Plan Columbia weakens FARC but cocaine production up at record levels.
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Film emerges of mission to free Farc hostages
The Colombian military has released a dramatic video of the mission to release Ingrid Betancourt, the French-Colombian politician, and 14 others from Farc rebels. AlJazeeraEnglish
see
Behind the Colombia hostage rescue
McCain defends free trade with Colombia
FARC leaders were paid millions to free hostages: Swiss radio
Plan Mexico: Plan Colombia Heads for Mexico by Stephen Lendman
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Thanks, Natureboy.
Not that I’ve ever met anyone from the FARC, but I just can’t bring myself to support their idea of armed insurgencies by rebel groups, kidnapping, terror, etc.
I understand how the ANC felt it necessary to become militarized, the people were being persecuted and slaughtered in their homes, innocents tortured. I can bend my brain around why the FMLN did so, fighting fascism and persecution in their homes (that was supported by the USA, of course).
But with all due respect to Che, these groups like the Shining Path and the FARC, it seems they just give leftist ideology a bad name.
Of course, as I’ve said, I don’t personally have experiences with the sort of wars of extermination that gave rise to Native American resistance per Wounded Knee and Little Bighorn, and as an ethnic jew I can surely say I would have by whatever means necessary, clawed my way out of the Warsaw Ghetto (had they even gotten me in there…).
But ideologies are for the birds. Nationalism is a disease. Religions are cults. Resistance to colonialism is indeed paramount, nobody has the right to commit the crime of aggressive invasion, domination, the triple evils of ‘racism, militarism and economic exploitation’ as Dr. King described it. We do have the right to defend ourselves.
But if it were myself, I would sooner run away from trouble than stand ground and fight. The very first thing I’d have done after Kristalnacht is leave the place, walk if necessary, to some more evolved land, like Norway. But who’s to say? It was an unusual horror directed at an ethnic minority by demented psychopaths, not dissimilar in motivation to Srebrenica or Darfur or Rwanda, I suppose…
Clearly some feel that Gandhi’s and King’s methods are not adequate in all scenarios. Societies are a strange phenomenon altogether.
What is even stranger, is that the USA, for example, could see organizations like the FARC and FMLN (not comparative) as terrorist groups aligned with the Russians and bent on global dominion, when they’d just as soon create a ‘simulacrum’ of such a group in the form of the fascist, ultra-rightist ‘Contras’, or align themselves with militarized religious fanatics like the Taliban for militaristic goals, etc.
It’s just so confusing to me, why people take up arms any more in militaristic struggles. I long for the time when such behavior goes the way of witch hunts.
Unfortunately the ‘land of the free’ still conducts brutal ‘inquisitions’ of those they remotely suspect of some sort of modern ‘heresy’ (as in thinking ‘un-American thoughts’), and the USA still sponsors terrorism and militarized dominion on an industrialized scale across the globe as a matter of national style, doing unto others as they’d nuke anyone else for doing unto them.
It’s so utterly confusing, the more one knows of the horrible trail of history’s tears.
Certainly the ‘revolution’ of which this nation is so proud and patriotic, was absurd, unnecessary, a ridiculous, selfish land-grab, not by righteous idealists, but by religious fanatic, slaveholding bigots and pirates who did more damage, ultimately to this virgin land and its forests, animals and aborigines than the Brits ever could have managed with their declining, over-extended empire.
If Canada is any indicator, no armed insurgency was even necessary. Independence Day is just another myth in the American bag of bogus bloodshed, and the rebels proved no more righteous than the Brits when it came to torture, colonialism and ethnic extermination. And as we see, John Adams’ beloved constitution, the ability to fire the president, is proven to be a farce. Royalism remains, wars are conducted at the will of the new King George purely for profit and plunder as before.
One thing is for certain: People actually seem to LIKE to kill. They find glory in violence and dominion by force. They seem to find a ‘reason for being’ by being heartlessly cruel to innocents, humans and animals alike, which they then justify with the profoundest faith and power of their psyche. In truth, I suspect it’s a sport. And like militarism, I’ve never understood sports.
As Gandhi so carefully pointed out, violence breeds revenge. The cycle will never end, as long as people continue to resort to force in their effort to influence the minds and lives of others.
Such an organism as Homo-Horribilus, therefore simply cannot be trusted with firearms. Humanity is simply irresponsible and prone to short ideological fuses and a religious devotion to death and destruction.
To all those bible-belted bubbas who, as Obama pointed out in one of his more lucid (and more controversial) moments, are addicted to their guns, and who feel that arming everyone to the teeth is the way to peace, I say firearms are the magic bullet, an addictive pill of power that keeps alive the psychopathic person’s apparently all-too-sexy idea that killing by remote control is somehow validating of one’s personal power (or paranoia).
I say stay away from cruel violent militarists of all stripes. If they actually like guns, run as far and as fast as you possibly can. There is simply no reasoning with a man with his gun, his god and his glory, such individuals are cultists, destructive by design, their behavior should be controlled and eschewed.
But alas, one more thing about which the highest court of this land and I fail to find common ground. I still think America is the Beautiful, but the USA? Was this really the best we could do? Are we really proud of ourselves on this Independence day…