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Judi Lynn Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat May-07-11 04:41 AM
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US ambassador backs Santos' redefinition of armed struggle
US ambassador backs Santos' redefinition of armed struggle
Friday, 06 May 2011 11:55
Jim Glade

The U.S. Ambassador to Colombia has backed President Juan Manuel Santos' statement that the country faces an armed conflict, rather than a terrorist threat, but asserted that this should not change guerrilla groups' political status, newspaper El Espectador reported Friday.

Ambassador Michael McKinley stated that "We don't see that this designation should change the status of members of guerrilla organizations."

The ambassador's statement was made in respect to Santos' Wednesday pronouncement that Colombia is involved in an "internal armed conflict," contradicting the rhetoric of former President Alvaro Uribe, who continues to maintain that the country faces a "terrorist threat."

McKinley went on to say that the Colombian head of state's redefinition of the conflict will have no bearing on the U.S. commitment to help Colombia defeat groups that use terror as a tool in the struggle for political gain.

More:
http://colombiareports.com/colombia-news/news/16083-us-ambassador-backs-santos-redefinition-of-armed-struggle.html
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Peace Patriot Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat May-07-11 11:30 AM
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1. This is very, very, very, VERY important! I know it sounds like legalistic wordplay but it's NOT.
BILLIONS of our tax dollars are stolen from us and given to war profiteers based on these seemingly innocuous legal fine points ("internal conflict" vs "terrorism"), and what is worse, those billions are then used to MURDER thousands of trade unionists, human rights workers, teachers, community activists, political leftists, peasant farmers and others who are NOT armed combatants, who are merely exercising their civil rights and sometimes are doing nothing at all--youngsters lured by the U.S. funded military with job offers, then murdered and their bodies dressed up like armed guerrillas, to up the military's body counts and earn bonuses and perks.

Political cleansing and state terror are used to further the goals of U.S. "free trade for the rich"--by decapitating groups who advocate for the poor and silencing survivors and by destroying responsible, decent, accountable democratic government--but it doesn't end there: the U.S. client state is also being turned into a strategic war asset for the Pentagon (establishment of U.S. military bases and boots on the ground; and creation of a local military that is loyal to the U.S. not to its own country and people).

This is precisely what has been happening in Colombia as the result of the Bush Junta's ADDITION of "terrorism" to the U.S. "war on drugs" in the language of the funding bills that the Bushwhacks shoved through Congress.

Colombia's bought-and-paid-for, bloody-handed, filthily corrupt political and military leadership were being used to SET UP war games against the neighboring oil rich countries of Venezuela and Ecuador. They were being trained in Rumsfeldian techniques of disinformation, spying and dirty ops and gifted with technical support not just to target domestic opposition (including judges and prosecutors) but also for the manufacture of false evidence against the democratically elected leaders of the target countries next door. They were being used to sign a secret military agreement with the U.S. for dramatic expansion of U.S. military bases in Colombia and to re-write Colombia's laws, for instance, to grant total diplomatic immunity to all U.S. military personnel and all U.S. military 'contractors' in Colombia. They were being used to test out war scenarios--such as the U.S./Colombia bombing/raid on Ecuador's territory in 2008--to infiltrate death squads and spies into those countries, and to organize regional fascist groups for destabilizing democratic countries and toppling their governments throughout the region.

And in the shadowy world of the trillion dollar+ cocaine and arms trade, we can be sure that the "war on terror" added to the "war on drugs" was being used to direct those revenues to U.S. banksters and billionaires and to agencies of our so-called government.

In summary, the U.S. "war on drugs/terror"--as a combined monster--was being used to set up the next oil war.

So, what appears on the surface to be quibbling over words--"internal armed conflict" vs "terrorist threat"--by Santos and the U.S. ambassador is VERY important.

First of all, notice the difference between their statements. Santos says "internal armed conflict" and does not qualify it. The U.S. ambassador hedges and qualifies, trying to keep the "internal armed conflict" on a war footing--no doubt caught between the two faces of Obama policy (serving war profiteers and other corporate interests while trying to appear peaceful and benign in order to better serve these interests in a region that has gone Leftist and independent).

The second thing to notice is that designation as a legitimate armed force in a civil war--rather than an "international terrorist group" with jihadist goals of regional and world mayhem--has been a prime condition of the FARC guerrillas for a peace negotiation in Colombia and an end to its 70 year civil war.

This is precisely what Bushwhack tool Alvaro Uribe wouldn't do. Indeed, Uribe called everyone who opposes him a "terrorist"--thus providing the military and its death squads with cover to kill peaceful leftists and grass roots leaders of every kind--but more importantly, to our war profiteers, utilizing Colombia's long civil war to expand toward the oil resources in neighboring countries. Colombia's "Black Eagles" death squads were spreading murder and mayhem into adjacent Venezuelan provinces even while the U.S. military was creating "forward operating locations" at Colombian military bases throughout the country, including one only 20 miles from the Venezuelan border (overlooking the Gulf of Venezuela and its oil works).

"Terrorism" is a code word for U.S. territorial ambitions. WHILE the Colombian military's death squads were expanding into Venezuela, Uribe was touting FALSE evidence that Venezuela was "harboring" FARC guerrillas. Thus--by fueling Colombia's civil war with $7 BILLION in military aid and moving its murder and mayhem over the border--Venezuela is added to the list of "terrorist states" that want to blow up towers in New York.

This tinderbox all derived from the word "terror" in legal documents for larding the Colombian military with $7 BILLION of our tax dollars--a word added to those documents by the Bush Junta.

So, what is going on here between Santos and McKinley? I'm not sure but it looks like a Santos peace plan to end Colombia's 70 year civil war and perhaps to end U.S. use of Colombia for yet more oil wars. And the U.S. (Obama administration) possibly agrees but doesn't want to look like it agrees? Or wants to convey a sort of photo double-exposure image of agreeing/not agreeing, due to an internal conflict in the U.S.--rabid RW warmongers (inclu Miami mafia) vs more subtle strategists like (CIA Director) Leon Panetta?

It could be that--given the very strong and genuine leftist democracy movement in Latin America, a well-organized movement with the aim of regional independence (including, for instance, Brazil having Venezuela's back), Libya is a better gambit for U.S. oil hegemony. The U.S. had A LOT OF "divide and conquer" to do in Latin America in order to regain control of Venezuela's and Ecuador's oil. The Bushwhacks were proceeding as if it were just a few coups away and, even with their mafioso Uribe running Colombia, failing.* Panetta/Clinton have maybe reassessed this situation and decided that too many resources were being wasted on a failing strategy? Thus, Santos, president of the primo U.S. client state in Latin America, has been given permission to pursue some goals of his own--for instance, re-starting vital trade with Venezuela. ??

------------------

*(The Bushwhacks failed repeatedly in Venezuela ('02, '04, '06, '08) and Ecuador and then Bolivia ('08)--using various destabilization/coup strategies--as more and more leftist governments were elected in the region. The U.S. coup in Honduras, only six months into the Obama administration, was very likely Bush Junta-designed and was a disaster as to U.S./Obama administration relations with the rest of Latin America. It may have been the tag end of the Bush Junta's failing strategy in Latin America, and proceeded on its own momentum, or it may have been triggered specifically to sabotage Obama's stated intended policy of "peace, respect and cooperation" in Latin America--it certainly has signs of the latter--and, though most U.S./Obama actions with regard to it have been shitty as hell (including blood on their hands for the death squad murders of trade unionists, teachers, journalists and other anti-coup activists, and the shittiest fraudulent election ever, sponsored by the U.S. State Department), it DID occur at a time of maximum weakness in the Obama administration, with first term Senator Jim DeMint (SC-Diebold) and allies like John McCain (telecommunications interests in Honduras) and John "death squad" Negroponte, basically running Obama LatAm foreign policy.

(Criminy, Latin America has now formed an entirely new institution--an anti-OAS--largely because of U.S. behavior in Honduras. In this more temperate U.S. behavior re Colombia, we may be seeing the outline of Obama LatAm strategy at long last--a much less belligerent stance that opens doors for U.S. corporate interests in countries like Brazil, and provides a more friendly U.S. war profiteer "market" for the U.S. "war on drugs" and other purposes (such as USAID interference in local politics). If I'm reading things correctly, Panetta had one helluva mess to clean up re Uribe/Bush Jr. war crimes in Colombia and the extensive damage to U.S. interests that the coup in Honduras inflicted. The U.S. is going to have to deal with an independent LatAm or it's going to have to declare war on LatAm. And we may be seeing a pullback from the latter, in what appears to be a minor word change in U.S./Colombia relations--dropping of "terrorism" re Colombia's civil war--in the context, of course, of other developments.)
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naaman fletcher Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat May-07-11 02:23 PM
Response to Reply #1
2. Thanks..
Do you know which term results in more money? My understanding was that most of the money flowing through the state department was "terrorism money", so I would think that this move would be bad for the amount of money flowing to Colombia. Is it possible that this is some sort of deal that Santos made with Chavez and is actually a good thing?
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