspot.com/