It seems hypocritical that the UNASUR are claiming that Colombia is somehow violating the sovereignty of other nations by exercising its own sovereignty.

@Sam From California: Chavez is bordering on crazy, and has been for quite some time; he seems to think that everybody is out to get him. If this was the case, I doubt that we would still be subjected to his rantings, as he would be locked away somewhere (or dead, who knows). To this point, he has done nothing to justify his removal, aside from a lot of "big" talk (not to mention his admiration of a known terrorist) and his predilection for leftist policy, neither of which are justifications for taking action against him, just reasons to dislike him (if so inclined). The recent "purge" of the Venezuelan banking industry is interesting, considering who he went after; a former aide and a former military-man, both of whom seem to have been corrupt. These actions seem to cement the fact that he is paranoid. Regarding Uribe, I don't think that he has anything to answer for (yet) on this issue.

so the Venezuelan ambassador says= "Colombia launched an attack on Ecuadorean territory, bombing what the Colombian government "CLAIMED" to be a FARC encampment", funny, since a confirmed member of the FARC secretariat was killed in the action, computers and info were found and confirmed by Interpol to link Venezuela and Ecuador to FARC, still claim? Venezuela only backed down when Colombia threatened to expose this internationally. Hypocritical? yes, indeed, THAT is what Venezuela is. The country that has expanded the most around the America's in recent years by sweetly luring targets with cheap petrol, a country that way before that agreement came into light already had bilateral military engagements with Russia, nuclear partner programs with Iran, and a country that has spent billions in the Chavez years in weapon acquisition... I do not recall Chavez notifying anyone in South America of their Weaponry expansion, do you? Not surprised Brazil and Argentina are concerned...well...Chavez help a lot to bail out Argentina of their economic crisis and Brazil, still the biggest investor in armament in the region until Venezuela beat them, well they never explain to the rest of South America or cared to justify their military ties also with plenty of countries in the world.
We all know what is the issue Chavez has against Colombia, we are not being lured by his leftist expansionist Bolivarian rhetoric and we are his Chinese wall, in terms of access to the Americas and by having more American intelligence in the area, his FARC support antics plus narco-ties can only be exposed. Unfortunately I really doubt the purpose of the American presence will go towards that direction, but really I would not mind. The only threat to the region is and continuous to be Loco Chavez.

Better to be a free madman than a puppet... uribe anyone?

As long as Latin America stands divided and lets itself be divided by the u.s. it will never be taken seriously on the international stage. Since the Latin countries became independent over 100 years ago, the number 1 goal of u.s. foreign policy in the region has been to divide and conquer. Imagine what kind of threat a united South America could pose to Uncle Sam. Yet, you continue to have willing Latinos do the dirty work for the u.s.
Then is it any suprise why Latin America isn't considered an important region by many foreign policy/statecraft planners in the major capitals of the world? The story is always the same, always petty issues brought about my the outside power, and stooges doing the work to stay in control.

Stop picking on Sam from California. He gives good head ache for his ability to give a one sided interpretation of fact

1840s-the US takes a third of Mexican territory on dubious grounds.
“I do not think Mexico really cares about what happened in the 1840’s against the United States. Drug Cartels seam to be the big issue now.
1900s-1950s-the US occupies a number of Latin American nations, setting up dictatorial banana republics that leave a tiny, rich minority happy and the vast majority without even the most basic services or rights.
This is true our country between 1900’a through 1970’s in many cases did set up dictatorship in Central and Latin America. It must also be said that so did many of the Great powers of the world between 1800’s through the end of the 20’Th century. Since then many of those same countries do trade with the United States and their economy has prospered.

Sam from California has a girlfriend or wife that is leftist for lack of a better word. He has visited her relatives in Latin America. He has studied some Latin American history and does have some facts correct.
I must remind him and all others that begin to blame the US for everything that has happened good and bad in Latin and Central America that hindsight is 20/20 vision. This will always be our history.
In Colombia we are fighting against the FARC. Venezuela and Ecuador have supported and given aid to the FARC. Russia has given a line of credit of 2 billion dollars to purchase the SU-27 and other weapons.
Sam of California why not mentions all of the facts?

I note that to date, Venezuela has not seen fit to provide a meaningful explanation of how Venezuelan weapons found their way to FARC. Either their security is very weak or Venezuela is deliberately destabilizing South America, and regardless of which it is still not encouraging.
On the bases, realistically speaking if the United States wanted to attack Venezuela it would involve far more than that. You would need a minimum of 100,000 soldiers, not to mention aircraft and naval power that currently is being invested in Afghanistan for the foreseeable future. I will concede that one probable reason is also to maintain a watch on Venezuelan activity, but that isn't enough to justify warnings of warfare. If the U.S Congress and Columbia agree to raising the number of soldiers that can legally be in Columbia I'll consider that worrisome, until then I remain of the opinion it's primarily aimed at FARC and the drug trade.
In an effort to be fair, I'll also admit that the shadow of the future suggests questionable relations between the United States and South America, something which can't be solved but can be lessened via very careful placing of U.S soldiers and keeping them away from the border with Venezuela.

The Colombian Para Militaries to my knowledge have not crossed the Colombian border to attack Venezuela. I do recall in early May 2004, Venezuelan authorities arrested at least 100 individuals that they accused of being Colombian paramilitaries and of scheming, together with part of the Venezuelan opposition; to begin a series of scheduled attacks against heavily fortified military targets within Caracas. The AUC officially denied that they had anything to do with them. Colombian President Uri be congratulated the Venezuelan president for the capture and pledged to cooperate with the investigation, while President Chavez himself declared that, as far as he was concerned, he did not believe that Uri be had anything to with the operation, for which he blamed "elements" within "the oligarchies of drug cartels.
Many of the FARC’s senior leaders hide in Venezuela with the Chavez regime’s active collusion. At least three FARC Fronts operate actively in Venezuela, mainly in the drug trafficking, arms smuggling and money laundering businesses. At least 2,000 FARC fighters are based inside Venezuela across a half-dozen states including Apure, Tachira, Trujillo, Merida, Barinas and Zulia.

1. I don’t believe a sizable amount of Latin American people are leftist. Many people through out the countries that I have lived in including Venezuela, Colombia, Costa Rica, and Chile are not leftist they just want a better life. Case in point looks what happened in Honduras. President Zelaya was deposed by his own political party which was leftist.

2. Comparing the Countries of South Korea to Guatemala is like comparing The United States and Zimbabwe.

3. Every Country in Latin America and most of Central America have had Human rights violation. The US was not to blame for all of them.

Despite political tensions between the U.S. and Venezuela, the U.S. remains Venezuela's most important trading partner. In 2008, bilateral trade topped U.S. $60 billion. Venezuelan exports to the U.S. were U.S. $51.4 billion (accounting for at least 60% of total Venezuelan exports), and U.S. exports to Venezuela were $12.6 billion (or 26% of total Venezuelan imports). The U.S. is the single most important customer for Venezuelan oil. Venezuela shipped an average of 1.2 million barrels of crude oil and petroleum products per day to the U.S. in 2008, a figure which accounts for at least half of Venezuelan oil exports and 9% of U.S. oil imports. So I can see how Chavez believes that we are the Evil Empire.

If the Venezuelan-Argentina block keeps up that American-boogeyman paranoia, they will become their own Self-Fulfilling Prophecy, precipitating a cold war and arms race in Latin America.

At least they had one century of peace on the continent. That's a good run by any measure.

http://americanmohist.blogspot.com

Three facts:
1. The Coca plantations have not been reduced in Colombia in the last years, on the contrary, the crop area had increased during the “Plan Colombia” implementation period and the cocaine production had also been incremented.
2. Colombia, or the US, does not need the kind of airplanes or weaponry that is planning to have on this stage of the “Plan” in order to fight terrorism or drug dealers.
3. As of “the good neighbor” kind of diplomacy, Venezuela has had very bad experiences with Colombia for over 200 years already.

Fact Number 1
Between 2001 and 2004, a massive effort was made to reduce coca plantations in Colombia. Colombia accounts for some $65 billion worth of cocaine that flows into the U.S. Columbia faces a terrorist insurgency that feeds on drug money mainly the FARC. About half of the $6 billion that have been poured into Latin America by the United States to combat drugs in the past six years has gone to Colombia. Through a combination of various forms of eradication, including aerial spraying, Colombia was able to reduce by more than one-third the total area of coca plantations during that three-year period. But the effect was also an increase in coca plantations in Peru and Bolivia. After a reduction of effort the coca plantations have started to rise again mainly because the FARC is still in Colombia.

Fact Number 2
On the comment of Good neighbor between Colombia and Venezuela:

On August 11, 1987, the Corbeta Caldas incident broke out. The Colombian vessel refused to leave disputed water arguing that those were waters pertaining to Colombia.The Venezuelan government reacted by sending a fleet of F-16 fighter jets and scramble over the ship almost engaging in combat. The Colombian vessel commander decided to return to Colombian waters and the situation was defused.

On March 21, 2000 Four Venezuelan helicopters and two airplanes invaded Colombian airspace and bombarded an area in the jungle region of Catatumbo, in the Department of North Santander.

It seams like both neighbors have not been to friendly towards each other.

I realy do not think that anybody that is not fighting against the FARC and fighting a drug war in Colombia should make a determination of what type of weapons are needed.

Bernardo Alvarez Herrera ought to soft-pedal the drivel.

I can never understand why people do not take the time to review historical documents before they begin to write a false statement. So I have provided some more facts to prove a point.

1. Plan Colombia began in 2001.
2. From 1995 through 2000 number of hectares producing cocaine increased from 51,000 to 163,000.
3. From 2001 through 2004 number of hectares decreased from 145,000 to 80,000.
4. Their was an increase in 2005 the number was adjusted to 86,000 hectares.

Now I want to add that in a report by UNODC which stands for the United Nations office of drug and crime.

Colombia had a major decline in coca bush cultivation in 2008 - a decrease of 18 per cent compared to 2007.In addition to the decrease in coca bush cultivation in Colombia to 81,000 hectares; cocaine production in that country also fell by 28 per cent, from 600 metric tons in 2007 to 430 metric tons in 2008. These dramatic year-on-year reductions represent a return to the levels of coca bush cultivation reported from 2004 to 2006. In terms of potential cocaine production, the results for 2008 are the lowest reported for Colombia in a decade.

Now to those that believe the Colombian Government and I use false arguments I suppose some people will also add the United Nations to that list.

To those that complain the type of weapons Columbia uses against the FARC and the Coca fields before they make that type of argument please tell me what are the weapons they are using?