So, That's Why McCain Went to Colombia

I thought the coincidence was just a little too neat. Sure hope you're right about Samantha Power. I was disappointed that she wasn't included on the team and figured maybe she would be brought back in once doing so would no longer hold the potential of ruffling Hillaryite feathers.

The minute this story broke, I knew it was no accident of timing.

I was commenting elsewhere yesterday about how tone-deaf the McCain campaign was to send Grandpa Simpson and his ventriloquists to Colombia while Obama was deep in the heartland preparing for the 4th of July by rhetorically wrapping himself in American flags and church robes, surrounding himself with veterans and victims of America's trade policies when WHAM!

First of all, it just occurred to me that McCain never goes anywhere without his babysitter and I'm not talking about the one in the red dress.

Secondly (IMHO), This was simply another unilateral prisoner release by FARC, after FARC was called upon by Chávez to release prisoners and following a FARC's track record of unconditional prisoner releases earlier this year, which was hijacked by the Colombian Military

She was being released just in time for the presidential elections and she is probably the only person in Colombia that can defeat Uribe

The Colombian military swooped in and fabricated it into a rescue operation. The complicit western media, especially CNN, is reporting that the prisoner release today was actually a rescue by the Colombia military.

Uribe's political triumph will lead stratospheric ratings both domestically and internationally.

It will lead to an even more intransigent refusal to negotiate for the release of the hostages, and insisting on a military solution including invasions of neighboring countries and assassinations of “high value targets”

It will eclipse the many scandals that Uribe's administration has been battling, such as the buying of votes for a constitutional amendment to allow for Uribe's re-election,

The Supreme Criminal Court condemned a Colombian Congress Member, Yidis Medina, for accepting a bribe.

It will eclipse the high level government connections with right-wing paramilitaries, and those many investigations connecting the Uribe regime to the paramilitaries.

It will blunt the human rights criticisms that have been an obstacle for one of Uribe's principal policy objectives: The Free Trade Agreement

It will shove the trade deal with the US through the Congress which was already boosted in part at least by the Free Trade Agreement with Canada, which was the logic of the Canadian FTA in the first place.

With the rescue of the three US contractors, the Colombian president will now have a debt to collect which will lead to more billions of US taxpayers money on top of billions already spent to the end of repression of the Colombian people

It will leave Uribe and the Colombian government with an even freer hand to repress peasant movements.

It will drowned out the voices of other leaders, including the Polo Democratico, the indigenous movement, the labor movements and outsiders like Chavez, who have long repudiated kidnapping and have worked for a fair and equitable economy for all Colombians

The fact that his regime is based on purchased votes, paramilitary violence, selling the country's assets to multinationals, will be lost in tales of the heroism of an operation that bloodlessly saved an innocent and long-suffering hostage

The only storm clouds threatening an otherwise bright political horizon appear to be emanating from the prize itself.

One hope is that Ingrid herself, like some of the hostages that were freed in rounds of negotiation through Chavez, might provide some perspective in the days to come

Betancourt has announced that she still hopes to serve her country as president.

Excellent post on the rather desperate gambit of Bush/McCain to garner some mildly "positive" headlines prior to Obama's Field Days in Europe and the Middle East. As for Mexico, will Obrador be running again in 2010, and might an Obama Admin foster greater electoral validity in that key election?  I ask because of the "brighter light" you invoke and the effect of her sane influence on a future Admin.  The loss of Samantha Power as a prominent spokesperson for Obama was one of the real let-downs of the primary season. That she is not on board (overtly) yet remains a disappointment. There seems to have been a real comfort level--ideologically, intellectually, and personally--between her and Obama.  I trust that she will play a major role in an Obama administration (National Security Advisor? Though Susan Rice is interesting too.) When do you think that Power might be rehabilitated publicly? Post-Convention?  

It is interesting concerning the timing.  In fact, the first thing my wife asked today is "Why is this rescue taking place while McCain is there?"

But, in addition to the subtle making it look like McCain had something to do with this, there is another very relevant issue.

McCain is there primarily to discuss the free-trade bill.  Colombia rescues 3 Americans (as well as 12 of their own citizens but that doesn't really matter).  How can we say no to the free-trade bill now.  How ungrateful we would be, particulalry with our heroic McCain leading point.

Clumsily done, yes, but that hasn't stopped Americans in the past from being taken in.

To refer to a reference on the previous thread, all us Toto's better do a lot of barking and pulling back of curtains.

 

 

...but if in fact true (not that I doubt it all that much), so far it has failed spectacularly to be useful here in the US.  I'm seeing no linkage anywhere yet.  It's not being treated as a political story in any way.  Time's got a thing up on it that only indirectly makes a political statement that is lukewarm Bush benefit  only in the afterthought final paragraph.  http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1819862,00.html

 

So, my question is...is there going to be some conserted effort to connect the dots here?  Or is/was Bush/Mc really thinking that there would be some magical connection?  Certainly Uribe gets some good press but as Al points out, if Mc looses it's a pretty significant net loss as someone in the Obama admin will certainly remember this guy blatently taking sides. 

Thanks to The Field I know it was a setup.

 I mentioned to a friend that it wouldn't surprise me to see  Bin Laden captured when MacCain visits Iraq.

He will earn the name Miraculous Mac, where he goes Miracles will follow.

The three stooges in Columbia McSame, LIEberman and Missy Graham....what a picture....I knew it was a set-up. Those three are just disgusting, oh and their caretaker Cindy too!

The positie press generated seems to be small.  But what would happen if the dots were really all connected?

 

Also on the McCain front we've got the Rove team moving in to try and save the day.  Oh joy.  I just hope calling them out on their tactics this time around will really work.  I want to believe Americans have learned a thing or two over the last 8 years...

Do you really think this is a front and center issue that people really care about?

There is a certain inbrededness about political activists.  I remember in 1988 when my co-worker just newly graduated from Harvard told me that sanctions for apartheid in SA would be a major issue in the campaign.  When I told her that I had been living in NC for the last four years and I didn't think it would have much traction in the heartland, she rolled her eyes and said, "Well, NC, what do you expect in such a backwater?" as  if it were beyond argument that Cambridge was the known center of the universe.  Just saying.

The Rove WSJ column headline "Can Barack Buy the Presidency?"  about Obama buying the presidency is so. freaking. transparent.

Let's see.. what's the formula, now? it's either:

• Take the guy's strength and attack it. Check! B.O.'s got $$$, so make that a liability
  
• Accuse the other side of the underhanded stuff you do all the time. Check. Buying Presidencies. We've done that before, too. Lots.
  

There's no need to read the article, really. It's all there, in the headline. (Heh. I inadvertantly typed headlie.) 

Barbara - You're mixing two different things that don't have anything to do with each other: Some Cambridge college kid's view of North Carolina years ago and the matter of McCain's visit to Colombia and Mexico to push "free trade" agreements that have put hundreds of thousands of Americans out of work (and displaced millions of Mexicans from their farms and homes).

The conference call I mentioned by the president of the truck drivers and other members of the Teamsters union is hardly the academic musings of Harvard Square: they've lost jobs to Mexican trucking companies that pay their workers poorly. The economic devastation brought by NAFTA, and that would be brought by the US-Colombia trade agreement, has punched millions of Americans in the stomach, sparked the biggest wave of immigration in US history, lowered the standard of living - access to education, health care, food and fuel - of such a huge swathe of the populace, and you want to imply that it's somehow an elitist issue that nobody cares about?

I'd say your words reflect the very myopic thinking of the young Harvard student you mention in your comment.

I was wondering about the timing of this "rescue" as well, I should of known it would be Al Giordano that would tackle the issue...Thanks again Al, for all you do.

ARE big deals here, I'd say. Writing from Wisconsin (OK, Madison, 70 square miles surrounded by reality), I can say looking out at reality that people are really scared around here. I just today overheard some guys talking about a trip to Milwaukee where the business community was freaked out. Harley Davidson laying off people, GM going under... it doesn't look pretty. I think in this climate, it won't be tough to get people to see through this. It's one thing to get people to see behind the "project for the new american century attack on iraq", but I think quite another when their direct livelihoods are at stake -- and they've already been screwed on it once.

 

I also wanted to second, third, fourth or whatever the hope that Samantha Power ends up with a role in this administration. She still talks very supportively and flatteringly of Obama. She does NOT give off any sense of feeling "thrown under a bus".

 

Guess, Al broke the news first....congratulations Al...as always, I am glad you wrote the story.  I must confess that I wanted to write my own Narco News story because I had some questions regarding the following: under what capacity U.S. Senators John McCain and Barack Obama travel overseas; and who pays for their travel? 

As curious as I am, I contacted first the Barack Obama campaign's HQ at 1-866-675-2008 and all I got was a recording telling me to go the their website.

My next move was to contact the U.S. Senate's office for Senator Barack Obama.  After introducing myself, I was told if my questions had to do with U.S. Sen. Obama's presidential campaign, I was instructed to contact his campaign's HQ because "it was unlawful for U.S. Sen. Obama to discuss, talk, or get involved with his private campaign affairs from his U.S. Senate office.

I felt that I was actually proving what I had hoped to proof, that U.S. Sen. John McCain had used his official U.S. Senate office to travel to Colombia and Mexico.  

Next, I contacted John McCain's campain's HQ and got to talk to a press officer who requested that I send her my questions via Email.  Too late for that. 

I reviewed John McCain's US Senate's website and took notice of  the committees and sub-committees he is currently involved with and I was not able to find any link between his most recent trips to Mexico and Colombia and his senatorial duties. 

The only explanation is that John McCain went overseas and got involved "somehow" with the release of the Colombian hostages...very suspect and timely convenient.

My last and final question is, if McCain went to Colombia and Mexico as a presidential candidate, and not as a US Senator, why is it that he was received personally by the US Ambassador and other USA and Mexican dignitaries?  The same goes with his trip to Colombia.

Since I was not able to talk to a human voice in the Barack Obama's campaign's HQ other than to ask me to send a donation, I have two questions for him:  1) who pays for his overseas trips?; and 2) when he goes overseas, is he received with all of the glamour and political climate, i.e., US Ambassadors, USA and foreign dignitaries like John McCain was received? 

May be John McCain and Barack Obama do not have to answer my questions since there is plenty of videos going around of both Obama and McCain when landing in a foreign country and being greeted different.....if you guys and girls know what I am referring to.

This is probably more related to Al's post "Smart Dissent" but since folks aren't reading that thread anymore I thought I'd post here.  I got this email message today from the Obama campaign:Hi everyone,I am an online organizer for the campaign in our Chicago headquarters and I wanted to let you know that Barack has been carefully listening to his supporters on My.BarackObama as they debate the Foreign Intelligence Survelleince Act. He has written a special note in response and has asked that it be posted to the HQ Blog, since he is traveling and unable to do so himself. Please take a moment and read over the post:http://my.barackobama.com/page/community/post/rospars/gGxsZFTo make sure that your questions are answered about this important piece of legislation, two of Barack's foreign policy advisors will be available for the next 30 minutes to respond to questions you post in the comments section of the blog post.Don't miss this special opportunity to engage directly with senior campaign staff and have your questions answered!Best,Amy HamblinObama for AmericaYou should go to the link and read the post and comments.  Personally I really appreciate that as a volunteer and giver of small donations that I can get involved with the debate at some level and feel that dissenting views are at least being listened to.  It IS a sea change.KD

This just out in the NYT, published when most will miss it: Judge Orders Google to Turn Over YouTube Records. All of them & with your user name and address. Article full of contradictions about privacy safety.

Al, you're more confident than I am that Obama will tack left once he's in office. On some of these issues, there's no downside to staying left (FISA) but he heads for the center. I smell Clintonian triangulation.

Again, Al chimes in with probably the most cogent analysis of these events that can be found ANYWHERE in the US media--independent or corporate.

Remember, I asked you yesterday to do a post on this--you did, and this is a superlative effort.

Since the coup in Venezuela, Al and his authentic journialist cohorts have been the go-to people for folks that are concerned about Latin American, and who are dissatisfied with the slimy, propagandistic, fake journalism that is regurgitated regularly in the corporate media. And far too many left-liberal analysts spew forth the same putrid 'conventional wisdom' of the corporate masters with respect to Latin America.

Thank you Al.

For other Fielders out there--you should be aware that before the current US primaries and general election, Al and his associates have developed a respectable record of investigative and general journalism. To aquaint yourselves with the Narco News historical archives is time-consuming--but well worth the effort.

 

 

 

Get a chance to check in, and after seeing all the great updates about Denver, petition, and now Austin, cannot get this song outta me head: http://youtube.com/watch?v=BD2D6eter7M&feature=related Full steam ahead and let's get that credential!

My subject title is an attempt to integrate the tips that talked about how to put this site closer to the top of google searches..but no less is that  this post that confirms why I support Al..no other blogger of Al's reputation and esteem has the guts.

Freeing Ingrid Betancourt. Stunning. NYT: There is every reason to celebrate the daring rescue from FARC guerrillas of the Colombian-French politician Ingrid Betancourt, three American military contractors and 11 members of the Colombian security forces.....The rescue (pulled off with intelligence from the United States) was another coup for Mr. Uribe’s relentless assault on the FARC, which he has waged with billions in American aid.

As Al wrote above, and any Google search would find it, it was Chavez, not Uribe, who got the hostages released. The US nearly got them all killed. NYT: Bald-faced lies.

Al, when are you going to write a book....seriously, think about it.  Fusing personal stories (which we know you have plenty of) with political commentary/insight....would be a great read.

... Uribe was already making a show of "negotiating" trying to secure the release, and at least to me it was pretty clear that something like this was going to happen. I see it not just as a propaganda stunt for Uribe and McCain, but also as a ploy to firmly deny any negotiating successes to Chavez, Correa, and even the French - which, by the way, is consistent with the bombing of a FARC camp inside Ecuador months ago where FARC leaders were to meet with a French delegation to negotiate the release of Bethancourt.

Al, you might want to check this info circulating in Europe this morning:

According to the french-language Radio Suisse romande, the 15 hostages have been released after a $20 million has been paid to FARC leaders.

The report implies that the US was at the origin of the transaction, and confirms your own reporting that the whole thing is a setup.

See this AFP wire item published here: http://www.liberation.fr/actualite/monde/ingridbetancourt/liberation_ing... (in French)

He was overwhelmingly omitted from the coverage I saw.  Where he was mentioned, it was only to say his trip was overshadowed by this very happy story. 

And this was a great story.  One could not help but be thrilled for Ms. Betancourt and her family. 

A friend of mine objects to the Americans rescued being referred to as "contractors."  He thinks "mercenaries" is more apt.  What say you?

Bill Conroy's scoop basically accepts the Uribe/Bush narrative but simply substitutes Colombian Military for the FBI.  This still leaves the "Uribe as Hero" narrative intact with room to manuever when he faces Betancourt in the presidential showdown.  Especially, in the Colombian media.

The Swiss ransom narrative is a game changer and pretty much guarantees Betancourt's election

It's Obama/Uribe vs. Obama/Betancourt, two completely different visions.  Maybe George Soros put up the $20 million

Jesus - For better or worse, we journalists don't get to invent the story based on what narrative it might produce. As Bill's editor, I know who the source is that that it's a very good one. I have passed along the Swiss link on the possible ransom to Bill. As a reporter, they don't come better or more accurate than Conroy.

I'm curious: this is the second time you've mentioned a scenario in which Betancourt runs for president, presumably against Uribe, which seems to jive a bit with her effusive praise of the narco-president in recent hours (to the extent that she's endorsed the end of term limits that Uribe's been pushing). I know she's very ambitious (that's what got her kidnapped in the first place, when as a presidential candidate she announced she would go into FARC territory even as the Pastrana government was issuing public warnings to her that it couldn't guarantee her security) and a grand-stander at that.

But do you have anything more solid - a link, a quote - to suggest she'll be challenging Uribe for the presidency?

I'm not a huge fan but compared to Attila The Incumbent her social-democratic tendencies would certainly open a greater space for civil society.

Al, in response to your desire for a quote, allow me to step in. Here is a link from the Miami Herald mentioning a quote in which she states a desire to become the president:

http://www.miamiherald.com/1060/story/591924.html

I'm not too informed as to Columbian politics, but it seems that this would be an improvement, as you say.

Al: "Attilla the Incumbent" -- that one made me crack up.

I don't know whether she will challenge Uribe, but I do have the following quote for you from a BBC News Story:

After being reunited with her family at an air base in Bogota, she thanked President Uribe, against whom she was running when she was kidnapped.
She also showed her ordeal had done little to diminish her political ambition as she revealed: "I continue to aspire to serve Colombia as president."

I think she'd stand a better chance of succeeding Sarkozy than beating Uribe, but we'll see.

 

that's why i'm so glad you are on this beat, al. this is the stuff. and most people in the USA dont follow news below the "border" and it can be hard to make out what's going on with the language barrier. 

what a transparent sham. thanks for highlighting it bro.

On the 7/3/08 NewsHour, a Colombian Official openly stated that the White House was briefed about rescue plan, and it wasn't put in motion until they had the Bush Administration's blessing.

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/latin_america/july-dec08/colombiarescue_0...

 

I salute Al for his insight into Bush/McCain treacherous deception. The sad thing is that no major publications (print and electronic) have exposed this sham. Even Huffpost ignores it and KOS only gives a link. It is shameful all around.

What about three American hostages. According to what media reported they were there to point narcotic fields to Colombian officers. Isn't this curious?

Is it me or is his campaign obtuse?  I can never figure WTF they are trying to get across.  The only message that gets across are direct attacks on Obama.  The rest is head-scratchin' stoopid.

Special for Independence Day....

Al Giordano of The Field,

What Bill Conroy has reported  would make for an intriguing documentary film, from exposing the embassy leaks to the facts of the rescue, and everything in between. My eyes have certainly been opened. Thank you for making The Field the premier journalistic endeavor that it is.

Al - I have the utmost respect and admiration for the journalism of yourself, Bill Conroy, and the Narcosphere.  It was your work on the Roberto Hernandez story that was part of the process of opening my eyes to how the world really is.  Your journalism is gold, you can take it to the bank.

I am not a journalist, I am an inventor, an hypothesizer and a cynic.  My information is all "open source".  

Without going back and looking for the sources, I have read now in two different places where Betancourt has stated, herself, that she plans to run for the president.

On the way back home today, I heard on the NPR where she stated that she did not believe that there was any truth to the 20mil rumor.  Ingrid is also now on record saying that it was very fortunate that Uribe got elected a 2nd time.  These are not really the words of someone who is planning to run against Uribe as he seeks his third term.

Most journalism is propaganda but when looking for the facts, I yield to Bill Conroy and his editor everytime.

The New York Times and other corporate news accounts I've read on this all say the FARC has been seriously weakened in the last 10 years because of the Uribe government, assassination of their leaders and I believe one account claimed something like 300 FARC members were leaving each month.  This has been in explanation as to how the Uribe government was supposedly able to pull off the rescue. But even with the correction that it was the U.S. that did it, I still have questions.  The FARC has been in operation for more than 40 years.  I remember reading an article on Narco News I think a few years back, around 2002 or 2003 I believe that depicted a very powerful organization and one that was underground elsewhere in Columbia, ready to be called into action if and when conditions were right.

Does anyone know if the FARC really has been weakened?  I hope not.  If nothing else, they've been a powerful symbol of resistance against right wing (government or paramilitary) death squads.  I guess I'll go into the archives and see if I can find the article.

Meanwhile, I would appreciate an assessment here or on Narco News regarding FARC's power and how the current operation may have impacted the organization.

Al, this is just my hunch--the operation is a good deal of fabrication, and Bentancourt is playing along a bit (perhaps out of genuine gratititude of finally getting into some air conditioning--and not being chained to a tree all day).

I mean, come on, the FARC were releasing these key hostages to an NGO that is sympathetic with the leftist army?!

NGO's sympathetic to the FARC would be murdered by the Colombian rightwing in short order.

The cover-up by the US corporate media, the BBC, and NPR on the issue of Colombian government thuggishness really is surreal, and this is in keeping with the pro-US Western sector's tendency to coddle up to oppressive rightwing dictatorships in the 'third world', where extraction of natural resources on the cheap and super-exploited labor for capital investors (ie, 'incestors') is the general game plan.

Interesting that Bentancourt did not thank Hugo Chavez and the Venezuelan and Ecuadorian governments--as they have been critical in developing the framework for hostage release.

And, further,  I agree with you that Ingrid Bentancourt is motivated by seeking political power--and not on behalf of the half of the Colombian population that have suffered the most upon Colombian oligarch and US imperial hegemony for decades.

BBC's account makes it look like a Jason Bourne-Tom Cruise-Mission-Impossible kinda thriller. You need to read the most recommended readers' comments to get some perspective.

Sad that BBC too is turning into a corporate media.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/low/americas/7490995.stm

amk

Anyone else see this on DKos? 

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/7/4/21584/22253/255/539790

I'd be interested in your thoughts on these reports?

To Jesus Reyes,

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

http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/story/589687.html

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.

And as far as the recent Narco News report -- published within one day of the rescue operation, when I'm certain even some folks involved in the operation, compartmentalized as these things are, didn't know all the details, well, I think the recent video release [doctored as it is, in my opinion] shows that down to some very small details [ie., the hostages being handcuffed before being put on the bird, stated in our report days before the video appeared [today] is an indication we have more than a narrative here. We have many of the facts.

Link to the video:

http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/americas/07/04/hostage.drama/?iref=hpmostp...

And now even Colombian officials and the Pentagon are admitting U.S. involvement after pretending on a world stage that this was entirely a Colombian operation. They just can't bring themselves to concede that U.S. boots were on the ground -- but strangely will concede they were in a U.S. aircraft nearby.

"This mission was 100 percent Colombian. ...The United States was informed 10 days, a week, before the mission. ... They [the US] were concerned about the risk of the people in captivity ... The United States also kept an airplane in the area as a type of intelligence ... but they did not participate in any form in the mission." — Colombian Defense Minister Juan Manuel Santos

Covering this story shouldn't be about pushing some prefabricated narrative. It's about telling the fricking truth. 

And slowly, it starts to catch on, because the truth is far more compelling than fiction.

[typewriters clicking in the background] Hot off the presses from NPR ....

U.S. Role Seen In Colombia Hostage Rescue

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=92236765

Now why is that news if we were not lied to in the first place?

John Lennon is a wise man to listen to in situations like this:

I'm sick and tired of hearing things

From uptight, short sighted

Narrow-minded hypocrites

All I want is the truth

Just gimme some truth

... Is this thread dead? If so, sorry, I was out watching fireworks and celebrating someone's 232nd birthday.

I'm also watching Betancourt all over the news and this somehow doesn't fit with a person who has just spent 6 years in captivity in the jungle. She's like a rock star launching her new hit single. One would be tempted to believe that this liberation - or whatever it really was - took place some time ago already.

And, no, I don't think that this thread is 'dead'--however, I will say that the subject of Colombia and the FARC is very telling with respect to how  the average 'American' configures their psychic economy.

Somethings are better left unsaid (as Hall and Oates famously crooned)--so as to protect the flimsly structure of operative mythos that undergirds the dominant ideology.

Daniel Shore this morning on NPR said that in Colombia 'the good guys won'.  Even though this guy is past 90 years, he tenaciously holds onto the official propaganda, the necessary illusions that are put into operation to protect the corporate managed US status quo.

As far as Ingrid goes, she sure looks as though she was well fed, and I wouldn't count on her to challenge the narrative that is most propitious for the Colombian oligarchy and their allies in the empire.

Question your average US, 'college educated' person in the US--they know absolutely nothing about the US role in the region; they are ignorant of basic history.

There is a reason that this is the case.

The truth of this matter, I suspect, will come down to the fact that the FARC rebels are willing to release hostages and demobilize to some extent--but they also want some concessions from the Colombian government (releasing FARC prisoners, for example).

More, Colombia and the US are desparate to make sure that neither Chavez or Correa get any positive PR from any lessening of tensions.  So they will continue to strut around as the hard-line, undemocratic pricks that they are, and the slower minds among us will fall for it with glee.

 

 

 

 

From the Los Angeles Times blog, La Plaza:

 

 

According to Kraul, the rescue was planned and executed by the Colombians, and benefited from equipment, intelligence and years of training from the United States government, but the left-of-center NarcoNews claims that it was the U.S. government in the driver's seat all the way.

 

"A U.S. military special-operations unit carried out the recent rescue of three Defense Department contractors being held by the leftist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC)," according to a source who has firsthand knowledge of the operation, writes Bill Conroy on the site. The site does not reveal the source, but says it has never been led astray by that source in the past.

NarcoNews claims the operation was in fact led by the United States with Colombian support and that, in fact, the tracking of FARC communications was thanks to satellite phones planted within the group by the U.S.

Al Giordani, who writes for the Huffington Post as well as NarcoNews, wrote on his blogThe Field that the record of the Colombian military in these sorts of raids is poor: "The success of yesterday's raid is how we know that Washington's fingerprints were all over this one."

 

 

 

 

 

I would say that after learning much more about the rescue operation, that it was done almost singlehandedly by the Columbian govt/military with some training and advisement from the Israeli and US govts.    This was a highly sensitive operation planned for months that involved penetrating the organization. Its one that the US was informed about only 10 days before it was to take place.   I highly doubt that Pentagon sources would inform the McCain camp about this mission as it would certainly put it in jeopardy.   The most I suspect is that the McCain camp was told that "good news" of some sort would happen if he planned his trip to Columbia during particular days.  

In any case, the overseas trip didn't help McCain gain traction with voters.   His stay in Columbia was completely overshadowed by the huge story of the hostage release.  There's been no link in the media between McCain's visit and the success of the rescue mission and release of the hostages, and certainly no one is crediting McCain with involvement.   The only mentions I've seen discussed of McCain's overseas trip have been by a handful of pundits recounting the problems, as Al wrote, that McCain has with addressing American workers, their jobs and the issue of outsourcing.  The trip only emphasizes the perception that he is on the wrong side of the trade issue and out of touch with American workers, and the voters in the states that have been severely affected by the trade policies of the last 12 years.

Eleanor - It really comes down to who you believe: a simulating commercial press corps whose correspondents in Latin America are spoon-fed the spin by the Embassy, or the few reporters like Bill Conroy with the track record of getting it right time and time again.

You may want to believe that Washington didn't run this operation. Fine. I'm in my twelfth year of reporting from Latin America and can tell you that under diplomatic protocol, since three of the hostages were US citizens, there is no way that the Colombian government would have (or could have) even started planning such an operation without getting permission first from the Bush administration. After all, had it gone awry (as previous "rescue" ops went), those are three US citizens who could have been killed in the process. It just isn't done that a government unilaterally engages in a high risk operation to free citizens of a more powerful country without that country's government being consulted every step of the way.

The "notified ten days before" nonsense is absolute BS. But like I said, you can choose to believe Forbes magazine or anyone else. I doubt they have the track record of Conroy with inside sources.

Eleanor, Colombia doesn't do anything significant without input from the US.  Colombia is integral toward long-term US strategy in the region, and with the help of billions of dollars in US aid, and a complicit, cowed media that is owned by that country's oligarchy, they can present the image of Uribe as a 'good guy'.  In Colombia, saying that the emporer has no clothes, and stating the true about the connection of rightwing death squads and the Colombian government can get you killed.

The US rightwing is delusional enough to think that McCain can advocate 'free trade' in the face of skepticism from the broader US population--and they can count on corporate media and NPR never to lay out the facts about how these corporate investor agreements impact workers.  Labor union criiticsm of the Colombian government is generally played down in discussions of Colombia.

It could have been that the US government hoped that the situation would play out in favor of McCain more than it actually did.  God knows that the corporate media tried to spin this as the most joyous event in recent history.

The pro-empire corporate rightwing suffers from deep delusions, and they have no ideas that will improve the health and well-being of anyone except investors and the corporate elite.  They count on the deep and generalized ignorance of the managerial classes--and the apathy of the working classes--as assurance that the curtain of lies and subterfuge remains in place.

Certainly, the corproate media will not pull back the curtain and give a broader perspective about the narco-connected, undemocratic Uribe and the Colombian military's connection with rightwing death squads.

This resuce mission has, predictably, caused a few editorial pages to put pressure on Pelosi and the Democrats to pass the investor rights agreements that are currently on the legislative agenda.

My hunch, again, is that the FARC were sucessfully fragmented to the point to where the guerillas thought they they were engaging in an actual unilateral release of these hostages.  The idea that they were so gullible to belief that the Che tee-shirt wearing helicopter pilots were a 'symptathetic' NGO is simply ludicrous.

Colombia is the foothold that the US empire has in South America--and it is crucial to use Colombia as a base for any future attacks against nations in this region that are trying to cast off the yoke of US corporate/military hegemony.

Both Democrat and Republican advocates of US hegemony have put their hope in Uribe--as a model for how the tranditional ruling classes can regain the initiative in the region.  But what they perhaps don't want to see is that terrorizing and murdering many people on the left is central to Uribe's position of strength.

Eleanor,

If you keep an eye on the mainstream press on this situation, cracks are already developing in the false narrative that are hard to explain away as anything more than the truth bursting through the dam of BS. 

The New York Times has already reported that U.S. Special Operations command "helped with surveillance that positively located the hostages within the past year using satellites, aircraft and ground reconnaissance — and had tracked them since then."

And since the three U.S. contractors were captured in 2003, according to the Times report, the U.S. spent "$250 million" on various efforts trying to find them.

Now, given those realities, what's more believable:

1. That Colombia, after opening its doors for years to that type of U.S. activity in pursuit of these hostages, all of a sudden, decided unilaterally to plan a rescue mission, only informing the U.S. government 10 days prior to that mission?

2. That, with the United States' vast intelligence and on-the-ground special operations capabilities already deployed and in play, Colombia agreed to assist the United States government months ago (after U.S. intelligence had "positively located" them) in carrying out a complicated and risky operation involving the lives of three high-profile Americans and a French citizen?

Even absent the information provided by Narco News' source on this, who says the latter choice is the right answer, using your own powers of critical reasoning, how could you not conclude that the second option has the heavy weight of probablility on its side?

 

 

 

1) "contractors" *is* a code word for "mercenaries". Even Hollywood knows this, as was seen in the movie "Shooter". 2) It was pointed out in a European blog (sorry, no link) that the release probably happened some time ago, as Betancourt and the contractors appeared to be in quite good health at their press briefings. Compare the long circulating photo of Betancourt in captivity. One person commented that she even appeared to have had a facelift in the meantime. It also makes sense that she would want to go along with the Uribe version of events, even if she plans to run against him, since only an anti-FARC candidate has a real chance of winning a CIA-rigged election.

I was not really that suprised to see Senator Joe Lieberman in the photo above, smirking as he walks behind McCain and Uribe.

He's been noted as a possible VP running mate for McCain, and has showed himself to be quite the worm in recent years after turning his back on the Democratic Party.

A few days ago NBC ran excerpts from an interview (link below) with McCain, who was very open and ambiguous about picking a running mate.

While this may be a bit of a distraction from the conversation at hand... what do any of you make of this?

 

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3032619/vp/25517103#25517103

 

Just spotted this DKos diary about McCain meeting with Carlos Slim in Mexico, including a rundown on Slim's source of wealth and influence. This is pretty damned striking [emph mine]:

Slim-controlled companies make up one-third of the $422 billion Mexican Bolsa, or stock exchange.

Would love to hear opinions/analysis/reflection on what the diarist noted.

Who knows what it means.  Thanks for pointing out the post, it's very interesting.  It's good to see such discussion are happening on KOS.  Just as capital has been globalized, information, labor and other forms of oppostion to capital must become globalized

Conspiracies are more common than what the psyop mass media hammered in meaning has led us to think.

When your fiancee is planning to leave you because of a wealthier person, or your wife/husband gracefully plots to file for divorce in order to take half of your assets, they are conspiring against you. When your boss considers you are doing a great job but you are outperforming everyone, even him, and sets up a plan to get you out of the way for fear you might put him down, he is conspiring against you.

Even the most famous conspiracy theory is that some cavemen with box cutters were able to kidnap four commercial planes in order to make the world tremble, in the infamous 9-11 attacks.

Even in the current case of GOC trying to sell the story about a conspiracy of the Colombian intelligence against the FARC. Tying loose ends and coming up with another version, is automatically referred to as conspiracy theory, just as mind control puppeteers expect people to claim, in order to ridicule arguments that could set them up against the wall.

Many plans are afoot, well financed and they do not include you.

Check it out:

http://phoenixwoman.wordpress.com/2008/07/05/did-bushco-pay-farc-20-mill...