[tanuki]

Thank you for the post.

Uribe may be isolated on the political stage, but I wonder, if they had a choice, where the people of Venezuela, Bolivia and maybe Ecuador would choose to live. Colombia has a society and economy on the rebound. These other guys are in socialist, entropic freefall. Maybe it isn't just confidence but fear that motivates their statements. Be that as it may, you're right, we need to stand by Uribe.

[StJacques]

". . . Colombia has a society and economy on the rebound. These other guys are in socialist, entropic freefall. . . ."

You are correct in all three instances as they relate to Colombia. The point is particularly tragic for Venezuela, which has such substantial oil revenues that any intelligent administration of those funds alone would develop the country into a first world power in twenty years.

Colombia -- I lived there for one year by the way -- has some historical problems of underdevelopment to overcome, but their progress has in fact been substantial when compared to the leftist triangle of Venezuela, Bolivia, and Ecuador. The geographical isolation of certain regions of the country is the biggest problem they will have to deal with in Colombia and it becomes less and less a fact with each passing day. I think Colombia has a future.