http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/americ...bia/index.html

Colombia is now making claims of recent, substantial financial ties between Hugo and the FARC. $300 million in financial ties, to be precise. The timing of this information's release seems interesting, no?

Uribe is also not redeploying his forces to meet the Venezuelan and Ecuadoran forces. He's leaving his borders more or less unprotected. That's a real melon-scratcher, in my opinion. Any idea what that's about?

Honestly, besides a few new airframes from Russia, what does Venezuela's military have to boast of? The only area in which they would be relatively free to operate would be the south, where the FARC is and where the CAF are not. But the terrain is not at all suitable to conventional military forces, so... ? Plus, the CAF have been fighting the FARC for 40 years, so they're quite experienced. It seems to me that with help from U.S. satellites and AWACS, and maybe a carrier task force in the Gulf of Panama, this would be a very brief and very one-sided defeat for the Venezuelan and Ecuadoran forces. I'm pretty sure the OAS would immediately condemn any hostile action by Venezuela as well. This seems like a one-way ticket to humiliation for Chavez.