No Soup For You!

So what's the under/over on an invasion of Venezuela by the end of the decade?

The U.S. is again interfering with Venezuelan weapons purchases. The Venezuelan government is attempting to purchase twenty Brazillian made Super Tucano aircraft. The Tucano, pictured above, is a small propeller powered plane. We're not talking about stealth bombers here that can rain death upon the heartland. It's primarily used for training and border patrol though it can be used as an attack aircraft. Recently, the U.S. attempted to veto Spain's sale of twelve costal patrol/transport planes. This comes on the heels of the U.S. nixing a deal where Israel would upgrade and repair F-16 fighter planes Venezuela bought from the U.S. during the eighties.

I'm not one to support an arms race, but a U.S. State Department spokesman's claim that, "This planned buying spree is really out-sized, in the analysis of many, to Venezuela's defense needs," seems a bit disengenuous from a nation that has the biggest military budget in the world and outspends the next highest 22 nations combined. Add to that the hundreds of millions of dollars in U.S. weapons given to Venezuela's neghbor Columbia, it just doesn't add up.