Colombia and Ecuador

I don't know if you have been following the mess taking place in South America these past few weeks, but the short form is that Ecuador and Colombia have been having a bit of a border dustup, with FARC being the cause. Basically Colombia says Ecuador is harboring the rebels/freedom fighters/terrorists, and Ecuador says 'BS' and 'stay on your side of the fence, dammit!'. The Financial Times has a short piece on recent events, as does Le Monde. Naturally, Hugo Chavez is involved to, as AFP notes: "Chavez, who backed Ecuador in its week-long row with Colombia over the cross-border raid, sympathises with the FARC, which he claims have legitimate 'belligerent status,' instead of the terrorist label the United States, Europe and Colombia give it." The AFP story is actually about some more recent claims Colombia has made that FARC was trying to build a nuclear bomb, though the claims have been widely derided.

Seriously Dave, if it weren't for you I wouldn't know jack about current events ;). While Chavez is portrayed as teh debil to us Amerrrcans, I do wonder about his own intentions for his country. A destabilized South America is bad for all of us. Where are we supposed to get our cocaine???

I have high hopes the new poppy crop in Afghanistan will allow us all to switch to a kinder, gentler drug. As for Chavez, I feel like he just wants to be a player - just as the US feels like everywhere is its business, so to does Chavez - especially locally. Witness his work in getting FARC to release hostages like Ingrid Betancourt. Over here that doesn't play so big, but in France they have giant posters of her on government buildings. If he could be a part of that he would gain immense standing in some parts of the world.

The only problem with Afgani poppy is that is has to come even further... and that kind of carbon footprint just leads to a ton of snow in Ann Arbor in March (no pun intended). But, I personally like Chavez--he'll never be the Castro he aspires to be, but he does challenge the status quo.