The F Word: Celebration in Colombia? Not so Fast

It reads like a Hollywood script -- Colombian commandos descend into the jungle and exit with 15 hostages, including a former Colombian presidential candidate and three American Pentagon contractors who'd been held by anti-government guerrillas. The hostages had been held for six long years. What a long time and what a relief.

The Pentagon's been getting great press for helping in the raid that released the hostages in Colombia. The Bush administration was involved in the planning of the rescue and provided unspecified "specific support," according to the White House. As for John McCain, who admitted being briefed about the raid the night before it occurred -- some at Fox News are giving him props for possibly influencing the hostage release: "There really might be a connection between the high-level visit of the former prisoner of war, John McCain himself, and the release now of three American prisoners here in southern Colombia," said reporter Steve Harrigan.

John McCain, Bush and of course, Colombian president Alvaro Uribe are all too eager to cast the Uribe government in a heroic light. After all, there's another not-so "free" trade deal at stake.

It's always cause for celebration when hostages are released. But let's not lose sight of what side the US has been on during Colombia's grim, dirty conflict.

Although the guerrillas get the coverage, it's not just the FARC that's up to nasty business in Colombia. Successive Colombian governments and their allies have waged brutal war on their critics -- and they've enjoyed support from successive US administrations.

What's Colombia got that McCain and Bush want? Resources and industry, although the place is overwhelmed with poverty. Those who'd relieve that poverty -- trade unionists, for example -- have been slaughtered by the score. Over 400 hundred labor organizers have been murdered under the Uribe regime alone. That's more than in the rest of the world combined -- in six long years. And for all those six years Washington has done nothing.

So six years is an age -- but when it comes to blood-for-profit, it doesn't seem so long to Washington. And hostage-taking's wrong. If only hostages to-poverty got the same sympathy accorded to the Pentagon-contractor kind.

The F Word is a daily commentary by Laura Flanders on GRITtv. Watch GRITtv on Free Speech TV (Dish Network Ch. 9415) or at GRITtv.org. And become a subscriber.

Comments

[BARRISTER]

The Gov has to ensure that the Cocaine trade flourishes to keep the money flowing into its Black Ops, a la Iran- Contra!!

[Thorn]

If you're offering up an implicit choice between the Colombian government and FARC, hell, that just isn't even close. And if you tend to think FARC is okay, grow up.

[Ides]

Isn't it possible that she's offering up no choice? Colombia's violence and corruption is legendary, and FARC is a group of thugs. Just like in the war between Fascists and Communists in Korea (we supported the side that murdered 50,000 people) and the Shah and Mossedeq in Iran (we overthrew their democracy for cheap oil), we once in a while need to keep our damn noses out.

Colombia gives us cheap crap by exploiting its people and murdering its labor organizers by the hundreds and you mean to tell me that it is somehow explicitly better than FARC because FARC tortures people and lives in the jungle like the bogeyman? As far as I'm concerned, they're both evil and helping the lesser of these two evils would make us look like jerks but helping the greater of these two evils has done nothing for Colombia.

[Thorn]

You ask if it's possible that she's not offering up a choice. Yes. That's why I used that tricky word "if" right at the start of my question. (In fact, I used it twice.)

[IronDragon]

I've heard elsewhere that Americans supplied no help to Colombia on this rescue, that the plan was conceived and carried out by our neighbors down south.