Please help me debunk this sh#t via Charles Krauthammer:

[EFerrari]

How Hostages, And Nations, Get Liberated

By Charles Krauthammer
Friday, July 11, 2008; Page A17

On the day the Colombian military freed Ingrid Betancourt and 14 other long-held hostages, the Italian Parliament passed yet another resolution demanding her release. Europe had long ago adopted this French-Colombian politician as a cause celebre. France had made her an honorary citizen of Paris, passed numerous resolutions and held many vigils.

Unfortunately, karma does not easily cross the Atlantic. Betancourt languished for six years in cruel captivity until freed in a brilliant operation conducted by the Colombian military, intelligence agencies and special forces -- an operation so well executed that the captors were overpowered without a shot being fired.

This in foreign policy establishment circles is called "hard power." In the Bush years, hard power is terribly out of fashion, seen as a mere obsession of cowboys and neocons. Both in Europe and America, the sophisticates worship at the altar of "soft power" -- the use of diplomatic and moral resources to achieve one's ends.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/07/10/AR2008071002262.html

at

[email protected]

:grr:

[magbana]

1. VEN INFO OFFICE offers some suggestions on responding to this crap

Here are some points to raise in your letter:

1- There is no proven evidence that Venezuela aided the FARC, as Colombian officials claim. INTERPOL conducted a forensic examination of the alleged evidence, but could not verify its source or authenticity. The allegations have not stood up to scrutiny.

2- President Chavez's humanitarian mediation in Colombia was an honest attempt to help bring about peace. He served as the chief negotiator of hostage talks that led the FARC to free six civilian captives. He did this to help the Colombian people, not the FARC.

3- Chavez has for years advocated a negotiated political solution to the Colombian conflict. He said on January 13th that he doesn't agree with the armed struggle, and reiterated this on June 8th by calling for the FARC to release all hostages and lay down their arms.
Thank you for helping the VIO stop lies about Venezuela! As always, write to [email protected] to let us know if you took action by sending a letter to the editor.

[EFerrari]

2. This is my letter. Sent a little late for publication but not too late to be read.

Subj: Krauthammer's embarrassing assertions and your readers' patience.

Today Mr. Krauthmmer wrote: " Chávez had been secretly funding and pulling the strings of the FARC". This is precisely the kind of unfounded, unproven and unneccessary claim that drives readers away from the print press.

If Mr. Krauthammer was referring to the magic laptops that survived the Colombian bombing of the FARC encampment in Ecuador, all three panels of experts who studied the matter would not vouch for the authenticity of claims being made by Mr. Uribe's government. There is no proof, let alone a reasonable suspicion, that Mr. Chavez has done anything more than mediate for the release of hostages -- a service for which he has been thanked repeatedly and publicly by Betancourt, her family and her friends.

And unless you discount dismembered or slaughtered union organizers, Mr. Uribe's "hard stuff" strategy has done nothing to reach a peace agreement with FARC besides delay the release of captives on multiple occasions. This is also a matter of public record.

I expect more from Krauthammer and from the Post.

Elizabeth Ferrari
bla bla bla

[Judi Lynn]

3. His little tirade was horrifying. He lost touch with the real world long ago.

Apparently he's on a fact-free diet.

As Peace Patriot has mentioned, and has been noted in some of the articles, Uribe invited Chavez FIRST to assist in hostage negotiations. This crucial fact is overlooked, even ignored by the hard-riding propagandists' brigade. Chavez didn't just barge in there and start giving orders: he was asked to help them by Uribe himself.

Then, from out of nowhere, Uribe pitched a fit, and said he was rescinding his invitation as Chavez had had the nerve to contact his highest military officers concerning plans for the hostage release, and he, Uribe, strictly forbade him to talk to them. (Chave would have had every reason to want to assure himself he was not being set up, considering the more than 100 Colombian former soldiers and active death squad members who showed up outside Caracas in a plot to break into the National Guard Armory, steal enough weapons to outfit 1,500 men, overwhelm the Palace Guard at Miraflores, and assassinate Hugo Chavez, a plot for which Uribe had to apologize to Chavez at great length when Venezuela learned about it from the captured mercenaries who were hired by Venezuelan opposition members, including Cuban-Venezuelan with Miami contacts, Roberto Alonso.

Krauthammer. What a joke. He should ask the Post to refrain from posting his photo next to his columns if he wants anyone to take him seriously!



Jesus H. Christ! What the ####?


The world is going to get the last laugh on these clowns. It's just a matter of time. They are digging their own graves.

It may be they are panicking, worried that unless they can all arrange a national disaster which _Bush could use to declare martial law, and strike down the election, and stay in office, that they will not have the time they need to devastate and take control of what's left of our world.

It's great you reminded him there is a much larger story going on than their latest stunt with the laptop, and this pre-emptive hostage "rescue" they undertook in order to prevent the hostage exchange which was underway when they brought the three men together in the same place with Ingrid Bettancourt. They swooped in to keep that from happening.

God forbid any MORE hostages should have been released without Colombia taking all the credit for it! They had already been shamed enough with the first 6.

Your letter is really honed. Potent. Focused. I hope he'll take the time to review those comments.

I scanned the first several pages, trying to get an idea of what the tone is from the readers, and I was pleasantly surprised to see there aren't that many buffoons writing to support him. Each voice speaking out against these monsters is from heaven itself, the voice of someone who won't condone the evil these people are pushing.

[EFerrari]

4. What is very amusing to me is that Uribe is claiming that

FARC is much weakened, on the verge of collapse AND that everyone is supporting FARC -- Chavez, Correa, Switzerland, France, me, you. At the same time. lol

/oops

[Judi Lynn]

5. It's the old commie smear deja vu all over again. It's hilarious when slow learning right-wingers

try to label more sensible people than themselves as "Marxists," attemting to sidestep the image of knuckle dragging monstrosities shrieking "communist" at people. Apparently they think it makes them seem more literate.



FARC supporter!.
Yeah, it's a big, wide world harboring too many potential FARC-supporting, lame, ignorant leftists, and yet the FARCs have been smoked out and are on the run and are going to be slaughtered and destroyed any day, now. That's what gawd would want.