The demise of Hugo Chavez should be a goal of the United States. This left wing nut and compadre to Fidel Castro has revealed he wants to destabilize South America. In a recent attack carried out by Columbian forces, a Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Columbia (or FARC) top commander  was killed along with several of his supporters. Columbia reports there were documents recovered that revealed the Venezuelan president has bankrolled the terrorist group and there was reportedly information the group was attempting to obtain uranium. The validity of this information may be questioned but Hugo Chavez publicly mourned the death of the slain FARC leader, Raúl Reyes. Hugo Chavez has also colluded with Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa in condemning the attack. The FARC are among the most notorious rebels in South America. In Robert Kaplan’s 2005 book, Imperial Grunts, he writes about the FARC:

The FARC, with its seventeen thousand or so fighters, no longer represented the shaggy haired university idealists of the Cold War era, but a criminal army built on the forced recruitment of teenage boys and girls, in which desertion led to the slaughter of one’s family. FARC leader Manuel Marulanda, perhaps the world’s oldest living guerrilla, might still have harbored ideals. But with an income variously estimated at $500 million annually in protection money and cocaine business, the FARC was Karl Marx at the top and Adam Smith all the way down the command chain. (p.50)

It is reported that Arabs militants such as Hamas and Hezbollah are being funded by the Chavez government. Chavez is also providing secure zones for FARC from which they are trying to destabilize democratic Columbia. The US military has redoubled its efforts in Columbia under President Bush in a policy known as Plan Columbia which began in 2001. The plan has brought a level of stability to Columbia by putting pressure on rebel groups such as FARC and FLN (National Liberation Army), driving the drug trade further underground and also giving President Álvaro Uribe some breathing room. Uribe has an 80% approval rating in his own country, the highest in his five years as President. Chavez has recently called Columbia the Israel of South America because of US’s involvement there. However, Chavez’s own situation in his country has grown tenuous. Anti-FARC protests are common in Venezuela. Their brutal tactics are well known throughout the region. Since the cross border attack, Chavez has ordered troops to the border with Columbia but most see it as bluster since Chavez may not have the support of his generals to do anything drastic. Chavez is a menace and President Bush has done the right thing in bolstering Columbia’s democracy. 

America imports nearly 15% of its oil from Venezuela. Everywhere you turn it appears the snakes are rattling around the barrels. It is a further indication of the need of this country to unify around a policy that rids us of foreign oil. In the meantime Chavez’s popularity in Venezuela has waned and the US should do whatever it can to show this pariah the door.

Finding FARC

Chavez’s War Drums

Columbia Stands as a Beacon of Hope

Venezuela Mobilizes Forces to Columbian Border

Rumours of War