Nah. They are just hitting the DR because it’s Spring Break.
Now that would be reasonable!
Nicaragua breaks off ties with Columbia. This thing seems to be spinning out of control…
-XT
OAS is taking the position that Colombia’s action violated Ecuador’s sovereignty. (And this is the organization the U.S. belongs to!)
Countries violate each other’s sovereignity all the time. The U.S. has done it repeatedly. So has Iran. And Iraq. And Syria. And North Korea. And Britain. And France. And Israel. And Lebanon. And India. And Pakistan.
A Rebel group was operating using Ecuador as a safe harbor. This is the scenario that has been leading to border incursions all over the world. Normally, an incident like this would blow over with both leaders speaking tough but honestly wanting a settlement. They shake hands, promise to be better neighbors, and that’s about it.
Only this time, it looks like the lunatic from Venezuela is going to stir shit up for propaganda purposes. So he’s yelling and screaming and massing troops on the border. Moron. This thing could break out into war when it really doesn’t need to.
War of the Triple Alliance, anyone?
The Dominican Rep. president is trying to broker a deal to avoid for the summit to devolve into a monkey-poo-flinging fest. If anything people won’t be spitting into each other’s sancochos over the weekend.
Isn’t it lovely to have a multipolar world?
Our troops have been occupied in Iraq too long.
I feared this. The small-time hoods are thinking we & our allies are vulnerable.
This is bad.
No, it’s predictable, and the result of the multipolar world. Does no-one remember the time of Napoleon and earlier? When more than two parties are matched, things get interesting.
In the middle east, for example, there are many relatively equal parties who have strong opinions on matters.
What Chavez wants, ultimately, is a Latin American economic union which, unlike the proposed Free Trade Area of the Americas, would be entirely independent of the U.S. and its neoliberal trade policies. (See the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas.) But that only works if everybody’s singing from the same page. Most countries in South America now have governments that are at least nominally leftist and on fairly good terms with Chavez; Uribe’s Colombia is the odd man out. I expect Chavez and Uribe will keep butting heads until one or the other passes from the scene.
You nailed it right on the head. Chavez is out of his goddamned mind. He sees a minor diplomatic argument as a chance to whip up the army and get the peoples’ minds off his failing economic policies. Meanwhile, what can we do about it? We can’t intervene on Colombia’s behalf, because we hardly have anything to intervene with.
Or for.
Not yet.
But if Chavez is determined to have war with Colombia over this, that would change.
Only because the U.S. has (rather unwisely) made commitments to Colombia. Otherwise, a war between Colombia and Venezuela would be something we could afford to ignore, whatever the outcome, so long as it does not interrupt the flow of exported petroleum. Or coffee. (I wouldn’t go to war over oil, but some things are important, dammit!) A FARC victory or a "Bolivarian’ regime coming to power in Colombia (presumably Chavez’ dream goal) would pose no real threat to U.S. interests, no more than Venezuela (or, for that matter, Cuba) does now. In fact, if Chavez were to realize his goal of a Latin American economic union excluding the U.S., that wouldn’t be such a bad thing for the U.S. either. (It would be a bad thing for many U.S. corporations, but that’s a very different thing.)
Of course it would be a bad thing for the U.S. This crap is happening in its back yard. Do you really think that war in South America would pose no strategic threat to the U.S.? That Chavez, the lunatic who likes to threaten everyone, and who is making nice with Iran and North Korea and funding a Marxist terrorist group that is destabilizing several countries, would not be a threat to the U.S.? Or that cutting off trade with large portions of South America would not hurt the U.S. economy?
And there would be all kinds of ways for this to spiral out of control. For example, Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua has been making noises about supporting Venezuela and Ecuador. And if the U.S. gets bogged down in a third war in South America, will we see a rash of conflicts-of-convenience around the world? What might Putin decide to do if he thinks the U.S. is completely committed elsewhere? Or North Korea? Or Iran?
How about threats to the Panama canal if war breaks out? For that matter, since the U.S. has entered into security arrangements with Columbia, don’t you think the U.S. would wind up involved?
The first thing that would happen, btw, is that the price of oil would spike. That alone would have negative effects on an already-slowing U.S. economy.
I can’t believe you’re willing to shrug off war in South America as no big deal.
If we didn’t take sides (which we would), we could trade with both, and I see no other “strategic threat” worth worrying about. I mean, we have no territory in South America. We have no realistic fear any direct military threat to the U.S. will ever come from there. We have only trading interests (oil included). As for Chavez, he doesn’t like much to threaten, only to bluster and scold; I’ve heard very few threats, as such, out of his mouth before this. He’s made nice with Iran, Russia, NK and Belarus on enemy-of-my-enemy principles, but he’s only our enemy because we insist on treating him as such. We could make nice with him if we tried; we’ve made nice with worse. As for the “backyard” thing, really, the only way (other than interrupting the oil/coffee supply) this could spill over into the U.S. is if Mexico somehow got involved, which will not happen; or if the war led to terrorist attacks on U.S. soil, which would not happen if we did not take sides in the first place (which we would).
Yes, but he doesn’t want to alienate the U.S. either. Nicaragua is a member of CAFTA and a trading partner.
How do any of them have any national interests that a conflict-of-convenience could advance? NK can attack nobody and survive, however the U.S. might be occupied. Iran can advance its regional interests quite effectively by diplomatic means, as evidenced by Ahmadinejad’s recent visit to Baghdad. The Russians have their hands full with Chechnya and other matters in which the U.S. has no interest.
Every politician in Latin America knows, I’m sure, that the treaty by which the U.S. handed the canal over to Panama authorizes the U.S. to intervene with military force if U.S. access to the canal is ever threatened. All will make their plans around that fact.
Yes, as noted in my previous post, which is why the remainder is prefaced with, “Otherwise.”
In the event of war, Chavez would continue to pump and export oil. What else is he going to do? He’s got a war to finance! And I don’t think either Colombia or Venezuela has the capacity to turn this into a naval war, such as might threaten the shipping lanes.
Of course it’s a big deal. It just doesn’t have to be our big deal. When Iran and Iraq went to war, we had an obvious strategic interest in the oil-producing region, but we didn’t feel obliged to send in troops. We simply gave Saddam some military aid. And we didn’t have to do even that (it was mainly a matter of spite at the Iranians), we could have sat it out entirely without being any the worse off.
That´s highly, orbitally high, unlikely. Chavez would sooner eat a granade and pull the pin with a meathook from the outside than make nice with the US. He´s painted himself into the corner of “anti-imperialism”, his whole political persona feeds from that.
Oh, that’s easy. We just have to promise not to be imperialists any more. Pinky swear! 
Relations are normalized. Crisis all gone.
Poof.
Chavez! :rolleyes: