How dangerous is Venezuela President Hugo Chavez? Some people consider him the greatest danger to the Western Hemisphere, while others see him as nothing more than an amusing baffoon with a wad of oil cash.

According to columnist Juan Carlos Martinez of Colombia’s El Tiempo newspaper, Chavez is as dangerous as Libyan dictator Mohamar Qaddafi was before he mended his ways.

Martinez writes that the recent indictment against Chavez by Spain’s high court, which alleges that the Venezuelan leader has harbored and aided Basque and Colombian terrorists [ETA and FARC], should be taken as a warning by all countries in the Americas.

Just like the the Bedouin Qaddafi who sits atop the oil Libya produces, the dirty, heavy Venezuelan crude allows despotic, arrogant, foul-mouthed Chavez to do whatever he likes in his neighboring country [Colombia].

As noted in a past blog entry, if the United States would stop importing about 15 percent of Venezuelan oil, Chávez Frías would run out of foreign currency with which to sponsor far-away terrorist movements in disregard for the will of the Venezuelan people.

It’s not certain that Russia, the world largest oil producer, and China – countries very far from Venezuela – will want to replace the United States market and create diplomatic and economic friction among Moscow, Beijing and Barack Obama.

The way things are going, Hugo Rafael Chávez Frías is on the well-traveled path of the overthrown ex-president of Panama and U.S. prisoner, Manuel Antonio Noriega, who will almost certainly live out the remaining days of his life in a French prison.