To the South

Hugo Chavez has jumped the shark. OK, that happened a long time ago. Now he's threatening Colombia with war.

Colombia bombed some FARC rebels in Ecuador, which was a bad idea, because now Chavez is all up in arms, and has sent 10 tank battalions to the Venezuelan-Colombian border and pulled staff out of the embassy in Bogota.

Now Ecuador is following suit, and the U.S. is urging a diplomatic solution, and Chavez is being Chavez, blustering and blathering his "anti-Imperialist" rhetoric while cracking down on civil liberties. Somehow, this nutjob is a fan favorite of lots of the American Left.

I really don't know what else to say. Here's something: One of the greatest tragedies of our horrendously terrible foreign policy over the last eight years is the rise of leaders like Chavez, Ahmadinejad, al-Sadr, Meshal, Musharraf, and Putin - and it is not a coincidence that U.S. policy begets leaders like these.