Hugo Chavez:U.S. Plans to invade Venezuela Fox News

[mikelewis]

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez (search) said Friday he has documentary evidence that the United States plans to invade his country. Chavez, interviewed on ABC's "Nightline," said the plan is called "Balboa" and involves aircraft carriers and planes.

"We are coming up with the counter-Balboa plan. That is to say if the government of the United States attempts to commit the foolhardy enterprise of attacking us, it would be embarked on a 100-year war. We are prepared."

To prove U.S. intentions to invade Venezuela, Chavez offered to send "Nightline" host Ted Koppel maps and other documentation. "What I can't tell you his how we got it, to protect the sources, how we got it through military intelligence," he said.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,169658,00.html
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Hugo... Man, we are not invading your country. They may want to but as my momma used to say... "you can want in one hand and shit in the other, see which one fills up faster." We're pretty much out of the war business for a while.

[Fridays Child]

1. Well, of course, we will...

...but not until after B*sh is installed as president for life.

[bluestateguy]

2. You know what the irony is here

that we could lower gas prices by 30 cents a gallon by just making up and being friends with this guy.

[shance]

3. What was Rumsfeld doing in Paraguay a month ago?

Where is all the money going that has been looted from this country?

Is someone building private armies in South America?

[Alizaryn]

4. Here's a link to Balboa Info if you are interested.

http://66.218.71.231/language/translation/translatedPage.php?tt=url&text=http%3a//colombia.indymedia.org/news/2005/07/28118.php&lp=es_en&.intl=us&fr=FP-tab-web-t

[tritsofme]

5. Bush will fund a latter day Pinochet

not invade.

[RONSTOO]

6. invade another 3rd world country

i grew up all over the world....this is brave

[tkmorris]

7. At first I thought Chavez was being naive.........

But then I came to realize he isn't naive at all. He knows the real danger from the US isn't Balboa, but Balboa is easier to prove and publicly rail against.

Look fellas, the US has detailed plans drawn up for just about ANY military contingency. There are several plans to invade Canada for example, as well as just about any other country or possible alliance of countries you can think of. There are dozens of people who are paid to do little more than sit around and imagine every scenario possible and draw up plans to deal with it. It's not because we expect to invade Canada, it's more like the Disaster Preparedness guidebook that exists in almost every large corporation's desks. You ever leaf through one of those? There's a step by step plan in there to deal with things like terrorist attack, bomb threats, nuclear war, alien invasion, and the Rapture. I kid you not, I saw a plan which detailed what to do if the Rapture occurred.

In the current environment, and in the near to middle future, the US will not, indeed cannot, invade Venezuela. We don't have the resources militarily, they lack public support for any more military ventures, and they have used every bit of world goodwill they had for awhile to come. No one will sit still for another American invasion of anyone, let alone Venezuela.

It is far more likely that the US will instead, or more likely is already, build private armies of rebels, sponsor political rivals, and attempt to turn neighboring countries against Chavez (Columbia). A good old fashioned home-grown military coup would probably be their first choice but they already tried that. Chavez won't allow that one again I don't think.

Sometimes when the US wants to really lean on some country it will conduct a military exercise which war games one of those contingency plans. I expect that is precisely what we were doing in 2001 off the coast of South America. When the US does practice one of these the plans by necessity become known to at least a few of the commanders in the field, the ones who need to know the "big picture". Looks to me like someone leaked it to Venezuelan agents and now Chavez is making political hay out of it.

Good for him. It's what I would do.

[1932]

9. The only way Chavez would have these documents is if the US started

working with people towards this goal.

Lifting it up to that level would be cause for concern.

It's one thing for the Penatagon to have in its files a strategy. It's another to go outside the Pentagon with your plans, attempting to build the infrastructure to achieve them.

[rman]

8. How can you be so sure Bush doesn't plan to invade Venezuela?

"Obviously Venezuela is important because it is the 3rd largest supplier of petroleum. I would say that mr Chavez... the State Department may say this... probably doesn't have the interests of the United States at heart." - Tenet