Re: Re: Venezuela's military

[Guest guest]

I noticed that too. There was no mentioned of such light weapons nor of how the infantry are equipped or organized.

What concerns me about this is that we are looking at a proxy war to test the US being pushed by the Russians and Chinese, or one or the other. If we react, they can hammer us for that. If we don't, then we will be shown to be weak on our own back yard and they will make more aggressive inroads.

If they do attack Columbia and we do nothing, a strong probability given the current Democratic position on such things, we will lose all credibility as an ally and will give our enemies and competitors a signal that they can run rampant and we will do nothing. Of course, it will be really funny a few years down the road when Chavez turns up with Chinese or Iranian long range missiles, maybe even nukes. Or maybe he just gets control of the Panama Canal and closes it to US trade.

Whatever the case, I again say this is what we get for too small of a military, getting bogged down in Iraq, and having given up so much international good will. Now one of our allies is probably going to be in a war for it.

In a message dated 3/5/2008 6:46:43 P.M. Eastern Standard Time, no_reply writes:

The one thing missing from this tally would be the henchmen and various para-military militias Chavez can conjour up. Countries of this type also tend to enjoy rockets and surface to air heat seeking missiles. Neither of these are much of a threat to the US, but were the US to attempt anything on the ground we might lose a few troops to anti-tank rockets and mined roads. I suspect though that ultimately we would just drop a few missiles in from our warships if it came to that. If Chavez was lucky, one of his submarines might be able to hit one of our ships, but that is doubtful. I suspect he has more submarines than we know about. Iran recently acquired some from Russia and I am sure they might have sold a couple extra to Chavez. Despite their being diesel and really just toys, they are probably the most dangerous sea weapon that he has.It is hard for me to believe that this is not just posturing, since Chavez risks losing his entire armed forces if he went to war with Columbia, yet I get the idea that he really does want war and that he is tempted to carry it out. AdminsitratorIt's Tax Time! Get tips, forms and advice on AOL Money Finance.