"Blake said he'll stay patient. // 'What I'm finding out is nothing is quick there, and we are doing everything we can to get through this,' he said." --from the OP
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"Nothing is quick there" except when the CIA, acting to cover up Bush Junta crimes in Colombia, arranges a fast getaway for a prime witness against Bush pal, Alvaro Uribe, and
instant asylum in the U.S. client state of Panama--out of the reach of Colombian prosecutors and over their objections!
See Judi Lynn's posting here, for the latest...
"Panamanian lawyers demand rejection of ex-DAS director's asylum"
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=405x52087I will get to what I suspect about this Houston-based plane from Honduras to Panama getting seized in Panama, in a moment. First, some background:
DAS, Colombia's intelligence agency, was spying on everybody, probably with Bush Junta help (think "Total Information Awareness"): judges, prosecutors, political opponents, journalists, human rights groups, trade unionists (many of whom have been murdered by the Colombian military) and others, in a vast and very illegal domestic spying operation, run by Maria Hurtado, Uribe's appointee to DAS. As Uribe said, anybody who opposes him is "a terrorist." All were fair game. Some of those spied on were murdered (trade unionists, teachers, community activists, human rights workers, peasant farmers). Some received death threats. And, of course, spying on the justice system made it possible to anticipate investigations and indictments.
The Bush Junta-appointed U.S. ambassador, William Brownfield, was left in place by the Obama administration until he had secretly negotiated, and Uribe had secretly signed, a U.S./Colombia military agreement that included "total diplomatic immunity" for all U.S. military personnel and all U.S. 'contractors' in Colombia*, and until Brownfield and Uribe had arranged the extradition of death squad witnesses, on mere drug charges, to the U.S. and their burial in the U.S. federal prison system by complete sealing of their cases in U.S. federal court in Washington DC. Those "missions accomplished," Brownfield was bumped up to U.S. State Dept. honcho for their western hemisphere.
Colombian prosecutors were outraged by these midnight extraditions, which grossly interfered with on-going death squad investigations.
(Note: The Colombia Supreme Court declared the secretly negotiated and secretly signed U.S./Colombia military agreement unconstitutional but it could arguably still be used, as an officially signed "totally diplomatic immunity" for all U.S. personnel and 'contractors' in Colombia covering an informal agreement to that effect back over the decade of Bush Junta activity in Colombia.*)
The Obama administration meanwhile arranged cushy appointments for Uribe--academic sinecures at Georgetown and Harvard and appointment to a prestigious international legal commission (the one investigating Israel attack on a peace ship). When Uribe was served with a subpoena in the U.S., regarding a lawsuit against Drummond Coal by survivors of Drummond Coal's hired death squads (who killed labor organizers), Uribe asked the State Dept. for "sovereign immunity" (meaning, as former monarch of Colombia, he cannot be forced to testify), and while the State Dept. passed on that "hot potato," they sent a letter to the judge urging the court to do everything possible not to question Uribe. (This situation is currently hanging fire.) (It should also be said that Obama's appointee to Attorney General, Eric Holder, was attorney for Chiquita International when they were sued for hiring death squads to murder trade unionists, during the Bush Junta--Holder got them off with a handslap.)
Fast-forward a year to the hampered investigations in Colombia: Colombian prosecutors were about to question Maria Hurtado on Uribe's spying operation, and suddenly, Hurtado and six other spying witnesses were in Panama. Hurtado was granted instant, overnight asylum as a "political refugee."
It is known that Uribe met with the rightwing president of Panama, Martinelli. They are buds. But, at this point, with Uribe "retired" as mafia don (um, president) of Colombia) it is not known who arranged the flight of these witnesses and suspects, out of the reach of Colombian prosecutors. Asylum for Hurtado put Martinelli in serious hot water, politically in his own country and in the region--an on-going scandal. Latin American governments do not like their sovereignty and their legal systems to be spat upon. It's a particularly sensitive issue in Latin America. So, given all of the above--and, in addition CIA Director Leon Panetta's visit to Bogota, back when Uribe was rumored to be planning a coup d'etat to stay in power--Panetta pulled the plug, with all these perks and protections as the means, apparently--it is way more than likely--it is a near certainty--that the CIA got the Hurtado and these other witnesses out of Colombia, and got Hurtado instant asylum in Panama, to protect Uribe.
As a rightwinger, Martinelli is not popular in Panama and is outnumbered by leftist leaders in the region. He is also the not very clever operator who appealed to the U.S. ambassador (according to her account--a Wikileaks exposure) for U.S. help in spying on his political enemies in Panama (--like his pal Uribe was getting in Colombia?). She was appalled (har-har), according to her low security cable to the State Dept. Ergo, it is a good guess that Martinelli was strong-armed by the U.S., as well as by Uribe, to give instant asylum to Hurtado, so that she won't have to testify against Uribe in Colombia.
Why is the CIA protecting Uribe? Most likely answer: To cover up
Bush Junta crimes in Colombia. (Remember, we all "need to look forward not backward"--they teach that at Harvard Law School). Hidden answer (hard to know but plausible): Uribe's main task, as Bush Junta tool, was to consolidate the trillion dollar-plus cocaine revenue stream into fewer hands and direct it to U.S. banksters, the Bush Cartel and the CIA.
As for the OP--Panama seizing the plane, the pilots and the $2.3 million in cash, here is my suspicion: This was an unprotected operation--a lesser player--one of the drug lords on the "outs" that were being shut down by the U.S. "war on drugs" in favor of the big players (--Uribe's overall job as crime lord of Colombia under the Bush Junta).
The
route of travel of cocaine and the huge cocaine revenue stream from Colombia through Honduras and Panama to the U.S. and back, has been forged by the Bush Junta's use of the U.S. "war on drugs," with Jim DeMint (SC-Diebold), John McCain, John "death squad" Negroponte and other "players" forging the link in Honduras with the rightwing coup d'etat in 2009 and the Obama team not objecting overly much and smearing the thing over with a U.S.-arranged fraudulent election (even while anti-coup protestors, many of them trade unionists, were being murdered by rightwing hit squads). Panama, of course, has been a U.S. client state since the overthrow of Noriega and installed Martinelli, a U.S. tool like Uribe, partly to maintain vigilance over the dock worker labor unions in Panama and probably also (under the Bush Junta) to facilitate the consolidation of the cocaine trade.
In other words, I think it's VERY selective, who gets busted.
If the Obama team would like to clean this mess up (a possibility), it has the very serious problem that the Bush Cartel is more powerful than the U.S. government. That is evident from their failure to even investigate Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld for war crimes (as well as financial crimes, treason and much else). Panetta did toss Uribe, and vetted and approved a new president of Colombia, Manual Santos, who, among other things, has called off Uribe's war (the Pentagon's next oil war plan?) on the Chavez government in next door Venezuela and the Correa government in next door Ecuador (both with big oil reserves, both members of OPEC, both with leftist governments). Uribe was running a Bush Junta propaganda campaign against them, accusing them of being "terrorist-lovers," etc.
A more peaceful ruler of Colombia (Santos) was probably vetted/installed in order to create a friendlier environment in Latin America for U.S. corporations, banksters and war profiteers. With the Left in ascendance in the region, and Brazil part of the leftist alliance, they are likely having a hard time selling their wares to a region that is fed up with U.S. bullying, coups, coup attempts, war mongering and (if I am right) mafia-like crime. I have no illusions about what moves Obama, Clinton, Panetta and the rest of the Obama team. But very probably they need a cleaner IMAGE in order to do business in Latin America.
Despite BILLIONS and BILLIONS of U.S. tax dollars thrown at the "war on drugs"--and at the even more heinous cost of tens of thousands of innocent lives--the cocaine just keeps on flowing. Little interdictions like this have NO effect. And the imprisonment of tens of thousands of minor drug offenders (something like 70% of the prisoners in this country) has been ruinous, socially and economically. The "war on drugs" is a DISASTER. So, when little interdictions like this occur, we need to ask big questions about them. Why did this happen in the otherwise smooth flowing cocaine revenue stream?
You've got my guesses and surmises. It is a very difficult problem to SEE. If this plane was carrying drug money--which it more than likely was--it was seized because the cocaine traffickers and money launderers were not "made men," i.e., do not have the protection of the U.S. government like Alvaro Uribe and are not one of the big, untouchable operators.
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*(Early this year, the State Dept. "fined" Blackwater for "unauthorized" "trainings" of "foreign persons" IN COLOMBIA "for use in Iraq and Afghanistan." I suspect that this is a cover-up (they were not "unauthorized"--they were "authorized" by the Bush Junta) and that these "trainings" have something to do with Uribe/Brownfield's secretly negotiated "total diplomatic immunity" for all U.S. 'contractors.')
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