Chavez threatens to invade as Honduran army stages coup

[cal04]

Venezuelan leader vows to 'act militarily' after leftist ally Manuel Zelaya is overthrown and exiled to Costa Rica
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/chavez-threatens-to-invade-as-honduran-army-stages-coup-1723090.html

Honduras was plunged into a political crisis that threatened to spill across the region hours after President Manuel Zelaya was thrown out by the army and exiled to Costa Rica prompting his leftist ally in Venezuela, President Hugo Chavez, to threaten military intervention.

In the first successful military coup in Central America since the end of the Cold War, the army sent masked soldiers into the presidential palace before dawn. The President, who was in dispute with his military about a planned constitutional referendum, was then escorted to a military plane which took him into exile.

Mr Chavez went on state television later in the day claiming that the coup leaders had taken away the Cuban ambassador to Honduras and left the Venezuelan ambassador by the road in the capital, Tegucigalpa, after beating him. He said that if troops enter his embassy "that military junta would be entering a de facto state of war," and "we would have to act militarily".

(snip)
"We will bring them down. We will bring them down, I tell you," Mr Chavez vowed during yesterday's broadcast, saying, "I have put the armed forces in Venezuela on high alert".

[MADem]

1. He'd better be prepared to put his money where his mouth is.

If he thinks thugs are gonna back down because he shakes his red-shirted fist, he'd better think again. He's going to have to back that shit up with boots on the ground.

Is "I have put the armed forces of Venezuela on high alert" about the same as "I have written a strongly worded letter," or does anyone actually think Hugo is gonna saddle up and march into Honduras?

Bets, guesses, anyone?

[Mudoria]

3. I think it amounts to all the bluster he had when he moved troops

to the border with Colombia then withdrew them. I guess he came to the realization that in a couple of weeks the Colombians would have been marching down main street in Caracas.

[Hoopla Phil]

2. So just how does he plan on putting his soldieries on the ground there?