GIVE WAR A CHANCE

That was the title of a very funny book P. J. O'Rourke wrote a few years ago about Saddam Hussein's Iraq.  And it's very apt advice right now for Colombia's Alvaro Uribe.

You knew that Venezuela's coke-head clown dictator was going to find a pretext for war with Colombia a month ago in Wars On The Way.  The Colombian Army's take-out of Chavez's FARC buddy Raul Reyes, a murderous Marxist midget (he was barely over five feet tall) last Saturday (3/01) provided it.

Now let's hope Uribe accepts Chavez's offer of war.  For if he does, it's bye-bye, Hugo.

For all the billions of dollars Chavez has spent on Russian weapons, there is no such thing as a Venezuela military in reality.  The Venezuelan Army has never been in a war, save for a brief border skirmish with British Guyana over a century ago in the 1890s.  Historically, the purpose of the Venezuelan military has been to keep whoever had seized power in power, to quash rebellions and popular revolts.

Today, Chavez is so hated by many of his own generals that they have little desire to obey his commands to "move ten battalions" (about 6,000 soldiers) plus tanks to the border with Colombia.  Further, they know that if ordered into actual battle, their soldiers are so ill-trained they will be slaughtered or defect en masse.

The Colombian army of 270,000, well-equipped and trained after $5 billion of US support (courtesy of George Bush) dwarfs Venezuela's of 82,000.  Further, Colombia's soldiers are battle-hardened after years of fighting a war with the FARC guerrillas, a war which is now close to being won.  They would eat Venezuelan soldiers for desayuno.

Chavez knows this, so unfortunately, his war threats are bluster and bluff.  The real bright spot, though, is that Chavez does not possess a rationally functioning brain.  Uribe does – and thus knows if he can enrage and goad Chavez enough, it will tip him into the irrationality of an actual military attack on Colombian territory.

That will be the excuse Uribe needs to militarily humiliate Chavez overwhelmingly – which can then precipitate an uprising and coup by the generals in Caracas.  Uribe is playing Chavez like a fiddle.  Soon enough, it will be finite la musica for the Clown in Caracas.