- Do you believe this?
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- This past weekend, Colombia invaded Ecuador, killed a
guerrilla chief in the jungle, opened his laptop and what did the
Colombians find? A message to Hugo Chavez that he sent the FARC guerrillas
$300 million which they're using to obtain uranium to make a dirty
bomb!
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- That's what George Bush tells us. And he got that from
his buddy, the strange right-wing President of Colombia, Alvaro Uribe.
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- So: After the fact, Colombia justifies its attempt to
provoke a border war as a to stop the threat of WMDs! Uh, where have we
heard that before?
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- The US press snorted up this line about Chavez' $300
million to "terrorists" quicker than the young Bush inhaling
Colombia's powdered export.
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- What the US press did not do is look at the evidence,
the email in the magic laptop. (Presumably, the FARC leader's last words
were, "Listen, my password is .")
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- I read them. While you can read it all in español,
here is, in translation, the one and only mention of the alleged $300 million
from Chavez is this:
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- " With relation to the 300, which from now on we
will call "dossier," efforts are now going forward at the instructions
of the boss to the cojo [slang term for 'cripple'], which I will explain
in a separate note. Let's call the boss Ángel, and the cripple Ernesto."
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- Got that? Where is Hugo? Where's 300 million? And 300
what? Indeed, in context, the note is all about the hostage exchange with
the FARC that Chavez was working on at the time (December 23, 2007) at
the request of the Colombian government.
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- Indeed, the entire remainder of the email is all about
the mechanism of the hostage exchange. Here's the next line: "To receive
the three freed ones, Chavez proposes three options: Plan A. Do it to via
of a 'humanitarian caravan'; one that will involve Venezuela, France, the
Vatican[?], Switzerland, European Union, democrats [civil society], Argentina,
Red Cross, etc."
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- As to the 300, I must note that the FARC's previous prisoner
exchange involved 300 prisoners. Is that what the '300' refers to? ¿Quien
sabe? Unlike Uribe, Bush and the US press, I won't guess or make up a phastasmogoric
story about Chavez mailing checks to the jungle.
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- To bolster their case, the Colombians claim, with no
evidence whatsoever, that the mysterious "Angel" is the code
name for Chavez. But in the memo, Chavez goes by the code name Chavez.
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- Well, so what? This is what.
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- Colombia's invasion into Ecuador is a rank violation
of international law, condemned by every single Latin member of the Organization
of American States. And George Bush just loved it. He called Uribe to back
Colombia, against, "the continuing assault by narco-terrorists as
well as the provocative maneuvers by the regime in Venezuela."
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- Well, our President may have gotten the facts ass-backward,
but Bush knows what he's doing: shoring up his last, faltering ally in
South America, Uribe, a desperate man in deep political trouble.
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- Uribe claims he is going to bring charges against Chavez
before the International Criminal Court. If Uribe goes there in person,
I suggest he take a toothbrush: it was just discovered that right-wing
death squads held murder-planning sessions at Uribe's ranch. Uribe's associates
have been called before the nation's Supreme Court and may face prison.
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- In other words, it's a good time for a desperate Uribe
to use that old politico's wheeze, the threat of war, to drown out accusations
of his own criminality. Furthermore, Uribe's attack literally killed negotiations
with FARC by killing FARC's negotiator, Raul Reyes. Reyes was in talks
with both Ecuador and Chavez about another prisoner exchange. Uribe authorized
the negotiations, however, he knew, should those talks have succeeded in
obtaining the release of those kidnapped by the FARC, credit would have
been heaped on Ecuador and Chavez, and discredit heaped on Uribe.
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- Luckily for a hemisphere on the verge of flames, the
President of Ecuador, Raphael Correa, is one of the most level-headed,
thoughtful men I've ever encountered.
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- Correa is now flying from Quito to Brazilia to Caracas
to keep the region from blowing sky high. While moving troops to his border
no chief of state can permit foreign tanks on their sovereign soil
Correa also refuses sanctuary to the FARC . Indeed, Ecuador has routed
out 47 FARC bases, a better track record than Colombia's own, corrupt military.
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- For his cool, peaceable handling of the crisis, I will
forgive Correa for apologizing for his calling Bush, "a dimwitted
President who has done great damage to his country and the world."
(Watch an excerpt of my interview with Correa here.)
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- Amateur Hour in Blue
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- We can trust Correa to keep the peace South of the Border.
But can we trust our Presidents-to-be?
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- The current man in the Oval Office, George Bush, simply
can't help himself: an outlaw invasion by a right-wing death-squad promoter
is just fine with him.
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- But guess who couldn't wait to parrot the Bush line?
Hillary Clinton, still explaining that her vote to invade Iraq was not
a vote to invade Iraq, issued a statement nearly identical to Bush's, blessing
the invasion of Ecuador as Colombia's "right to defend itself."
And she added, "Hugo Chávez must stop these provoking actions."
Huh?
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- I assumed that Obama wouldn't jump on this landmine
especially after he was blasted as a foreign policy amateur for suggesting
he would invade across Pakistan's border to hunt terrorists.
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- It's embarrassing that Barack repeated Hillary's line
nearly verbatim, announcing, "the Colombian government has every right
to defend itself."
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- (I'm sure Hillary's position wasn't influenced by the
loan of a campaign jet to her by Frank Giustra. Giustra has given over
a hundred million dollars to Bill Clinton projects. Last year, Bill introduced
Giustra to Colombia's Uribe. On the spot, Giustra cut a lucrative deal
with Uribe for Colombian oil.)
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- Then there's Mr. War Hero. John McCain weighed in with
his own idiocies, announcing that, "Hugo Chavez is establish[ing]
a dictatorship," presumably because, unlike George Bush, Chavez counts
all the votes in Venezuelan elections.
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- But now our story gets tricky and icky.
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- The wise media critic Jeff Cohen told me to watch for
the press naming McCain as a foreign policy expert and labeling the Democrats
as amateurs. Sure enough, the New York Times, on the news pages Wednesday,
called McCain, "a national security pro."
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- McCain is the "pro" who said the war in Iraq
would cost nearly nothing in lives or treasury dollars.
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- But, on the Colombian invasion of Ecuador, McCain said,
"I hope that tensions will be relaxed, President Chavez will remove
those troops from the borders - as well as the Ecuadorians - and relations
continue to improve between the two."
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- It's not quite English, but it's definitely not Bush.
And weirdly, it's definitely not Obama and Clinton cheerleading Colombia's
war on Ecuador.
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- Democrats, are you listening? The only thing worse than
the media attacking Obama and Clinton as amateurs is the Democratic candidates'
frightening desire to prove them right.
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