Years ago when I was a news director, my chief photographer Newt Danley would say "We have a situation," meaning "We have a mess on our hands." With that background, let me say, "we have a situation" coming up this week involving Venezuela.
The Wall Street Journal reported Friday that early this week, the international police organization Interpol will send a representative to Venezuela to reveal whether computer files captured from a former FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia) leader's computers are real.
If the documents are real, as American intelligence believes they are, they will serve as proof that President Hugo Chavez has been at least offering arms and other help to FARC, which has been trying to topple the government of Colombia. I strongly recommend you take a look
at the WSJ story. It's worth the few minutes it takes to read it.
What does this have to do with America?
Plenty. If Chavez is aiding what America considers to be a terrorist-sponsoring nation, then Venezuela could find itself on a terrorist nation list with their buddies from Cuba and Iran. That would mean big problems for the U.S. economy, considering we currently import 1.58 million barrels of oil per day from Venezuela. By some estimates, 230,000 U.S. manufacturing jobs depend on U.S. exports with Venezuela.
There may be nothing much for you to do about this story just yet, but get smarter about this story. An interruption of trade with Venezuela would be a "situation" alright. At the moment it is difficult to see how it can be avoided if the documents that were recovered are what they seem to be: proof that Venezuela is/was directly supporting FARC.
Learn more about FARC here.
THERE's QUITE A LOT THAT NEWSPAPERS CAN DO WITH THIS...
