Tall & Rich

The whole world believes that Interpol has convincingly presented a case against the Ecuadoran and Venezuelan governments for supporting FARC. Including even Chavez cheerleading Washington Post (h/t Venezuelan News and Views);

On its face the evidence is enough to convict Mr. Chávez and his collaborators of backing terrorism against a democratic government. If Venezuela were a European or Asian country, it would surely become an international pariah virtually overnight. But Venezuela is in Latin America — where governments are reluctant to criticize their neighbors, terrorist groups professing a left-wing ideology have often won sympathy in Europe and the United States, and demagogues such as Mr. Chávez are able to turn hostility from Washington to their advantage. That of course is the Venezuelan strategy: Rather than even attempt to respond to the contents of the laptops, Mr. Chávez is describing them as a CIA plot and a pretext for a U.S. invasion.

Therein lies the best approach for Colombia and the United States. Since neither Mr. Chávez nor Mr. Correa has offered any credible or even serious response to the laptop material, they should be firmly, repeatedly and relentlessly confronted with the evidence and asked for answers.

But Chavez has easy answers, according to US Leftist Chavez cheerleaders Venezuelanalysis;

“A media show” is how President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela referred to the report presentation, in which Interpol said that it found no evidence of tampering with computers that supposedly belonged to one of Colombia’s rebel groups. Meanwhile, computer experts raised questions about the disparity between the presentation and the report itself.

During a press conference with international media, Chavez said the Colombian government’s staging of this “show” represented “a new act of aggression” on the part of the government of Colombian President Alvaro Uribe, which obliges Venezuela to “place once again the relations with Colombia under deep review.”

Yeah, just a media show. Of course, the US Left has rushed out a defense of Chavez, I imagine they’d already had it prepared in advance of Interpol’s announcement;

Miguel Tinker-Salas, an expert on Latin American subjects, indicated that there are number of politically motivated misinterpretations assigned to the contents of the computers. “One must recall that Interpol can only say whether manipulation took place. But it cannot say whether the elements it found are original and it cannot certify the information.” Moreover, he pointed out the problem inherent in the fact that the report was disseminated from Colombia, since this demonstrates that Interpol is defending the interests of Álvaro Uribe’s government, supported by the United States.

I’m pretty sure if Interpol had any doubts, they would have made that part of the press release, but the left and Chavez see conspiracies against them at every turn. You know Chavez is screwed when the Washington Post prints;

If managed correctly, the laptop scandal will surely deepen the domestic political hole into which the would-be “Bolivarian” revolutionary is sinking.