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Venezuela: Reports it bombed Colombia village 'a lie' By Globe Staff and Wires, 4/10/2003 [Full Text]CARACAS - The government yesterday rejected allegations by Colombian border residents that its aircraft bombed a village in Colombia last month in support of leftist rebels fighting right-wing paramilitaries. Vice President Jose Vicente Rangel dismissed the allegations as ''a grotesque lie'' aimed at trying to discredit Venezuela's left-wing president, Hugo Chavez. The two Andean neighbors share a volatile 1,400-mile border.

President Alvaro Uribe of Colombia has ordered an inquiry into the allegations by border residents that Venezuelan military helicopters and planes crossed into Colombian airspace on March 21 and bombed a border hamlet at La Gabarra, in North Santander Province, killing and wounding several people. The residents said the aircraft acted in support of left-wing Colombian guerrillas who were under attack from rightist paramilitary groups. (Reuters) [End]

This is a large problem that has gone unmentioned for the most part. South America is a political timebomb that is going to blow up. You have instability from FARC in Columbia, Brazil, and Venezuela. You have a financial meltdown in Argentina, who is about to put another Peronist in power to spend their way down the rabbit hole. Brazil is teetering on the brink of following Argentina's financial lead. Chile was counting on bilateral trade agreements that have been put off because they shot their mouths off at the UN. Bolivia has been warned of a marxist coup plot. I think that if things go badly there, we could potentially see civil wars / communist takeovers of several countries that are key to our interests. We do a lot of trade with ountries down there and stability would be a good thing. That could turn into the 3rd ball in the air before Korea does

And for all the 'Iraq War = Oil' crowd. If Bush wanted to take over a country for oil, the boat ride to Venezeula would have been much shorter for the 4th ID.