Yankee go home !!!!!!!

The colonies are in revolt. The Bolivians have expelled the U.S. ambassador, accusing him of instigating violent protests against their government. The Venezuelans, not to be outdone, have not only ordered the American ambassador out of the country, they have withdrawn their ambassador from Washington and threatened to cut off oil supplies, on the grounds the Americans have been fomenting a military coup. Now Honduras, in support of Bolivia and Venezuela, is indefinitely postponing accreditation of the U.S. ambassador.

"That's enough shit from you Yankees," proclaimed Hugo Chavez, Venezuela's charismatic president, stating relations would be restored when the U.S. had a new government that respected Latin America. The U.S. has defended its "fine ambassadors" from the assorted charges and dismissed the Latins' accusations as a sign of "weakness and desperation."

The Americans' dismissal of the charges as smokescreens may be largely correct. Chavez seems to rail increasingly at the U.S. as his own problems multiply. And his threat to cut off oil to the U.S. is hollow: as badly as the Americans need the oil, the Venezuelans need the money a lot more.

The Latin leaders' suspicions are not, however, entirely unjustified. The disturbances in Bolivia are not unlike those fomented by the U.S. prior to its support for the overthrow of the democratically-elected Salvador Allende in Chile. And the Americans supported an attempted coup against Chavez in 2002. Perhaps not so coincidentally, Chavez's accusations fell on the 35th anniversary of the CIA-backed coup which overthrew Allende.

In any case, the actions signal a hemisphere increasingly uneasy with American domination. The Empire is being challenged on its own turf. Perhaps it has been focusing too much on its wars on the other side of the world, to say nothing of its "war on terror," allowing the neighbourhood to get out of hand. When the cat's away and all that.