Washington Post socks it to Uribe, U.S. aid program, possibly embassy officials

[rabs]

U.S. aid implicated in abuses of power in Colombia




By Karen DeYoung and Claudia J. Duque, Published: August 20

The Obama administration often cites Colombia’s thriving democracy as proof that U.S. assistance, know-how and commitment can turn around a potentially failed state under terrorist siege.
The country’s U.S.-funded counterinsurgency campaign against a Marxist rebel group — and the civilian and military coordination behind it — are viewed as so successful that it has become a model for strategy in Afghanistan.
But new revelations in long-running political scandals under former president Alvaro Uribe, a close U.S. ally throughout his eight-year tenure, have implicated American aid, and possibly U.S. officials, in egregious abuses of power and illegal actions by the Colombian government under the guise of fighting terrorism and drug smuggling.
American cash, equipment and training, supplied to elite units of the Colombian intelligence service over the past decade to help smash cocaine-trafficking rings, were used to carry out spying operations and smear campaigns against Supreme Court justices, Uribe’s political opponents and civil society groups, according to law enforcement documents obtained by The Washington Post and interviews with prosecutors and former Colombian intelligence officials.
The revelations are part of a widening investigation by the Colombian attorney general’s office against the Department of Administrative Security, or DAS. Six former high-ranking intelligence officials have confessed to crimes, and more than a dozen other agency operatives are on trial. Several of Uribe’s closest aides have come under scrutiny, and Uribe is under investigation by a special legislative commission.
U.S. officials have denied knowledge of or involvement in illegal acts committed by the DAS, and Colombian prosecutors have not alleged any American collaboration. But the story of what the DAS did with much of the U.S. aid it received is a cautionary tale of unintended consequences. Just as in Afghanistan and other countries where the United States is intensely focused on winning counterterrorism allies, some recipients of aid to Colombia clearly diverted it to their own political agendas.
For more than a decade, under three administrations, Colombia has been Washington’s closest friend in Latin America and the biggest recipient of military and economic assistance — $6 billion during Uribe’s 2002-10 presidency. The annual total has fallen only slightly during the Obama administration, to just over a half-billion dollars in combined aid this year.


http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/national-security/us-aid-implicated-in-abuses-of-power-in-colombia/2011/06/21/gIQABrZpSJ_story.html

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Maalox time for alvarito again tonight.

[EFerrari]

1. Just wait until someone like Wikileaks puts out evidence

our embassy knew about La Macarena.

I hope uribe has a lifetime supply of Ambien. He's going to need it.

[Judi Lynn]

2. What a stupendous article.Shocking to see the Washington Post publishing material like this.

It really makes one wonder what the heck is going on for them to act so rashly!

The U.S. gummint knew all about Uribe in the 1990's, when his and his father's name leaped up in a report done by the Department of Defense as being connected to the narcotrafficking paras. That report also mentioned that Uribe had been a friend of Pablo Escobar.

If they have come to this position with Uribe that the Post is carrying a story like this, it IS getting VERY hot for the little fella, moving into the range from which it seems they don't think they will be able to whitewash him much longer.

That would mean they already have plans for the future made which will minimize US discredit almost completely. Does it mean they're ready to completely dump on the little guy and throw all their weight behind Santos? They have done as much as they can to shore up his image since the inauguration, and it looks as if they are reaching the end of his alliance with the power in Washington.

From page 3 of the article:

~snip~
Interviews with former U.S. officials and evidence surfacing in the DAS investigation show that the agency has for years committed serious crimes, a propensity for illegal actions not unknown to embassy officials.

The first DAS director in Uribe’s presidency, Jorge Noguera — whom the U.S. Embassy in 2005 considered “pro-U.S. and an honest technocrat” and recommended to be a member of Interpol for Latin America, according to WikiLeaks cables — is on trial and accused of having helped hit men assassinate union activists. Last year, prosecutors accused another former DAS director of having helped plan the 1989 assassination of front-running presidential candidate, Luis Carlos Galan.

Myles Frechette, the U.S. ambassador to Colombia from 1994 to 1997, said that even in his tenure American officials believed that DAS units were tainted by corruption and linked to traffickers. But he said the embassy needed a partner to develop intelligence on drug smugglers and guerrillas.

Putting this breakthrough article in my own files.

Thanks for the super news, rabs. We all knew the story was there, but who would have guessed they were going to admit any part of it? Ha ha ha.

http://dealseekingmom.com.nyud.net:8090/files/2011/01/free-maalox-advanced-maximum-strength.png
Thanks for posting the Uribe photo. Have never seen him that uncomfortable. Hope there will be more to come. His victims would approve.

[Peace Patriot]

3. This is a pre-emptive strike by the CIA ( = Washington Psst). It means that the particular shit

the U.S. has been shoveling by the mountainfuls under the rug for the last several years (Bush Junta war crimes in Colombia) is leaking out, is smelling very bad, indeed, and has to be "managed."

Check out this wording:

"U.S. officials have denied knowledge of or involvement in illegal acts committed by the DAS, and Colombian prosecutors have not alleged any American collaboration. But the story of what the DAS did with much of the U.S. aid it received is a cautionary tale of unintended consequences."

"Unintended," my ass.

Early this year, the U.S. State Department "fined" Blackwater for "unauthorized" "trainings" of "foreign persons" IN COLOMBIA "for use in Iraq and Afghanistan."

Very similar meme:--"unauthorized"--for a very similar purpose--whitewashing Bush Junta crime.

Unintended. Unauthorized. Just rogues running around with nobody responsible. Rogue spies in Colombia. Rogue "trainers" for black ops in the Mideast. All paid for by you and me.

I figured this one out a couple of years ago, when U.S. (Bushwhack) Ambassador William Brownfield and Mob Boss...er...President Uribe secretly negotiated and secretly signed a U.S./Colombia military agreement giving "total diplomatic immunity" to all U.S. military personnel and all U.S. military 'contractors' in Colombia. Why was this necessary more than a decade into the U.S. military presence in Colombia?

Then, around the same time (circa 2009-2010), these two further colluded to extradite 30 death squad witnesses to the U.S., on mere drug charges, and "buried" them in the U.S. federal prison system (by complete sealing of their cases), out of the reach of Colombian prosecutors and over their vociferous objections. Did Uribe's illegal spying on judges and prosecutors alert them to who, among the prosecutors' death squad witnesses, needed to removed?

Then came Uribe's spy chief, Maria Hurtado, recently absconding from Colombia, and getting instant asylum in the U.S. client state of Panama, again out of the reach of Colombian prosecutors and over their vociferous objections. How could that audacious act--which has caused no end of political troubles for Panama's already unpopular rightwing president--have occurred without a U.S. okay (if not engineering)?

Then came the Wikileaks cable that Panama's rightwing president had demanded that the U.S. (Bush Junta) give him help spying on his "enemies" (like his pal Uribe)--same guy who gave Hurtado instant asylum. Where did he get the idea that the U.S. would spy for him?

Meanwhile, Uribe was getting cushy academic sinecures at Georgetown and Harvard (teaching our future leaders about who the law doesn't apply to) and appointment to a prestigious international legal commission. What was the U.S. DOING "laundering" this mafioso's image?

Add these "dots" up and what do they say?: Uribe has been blackmailing the U.S. with what he knows about Bush Junta crimes in Colombia.

These crimes may include: U.S. military, U.S. military 'contractor,' U.S. embassy, U.S. State Department, CIA, FBI, NSA, ATF, USAID, et al, participation in illegal spying, in rightwing death squad and Colombian military murders of trade unionists, human rights workers, teachers, peasant farmers, Indigenous leaders and others, in death threats against Colombian prosecutors, judges, legislators and others, and in driving FIVE MILLION peasant farmers from their lands, with state terror, to consolidate the trillion+ dollar cocaine trade. The latter, I think, is a very ignored and important item--the U.S. "war on drugs" getting turned on its head and used, not to stop the cocaine trade, but to better profit from it.

$7 BILLION in U.S. military aid--at least. And that doesn't count secret budgets, nor all the U.S. military bases and "forward operating locations" in Colombia. And the cocaine just keeps on flowing.

Pappy Bush pal Leon Panetta's first act as CIA Director (that I noticed in the "news") was to go to Bogota amidst rumors of a Uribe coup to stay in power (which Uribe desperately needed to do, to protect himself and his criminal network from prosecution). Panetta gave Uribe the hook (and vetted and approved Santos) because Uribe was getting to be too much of an embarrassment. Some 70 of his closest political cohorts are under investigation or already in jail for ties to the death squads, drug trafficking, spying, bribery, election fraud, land theft, ponzie schemes and other crimes. But what to do to keep Uribe's lip zipped? Uribe is too close to Bush Jr and the Bush Cartel (vacationed recently with Bush Sr and Jr), and probably still too useful to them, to be assassinated--and there are some very scary possible scenarios in our future that may see Uribe return to power in Colombia (f.i., if Diebold/ES&S gives the White House to the far right next year--could mean an oil war in South America--the Miami mafia has already declared it). But MEANWHILE, how to keep him from ratting on Junior, under prosecutorial pressure?

I think that Panetta--a member of Bush Sr's "Iraq Study Group"--was one of the architects of the ousting of Rumsfeld and curtailment of Cheney in the last 2 years of Junior's term--over the Rumsfeld-Cheney plan to nuke Iran and their outing of CIA agents--and they agreed to go quietly, when the time came, in exchange for immunity from investigation, impeachment and prosecution. I don't think Obama had much, or any, choice as to his first CIA Director. And among Panetta's assignments was to monitor and enforce this "Deal" (no investigation/prosecution), and to clean up after Junior (for instance, in Colombia). His primary job was probably to end the war between the Pentagon and the CIA which Rumsfeld-Cheney had started. He was welcomed with champagne corks popping on his first day at Langley (according to rumor--no "amateur" or "novice" gets that kind of welcome by spooks); now he's at the Pentagon, also healing wounds. But it's quite interesting that his first stop was Bogota.

Quite a horrible mess, with Colombia's rightwing political establishment splitting down the middle (rather like the Bush Jr./Rove vs Cheney/Libby split over who would take the fall for the CIA outings), with the non-criminal rightwing establishment (or those who have kept their hands clean--i.e., Santos) vs. the rightwing Mob (Uribe). (The left isn't much of a factor in Colombia, with all the murders and terror against leftists.) And Junior and his Mob right in the middle of it, it seems, having colluded closely with Uribe on many crimes.

I get to say "I told you so" about this. But aside from crowing about my hounddog abilities, I have to say that it was EASY. It was OBVIOUS. Colombia was SMELLING TO HIGH HEAVEN of U.S. war crimes. And any half-brained reporter could have put this together.

So, to return to this pre-emptive strike in the Washington Psst, some things to notice: Never a word before this, in the Psst or any of the collusive press, about the extremely dubious goings on between the U.S. ambassador and Uribe, so obviously a cover-up in progress (the death squad extraditions, the "total diplomatic immunity" agreement, etc.). The Blackwater thing was the tiniest of blips in the "news." NEVER a connecting of the "dots" on the U.S. military's large presence, "training" and "technical assistance" in Colombia and Uribe's and the Colombian military's many, grave, well-known and long-known crimes. (The Colombian military was also luring youngsters with promises of jobs, murdering them and dressing up their bodies like FARC guerrillas, to up their "body counts" to earn bonuses and promotions. They get U.S. "training" for that?)

Further, the Psst in several places states or implies that the U.S. (Bush Junta) was oblivious to the blatant crimes being committed in Colombia with U.S. billions and the U.S. military on the ground. Here's another:

"American cash, equipment and training, supplied to elite units of the Colombian intelligence service over the past decade to help smash cocaine-trafficking rings, were used to carry out spying operations and smear campaigns against Supreme Court justices, Uribe’s political opponents and civil society groups, according to law enforcement documents obtained by The Washington Post and interviews with prosecutors and former Colombian intelligence officials."

The Bush Junta wanted to "help smash cocaine-trafficking rings" with all that illicit money to be made? On the contrary, they put a Mob Boss in charge--to drive the peasants out, and give the lands over to the big drug lords--and to murder anybody who got in the way, and to spy on and threaten and smear any honest, courageous prosecutors and judges who dared to oppose it. Colombia was the ideal Bush Junta world: Murder, Inc.

The Psst wouldn't go this far--admitting that "American cash, equipment and training" were used "to carry out" spying and smearing of judges and others (and that is the least of what the spying was used for--hundreds of trade unionists were spied upon and murdered)--unless they feared imminent disclosure of U.S. crimes. This article--like so many corporate press articles of this kind--is actually IMMUNIZING its "news" consumers AGAINST far worse disclosures. And we can imagine how much worse by what they DO disclose--that, in their idiotic view, the dopey 'ol U.S. /Bush Junta couldn't have imagined was happening in Colombia. 'Oh, dear, no! They were using our money to SPY! How shocking!'

I mean, it's just ludicrous. One other "tell" in this article may be that Uribe is about to lose his "made man" status. I've always figured him for lesser "made man" status than Bush, Cheney or Rumsfeld, et al. It may be that the U.S. has decided to jettison him--to try to maintain this fiction that the Psst is promoting, herein, that the Bush Junta was not colluding in these and even worse crimes. It's hard to know what's really going on in our extremely secretive government--especially as to what our real rulers are planning for next year. Obama (& Panetta) could be out, and Bush Junta II in, and the right vs. far right split here wider even than in Colombia--and Uribe could be back in power to wreak revenge on his "enemies" in the Colombian justice system and on Santos and the non-criminal faction of the rightwing establishment.

It should be noted that FIVE members of the "legislative commission" investigating Uribe (mentioned in the article) resigned before Uribe testified, two of them admitting that death threats were the reason, with death threats probable with the other three resignations. It's a 15 member commission. The ten remaining members now face Mob Boss Uribe knowing that their lives and their families are at risk. There were also more murders--of trade unionists, displaced peasant leaders and Indigenous leaders--over the past few weeks. Uribe's criminal network of death squads and death threateners is still in place in Colombia--and it is well-oiled with U.S. military aid and cocaine money.

It is a big question mark whether Colombia's non-criminal rightwing political establishment can deal with this monster, just as it is unclear here whether extremists are going to rule. We get rightwing rule or we get criminal fascist insanity--here and in Colombia, both purported, by the corporate press, to be democracies, although in neither country do the people really have a say.

I will amend that, a bit, to give credit where credit is due: The Colombian prosecutors seem to be acting in the interests of the people of Colombia and last week Santos promised Colombians universal health care by next year. Our justice system doesn't dare go after our war criminals and as for universal health care, well...

[rabs]

4. uribito fires back at the Post

Last week Uribe spoke for almost five hours before a Colombian House of Representatives commission. He denied ever breaking the law and defended himself, his family and his government cronies from all accusations of wrongdoing. But he got up abruptly and walked rapidly out of the chamber when an attorney for the victims of his wiretapping scandal tried to interrogate him.

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It did not take long for uribito to lash out at the Post on his Twitter account.

(Translation from El Tiempo newspaper of Bogota mine.)

Hours after the article appeared, uribito expressed his "profound deception" to "Mr. Marcus W. Brauchli," editor of the Post.

In a communique uribito said the Post's story put in doubt "the methods and results of (his) government to construct a society free of terrorism, narco-traffic and to save the nation from (becoming) a failed state."

alvarito said the article "manipulates the facts and distorts reality, damages the image of (his) government, which dismantled the paramilitary structures in Colombia and extradited the main leaders to the United States."

In the communique the former president highlighted the successes obtained under his government and reiterated that during his mandate "(he) never ordered any measure against the members of the Supreme Court or any other actions that were against the law." He accused the authors of the article of "difamatory accusations" against him.

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El Tiempo article (Spanish)

http://www.eltiempo.com/justicia/con-ayuda-de-ee-uu-a-colombia-se-han-cometido-abusos_10197744-4

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If uribito was still in power, he would order a bunch of 500-pound bombs to be dropped on the Washington Post, then discover a couple of laptops that showed Karen de Young and Claudia Duque were members of the FARC, ELN, Spain's ETA and the Taliban. And friends of Hugo Chavez.
:rofl: