Venezuela (2006-2018)

[Tom Odom]

More grist for the Andes mill...

Colombia: Rebel documents talk of uranium offer
By Tyler Bridge and Jenny Carolina Gonzalez | Miami Herald

BOGOTA — A mysterious "Belisario'' offered to sell Colombian rebels uranium that could be used for a dirty bomb. Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez feuded with Cuba. Chavez offered to move hostages held by the rebels to Venezuela — and hold them there.

That's just some of the content in 15 documents released Tuesday by Colombian police, who said they'd been found in the captured laptop of the rebel's No. 2 commander, Raul Reyes, who was killed Saturday when Colombian forces attacked his camp inside Ecuador.

[Watcher In The Middle]

First, Hugo's bully pulpit and blustering has more to do with the price of oil than almost anything else. Remember, spot oil jumped from right at $100 a Bbl. to right around $106.

The smart money in the oil markets are still saying that Venezuela's oil productions keeps decreasing (slight drops almost monthly), so Hugo's got to keep his cash inflows steady. He's doing what he's got to do to get the cash.

Problem is, it's a short term fix. But as to following through and taking on Columbia, not likely.

To show you how stupid it's gotten, Venezuela has just decreed that all Columbia-Venezuela order trade be curtailed (about $6 bil, give or take). Most of that $6 billion that Venezuela imports from Columbia is FOOD

Guy's a genius. He's going to starve his own people to get back at Columbia.

Second point, there's another player in all of this that few see. Just last month, Columbia & Israel signed a deal to (1) to update the 11 Kfir C7s to the C10 version and (2) acquire another 13 former Israeli Air Force Kfir C10s.

Link

Now, President Hugo has already allied himself with some fairly unsavory characters (from Israel's POV), and hey, guy gets stupid & comes across the Columbian border, who's to say that Hugo's pilots couldn't end up facing some pretty tough, first rate competition in the air (and I'm not talking from the US).

Just a few thoughts....

[Ken White]

w/ Israel also allegedly includes a (not mentioned publicly) used Airbus 330 rigged as a tanker with two Drogue pods.

That'll give the Kfirs enough reach to go places...

[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...