Note to Ecuador's Correa: Look what happens to you when you flip off the United States

just go ask hugo... they turn loose their attack dogs...

Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa said Saturday he would step down if there is proof that he had ties with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), the largest rebel group in Colombia.

"If I had the most minimal relation with the FARC as candidate or as president I will resign as president," Correa said in his weekly radio address. "We have never received illegal (campaign) contributions."

The president said he handed over proof of his innocence to the Organization of American States amid accusations that he had received money contributions from FARC rebels during his presidential campaign in 2006.

Colombian President Alvaro Uribe was leading a smear campaign against him, Correa added.

tsk, tsk... correa should have never decided to send the u.s. military packing and reclaim the manta base...

from al jazeera...

The only US air base in South America is expected to shut down soon. Manta in Ecuador is home to a fleet of A-WACS spyplanes. Washington says they crack down on cocaine smugglers but the president of Ecuador is convinced the US helped Colombia carry out a recent [illegal] cross border [incursion].

and correa should never have decided to make nice with hugo chávez...

In August 2006, Correa told the Ecuadorian press that he is not part of the Venezuelan Bolivarian movement, although he considers Hugo Chávez a personal friend.[15] In response to Chávez's comparison of President Bush with Satan, Correa said it was unfair to the devil.

i'd read that quote a long time ago and forgotten about it... what a hoot... comparing george bush with satan gives satan a bad name... what a classic...!

anywayz, as usual, the context is missing... the original claims of a chávez/correa connection to farc continue to be strongly supported by uribe's pals in the bush administration and their running dogs...

from the sock-puppet heritage foundation...

Nonetheless, it is clear that Colombia launched a joint air-land operation against a FARC encampment that crossed into Ecuador. The distance of the incursion remains in dispute. While Colombian President Alvaro Uribe apparently briefed President Rafael Correa of Ecuador on the operation hours after the attack, Correa now claims he was misled and misinformed by his Colombian counterpart and has denounced Reyes' death as "the worst aggression suffered by Ecuador at the hands of Colombia." The details of the operation will be disputed and investigated in the weeks ahead.

On March 2, the Colombian military reported that it had recovered "revealing" information from computers captured in Reyes' effects, including records of contacts with senior security officials in Ecuador who were reportedly interested in "formalizing a relationship with the FARC." Authorities in Quito denied any links between the FARC and officials in Ecuador.

The situation surrounding Reyes' death demands further objective investigation. Furthermore, governments and citizens must recognize that terrorists and insurgents, be they narco-terrorists in the FARC, al-Qaeda and the Taliban in Pakistan, or Kurdish terrorists in Iraq, show no respect for frontiers and national sovereignty.

followed by this more recent broadside directly from the u.s...

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez must explain documents found on Colombian rebel computers that Washington and Bogota charge show deep ties between the leftist leader and the guerrillas, a top U.S. official said.

[...]

"President Chavez has a lot of explaining to do," White House drug czar John Walters told Colombian newspaper El Tiempo in a Spanish-language interview published on Sunday.

"They were fluid contacts from both sides. This is a group that wants to violently overthrow a democratic government. This is very serious and requires more than just a simple denial."

and, finally, manta may NOT be the ONLY u.s. air base left in latin america, as i've posted here on this blog repeatedly...


Estigarribia Airbase, Paraguay

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Hey... If we can't go to war with Iran, how about Venezuela...?

if the u.s. can't manage to get a war with iran going, there's always venezuela, and ecuador too if they don't mind their p's and q's...

Venezuela's president has warned Colombia against building a US military base on the countries shared border, saying he would consider such a move an act of "aggression".

Hugo Chávez said on Thursday that he would not allow a US military base to be established in La Guajira, a region spanning northeastern Colombia and northwestern Venezuela.

"We will not allow the Colombian government to give La Guajira to the empire," Chávez said, referring to the US during a speech to a packed auditorium of uniformed soldiers.

"Colombia is launching a threat of war at us."

The Venezuelan leader said that if Colombia built the base, his government would revive a decades-old territorial conflict and stake a claim to the entire region.

The US maintains a military base at the Pacific port of Manta in Ecuador, but Rafael Correa, Ecuador's president and an ally of Chávez, has repeatedly said he will not renew the 10-year leases when it runs out next year.

Chávez said that William Brownfield, the US Ambassador to Colombia, had suggested that the Ecuador base could be moved to La Guajira.

and, of course, the u.s. is still banging the same drum that it's been banging on since the illegal attack by colombia on ecuadorean soil of a couple of months ago...

Diplomatic relations between Caracas and Bogota have come under increasing strain in recent months after Colombia unveiled documents allegedly showing that Chávez sought to arm and finance Farc, an armed anti-government group in Colombia.

Last week the US claimed the documents, contained on a laptop, were "authentic" and showed ties between Chávez and Farc.

Chávez, whose sympathies for Farc are well known, said the files had been faked by the Colombian government.

The computer files were found after Colombian forces mounted a raid inside Ecuador to kill a Farc commander at his camp across the border.

The raid sparked a regional crisis when briefly raised fears of war when Chávez threatened to send troops to the border with Colombia.

"authentic" like the syrian nuclear reactor was "authentic," like the iranian weapons in iraq are "authentic," like saddam's wmd's were "authentic"... horse hockey...

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Meanwhile, back at the WaPo shill factory - er, editorial staff - they're DEFENDING Mark Penn

even the title is un-friggingly-believable...

The Sin of Speaking Truth

and it just gets worse from there...

item...

Yet another Democratic adviser is in trouble for having more common sense that his candidate -- or at least, more than his candidate has the courage to admit having.

item...

Austan Goolsbee, Sen. Barack Obama's economic adviser ... suggested to Canadian officials that a President Obama probably wouldn't be foolish enough to repudiate [NAFTA, but since] Mr. Obama had been running hard against NAFTA, blaming it for a million lost jobs and ignoring the good it has done for the poorer people of Mexico, Mr. Goolsbee's comments had to be repudiated.

item...

Mark J. Penn, was helping Colombia's government win congressional approval of a U.S.-Colombia free-trade agreement that Ms. Clinton opposes.

[...]

This is a particular danger in the case of Colombia, since the arguments against the pact are so flimsy.

[...]

Both Democratic candidates rest their opposition on supposed concern about assassination of trade unionists in Colombia, although such violence has fallen so much that the crime rate for them now is lower -- as we've pointed out in past editorials -- than for the population at large. Mr. Obama committed a particularly egregious libel last week when he said, referring to Colombian President Álvaro Uribe, who has taken on the violent left and the violent right at considerable risk to himself, "You've got a government that is under a cloud of potentially having supported violence against unions, against labor, against opposition."

and, finally, the jaw-dropping conclusion...

Does Ms. Clinton really believe a newly elected president should adhere to a year-old timetable for troop withdrawal, regardless of circumstances? Are they each unaware of the real statistics on NAFTA's effects? Voters are left to wonder, and to ponder which would be worse: that the candidates are sincere and misguided or are insincere and lacking the courage to speak honestly.

i wouldn't even know where to begin... is claiming that nafta has been good for the "poorer people of mexico" more patently ridiculous than portraying colombia's chief drug-runner and total washington toady, Álvaro Uribe, as a risk-taker for democracy...? the wapo apparently believes that "the courage to speak honestly" equates with espousing bush administration-approved and wapo-adopted talking points... this is what passes for journalism in our nation's capital...

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Latin America shows the rest of us how it's done (as opposed to the way the U.S. would have liked it to turn out)

Colombia's President Alvaro Uribe (R)
and Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez
talk after they agreed to resolve the crisis
set off by an attack on a FARC guerrilla
camp inside Ecuadorian territory by the
Colombian armed forces last week at the
20th Group of Rio Summit in Santo
Domingo March 7, 2008.
REUTERS/Eduardo Munoz
(DOMINICAN REPUBLIC)

the u.s. wanted a clear branding of the farc rebels as "terrorists," and for colombia to square off with ecuador and venezuela by insisting that, just like their patron, the united states, colombia would pursue "terrorists" wherever, whenever and however was necessary to annihilate them, even if it meant violating another country's sovereignty to do it... instead, the latin american countries decided to do it THEIR way with the result being that the farc rebels are now labeled as an "insurgency" rather than as "terrorists," colombia apologized to ecuador for violating its border and said it wouldn't follow through on its threat to seek genocide charges against venezuela at the hague, committed all the countries to work together to preserve national stability, and ended with the president of colombia and the president of ecuador shaking hands...

and THAT, folks, is how it's done...

South America moved away from talk of war as the presidents of Colombia, Venezuela and Ecuador agreed to end a bitter dispute triggered by a Colombian cross-border raid with testy handshakes and an apology.

After intense regional diplomacy and emotional debate, Latin American leaders Friday approved a declaration resolving to work for a peaceful end to the crisis, which saw Venezuela and Ecuador send troops to their borders and Colombia accuse its neighbors of backing leftist rebels seeking to topple its government.

The leaders at the summit in the Dominican Republic wasted little time in reversing their steps toward conflict.

Colombia pledged not to follow through on its threat to seek genocide charges against Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez at an international court for allegedly supporting the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, which finances its insurgency through kidnapping and the cocaine trade.

Nicaragua said it would restore diplomatic relations with Colombia, broken off only the day before. Chavez said trade with Colombia should "keep increasing," two days after saying he didn't want even "a grain of rice" from his neighbor.

"We're going to begin to de-escalate," Chavez said. "Hopefully this compromise will be honored so this never happens again."

The statement approved by the presidents notes that Colombian President Alvaro Uribe apologized for the March 1 raid inside Ecuadorean territory that killed 25 people including a senior rebel commander, and that he pledged not to violate another nation's sovereignty again.

But it also commits all the countries to fight threats to national stability from "irregular or criminal groups," a reference to Colombia's accusation that its two neighbors have ties to rebels.

latin american countries have their problems, no doubt about it, lots of them, in fact... but i've always maintained that, if they could just figure out how to work together, they would be an unstoppable global force with a tremendous potential for making a positive difference in the world...

what just took place in la republica dominicana is an event of truly historic proportions that should be held up as a model for what ought to be happening in the rest of the world, most notably in the near and middle east... i've never been prouder of being a part-time resident of latin america than i am today...

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Batten down the hatches, Ma, there's COMMIES on the doorstep...!

together with



against



i notice that almost all the propaganda talking points i called attention to yesterday about the potential brouhaha in latin america have been recycled in today's "news" stories, so i'll only bother to post this little, clearly propagandistic EXPANSION of the circle of evildoers that surround arch-fiend, hugo chávez...

Colombia takes more heat from Latin America left

Latin America's leftist leaders heaped more criticism on Colombia, leaving it increasingly isolated on Thursday in a crisis that has threatened political stability in the Andes.

Colombia, the United States' closest ally in South America, set off a major diplomatic crisis on Saturday when its army crossed into Ecuador to kill Colombian Marxist guerrillas just across the border.

OPEC oil exporters and leftist allies Venezuela and Ecuador reacted by cutting off diplomatic relations, moving troops to their borders with Colombia and lambasting Colombian President Alvaro Uribe, who receives billions of dollars in military aid from the United States.

ain't it interesting...? up until this little kerfuffle, latin american leaders (with the exception of chávez of course) were being called "center-left" or "populist"... suddenly, with the possibility of war stirring the quivering, testosterone-engorged male organs of the neocons and the captains of the industrial war machine, they turn into full-blown "LEFTISTS"... katie, bar the door...! get the children to a safe place, ma...! THERE'S A STORM A'COMIN'...!

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Is the U.S. using Colombia to instigate a new proxy war in Latin America?

i've been following the colombia, ecuador and venezuela story which, btw, is one hell of a lot bigger story here in latin america than it is in the u.s...

most americans are unaware of just how much u.s. money goes into colombia, so much, in fact, that it can, for all practical purposes, be considered a client state of the u.s... for starters, check this graphic from today's edition of the argentine newspaper, la nacion that compares the armed forces of the three countries, something you likely won't see in the u.s. media... rest assured those sizable military assets in colombia are heavily subsidized by the u.s...


(Click on graphic for scalable version)

so, if i'm right, and the u.s. is indeed setting things up for a war by proxy between colombia and venezuela, let's see what's being tossed out there by way of inflammatory propaganda...

let's move right into high gear with the title and teaser of an editorial in today's wapo (where else?)...

Allies of Terrorism

The presidents of Venezuela and Ecuador are revealed as backers of the criminals who fight Colombia's democracy.

but wait... it gets better...

the ap from yesterday...

Colombia: Rebels considering dirty bombs

Colombia's vice president on Tuesday defended his country's attack on a rebel base on Ecuadorean soil, telling a U.N. disarmament panel that the leftist guerrillas were trying to acquire radioactive material that could be used to make "dirty bombs."

Vice President Francisco Santos said evidence in two computers found after the attack indicated rebels trying to acquire radioactive material — "the primary basis for generating dirty weapons of mass destruction and terrorism."

got your adrenaline pumping yet...?

still more...

Colombia seeks criminal charges against Chavez

President Alvaro Uribe said today that his government would ask the International Criminal Court to try Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez for financing and supporting Colombia’s main rebel group.

The Uribe government claims documents found in the laptop of a slain commander of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia indicate Chavez’s government recently gave $300 million to the group known as the FARC.

The United States and the European Union classify the FARC as an international terrorist organization.

and, of course, the bush administration, always eager to take down anybody who doesn't toe the line of united states global hegemony (read: hugo chávez), trots out george to make sure everybody knows how strongly the u.s. backs colombia (read: wants a free trade agreement)...

Statement by the President on Colombia

THE PRESIDENT: This morning I spoke to President Uribe of Colombia. He updated me on the situation in his country, including the continuing assault by narco-terrorists, as well as the provocative maneuvers by the regime in Venezuela.

I told the President that America fully supports Colombia's democracy, and that we firmly oppose any acts of aggression that could destabilize the region. I told him that America will continue to stand with Colombia as it confronts violence and terror and fights drug traffickers.

President Uribe told me that one of the most important ways America can demonstrate its support for Colombia is by moving forward with a free trade agreement that we negotiated. The free trade agreement will show the Colombian people that democracy and free enterprise lead to a better life. It will help President Uribe counter the radical vision of those who are seeking to undermine democracy and create divisions within our hemisphere.

meanwhile, you have to travel all the way across the u.s. to find something that even faintly resembles genuine news reporting about what's REALLY going on here in latin america...

from the la times...

Neighbors take aim at Colombia over incursion

An increasingly isolated Colombia came under heavy criticism from its neighbors at an emergency Organization of American States session Tuesday for killing a top Colombian rebel leader in Ecuador last weekend.

A sense of crisis has enveloped the region as diplomats worked to avoid an armed conflict that could be devastating to a continent that has successfully transitioned into a mostly democratic region after the military juntas and "dirty wars" of the 1970s and 1980s.

Virtually all South American nations, though urging patience, have denounced the cross-border attack that killed Raul Reyes, the No. 2 commander of the leftist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC.

yes, that's right, folks... the countries of latin america are united in their opposition to colombia's action... but, naturally, the lone voice of support at the oas meeting was ----- well, golly ----- the u.s...

One of Colombia's few backers at the OAS meeting was acting U.S. representative J. Robert Manzanares, who said the Colombian troops ordered into Ecuador had a right to "pursue this terrorist menace."

something else unreported by u.s. media is that argentina's president, cristina fernandez de kirchner, is flying to caracas this afternoon to hold a long-scheduled meeting with chávez to sign a broad agreement exchanging argentine food for venezuelan energy... however, the tension in the region, understandably, is adding a new twist to the meeting...

from an article in today's mercopress...

CK calls for peace and confirms planned Venezuela trip
[CK = Cristina Kirchner]

[...]

“There are no changes to the presidential trip to Caracas on Wednesday”, said Casa Rosada [Casa Rosada is the Argentine equivalent of the U.S. White House] sources quoted by the Buenos Aires press.

Argentine analysts don’t discard last minute changes given the rapidly escalating military tension and accusations between the three countries involved.

here's the REALLY interesting part of the above article, information almost guaranteed NOT to be reported in u.s. media...

Argentine government officials revealed that Mrs. Kirchner talked to Chile’s Michelle Bachelet and Brazil’s Lula da Silva, among others, trying to cool the situation and in search of a regional diplomatic stance to find a solution.

Apparently following on Brazil’s suggestion, the conflict should not leave the region, should avoid the UN and most important keep down the incidence of United States. The Brazilian president foreign affairs advisor Marcos Aurelio said that the “best way” to solve the crisis is in a “South American environment” and anticipated Brasilia would seek support from Argentina and Chile to join the group of countries interested in “a maximum reduction of tension”, and leaving aside “partners” from outside the region.

translation: dear george... keep your nose the hell out...

my assessment is, given the heavy use of the "terrorism" talking point, the accusations of wmd and genocide, the call to protect "democracy," and the fact that george and the neocons can't seem to get the iran war off the ground, our war-mongering leaders have decided to open up another front, using colombia as a lever to go after two more energy-rich opec countries, both of whom have been telling the u.s. where we can stick it...

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U.S. accuses Venezuela of trying to horn in on the CIA's lucrative drug business

oh, this is just too rich...! after the previous post, two from yesterday (here and here), and several others (here, here, here, and here), reading something like this is positively hysterical...

A top US anti-drugs official has accused Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez of being a "major facilitator" of the trade in cocaine.

The official, John Walters, said Venezuela had become "a haven" for shipments of cocaine manufactured in neighbouring Colombia.

Venezuela rejects the charges, saying it is the victim of traffickers.

But Mr Walters, speaking on a visit to Colombia, said failure to deal with the problem amounted to complicity.

Mr Walters, director of the US Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP), was meeting Colombian President Alvaro Uribe.

US officials say about one third of Colombia's output of 600 tonnes of cocaine a year now passes through Venezuela, most of it going to America and Europe.

once you get an idea of what's REALLY going on, it's incredibly difficult to read this shit without just cracking up...

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More on human rights in Colombia

a commenter responded to yesterday's posts (here and here) on the wapo op-ed defending colombia's president, álvaro uribe, and my follow-up post attempting to provide some context via amnesty usa...

You didn't answer the questions of whether or not Uribe has any ties to the paramilitary groups. This is the argument that WaPo is making, and if you don't dispel this argument you haven't convinced me. Please help me out here.
Anonymous | 05.07.07 - 9:39 am | #

i responded...

i'm not trying to convince you of anything and it's certainly not in my power to determine whether or not uribe has ties to paramilitary groups... one, i'm pointing out that the wapo has, purposely or not, left out a major chunk of context in their op-ed... two, ties to paramilitary groups notwithstanding, it is reasonably clear that uribe's government campaign to take back control of the country has done so at great cost to human rights, as bad or worse than the abuses caused by the paramilitary forces...
profmarcus | Homepage | 05.07.07 - 11:10 am | #

as i was looking for something that might provide some additional perspective, i ran across this from ips, a news outlet i consider to be pretty reliable...

When a murder occurs in a Colombian community, the locals know who committed it: far-right paramilitaries, leftwing guerrillas, or the security forces. They also know if fighting really took place, or if the "enemy" bodies displayed on television as "trophies" by army officers were in fact dead civilians.

A large proportion of the casualties in Colombia's decades-long armed conflict are civilians. The violence between leftist rebel groups on one hand and rightwing paramilitary militias and government forces on the other is further fuelled by drug trafficking, corruption and impunity. Amid the chaos and pressure from all sides, local people are in the best position to know precisely what happened.

i think this sums up what i believe is a fair picture... there are three groups, all of whom are killing people, and that is further aggravated by this...

Javier Giraldo, founder of the Inter-Church Justice and Peace Commission ... spends his time with communities in the most violent regions of the country, provides them with legal advice and gives voice to their accusations [and] runs the Human Rights and Political Violence Databank of the Centre for Popular Research and Education (CINEP), which has been keeping a tally of the killings for 19 years.

[...]

[Giraldo says], "The problem in Colombia is that there is no right to information. The right to information means that people can have access to the truth, and that most people, or at least organised sectors of society, can communicate what is happening and their own reading of it to the general public. That is not possible in Colombia."

it's a rather complicated situation to say the least, but certainly nothing like the flag-waving, democrat-excoriating, uribe-as-america's-best-friend, context-free wapo op-ed would have you believe...

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Rebutting the WaPo op-ed on Colombia by adding context

ok, i promised earlier that i would post more on colombia and here it is... first, take a look at this animated video from amnesty usa...



(click image to go to amnesty's web site and play video)

then read this...

Amnesty International today made public for the first time a list of more than 100 cases of serious human rights abuses, including massacres and enforced "disappearances" implicating Colombian security forces and paramilitary groups, and urged the U.S. Congress to review the cases ahead of President Alvaro Uribe's visit to Washington May 2-4. Amnesty International is calling on Congress to withhold U.S. military funding to Colombia until these cases are investigated and those responsible are brought to justice.

The cases are excerpted from documents containing details of more than 150 cases of human rights violations that Amnesty International presented to the U.S. State Department in 2006 during consultations in which human rights organizations urged Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice not to certify that the Colombian government and armed forces were making sufficient progress on human rights. The victims named in the list were either killed or forcibly "disappeared" between January 2005 and June 2006.

look, i'm not saying who has the handle on the absolute truth here, i just want to demonstrate the total lack of relevant context that newspapers like the washington post consistently and, i believe, purposefully omit... and, like in today's op-ed that i posted on earlier, when they DO include some context, as in the reference to human rights watch, it's often a mere mention and offered in a not-quite-but-almost derogatory tone...

Human Rights Watch, which has joined the Democratic campaign against Mr. Uribe, claimed that "today Colombia presents the worst human rights and humanitarian crisis in the Western hemisphere" -- never mind Venezuela or Cuba or Haiti.

we deserve better... a LOT better...

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Danger! WaPo op-ed! Stay back at least 100 ft.!

most of the time, when i read crap like this, i intuitively and unconsciously factor in the spin... i skim through and, once i've gotten the gist, i move on... however, i think every once in a while it's both important and useful to be a bit more thorough and, paragraph-by-paragraph, word-by-word, and phrase-by-phrase, dissect just exactly how the writer is choosing to get his or her point across...

this op-ed in today's wapo, excoriating the democrats for being cool toward colombia's president, provides a perfect opportunity to see how our media can toy with our collective heads...

first, they set the stage by introducing the Star of the Show...

Colombian President Álvaro Uribe may be the most popular democratic leader in the world. Last week, as he visited Washington, a poll showed his approval rating at 80.4 percent -- extraordinary for a politician who has been in office nearly five years.

then they paint him as an unassailable Good Guy...

In a region where populist demagogues are on the offensive, Mr. Uribe stands out as a defender of liberal democracy, not to mention a staunch ally of the United States.

then we meet the Bad Guys, and get treated to some examples of their exceptionally Bad Behavior...

After a meeting with the Democratic congressional leadership, Mr. Uribe was publicly scolded by House Majority leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), whose statement made no mention of the "friendship" she recently offered Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad. Human Rights Watch, which has joined the Democratic campaign against Mr. Uribe, claimed that "today Colombia presents the worst human rights and humanitarian crisis in the Western hemisphere" -- never mind Venezuela or Cuba or Haiti. Former vice president Al Gore, who has advocated direct U.S. negotiations with the regimes of Kim Jong Il and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, recently canceled a meeting with Mr. Uribe because, Mr. Gore said, he found the Colombian's record "deeply troubling."

next comes the Righteous Astonishment that anyone could treat a Hero of Latin American Democracy so poorly...

In fact this has been well-known for years; what's new is that investigations by Colombia's Supreme Court and attorney general have resulted in the jailing and prosecution of politicians and security officials. Many of those implicated come from Mr. Uribe's Conservative Party, and his former intelligence chief is under investigation. But the president himself has not been charged with wrongdoing. On the contrary: His initiative to demobilize 30,000 right-wing paramilitary fighters last year paved the way for the current investigations, which he and his government have supported and funded.

naturally, the motives of the Bad Guys are called into question...

• Some, like Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.), reflexively resist U.S. military aid to Latin America.

• Some, like Rep. Sander M. Levin (D-Mich.), are eager to torpedo Colombia's pending free-trade agreement with the United States [and] have seized on the supposed human rights "crisis" as a pretext to blackball Colombia.

• Perhaps Mr. Uribe is being punished by Democrats, too, because he has remained an ally of George W. Bush even as his neighbor, Venezuela's Hugo Chavez, portrays the U.S. president as "the devil."

and, of course, as a conclusion, we have a dire prediction of the Horrible Scenario that will ensue if the Bad Guys are allowed to prevail...

If the Democrats succeed in wounding Mr. Uribe or thwarting his attempt to consolidate a democracy that builds its economy through free trade, the United States may have to live without any Latin American allies.

with the story line in place, let's focus on the spin, or, as jeffrey feldman would no doubt say, the "frame..." it doesn't take a lot of analysis, let me tell you... from the top... (note: not all of these are contained in the excerpts above but are included in the full article...)

• most popular democratic leader in the world
• extraordinary for a politician
• rescued their country from near-failed-state status
• murder rate has dropped by nearly half
• the free-market economy is booming
• a defender of liberal democracy
• a staunch ally of the United States
• populist demagogues
  
• publicly scolded
• joined the Democratic campaign against Mr. Uribe
• found the Colombian's record "deeply troubling"
• backlash
• opposed him all along
• reflexively resist
• eager to torpedo
• protectionist hard-liners
• blackball
• punished
• ally of George W. Bush
• badly misguided
• consolidate a democracy that builds its economy through free trade

yes, i realize that this is an op-ed, and it's meant to express a point of view, but, wow...! a lengthier list of value and connotation-packed, ideology-loaded, and, yes, manipulative words would be hard to come by... the casual reader, breezing through this screed, articulate and polished though it is, could only come away thinking that the democrats are fiercely determined to, as the wapo puts it, "torpedo" the one good thing that's happening for the u.s. vis a vis latin america, and, morever, stomp on everything that's good and right with our country... it's truly a masterpiece of spin and framing, one that undoubtedly takes many, many years of experience and hard work to be able to write...

in a subsequent post, let me give a bit of context on what's REALLY going on in colombia...

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