The Mouth of the South, President Chavez of Venezuela, accused Columbia of sending it's troops into Venezuela and has begun serious saber rattling over the "incident" (which never happened by the way).
He's looking for an excuse to give Columbia a bloody nose.
Chavez has begun ratcheting up the rhetoric to include threatened use of military force to destabilize Columbia, whose president he doesn't like.
The true intent of his massive arms buildup appears to be coming to fruition. He's out to make everyone around him into socialists.
If he does attack Columbia, he'll probably claim that Columbia invaded Venezuela, and that Venezuelan troops are pursuing the Columbian forces back into Columbia.
It's a pretext that has been used before: when Japan opened hostilities with China in 1937, they accused the Chinese of sneaking across the Marco Polo Bridge from China to Japanese-occupied China and kidnapping one of their soldiers. Tensions had been building for months, and on that day in particular, there had already been shots fired between the Chinese and Japanese armies. The missing Japanese soldier incident started major military action, once the Japanese got their foot into the door.
That's exactly the sort of situation that will set off the powder keg between Columbia and Venezuela, since Chavez is obviously spoiling for a fight. And the news that Columbia is talking to the U.S. about leasing seven Columbian bases to U.S. forces for drug interdiction and regional security guarantees is driving Chavez bonkers.
Perhaps if he quits funding and arming FARC, which opposes democracy in Columbia, the U.S. bases will be unnecessary. But he's unlikely to do that, isn't he?
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