Though many consider Chavez’s saber rattling as little more than hot air the rhetoric coming out of Caracas has become increasingly alarming:

CUCUTA, Colombia (AP) – Venezuela and Ecuador reinforced their borders with Colombia on Tuesday as the three nations traded increasingly bitter accusations over Colombia’s cross-border strike on a leftist guerrilla base in Ecuador.

Rejecting a Colombian apology as insufficient, Ecuador sought international condemnation of the attack during an emergency meeting of the Organization of American States, convened in Washington to help defuse one of South America’s most volatile crises in years. Venezuela’s justice minister declared that war “has already begun.”

Columbia’s military is larger and better equipped than Venezuela’s and Ecuador’s combined so the Columbian government has the luxury of allowing cooler heads to prevail, but they are increasingly frustrated with their neighbors allowing F.A.R.C. to re-arm and re-supply in their territory.

There ground force advantage could be nullified by Chavez’s air superiority.

President Bush has expressed support for Columbia, a move which hints at the Commander-in-Chief’s resolve to ensure our allies aren’t rolled up by the reds. There’s only going to be one way to do that when push comes to shove.

Via Gateway Pundit we find that one of the wounded F.A.R.C. troopers was a female philosophy student from Mexico. Ready for that fence yet? How about when you put this information together with the knowledge that F.A.R.C. has 50 Kilos of uranium?

Chances are good F.A.R.C. is planning on sending more than cocaine across the border at some point.

The Counterterrorism Blog has analysis of the revelations of Chavez supporting terrorism.

And also via Gateway, the more shocking revelation that F.A.R.C. was preparing to be on more favorable terms with the United States based on their belief that Obama would win. F.A.R.C. believes Obama is ideologically in tune with their revolutionary Marxism!

The information comes from the website of Martha Colmenares which is in Spanish but some Freepers translated the important passage. The last letter of Raul Reyes concerned the Presidential elections:

The gringos will ask for an appointment with the minister to solicit him to communicate to us his interest in discussing these topics. They say that the new president of their country will be Obama and that they are interested in your compatriots. Obama will not support “Plan Colombia” nor will he sign the TLC (Colombian Free Trade agreement). Here we responded that we are interested in relations with all governments in equality of conditions and that in the case of the US it is required a public pronouncement expressing their interest in talking with the FARC given their eternal war against us.

The F.A.R.C. endorsement. Not what Obama will want to get out. Frontpage has the likely source of the Obam/F.A.R.C connection. Read the whole thing it shows how Latin American communist interest can easily infiltrate American politics.

The Real Cuba points us to a Miami Herald piece that summerizes what was found on the captured F.A.R.C. laptops.

Venezuela is right. War has already begun.