This Is Going To Be Absolutely, Positively The Most Serious Thing I'll Discuss On This Blog And Absolutely, Positively 0 Comments Will Show. I promise.
IN COLOMBIA, THE FARC HAS FREED CLARA ROJAS, HER THREE YEAR OLD SON AND A POL NAMED CONSUELO GONZALEZ DE PERDOMO. THIS IS THE RESULT OF A DIPLOMATIC AGREEMENT BETWEEN "PRO U.S." RIGHT-WING COLOMBIAN PRESIDENT, ALVARO URIBE, AND "ANTI U.S." LEFT-WING VENEZUELAN PRESIDENT, HUGO CHAVEZ.
There you have it. My lead. Not the MSM's. Here are some MSM links. All contain varying degrees of bullshit and no analysis whatsoever.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/11/world/americas/11colombia.html
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-hostages11jan11,1,7765752.story?coll=la-headlines-world
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5jqMoB20XTgRFv-FvxAWEvCGt-fdAD8U38M280
http://www.thetimes.co.za/News/Article.aspx?id=677341
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5jqMoB20XTgRFv-FvxAWEvCGt-fdAD8U3RVQO0
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/01/10/AR2008011001908.html?hpid=sec-world
This is potentially a Nixon-In-China scenario, which presages an end to the "War-On-Drugs" and the emergence of South America as an economic superpower. If there's any connection to the US presidential campaign it's this: Senator Clinton is the only candidate deft enough to see this through to a potentially breakthrough resolution. There is no Republican who either can or would want to do anything but fuck it up and the thought of Obama knowing or caring about any of this is absurd. Well, that's not true exactly. With regard to foreign affairs, Obama knows and cares about what Joe Lieberman wants him to know or care about which is what George W. Bush and John McCain want Joe Lieberman to know or care about.
No thank you, Kelso said. President H.R. Clinton for this job, please.
OK, you have your overview of what happened yesterday from the links. Please check SuziRiot's blog for a link to a 2004 interview with an American diplomat named Marc Grossman about Colombia then, in the wake of the election of U.S. supported Alvaro Uribe as President. There's not too much meat there but it adds some background to the situation today.
I fucking know that the only Colombians Americans have ever heard of are "Juan Valdez" and Pablo Escobar. Well, OK, because Love In The Time Of Cholera is a movie in current release, Oprah Winfrey added the novel by Gabriel Garcia Marquez to her book-club list. So, maybe some American ladies and Barack Obama have heard of Garcia Marquez. Oh, Oprah's minions may have missed something that could come back to bite her in the hind-quarters over this one. One of Garcia Marquez's early works is a short novel called No One Writes To The Colonel which takes a rather positive view of the sport of pitting gamecocks. Wasn't like meat or anti-bloodsport one of Oprah's signature issues back in the stone-age?
At any rate, the release of the hostages in Colombia absolutely dominated the news down here yesterday. From what I understand a rape-murder case involving three WHITE members of the U.S. Marine Corps, a female victim, a male perpetrator and a female witness down in North Carolina was O.J.-on-the-freeway up in Big Sammy. Down here on the isthmus, however, everyone was pretty happy about the release of the hostages and the promise of the release of more. Plenty of excitement over the prospect of peace in Colombia and a lot of optimism that two bitter enemies, Uribe and Chavez, could by-pass the US, work out a diplomatic solution to a vexing problem, and with any luck end the fighting along the border which now seems like nothing more than the usual "low-intensity" proxy bullshit which characterized the cold war. Without a Soviet Union, however, any enemy will do. Arabs are great. But Latins with oil and coca aren't so bad either.
You now know the extremes: FARC and the paramilitaries. Here are two of the players in the middle. Uribe, of course, and Gaviria, the leader of the opposition.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/5024428.stm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carlos_Gaviria_D%C3%ADaz
So, with such a positive development as the hostage release, "the only person on the scene missing was...."? Well, who was missing? If you said "Condoleeza Rice" you'd be right. There are some red asses in Washington right now to be sure. This was very much not how it was supposed to go down with Alvaro Uribe. The president was supposed to control the FARC, fight the Venezuelans, aid the paramilitaries and like it despite his own father having been killed by the paras, and basically aid "US contractors" in the "War On Drugs," excuse me, the "War On Narco-Terrorism," which translated from Burson-Martsteller-ese means make sure that the US controls the lion's share of the cocaine distribution and finance market while blaming the Colombian opposition party, a few abject campesinos, and some imaginary Black Urban American Superpredators (tm-Bill Bennett) for the "drug problem."
Alvaro Uribe was supposed to be an ally to Bush. So was Jacques Chirac. Uribe was not supposed to negotiate with the FARC and then carry it a step further and negotiate and assign a crucial role to Hugo fucking Chavez. And let it work!
Expect some right-wing jackass in the US Congress to propose a boycott of Colombian coffee or maybe even to go totally "freedom fries" and propose that Columbia University be re-named David Horowitz Anti-Islamofascism University, or propose that Columbia, South Carolina, be re-Christened Liberty, South Carolina.
Also expect, however, Alvaro Uribe and possibly Hugo Chavez to be in the running for the 2008 Nobel Peace Prize and favorites should Ingrid Betancourt be released by the FARC through continued Uribe/FARC negotiations facilitated by Chavez. Hold the comments on that one, please. Kissinger got a Nobel. Game, set and match.
You don't have to care about this. I do. For me, it's like being a New Yorker and seeing a peaceful resolution to a race-riot in Boston or Philadelphia.
That is what I like. Peace. In a certain sense what's going on down here is an awful lot like Northern Ireland. This shit has gone on down here for more than 40 years and there's plenty of blame to go around. It's connected to all sorts of bizarre stuff up to and including Manuel Noriega, "Freeway" Ricky Ross, and plenty of the baroque rap lyrics we've come to know and love. I don't have a side in the fight, which by U.S. standards means I'm a commie who hates America and loves the FARC and Hugo Chavez. It's silly for a foreigner to have a side. How can anyone like all of the violence on both sides? Who other than most US politicians and most Southern fraternity exurban office-park Nascar douchebags could like violence?
There is, of course, a third choice. To believe that Colombians should work this out for themselves and maybe consider legalizing coca and to believe that the U.S. ought to maybe concentrate a little more on supporting the dollar and its own infrastructure and manufacturing base instead of pursuing this constant unattainable fantasy of world domination, everyone else be fucked. A little more attention on peace in the Middle East and a balanced-budget and less attention on getting Grumman or Blackwater a share of the coke business. How about it?
Does that make Kelso a "narco-terrorist"? Oh-nooooo! I'm not particularly wild about Alvaro Uribe. His right-wing social politics are still antithetical to mine. I'm not particularly wild about Hugo Chavez. His -- whatever -- Putinist economic views are antithetical to mine. I'm not a Colombian nor am I a Venezuelan, though. Still, I have to live nearby. So, three cheers for both Uribe and Chavez on the first tangible success of their diplomatic efforts and a hearty "fuck you" to Condoleeza Rice, John Negroponte, Elliot Abrams, and -- I know they're lurking in the shadows -- Blackwater.
With peace, prosperity. Here are a couple of business news items from Colombia that also came yesterday. I'm not surprised in the slightest.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601086&sid=aeyGZmoMEkO8&refer=news
http://www.fxstreet.com/news/forex-news/article.aspx?StoryId=8cb13be7-ae1c-438f-bb44-d9a6559e2ed9
This is what it's all about and think for a second how far right America has drifted. It's easy to sell Americans war. It's fucking hard to sell them capitalism.
Kelso's Nuts love you
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9 comments:
i wish i was half as smart and knowledgeable as you
you are right -- we know nothing about our own backyard ---
even i fall into the trap of sensationalism and numbing news......
we are heading for our own downfall
D-CAPny:
It has absolutely nothing to do with intelligence, whatsoever. I would make a good sized bet your IQ is higher than mine.
I have a background in emerging markets finance and I've travelled a decent amount so I like to keep on top of these things, especially stuff that's going on so close to where I live.
The Economist does a good job of covering the waterfront. You just have to be aware of what their biases are, where they are appropriate and where they're not. Human Rights Watch is good. So is The New York Review Of Books. The Nation's good. And there is no shortage of periodicals focused on international economics and finance. You just have to like the subjects, I guess. FOREIGN AFFAIRS is ok, I suppose, but it's a bit obvious and pretentious and its mushy centrism does nothing for me.
The only rule is NEVER, EVER, EVER, EVER TRUST THE TISSUE-OF-LIES. That would go for the Washington Post, too, these days.
Hey, Kelso. It's a good thing you didn't put any money on that prediction that there would be no comments. I read the story of the release of the hostages in this morning's paper. Even though it's been 40 years since I've seen them, I was friends back in the '60s with a couple from Venezuela and another couple from Columbia. They were so smart and sophisticated and so very patient with me as I stumbled through my broken Spanish. The Venezuelan woman and I became good friends (speaking only in Spanish)and continued to correspond for a while after they returned to V. So, because of that small history, I am always interested in news from V and C. I pretty much agree with you in your next-to-last paragraph. I wish Chavez would ditch the tired, old communist/socialist line and consider the joys of capitalism. But all I can do is hope that somehow it all turns out all right in the end.
The end.
Z:
It was a good prediction. It was just wrong. I'd had la verga for comments every other time I brought up Latin American affairs. Why should this have been any different? This thing was even more esoteric than some other Latin stuff I've written about.
I'm glad you enjoyed it. Yes, Colombianos and Venezolanos are pretty interesting folks. I've compared Colombians before to shorter, darker-complected Russians, given their mordant sense of humor and all around craziness which takes some getting used to. I've written before that if this does get resolved and President Hillary Rodham Clinton lifts the visa restrictions on Colombians, Lou Dobbs is going to be very sorry he spent all that time trashing Mexicans. Colombians are a whole other thing and they are not going to be looking to be blowing leaves or picking up trash. And that sense of humor is like nothing Ameericans have ever encountered. A whole country of Sarah Silvermans to like the zillionth power.
I've found Venezolanos to be mellower but no less sophisticated and by and large pretty easy to get along with if -- like you did and I do -- speak Spanish and not cop an ugly American attitude.
I am not ashamed in the slightest to say that I am capitalist. I love it. As for Chavez, I'm not convinced that's he's a socialist or a communist. Those are at least clear ideologies. Who knows what's up with him? I'm willing to just call him a control freak with an evolved social conscience whom slightly more than half the population love. I'm not in a big hurry to live there but I will say that I'd probably pick Caracas over an American city if forced to choose. As a living example to Bush and all of the Republicans of "be careful what you wish for because you just might get it," Chavez is great. They wanted a monster high oil price. They got it. And with it they got Chavez and they got him as long as oil stays over $40/bbl.
I get a laugh when he goes off on Bush. I love those saccharine Citgo commercials and the whole Citgo program of Venezuela (imagine!) aiding America's poor because the American government won't. He can keep doing it because the petroleum price allows him to do so. Did you think a guy like Calderon in Mexico would have the balls to tell the DEA to fuck itself if it wasn't swimming in crude?
Nevertheless, I never underestimate the Republicans willingness to push it to the utmost, so every time Chavez goes off, I worry that it's not Chavez who's going to destabilize the region but rather the Bush administration as a last act. So, I wish Chavez would be a bit more tranquil. This detente with Uribe is PITCH PERFECT, though.
On balance, of course I'd prefer Venezuela to have freer markets and more fungibility but I do believe the equal and opposite alternative to Chavez has been tried a zillion times in Latin American and it really, really, really sucks. As in LIKE really, really. I think Argentina, Chile, Panama, Uruguay, and to a lesser extent Bolivia, Brazil, Ecuador and Peru are getting it more "correct" economically. It's true of the first four but I could well be wrong about the latter four.
Thanks for commenting.
Hey Kelso,
In short this is the biggest story of the day, period. It is a rapproachement on the level of Nixon-Castro had thst taken place in 1972 or Meir Arafat in days long since passed. You are sooo right on the capitalism or war thing and that is a fucking sad state of affairs.
'alo, Deety:
I'll tackle this issue in a separate post but think about who the Americans are that have said and led on the most contrary issues of the day. I'll go back to the failure of the Soviet Union and communism's replacement as bogeyman with the social democratic views of Keynes and Galbraith.
Now, who's saying the radical stuff? It's pretty far away from Hollywood or the arts or fashion. I'm thinking of Mark Cuban, Warren Buffett, journalist Jim Grant, fixed income scholar and equity bullshit skeptic Robert Shiller, The Great John Meriwether, Michael Milken, Governor Jon Corzine, the good folks at BARRA, derivatives scholars Cox, Chen, Roll, Ross, and Rubenstein, Eduardo Schwartz, equity sales bullshit skeptics Brad Cornell, and Nasim Taleb, writer Peter Bernstein, journalist Alan Abelson, Hall-Of-Famers Eugene Fama and (believe it!) William F. Buckley, Jr., the authors of the paper advocating legal insider trading whose names I've forgotten although Shleifer and Logue seem to ring a bell and I believe it came out of Harvard, all-round good-guy Paul Craig Roberts, genius despite it all Myron Scholes, Victor Neiderhoffer when he's sane, journalist James Surowiecki, practically anyone at Swissbank/O'Connor, even MOVEMENT CONSERVATIVES William Simon and sons...there really is a whole gunnysack of them and they are always the straw men on CNBC or Fox Business News.
I have no doubt that if you took random samplings of any of those folks' work and read it out of context to the average American he would say it was "Marxist" and "un-American" just like what they do every now and then with the Declaration Of Independence and U.S. Constitution.
Russ Limbaugh's whining about Hollywood and queers to the contrary, Americans really can deal with Sean Penn, Tim Robbins and Michael Moore, let alone really chickenshit Hollywood people, because stars always get a pass. Contemporary financial scholars and true entrepreneurs? They're scary.
We're far afield from Colombia, I realize, but I'm glad you seized on the capitalism v war thing, and as someone who has in his life made a synthetic Colombian Peso/Venezuelan Bolivar carry-trade through the total return swap market, I can attest to the fact that there is a tenuous connection!
"Southern fraternity exurban office-park Nascar douchebags"
(tm - Kelso)
"A little more attention on peace in the Middle East and a balanced-budget and less attention on getting Grumman or Blackwater a share of the coke business."
Ben Wallace-Wells has written a great article, "How The U.S. Lost The War On Drugs" for RS - check it out (link may break in comments):
http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/17438347/how_america_lost_the_war_on_drugs
Ok, maybe this is tinfoil hat time, but stay with me. I gotta rant.
Isn't it convenient that almost 100% of the already minuscule amount of attention span that Americans are able to spare for international events is monopolized by Iraq (and maybe a little bit of that by the Middle East in general)?
And isn't it convenient that this focus on the Middle East and fear of Islamic terrorism has made most Americans completely amnesiac about anything that happened in the 1980's and 90's in Central and South America? Does anyone even remember Noriega and the CIA?
And isn't it interesting that while our attention is focused elsewhere, the War on Drugs rages on with basically no questions or concern from American public officials or private citizens? Does NOBODY recognize that the Banana Republic model is EXACTLY what is being implemented in the Middle East? Does anybody remember Bush I and the New World Order? Sound familiar? Teddy Roosevelt and the Phillippines? Opening new markets for American Imperialism? I wish people would just get familiar with this country's fucking HISTORY! I didn't choose to be a history major just because I'm a nerd. History matters: it's a record of humanity's stupidity and folly. Go read every volume of the Cambridge History of American Foreign Relations and then tell me that BushCo (that's I AND II) is not trying to do in the Middle East what we did in Asia. Victorious in war, profitable in peace?
Okay, I gotta stop now or I'll turn your blog into mine.
Please, Suzi, turn my blog into yours. My specialties are math and finance. I have studied a normal amount of US and world history (for an all-round scholarly guy) and keep a fair track of current events, but my knowledge of history, international affairs and their patterns is a very, very tiny fraction of yours.
Being able to read a hard copy of LA PRENSA every day and having frieds in the PRD (and in the UP, to be fair) I do know what's going on down here. And I do see the intersection of your discipline and mine. It is no coincidence that Argentina (Kirchner, Fernandez-Kirchner), Chile (Bachillet) and Panama (Torrijos) are FLYING economically as SOCIAL DEMOCRATIC CAPITALIST states which are skeptical-to-self-protective of the USA and "the war on terror". Meanwhile, how's the USA doing economically, again? I forgot for a second...
I loved a headline in yesterday's business section of LA PRENSA: "Bancos locales no invirtieron en hipotecas 'subprime'" NYAH, NYAH, NYAH, NYAH, NYAH!
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