Reply #20: I do, or I think the Pentagon has a plan to. But it will be more like South Vietnam than Iraq--

[Peace Patriot]

--a gradual buildup of US forces in Colombia, using the Colombia government and military as a front, exactly as the Pentagon used South Vietnam's government and military (also paid for by the USA, as Colombia's is); not an outright bombing and invasion, as with Iraq (which had no air force by the time the US invaded, and had been crippled by 12 years of sanctions), but more likely, 1) collusion with local fascist vigilantes in Venezuela's northern oil region (adjacent to Colombia and to the Caribbean); when the time is ripe, these Venezuelan "patriots" declare their "independence" from the national government and request US "support," and, 2) thus the US is invited into part of Venezuela--the most important part, the oil region--acts in support of the fascist secessionist regime, and the Colombian military backed up by US troops, the US air force (out of Colombia, Panama and Honduras), the US 4th Fleet (in the Caribbean), and aided by US high tech surveillance and weaponry, starts a war with the Venezuelan military on Venezuelan territory, with Venezuelan traitors as their "legitimacy." Just like Vietnam.

Don't think the Pentagon hasn't thought all this out. They have. And they are rather quickly assembling the war assets for this second oil war. When they are finished, they will have Venezuela's northern oil region surrounded. They may also intend to net in Ecuador, which is adjacent to Colombia to the south, also has its oil rich northern region adjacent to Colombia--where, as in Venezuela, rightwing politicians openly talk of secession--and where the US/Colombia has already conducted a joint military exercise, using a temporary FARC guerrilla camp just inside Ecuador's border, where everybody was asleep, as the excuse, and blew it away with ten 500 lb US "smart bombs" in March 2008. The Pentagon may especially hate Ecuador because its leftist president threw the US military out of Ecuador this year. In any case, they have LOTS OF OIL, and, also like Venezuela, a government that believes in using the oil revenues to benefit the poor.

The US under the Bush Junta rehearsed the secessionist strategy in Bolivia in late 2008, funding/instigating a white separatist insurrection in the gas/oil rich eastern provinces. Evo Morales acted quickly to throw the US ambassador and the DEA out of Bolivia, and all of South America rallied to his defense and were able to squelch the uprising without much bloodshed. (The white separatists killed 30 unarmed peasant farmers and beat up a lot of indians.) The Bushwhack Financial 9/11 was occurring simultaneously and also Paraguay, adjacent to Bolivia and possible route of US support troops to the white separatists, just months before had elected a leftist president who opposes US troops in Paraguay.

Donald Rumsfeld alluded to this secessionist strategy in an op-ed in the Washington Post on 12/1/07. He urged "swift action" by the US in support of "friends and allies" in Latin America. I think this is exactly what he was talking about--"swift" US military support for local fascist insurrections. And Rafael Correa, president of Ecuador, publicly stated that there is a coordinated rightwing strategy of secession in three countries--Ecuador, Bolivia, Venezuela.

I am neither dreaming, nor fantasizing, nor am I speculating all that much. The strategy is there. The war assets are being put in place. All they will need is a "Gulf of Tonkin"-type incident to trigger an escalation of US forces and we're in another war. I expect that they are going to put US soldiers on the Colombia/Venezuela border to make the manufacture of such an incident easier. It could also occur in the Caribbean off Venezuela's oil coast.

What else would the US need SEVEN new US military bases in Colombia FOR? The US "war on drugs"? Yeah, right.