Source: U.S., Colombian forces chose not to confront FARC rebels still on the ground after rescue helicopter departed

Therese,

That question came up a few days back when the story about the $20 million ransom first appeared, via a Swiss report.

Here's what I said at the time:

The $20 million ransom story is just as likely misinformation/disinformation as far as narratives go. What better way to distract than to plant such a story in the Swiss press, a country known for its sympathy for the FARC, so you can denounce it as FARC propaganda, which was done by officialdom, and lump everything else in with it that goes against the company line.

Like do you think maybe this story was a plant? 

French and Swiss ebvoys in Colombia to meet with FARC

It was an AP story published July 1, one day before the hostage rescue -- which was carried out under the ruse of a French/Swiss humanitarian mission. Makes you think anyway, right?

I'm not saying it's not possible money exchanged hands in all of this, but show me the money, please.

Now, I've followed the drug war in Colombia enough to know that it is replete with corruption and payoffs. The Bogota Connection series proves that point -- a case of narco-traffickers allegedly having DEA agents on their payroll in Bogota.

So, it wouldn't suprise me to find that money changed hands somewhere along the line in this rescue operation -- maybe a narco-trafficker getting paid off to provide intel on the FARC to support the operation or an informant inside the FARC getting paid off to plant satellite phones, that kind of thing.

But as the $20 million story is presented, at least as I understand it, the premise is based on a ransom being paid to some vague parties resulting in this elaborately staged rescue operation. In other words, agents of the U.S. or Colombia worked a deal with agents of the FARC to pay a $20 million ransom and someone within the FARC (composed of thousands of people) agreed to clandestinely stage a rescue for the money, and in the process helped to bolster the image of Uribe and the Colombian government, whom they have been warring against for decades.

I just think it's a bit of a stretch. Typical ransom situations involve a payment of money upfront or at a drop location, with the hostages being delivered later, at an undisclosed location, to assure the kidnappers are not double-crossed. In this case, on video, we see 60-plus FARC rebels delivering the hostages in an open field, and two of them went onboard the helicopter with the hostages, were beaten up, arrested and now might face extradition (see this story) to the United States.

So if this was some kind of faked rescue, involving collusion between the FARC and the U.S./Colombian governments, then the FARC better catch up on some Scooby Doo episodes.

Whatever happened on July 2, I don't believe the folks that showed up that day were playing games -- in the sense that lives were really on the line on both sides, depending on how things went down. For whatever reason, that day, the gods were in a good mood, and no one died.

But that doesn't preclude that at some later date we'll discover that a bunch of cash was used to help grease the wheels of this operation in other ways or that some pecuniary-inspired treachery was involved.

Absent more compelling evidence of the ransom scenario, that's my read as of now.