This Isn’t Good

These are the flags of Venezuela, Colombia, and Ecuador. They are similar because, at one time, they were part of a single country. They now have troops facing each other on their borders, and, of course, this is an excuse to raise the price of oil.

The BBC has the basic story

Colombia has said documents found in a cross-border raid suggest links between left-wing Farc rebels and Ecuador’s President Rafael Correa.

Colombian troops had entered Ecuador in a raid that killed a Farc leader, Raul Reyes, and 16 other rebels.

Ecuador has expelled Colombia’s ambassador following the attack and is sending troops to the border.

Earlier Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said he was sending thousands of troops and tanks to its border.

A spokesman for Colombian President Alvaro Uribe told reporters the documents provided information that “Correa has a relationship and commitments with Farc”.

Earlier, Colombian Foreign Minister Fernando Araujo went on television to express regret that it had to enter Ecuador.

But he said that the raid about 1.8km (one mile) inside Ecuador was “indispensable”.

After Mr Araujo’s statement, Mr Correa said: “I have decided on the immediate expulsion of Colombia’s ambassador in Ecuador (Carlos Holguin).”

Mr Correa also said he was calling for an immediate meeting of the Organisation of American States and the Andean Community of Nations.

Speaking on his weekly television show, President Chavez had said Venezuela’s embassy in Colombia would close.

Colombia is trying to divert attention from what it did, and the media loves to talk about Hugo Chavez. This is about Uribe, and his fight against FARC when everyone else in the region wants him to negotiate. FARC is a thoroughly brutal collection of killers, but so are the government and paramilitary groups opposing FARC. The drug lords prosper and the people suffer because of this mess and it has been going on for decades.

US citizens should be concerned with this problem, because their tax dollars are paying for it as part of the War on Drugs™. Oh, yes, if you have bought any Chiquita bananas in the last couple of years, you have been help to fund the FARC due to the protection money paid by the corporation.