How Likely is a war with Venezuela?

[Bullet1987]

I'm making this thread after reading an excellent post by Peace Patriot in the Oliver Stone thread.

Peace Patriot: The next imperial battle is very likely going to be against Venezuela--which is being set up as we speak--and I believe involves a "circle the wagons" strategy in the northern South America/Central America/Caribbean region, to gain control of all the oil in that region and to fend off the leftist/socialist democracy movement that has swept Latin America. It was creeping up through Central America, with leftist governments elected in Nicaragua, Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala (and a leftist almost elected in Mexico a few years back). They dealt this movement a severe wound with the rightwing military coup in Honduras. Now they have death squads murdering leftists (one was found beheaded a few weeks ago) in Honduras (with only a cosmetic front of legitimate government to mask these horrors and to maintain US control of the country). But the most telling signs of an impending war are the huge US military buildup in Colombia (adjacent to Venezuela's main oil region), and the non-stop psypos/propaganda "Big Lie" campaign against Hugo Chavez and, by implication, against the people of Venezuela and Venezuela's many leftist allies in the region.

I frankly think that this is going to be the Pentagon's "Waterloo"--but we shouldn't underestimate the amount of carnage and grief that our war profiteers can inflict in losing a war--and the amount of economic and other blowback damage that the US war machine can inflict on us here.

My question is...how likely is the above scenario? Venezuela is not really a weak country, this is not Iraq we're talking about here. They have a strong leader in Hugo Chavez who has tons of popular support, they have a strong and coordinated centralized military which includes an Air Force that is considered the most modern in Latin America, and an up-to-date intelligence apparatus which is probably the best in Latin America as well. I personally have a hard time imagining it. We're still in the Middle East very strongly, and there are many Hispanic Americans living here in the U.S. Even though most aren't Venezuelan or Honduran, don't some of you see the Hispanic community reacting extremely negatively against a war in South America? Also, as Peace Patriot pointed out, Chavez has a LOT of allies down there and an open war in Venezuela could become multi-regional and include a number of anti-American factions. Starting a war with Venezuela, on paper, would be more stupid than Iraq and Afghanistan. There would also be little public support for it, and would agitate the American people even more than we already are. When was the last time America engaged in a country that could hit us back? World War 2? We like pushing around countries that can't fight back...but Venezuela can AND it's very close to home. I don't see a war with Venezuela happening anytime soon, if ever. What we WOULD do though is try to destabalize his country from the inside and attempt a coup. But we already tried that I heard and it failed or something.

[UTUSN]

1. "battle...is being set up" by Huguito?!1 He is NOT popular with "the Hispanic community" n/t

[Bullet1987]

2. You mean Chavez?

I mean he has ton of popular support in Venezuela. But so did Aristide in Haiti, but Haiti isn't Venezuela.

[cali]

3. not bloody likely at all.

[Zywiec]

4. More likely in the GAAT. n/t

[Name removed]

5. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[dflprincess]

6. Really, a US financed coup is far more likely than all out war n/t

[Hippo_Tron]

7. Even if we wanted to, we don't have an army available to invade Venezuela

Hugo Chavez sells us his oil and he's not going to stop selling it to us anytime soon because his country would completely collapse if he did. Chavez serves as a red herring for the right wingers in this country and the US serves as a red herring for Chavez in his country. The reality is that the White House has far greater foreign policy concerns than Venezuela and Chavez has far more concerned about his domestic political situation than he is about "opposing US imperialism" or whatever variation of that he claims to be doing this week.

[Enrique]

8. invasion, not likely

but war, very possible.

[cali]

9. huh? what do you mean?

[Enrique]

10. meaning war doesn't have to be us invading someone

we could have an air war, or a proxy war, or a covert war.

It's the same with Iran, imo. Invasion is very unlikely for the same reasons the OP gives, but war is definitely a possibility there.

[TheCowsCameHome]

11. Only if WMD's are found in Iceland.

[Ozymanithrax]

12. You first must ask, how will the sell a War in Venezuela so Americans want to buy one.

Next, answer "What overwhelming National Security reason will be used to sell a war?"

Chavez is trying to sell the idea that the U.S. is going to invade Venezuela, but that is all terrorist tactics to keep his people frightened.

[Arctic Dave]

13. More likely to have a destabilization campaign and a Coup Redux.

If they want to kick it up a notch they will have Colombia start a proxy war. Hence, the uptick in military aid to them.