Venezuela (2006-2018)

[Watcher In The Middle]

a certain small ME nation really looking forward to an opportunity to give a certain loudmouth SA bully type who's spent a lot of time talking smack about them at least a bloody nose, if not worse.

Force projection can sometimes work in mysterious ways (and come from mysterious places).....

[Ken White]

watch the benefits of single-mindedness in action...

[J Wolfsberger]

I was watching one of the news networks last night at the gym - closed caption. They showed film clips of the Venezuelan "Army." Typical leftist regime, ideological, revolutionary army - young, brand new uniforms, sloppy drill, etc. In addition, Chavez, being an idiot, sacked all his experienced officers (down to an unknown rank) and replaced them, presumably, if history is any guide, based on ideological purity.

On the other side, Columbia has a professional, well trained, experienced Army.

If Chavez is really stupid enough to start a war, I'll go on record predicting a one sided blood bath.

[Wildcat]

I'm with John. Colombia will wipe the proverbial floor with Venezuela. Chavez's air force may be sporting a few Su-30MKs, but I'm willing to bet Colombia's pilots are qualitatively better. And of course Colombia has the perennial battlefield advantage of fighting defensively on its home turf. They certainly won't be the aggressors in any case, so they have a definite leg up on Venezuela.

I've got a friend in Bogota who was my "liaison" while I was in Colombia doing research. He's an advisor to the House of Reps down there, and I've asked him to keep me informed about attitudes and perceptions at the local level. No word back from him yet, though. I think he's probably a little busy at the moment...

[Wildcat]

This is old news now, but the situation has cooled with an apology from Uribe. The good news is that we avoided a war and two FARC leaders have assumed room temperature. The OAS also proved itself useful in mediating the dispute. The bad news is that Chavez is still in power, and he successfully stood up to Uribe without much in the way of repercussions.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/09/wo...yt&oref=slogin

After leaders in the Andes tiptoed from the edge of war to bear hugs and oaths of brotherhood, Latin America was trying to sort out the winners and losers in the region’s worst diplomatic dispute in years.

A day after the crisis was resolved at a summit meeting in the Dominican Republic on Friday, it was already clear that nearly all of the players lost something. The leaders of Colombia, Ecuador and Venezuela traded charges that muddied each of them. Colombia and its ally, the United States, found themselves isolated in the region.

And Latin America’s largest rebel group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, lost two senior commanders in a week, the latest in a string of tactical and strategic defeats.

But the biggest winner appears to have been the region itself, which resolved its own dispute without outside help and without violence.

Also this: http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/worl...olombia&st=nyt

[Ron Humphrey]

The bad news is that Chavez is still in power, and he successfully stood up to Uribe without much in the way of repercussions.

He may seem to have come out unscathed but one can only imagine what his military leaders think about his willingness to throw them to the wolves over ??.

Might be a bit but I don't think we've seen the last of reprucussions yet

[Watcher In The Middle]

Originally posted by Wildcat:

The bad news is that Chavez is still in power, and he successfully stood up to Uribe without much in the way of repercussions.

Yes, and no. Latest floating out there is that (a) the material coming out of the 2 notebooks "cannot be verified as authentic", and (b) There's a flood of the material being pushed out in front of God and everybody, for all to see. Uribe has played this just beautifully.

Wait for it, there's even more to come. Some of the material is likely to be very sensitive, to some certain political figures back home here.

Hugo and his minions are working to spin the press like nonstop whirling dervishes, Correa [President, Ecuador] is trying to figure out a way to keep accommodating FARC without looking complicit with all the released email bombshells, and Uribe is sitting back and quietly laughing to himself.

Going to be fun to watch as it plays out.

[AdamG]

Venezuela is training a "guerrilla army" aiming to be a million strong by 2013 to fight off a possible US invasion, an opposition lawmaker said Sunday.

"Plan Sucre" -- apparently crafted with input from close ally and fellow US foe Cuba -- covers the legal, logistical and other angles necessary to "transform a professional army into a guerrilla army," Representative Maria Corina Machado told El Universal newspaper.

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/venezuela-p...225507615.html

[davidbfpo]

This thread was locked in August 2012, since than President Chavez has died from natural causes and there is not another thread on Venezuela, so I have changed the title and unlocked it.

US interest in the country remains, although possibly not with the passion of yesteryear.

[davidbfpo]

A long article from Open Democracy on Venezuela's internal policing issues, which starts with:

Faced with soaring levels of crime and violence, Venezuela's government continues to militarize the police. The public disproves of the crime, but not the response. Why?

It ends with:

..unless there is a drastic change in the current government, which has a strong military faction and is plagued by rampant corruption, the military policing model is likely to stay.

Link:http://www.opendemocracy.net/opensec...zuelas-streets