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Politics : I Will Continue to Continue, to Pretend.... -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Sully- who wrote (28228)	3/4/2008 3:28:18 AM
From: Sully-	Respond to of 35834

Mark Falcoff: A war in South America? Power Line Mark Falcoff is resident scholar emeritus at the American Enterprise Institute and author of Cuba: The Morning After -- Confronting Castro's Legacy. He writes tonight to offer his perspective on the possibility of war between Venezuela and Colombia: <<< Of course, with Chavez anything is possible. We are dealing here with a troubled, overgrown adolescent. Nonetheless, it's worth contemplating the likely outcome. The Venezuelan army is -- from a professional point of view -- something of a joke. Have you seen any photographs of its general officers? They all need to go to Weigh Watchers. It's been many years since that armed force had to face a serious enemy, or indeed any enemy except high carbs. In contrast, the Colombian army has been at war for decades with a vicious enemy, often elusive, all the moreso since (as we have recently learned) it has been using Venezuela and apparently Ecuador as safe havens. Even the purportedly right-wing Washington Times refers to President Alvaro Uribe as a "hard liner." Let the US media make the most of it. Uribe is no hand-wringing liberal and doesn't much worry about the approval of outsiders. Why should he? The US Congress -- that is to say, the Democrats -- have told him he isn't going to get a free trade agreement anyway, so he has nothing to lose on that front. Meanwhile, at home he's virtually turned the military and security situation around over the past five or six years, and he isn't afraid of Chavez. Why should he be? If push comes to shove, the Colombian army could make mincemeat out of its Venezuelan counterpart. And if the latter is humiliated on the battlefield, what do you suppose would be its attitude towards the man who sent it into combat? One guess. >>> powerlineblog.com