Once Again, It's On

If this is all too familiar, be aware that I understand. I've been giving EFE wire service reports for the sake of balance. For fun, here's the propaganda you get with the AP. Used blue font for AP article. I've emboldened and italicized the fun stuff and have used a reddish font for the really fun stuff. This actually has relevance to the US election now but we'll get to all that.

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Colombia: Chavez funding FARC rebels By TOBY MUSE, Associated Press Writer
21 minutes ago

BOGOTA, Colombia - Venezuela and Ecuador sought Monday to make Colombia pay a high price for killing a leftist rebel leader in the Ecuadorean jungle — expelling its diplomats, ordering troops to the border and cracking down on trade across the border.

But Colombia quickly struck back, revealing what it said were incriminating documents seized from the rebel camp that suggest its neighbors have been secretly supporting the leftist rebels' deadly insurgency.

And in a tit-for-tat move, Venezuela later displayed the laptop of a slain drug trafficker, which it said contained information implicating Colombia's national police chief in the cocaine trade.

Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa piled on the pressure saying Colombia's killing of the rebel leader Raul Reyes Saturday had scuttled talks between his government and the guerrillas to free 12 rebel-held hostages, including French-Colombian politician Ingrid Betancourt and three U.S. defense contractors.

"I'm sorry to tell you that the conversation were pretty advanced to free 12 hostages, including Ingrid Betancourt, in Ecuador," said Correa in a televised address. "All of this was frustrated by the war-mongering, authoritarian hands" of the Colombian government.

Colombia's national police chief stood by its attack that killed Reyes, and said that documents recovered from his laptop showed Venezuela's leftist government recently paid $300 million to the rebels, among other financial and political ties that date back years, and that high-level meetings have been held between rebels and Ecuadorean officials.

And this shocker: Colombia says some documents suggest the rebels have bought and sold uranium.

"When they mention negotiations for 50 kilos of uranium this means that the FARC are taking big steps in the world of terrorism to become a global aggressor. We're not talking of domestic guerrilla but transnational terrorism," Gen. Oscar Naranjo said at an explosive news conference.

Naranjo didn't give any details on when, where or from whom the uranium was allegedly bought. He provided no proof of the payment and wouldn't release copies of the documents, which he said are "tremendously revelatory" and are being examined with the help of U.S. experts.

Both Venezuela and Ecuador dismissed his allegations as lies. They expelled Colombia's top diplomats and recalled their own. Correa planned to visit five Latin American countries starting Tuesday to defend his decision to break off diplomatic relations, accusing Colombia of being an enemy of peace and lying about the nature of the raid.

Colombia said military commandos, tracking Reyes through an informant, were fired upon from Ecuadorean territory. But Correa said Colombia deliberately carried out the strike beyond its borders, and that the rebels were "bombed and massacred as they slept, using precision technology."

Both Venezuela and Ecuador also began reinforcing their borders, mobilizing troops and tanks as Chavez warned that another Colombian attack could spark a wider South American war.

Venezuelan National Guard troops and customs authorities suspended new imports and exports at the busiest border crossings. One Colombian police commander, Col. Ivan Florez, told the AP that all vehicles with Colombian license plates were being turned away from a key border crossing.

Maintaining trade with Colombia, essential to Venezuela's economy, is one of many factors weighing against outright war. But the bellicose rhetoric has worried Latin American leaders. The presidents of Chile, Mexico and Brazil offered to mediate, and an emergency session of the Organization of American States was scheduled for Tuesday in Washington.

State Department spokesman Tom Casey said the United States supports Colombia's right to defend itself against the leftist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, and called for dialogue.

Colombian officials have long complained that rebels take refuge in Ecuador and Venezuela. But Defense Minister Juan Manuel Santos said Monday that his government isn't moving any troops and "we have the situation under control."

The rebels, who have been fighting for more than four decades for a more equitable distribution of wealth in Colombia, fund themselves largely through the cocaine trade, while holding hundreds of kidnapped hostages for ransom and political ends. The drug trafficking and kidnappings haven't helped their reputation, which is why both Correa and Chavez have denied supporting them.

Killed in the bombing were Reyes, the FARC's top spokesman, and 20 other guerrillas. Ecuador recovered 19 bodies and three wounded female rebels, including a Mexican philosophy student. By then, Colombian soldiers had already carried out the cadavers of Reyes and another rebel, along with three laptops containing the sensitive documents.

Indignant, Chavez said "they wanted to show off the trophy" and called it "cowardly murder, all of it coldly calculated."

"This could be the start of a war in South America," Chavez said.

But Naranjo said laptops show Venezuela's growing responsibility for the conflict.

The $300 million payment was mentioned in a Feb. 14 message in Reyes laptop, along with documents suggesting rebels discussed a possible arms transfer from Venezuela, and revealing close ties between Manuel "Sureshot" Marulanda, the top FARC leader, and Venezuela's government.

He quoted one message from Marulanda to Chavez saying "We will always be ready, in the case of gringo aggression, to provide our modest knowledge in defense of the Bolivarian revolution in Venezuela."

"This implies more than cozying up, but an armed alliance between the FARC and the Venezuelan government," Naranjo said.

Naranjo said other documents show deepening ties between the rebels and Correa. Ecuador acknowledged that its internal security minister, Gustavo Larrea, met with a FARC emissary but said the intent was strictly humanitarian — to seek the release of hostages held by the rebel group.

Still another document in Reyes' laptop suggests the rebels sent Chavez money when he was jailed in 1992 for leading a coup attempt, Naranjo said. At the time, he was plotting the comeback that eventually led to his election as president in 1998.

"A note recovered from Raul Reyes speaks of how grateful Chavez was for the 100 million pesos (about US$150,000 at the time) ... delivered to Chavez when he was in prison," Naranjo said, without giving any more details.

Venezuelan late Monday countered by displaying its own seized laptop in Caracas, saying it holds incriminating information tying Naranjo to drug traffickers.

Venezuelan Justice Minister Ramon Rodriguez Chacin said this laptop, belonging to Colombian drug lord Wilber Varela, who was found slain in Venezuela in January, held "important information and notes from the drug traffickers which involve General Oscar Naranjo in drug trafficking."

Rodriguez, who is Chavez's top law enforcement official, said both Naranjo and his brother, who is imprisoned in Germany on drug charges, have links to traffickers.

(Associated Press writers Frank Bajak and Vivian Sequera in Bogota; Gabriela Molina and Jeanneth Valdivieso in Quito, Ecuador; Diego Norona in Angostura, Ecuador; and Fabiola Sanchez, Jorge Rueda and Ian James in Caracas contributed to this report. )

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Time to fasten your seat belts, everybody this is going to be a bumpy ride. This post and this conflict. This is how the Republicans are going to win the election and how Bush is going to take one last crack at saving his legacy and how all of your rights and liberties will be seized.

Start getting familiar with these countries. And start drawing some parallels with what you've seen in the Middle East. Don't make the same -- yes racist -- mistake that Bush made before invading Iraq. These countries are ALL DIFFERENT. The people who live in each one are different. Sunnis, Shia? Remember? Even for the legions of Obama fans who think they bought a PASS have to wake up and do some homework here. You don't get to skip it because you're a Black Obama fan and you don't get to skip it if you're a White Obama fan. These are not instinguishable funny-looking brown people who speak a funny language. And you are not above all this. And this is a fucking mess.

Some words for some politicians in America first.

JOE LIEBERMAN: Now, that you have what you want and Chavez and uranium have been mentioned in the same sentence, stop before you speak. How exactly do you think that the FARC and the Paramilitaries in Colombia manage to convert Pesos into USD, EEU, JPY, and Swissy? Why don't you come down and play a round of golf at the nicest country club in Cali? And then why not have a wholesome lunch of kafte, kibbe and falafel in the club room? And ask a real person in the CIA how many of your beloved Israelis live in Andean South America? Israel is not on your side in this fight, asshole.

JOHN McCAIN: Don't even think about it. If Lieberman doesn't know what's going on, you definitely don't. I haven't met a lot of Tim Russerts down here but I've met a whole lot of people who WILL serve you your eggs for breakfast.

HILLARY CLINTON: THIS is your 2nd chance. Or third. You fucked it up twice --including Kyl-Lieberman -- before. If you fuck THIS one up, after every great thing your husband did to promote democracy in this neck of the woods, you deserve all the shit you're taking in this campaign and then some. You certainly deserve no role whatsoever on any committee related to foreign relations or the armed forces. What-Would-Bill-Do? Is the question and the answer is not BOMB CHAVEZ. The answer is not vote to authorize the bombing of CHAVEZ. The ANSWER is to get the parties to sit down and talk. And if that means cocaine legalization has to be on the table, so be it. You are supposed to be the experienced and serious candidate here. Lace 'em up and get in the game.

BARACK OBAMA: Cut the shit and lick the knife, son. If you don't, Clinton is going to ask you who the president of Ecuador is and crumple your campaign into a little ball and toss it into Howard Dean's wastepaper basket.

If by some miracle you know who the president of Ecuador is, she's going to checkmate your campaign with this question: "Barack, you said you were in favor of talking with our 'enemies' and that a diplomacy-first plan was best. What do you make of the fact that Colombian-Venezuelan diplomacy had been working through January until President Uribe did an about face on further hostage release negotiations. I defer to your better 'judgement.' What should we as Democrats do about the worsening situation in the Andes? Do you think that our important ally President Uribe may have been too hasty in not only abandoning negotiations for the release of FARC hostages but is now also perhaps being overly aggressive with a nation which posed no threat to Colombia?"

Better get ready, son. That is a checkmate question. There is no way to answer it without rupturing your coalition of Republicans, Right-Wing Democrats, students, and Progressives. Don't believe? Try out the myriad of answers and see if any work. And the answer that works WORST of all is "I try to see beyond the old-fashioned partisan politics of yesterday and there's no reason my message of 'change' can't work as well on the streets of Medellin as it does 'on the streets of Chicago.'"

And why do I think it would be check-mate? Read.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080303/pl_nm/palestinians_israel_rice_obama_dc

You like apples, you "progressive" student fucks? How 'bout them apples?

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