Declarations of War

When neighboring countries give aid and shelter to para-military forces bent on overthrowing a country, it was considered tantamount to war. Why else would have Nixon gone into Cambodia? Except to stop that country from being used as a supply highway for the North VietNamese Army and its Viet Cong allies.

Now we see another country besieged and it is far closer than VietNam. The country in question is Colombia, a place that has known much bloodshed in the past 40 years as an avowed Marxist revolutionary group called FARC has waged a murderous campaign to oust the government.

Colombia's military forces have already sealed off the border with Venezuela as that country has become the drug lords and their FARC lackey's conduit for supplying cocaine to the United States. In response to this, President Chavez has sent ten battalions to the Colombian border.

Ecuador has also been sheltering FARC rebels it seems and Colombia has decided to send them a message akin to what Turkey just did to the PPK in Kurdish Iraq. They bombed them and killed a FARC leader. Naturally Ecuador is screaming about the unilateral actions and sending troops to the border while pulling its diplomats. And it has turned into a war of the laptops as Colombia produces Reyes' laptop to show Venezuela has funneled $300million to FARC while Venezuela has produced another laptop showing the Colombian national police chief is involved in the drug trade. The Organization of American States is attempting to mediate things. Venezuela can ill afford to alienate Colombia since trade with that country keep's Chavez's country afloat.

This all could have been avoided if Ecuador had Controlled its borders and enforced its sovereignty. Instead they decided to play host to a bunch of murdering kidnapping drug smugglers who once were communist. And now Colombia has called them on it. Good on Colombia for defending its people and borders.

And luckily in the US, President Bush is in office and has been a true ally to Colombia as they have striven to drive all these evil people out. May the US stay a true ally even if Obama becomes President, but from his rhetoric of invading Israel and Pakistan to enforce his idea of Pax Americana I would bet Obama would invade Colombia also. Someone needs to ask Sen. Obama and Sen. Clinton what would they do if they were President and having to deal with this building crisis.