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Nov. 8, 2007 5:53 PM PT _This article was originally on a blog post platform and may be missing photos, graphics or links. See About archive blog posts._ Just why is the U.S. ambassador to

Bolivia, Philip S. Goldberg, pictured in a photo with an alleged armed thief from Colombia? The ongoing U.S.-Bolivian cold war is getting personal between Bolivia’s president and

Washington’s man in La Paz. Last month, MORALES DEMANDED AN APOLOGY when Goldberg seemed to make light of Morales’ suggestion that the United Nations be yanked from New York as a gesture

against imperialism. Would the Bolivian president like Disneyland moved as well? the ambassador mused. Then the leftist Morales charged on a stop in the Dominican Republic that the

ambassador was in cahoots with ‘Colombian paramilitaries’’ — a right-wing faction — in a plot to topple Bolivia’s government, REPORTS THE BOLIVIAN DAILY LA RAZÓN. Morales warned that the

United States faced ‘a new Vietnam’ if it intervened in Latin America, NOTES THE ARGENTINE DAILY CLARIN. WASHINGTON HAS DENIED ANY PLOT TO OUST MORALES, a close ally of Venezuelan President

Hugo Chavez. Both Bolivia and Venezuela have forged new alliances with Iran, a development Washington views as troubling. On a visit to Rome, Morales declared that Bolivia had acquired

photos of Goldberg in the company of a Colombian paramilitary operative, REPORTED THE DAILY EL MUNDO. Now Bolivian officials have publicly presented a recent photo showing Goldberg with an

alleged criminal from Colombia. Morales is demanding to know why Goldberg mugged for the camera with a smiling John Jairo Venegas, a Colombian held in a Bolivian jail in connection with an

alleged armed robbery ring. Also in the photo is Gabriel Dabdoub, a business leader in the eastern city of Santa Cruz, bastion of the anti-Morales opposition. The embassy says it was just

one of many casual photos snapped at a trade fair. U.S. officials say they can’t vet every single person who approaches the ambassador in public spaces seeking a photo-op. According to the

embassy, the ambassador doesn’t know the Colombian, who was arrested in Bolivia some days after the photo was taken. POSTED BY PATRICK J. MCDONNELL AND ANDRÉS D’ALESSANDRO IN BUENOS AIRES