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Today's
Stories
March 12, 2008
Dave Lindorff
Bringing Down Spitzer: It's the Big Brother Who Should Bother US
R.F. Blader
The Spitzer Backlash
Yonatan Mendel
How to be an Israeli Journalist. Never Write "Murder" or "Palestine"
Jonathan Cook
One State or Two? Neither. The Issue is Zionism
Bill and Kathy Christison
Fallon and Gates -- At Least One Cheer
James J. Brittain
Was the U.S. Involved in Killing the FARC-EP Leaders
Ron Jacobs
"All the Money You Make Will Never Buy Back Your Soul"
March 11, 2008
Paul Craig Roberts
How to End the Subprime Crisis
Ed O'Loughlin
How Israeli Troops Invade Homes in Gaza, Brutalize, Smash and Steal
Ramzy Baroud
'Unwavering Commitment' to Inequality
Kathy Christison
One State or Two? The Debate Over Israel and Palestine
China Hand
PRC Plays it Cool, as U.S. Tries to Amp Up Pressure on Iran
John Joslin
Thank You, Nafta! Welcome to Weirton, Home of the Discount Cigarette
Mike Averko
Serb Politics, Kosovo and the Moscow-Washington Divide
Ben Rosenfeld
Gavin Newsom's Kneejerk Plan
Thierry Paquot
High Rise, Low Spirits:The Curse of the Tower Block
March 10, 2008
Uri Avnery
"Kill A Hundred Turks and Rest": The Five-Day War in Gaza
Col. Dan Smith
Scoring the "Surge" and What Lies Beyond
R.F. Blader
Why "Lock Them Up and Throw Away the Key" is Losing its Sheen
Michael Neumann
The One-State Illusion: More is Less
Bob Fitrakis and Harvey Wasserman
Did the Republicans Give Hillary Her Victory in Ohio?
James J. Brittain
Anti-Uribe Protests in Colombia and the World
Missy Comley Beattie
The Passion of John McCain
March 8-9, 2008 Weekend Edition
JoAnn Wypijewski
The Only Way to Fight the Clintons
Mike Whitney
Sorting Through the Rubble in Post Bubble America
Peter Morici
Fed and Treasury Fiddle as Economy Plummets
Ralph Nader
The Silent Violence of Gaza's Suffering that Candidates Ignore
Jonathan Cook
The Meaning of Gaza's Shoah
Steve Niva
Behind the Israeli Escalation in Gaza
Bill and Kathy Christison
Crisis over Teheran's Alleged Nuclear Plans Nearing Climax
Hervé Do Alto and Franck Poupeau
Bolivia: Morales is Checked
Eric Walberg
To Leave and Stay at the Same Time: Putin to Medvedev to…?
Scott Johnson
City of A Thousand Foreclosures
Mark Scaramella
James Brown's Gate
Bill Clinton
President Clinton's Remarks on Naming William M. Daley as NAFTA Task Force Chairman
Poet's Basement
St. Thomasino, Engel, Davies and Willson
Website of the Weekend
Hillary Blackens Barack
March 7, 2008
Patrick Cockburn
Why Iraq Could Blow-Up in John McCain's Face
Robin Blackburn
Question for Barrack Obama: Why Afghanistan is the 'Right War'?
Saul Landau
The Stupid Economy
Binoy Kampmark
When Competition is Good: McCain and the Muddled Democrats
Chris Floyd
Crushing the Ants: Admiral Fallon and His Empire
Andy Worthington
Spanish Drop "Inhuman" Extradition Request for Guantánamo Britons
Will Potter
Before the Smoke Even Clears in Seattle: Bringing Out the T Word
March 6, 2008
Vincent Navarro
The
Next Failure of Health Reform
Forrest Hylton
High Stakes in the Andes: Colombia's Cornered President
Peter Morici
Why the Dollar is So Cheap
George Ciccariello-Maher
Counter-Attack of the Bureaucrats
John Ross
Taxi! Taxi! The Dark Side of the Oscars
Jacob Hornberger
No Standing to Lecture on Justice
Paul Watson
Illegal Japanese Whaling by the Numbers
Dan Bacher
Off the Deep End
Website of the Day
A Katrina Reader Online
March 5, 2008
Cockburn /
St. Clair
A
Great Day for John McCain (and Maybe Nader)
Joanne Mariner
After Guantanamo
Fidel Castro
The Raid on Ecuador: Underestimating Rafael Correa
Christopher
Brauchli
The Turkish Invasions
Steven Sherman
Obama and the Prospects for a Renewal of the Left
Dave Lindorff
Busting Bush & Co. in New England
James Murren
Bombing Somalia
Adam Engel
Necropolis Now
Website of Day
Remember Song
March 4, 2008
Wajahat Ali
Mumbo
Jumbo: Naming Names with Ishmael Reed
William Blum
How Could Hillary Have Known?
Bill Quigley
The Cleansing of New Orleans
Ralph Nader
The Prince Harry Solution
Patrick Irelan
Oil and Health in Venezuela
James J. Brittain
/
R. James Sacouman
Uribe's Colombia is Destabilizing a New Latin America
Norman Solomon
The War Election
Jacob Hornberger
Hillary in Waco: the Missing Apology
Andy Worthington
Guantánamo and the European Parliament
Mike Averko
Kosovo and the Press
Website of the Day
Tex-Mex Primary
March 3, 2008
Jennifer Loewenstein
Gazan Holocaust
Alan Farago
American Politics and the Faltering Economy
Richard Gott
Colombian Deaths in Ecuador
Wajahat Ali
Who Speaks for a Billion Muslims? Analyzing the World Gallup
Poll with John Esposito
Paul Craig Roberts
The Mukasey Conspiracy: a Bi-Partisan Attack on the Constitution
Robert Weissman
When Multinationals Say Adieu
Uri Avnery
Good Morning, Hamas
Martha Rosenberg
When Your Meat is a Downer
Eva Liddell
Leave the Next Dance for Bill
Michael Donnelly
Will Ferrell Does Flint
Website of the Day
Muddy Waters: Train Fare Home Blues
March 1 / 2,
2008
Alexander Cockburn
The
Race Card
Paul Craig
Roberts
The
Political Trial of Don Siegelman
Kathleen and Bill Christison
Nader the Best Antidote to American Imperialism
Nelson P. Valdés
Cuba After Fidel
Christopher Brauchli
Meet Mr. Nursultan Nazarbayev: Friend of Bill, George and Dick
Ron Jacobs
Inside the Secret City: Bomb Making at Oak Ridge
John Ross
The New Conquistadores: Spain's Reconquest of Mexico
Robert Fantina
Posturing Over Patriotism: Obama and Those Lapel Pins
Robert Weissman
Hidden in Plain Sight: Human Rights Hypocrisy
Mohammed Omer
Fear in Gaza
Remi Kanazi
Barack Obama and the Politics of Xenophobia
Bob Jackson
Why is Yellowstone Destroying Its Bison Herd?
Richard Rhames
Casual Threats: Loaded with Mercury
Franklin Lamb
Lebanon Awaits the Arrival of the USS Cole
Rannie Amiri
Showboat Diplomacy: US Warships Steam Toward Lebanon
David Michael
Green
The Three Faces of Hillary: the Politics of Flim-Flam
Conn Hallinan
Notes from the Southern Cone
Faheem Hussain
Prince Harry of Afghanistan and the Meaning of Normalcy
Poets' Basement
Gibbons, Orloski, Gardner and Ford
Website of
the Weekend
The Palestine Chronicle Needs (and Deserves) Your Help!
February 29,
2008
Matt Gonzalez
The
Obama Craze
Jonathan Cook
Academic Freedom? Not for Arabs in Israel
Joshua Frank
Obama and Israel
Anthony DiMaggio
The Unilateral Presidency: Signing Statements and the Rollback
of American Law
Linn Washington, Jr.
Cop Abuse in America
Binoy Kampmark
Hubris and Nemesis
Robert Bryce
Energy Efficiency May be a Good Thing, But It Won't Cut Energy
Use
Sonja Karkar
Australia's Government Continues Its Love Affair with Israel
Dave Lindorff
A Manchurian Candidate in the White House? Obama or Bush?
Website of
the Day
Olduvai George
February 28,
2008
Patrick Cockburn
"Iraq"
Falls Apart
Fred Gardner
The Birth of NAFTA
Michael Levitin
The Crisis in Kosovo is Just Beginning
William S.
Lind
The Fake State of Kosovo
David Macaray
A Ray of Hope for Organized Labor
Stephen Fleischman
Nader's Latest Run: Monkey Wrench or Cattle Prod?
George Wuerthner
The Myths of Forest Health: Why Ecological Logging is an Oxymoron
Laura Carlsen
The North American Union Farce
Carl Finamore
Why the Delta-Northwest Deal Hasn't Taken Off
Michael Dickinson
The Day I Bombed the House of Commons
Website of the Day
Plane Stupid
February 27,
2008
David Rosen
Playing
the Race Card: Obama, Love Across the Color Line and Political
Dirty Tricks
Vijay Prashad
Bomber John: McCain and the 100 Year War
Harvey Wasserman
Incident at Turkey Point: Did Florida Go to the Radioactive Brink?
Andy Worthington
Guantánamo's Shambolic Trials: Pentagon Boss Resigns,
Ex-Prosecutor Joins Defense
Wajahat Ali
Pakistan for Sale: an Interview with Ayesha Siddiqa on Pakistan's
Military Economy
Peter Morici
The Auction-Rate Securities Fiasco: a Drama of Greed and Betrayal
Stephen Philion
Conspiracy Theory, Fears of Betrayal and Today's Anti-War Movement
Michael Donnelly
Obama by Unanimous Decision
Erica Rosenberg /
Janine Blaeloch
After the Land Deals: Will There
be Any Wilderness Left to Protect?
Website of
the Day
Dress Blues
February 26,
2008
Debbie Nathan
Confessions
of a Gitmo Guard
Alan Dershowitz
v. Frank Menetrez
On Finkelstein
Harvey Wasserman
How Ohio Got Nuked
Michael Colby
Ralph Nader vs. the Fundamentalist Liberals
Gary Leupp
Condi vs. Putin on Bullying Belgrade
David Orchard
The New Conquistadors: Canada in Afghanistan
Martha Rosenberg
The Big HRT
Fran Shor
The Electoral Circus and Nader's Sideshow
Serge Halimi
The Dom Perignon Socialist Manifesto: Bernard Henri-Levy's Plan
for the French Left
Global Balkans
Neo-Liberalism and Protectorate States in the Post-Yugoslav Balkans:
an Interview with Tariq Ali
Website of
the Day
Texistentialism
February 25,
2008
Roger Morris
A
Death in Damascus
Anthony DiMaggio
Military
Bases, the Media and the Democrats
Ralph Nader
Why I'm Running
Patrick Cockburn
Iraq Broils
Paul Craig Roberts
Kosovo and the Empire Crazies
Peter Morici
Bernanke's Failing Policies: a Long Recession Looms
Dave Lindorff
General Welch's Whitewash: What We Still Don't Know About That
Minot Nuke Incident
Saul Landau
/
Farrah Hassen
Fanatics, Mountebanks and Drillers: a Bloody Oil Film
Heather Gray
James Orange, Civil Rights Legend
Robert Weitzel
Accomodating Torture
John Halle
Kucinich Goes Down
Website of the Day
Do the Trunk Monkey!
February 23 / 4, 2008
Alexander Cockburn
The
Mushrooming Clouds That Hang Over McCain
Paul Craig
Roberts
Obama
and Global Trade
Wajahat Ali
Omissions of the Commission: an Interview with Phillip Shenon
on the 9/11 Commission
Ralph Nader
Neutering the FDA
Jürgen
Vsych
"What Was Ralph Nader Thinking?"
Fidel Castro
Watching the US Presidential Campaign from Havana
Andy Worthington
Britain's Guantánamo
David Macaray
Unions Under Assault
Jeremy Scahill
The Real Story Behind Kosovo's Independence
David Krieger
Stanley Sheinbaum
Caging the Cold War Monster
Ron Jacobs
Building for the Future
Michael Garrity
The Last, Best Hope for the Northern Rockies
Brian McKenna
Higher Ed's "Civic Engagements" Get Dumbed Down
Missy Beattie
Over the Hill with John McCain
Fred Gardner
American College of Physicians Takes Pro-Cannabis Stand (Mostly)
Boris Kagarlitsky
The Growth of the Russian Labor Movement
Mike Ferner
Kick That Barrel
Dan Bacher
On the Trail with the Border Angels
Christopher
Ketcham
Hillary Goes Where Obama Fears to Tread
Poets' Basement
Davies and Buknatski
Website of
the Weekend
Obama
Mariachi
February 22,
2008
Mike Whitney
The
Bonfire of Capital
Jason Hribal
Elephants and the Circus: The Story of Janet
Liaquat Ali Khan
Arresting Musharraf
Joshua Frank
That Obama Glow: the Nuclear Industry's Golden Child
Dave Lindorff
Vicki's John: Ask Not What She Did for Him, Ask What He Did for
Her!
Liliana Segura
When Torture is Old News: McCain's Blonde Diversion
Robert Fantina
Castro, Bush and Cuba: a Fiasco Waiting to Happen?
Yifat Susskind
The ABCs of Death: Bush vs. Africa's Women
Norm Kent
Pushing 60 with Pot
Website of
the Day
Bush Gets Down in Liberia
February 21,
2008
Saul Landau
Fidel
Steps Aside
Elizabeth Schulte
Left Behind, With No End in Sight: America's Long-Term Unemployed
Helen Redmond
Health Care as a Human Right
Benjamin Dangl
Undermining Bolivia
Michael Levitin
Kosovo's Dilemma
Liam Leonard
Fear and Loathing on the Emerald Isle
Patrick Irelan
Land and Food in Venezuela
Linn Cohen-Cole
Poor Ohio: a Second Letter to Hillary on Her Ties to Monsanto
Michael Simmons
Daydream Believer: John Stewart, the Miles Davis of Folk Music
CounterPunch
News Service
A Message from the Women of Okinawa to US GIs
Website of the Day
Cop Abuse in Shreveport
February 20,
2008
Paul Craig
Roberts
Lies
and Spies
Paul Krassner
My
Brief Encounter with Fidel Castro
Fawzia Afzal-Khan
The
Pakistani Elections
Farzana Versey
The
Great Dictator: Musharraf, Peace and the Autumn of the Patriarch
Allan Nairn
Dying for a Second Round: Israel's
New Plan to Attack Lebanon
John V. Whitbeck
If Kosovo, Why Not Palestine?
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
A Balcony Seat to Our Own Balkanization?
Steve Eckardt
Cuba Sans Fidel: No News is Big News
Lee Sustar
Union-Busting at Freightliner
Mike Ferner
How Sick of It are You?
Website of the Day
The US Military Index
February 19,
2008
Uri Avnery
Blood
and Champagne
Paul Craig
Roberts
Paying
Insurgents Not to Fight
Gary Leupp
The Independence of Kosovo
Fidel Castro
The Moment Has Come
David Macaray
Management's Dirty Little Secret
Reza Fiyouzat
Buck the Circus! The Left and the Elections
Valerie Morse
The New Zealand Terror Raids: Land of the Long White Lie
Walter Brasch
Bush on Safari
Website of the Day
Don't Think Twice, It's Alright
February 18,
2008
Wajahat Ali
Free
Pakistan: an Interview with Imran Khan
Diana Johnstone
NATO's
Kosovo Colony
Paul Craig Roberts
What Do We Stand For?
Andy Worthington
Gitmo: "We're Making This Up as We Go Along"
Debbie Nathan
Bernie Ward's Sex Tapes
Anthony DiMaggio
Following the Money Trail: the Democratic Party and the Business
of Elections
Bill Simpich
Ten Years Ago, People Power Stopped Clinton in Iraq
Eva Liddell
A Short History of Super-Delegates: Hope, Yes! But Pay in Cash
Christopher Brauchli
The President Who Couldn't Keep His Word: Short-Changing Veterans
Stephen Soldz
Wikileaks is Under Attack!
Johann Rossouw
The Ouster of Thabo Mbeki: South Africa and the Costs of Neoliberalism
Website of
the Day
Sick of It Day!
February 16
/ 17, 2008
Alexander Cockburn
The
Terrorists Still at Ground Zero, 7 World Trade Tower, Lower Manhattan
Ralph Nader
We
the Corporations ...
David Macaray
The Big Buy Out: Did GM Drive Another Nail in Labor's Coffin?
William J.
Peace
Wheelchair Dumping
Ron Jacobs
War on the Psyche: Shellshock and Redemption
Diane Christian
War Corrupts
Alan Maass
Oil, Blood and Greed: Taking Upton Sinclair to the Big Screen
(and Beyond)
Ramzy Baroud
Iraq and the US Elections
Michael Donnelly
Genitalia First! Old Guard Feminists Play the XX Card
Cpt. Paul Watson
The Art of Finding Whalers
James L. Secor
China Diary: Spring Festival and New Year 2008
Eve Bachrach
Bush Returns to Africa
Nikolas Kozloff
Hugo Chávez's Anti-Imperialist Army
Stephen Gowans
Steven Spielberg, Faux-Humanitarian
Missy Beattie
To Vote or Not to Vote?
David Michael
Green
Warming Slowly to Obama
Wajahat Ali
Attack of the Info-tainment Circus
Poets' Basement
Gibbons, Willson, Mickey Z., Orloski and Reuther
Website of the Day
Yellowstone's Bison Need Your Help--NOW!
February 15,
2008
George Szamuely
The
Absurdity of "Independent" Kosovo
Patrick Cockburn
Ground-Truthing the Surge: Is the US Really Bringing Stability
to Baghdad?
Wajahat Ali
Pakistan is Burning: an Interview with Steve Coll on the Taliban,
Bin Laden and the Bush Administration
Mike Whitney
Henry Paulsen's Wild Ride on the Economic Hindenberg
Alan Farago
God and the Democrats
Chris Genovali
Alberta's Black Gold Rush
Jacob Hornberger
Courting Injustice: Scalia on Torture
Dave Lindorff
Snoops Always Ring Twice: Bush's Protect America Bill Bull
Website of the Day
Live From the Land of Hopes and Dreams
February 14,
2008
Kathleen and
Bill Christison
Palestine
in the Mind of America
Mike Whitney
Swan Song for NATO
Clancy Sigal
Strike Notes from a Screenwriter
George Wuerthner
A Bloody Sham: the Yellowstone Bison Slaughter
Peter Morici
Is Bernanke Headed for the Exit?
John Ross
Drug War Mayhem Boils Over from Border to Border
Allan Nairn
Mafia Rules in the Middle East: If You're Big Enough, You Can
Whack Anyone
Rannie Amiri
Lebanon's Warmongers
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
The New Tractatus: Where Wittgenstein Meets Feinstein
Donna Volatile
Be Careful What You Vote For, You Just Might Get It
Seth Sandronsky
The Student Squeeze: Fighting California's Tuition Hikes
Website of
the Day
Conventions: the Land Around Us
February 13,
2008
Nikolas Kozloff
Meet
John McCain: Mr. Big Stick in Latin America
Alan Farago
Hell to Pay: Warren Buffett on the Goal Line
Christina Kasica
King's Dream Foreclosed: the Subprime Crisis in Black America
Vicente Navarro
How to Read the U.S. Primaries
Hall Greenland
Australia's Finest Hour
Lee Sustar
Strange Stimulation: Too Little for Those Who Need It Most
David Macaray
The Writers' Strike Finally Ends
Roderick Frazier
Nash
Celebrating Wilderness
Patrick Irelan
Hugo Chávez and High Anxiety at the NYT
Anthony Papa
Mean Mister Mukasey: AG Tries to Block Crack Cocaine Releases
Carl Finamore
Another Parade Passes Me By: Don't Let Your Movement be Coopted
by Politicians
Website of
the Day
John He Is
February 12,
2008
Frank J. Menetrez
The
Case Against Alan Dershowitz
Paul Craig
Roberts
War Without End
Dr. Trudy Bond
The Elephant at Gitmo: Camp 7 and the Torturer's Shrink
Andy Worthington
The Guantánamo Six: Why Charge Them Now? What About the
Torture?
Col. Dan Smith
The Psychology of Killing: Close In or Far Away?
Ronnie Cummins
Globalization: Standing at the End of the Road
Ralph Nader
Open the Government
John V. Walsh
Antiwarriors, Divided and Conquered
Dave Lindorff
Obama and Progressive Change: Let's Hope the Movement Transforms
the Candidate
Michael Donnelly
Who's Pimping Whom? The Clintons' Selective No Talk Rules
Ron Jacobs
La Lucha Continua: Castro's "Life"
Ben Tripp
Beggars Collide
Website of the Day
Springsteen and Youngstown
February 11,
2008
Cockburn /
St. Clair
Lessons
for Obama: When is a Delegate Not a Delegate?
Wajahat Ali
A Discussion with Walt and Mearsheimer on the Israel Lobby
Ray McGovern
Waterboarding for God and Country
Allan Nairn
The Shooting of Jose Ramos Horta
Uri Avnery
An End Foreseen?
Chris Floyd
American
Psycho: the Meaning of Mitt Romney's Exit Speech
Martha Rosenberg
School Lessons in a Lunchbox: Lunchmeat from Tortured Cows
Stephen Fleischman
The Bonnie and Clyde of American Politics
Marc Lamont Hill
Not My Brand of Hope
Liliana Segura
Obama and Torture: the Sounds of Silence and Equivocation
Peter Morici
Challenges for the New President
Christopher
Brauchli
A Drug Rant from a Former Taker
Website of the Day
Annie vs. the Blue Angels
February 8
/ 10, 2008
Paul Craig
Roberts
Does
the GOP Have Aces Up Its Sleeves?
Patrick Cockburn
Will Moqtada al-Sadr's Truce Hold?
Mike Whitney
The Great Bust of '08
Anthony DiMaggio
How the Press Covers Waterboarding
Andy Worthington
The Guántanamo Trials: Where are the Terrorists?
Linn Cohen-Cole
Hillary, Will You Renounce Your Ties to Monsanto?
Firmin DeBrabander
Notes from the Foreclosure Front: Suing Your Way to Solvency
Cpt. Paul Watson
The Other Whaling Industry: How Greenpeace Cashes In on the Suffering
and Deaths of the Great Whales
Kenneth S. Pope
Why I Resigned from the American Psychological Association
Jacob G. Hornberger
American Soldiers Will Pay the Price for Bush's Torture Policy
Robert Bryce
Beyond Group Think on Climate Change: If More CO2 is Bad ...
Then What?
P. Sainath
The Last of the Buccaneer Editors
Allan Nairn
Give Me Back My Land
Fred Gardner
/
Pebbles Trippet
"The District Attorney of Shasta County Doesn't Know the
Law!"
Andrew Wimmer
Growing Up Catholic: Ignorance is Death
Robert Fantina
America's Disgrace: the Case of Omar Khadr
David Michael Green
Partycide in Six Easy Steps: Watch the Democrats Destroy Themselves
Kevin Zeese
Is Dennis Kucinich Being McKinney'd?
Peter Morici
Wall Street Gives Bernacke a Vote of No Confidence
Chris Driscoll
Could Nader be the Come-Back Kid of 2008?
Prairie Miller
Black August: Bringing George Jackson's Life to the Screen
Poets Basement
Davies and Buknatski
February 7,
2008
Patrick Cockburn
Why
Baghdad Will Explode Again
Bill Christison
Potholes Bigger Than Ever for Palestinians
David Anderson
NBC's "To Entrap" a Predator: Perverting Justice for
the Sake of Ratings
Ron Jacobs
Innocent Flesh: Recruiting Kids to Kill
Nikolas Kozloff
Hugo Chávez's Coca: It's the Real Thing
Jane Rockefeller
The Moral Economy of an Anti-Poverty Foundation
Andy Worthington
On Waterboarding: Two Questions for Michael Hayden
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March 12, 2008
Was the U.S. Involved in Killing the FARC-EP Leaders?
By JAMES J. BRITTAIN
While virtually every country in Central and South America, including the Caribbean, has waged in on the debate of the Colombian state conducting an illegal military campaign within Ecuadorian sovereign territory, resulting in the deaths of various high ranking officials in the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia-People’s Army (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia-Ejército del Pueblo, FARC-EP), the United States have remained virtually silent. Such silence from the US is quite perplexing consdiering the administrations of Ronald Regan, George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush have wielded a twenty-two year old assault on this insurgency movement.
The United States have deemed the FARC-EP to be, what it considers, a foreign terrorist organization (FTO). Therefore, would one not expect, during the so-called ‘war on terror,’ some attention from Washington - other than a few sentences by state officials - following the deaths of both Comandante Raúl Reyes and Comandante Iván Ríos within less than six days of each other; two of the seven highest-ranking members of the organization (lest we forget the hourly visual barrage of images related to the capture of Saddam Hussein in 2003 or his execution in 2006). The following makes a case that the United States’ silence has far more to do with a plausible connection to the deaths of Comandante Reyes and Comandante Ríos rather than simple disinterest.
The Case of Comandante Raúl Reyes (Murdered March 1, 2008)
It has become general knowledge that shortly after midnight on March 1, 2008, the President of Colombia Álvaro Uribe Vélez, Vice-President Francisco Santos Calderón, and Defense Minister Juan Manuel Santos sanctioned an illegal air and ground assault against the 48th Front of the FARC-EP, which resulted in the death of Comandante Raúl Reyes, one of the members of the insurgency’s Secretariat of the Central High Command, Julian Conrado, a member of the Central High Command (and the insurgency’s most recognized cultural icon through his work as a revolutionary folk-musician), and twenty other members of the FARC-EP.
Hours after the assault had taken place Defense Minister Santos reiterated that Colombian forces began the operation with an air assault followed by a group of Colombian soldiers engaging in a ground combat against members of the FARC-EP Front. Santos expressed that recently obtained intelligence information related to a satellite phone used by Comandante Reyes enabled the Colombian military to pin-point the location of the encampment, subsequently enabling the campaign to take place.
During meetings of the OAS, state officials and representatives from Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Cuba, Mexico, Nicaragua, Paraguay, and Peru condemned the assault. Unsurprisingly, one of the only backers of the illegal military incursion was the US. Nevertheless, President George W. Bush and J. Robert Manzanares, the United States’ representative during the OAS meetings, had very little to say about the greatest achievement ever realized by the United States’ principal ally in Latin America’s forty-four year old civil war with the FARC-EP.
When asked if the Uribe and Santos administration had informed Washington preceding the transgression on Ecuadorian soil, Tom Casey, a spokesman for the US State Department, hesitantly stated “No, I’m not aware that we found out about this other than after the fact”. Less than assuring complete impartiality, Colombia’s Chief of Police, General Oscar Naranjo declared that “I can say for sure that the operation was autonomous”. As General Naranjo continued his press conference he did however reveal that the United States had, in fact, been involved in operations connected to the Colombian military assault in Ecuador, albeit indirectly,.
General Naranjo asserted that no external forces were involved in the FARC-EP-targeted attack but he did offer that “it is no secret that … a very strong alliance with federal agencies of the US” exists between the Colombian military. Shortly following this statement, a high ranking official within the Colombian Defense Ministry leaked that the United States had been involved in the March 1, 2008 operation. In actuality, the US, through satellite intelligence gathering over southern Colombia and Northern Ecuador, had been able to retrieve signals from the FARC-EP’s 48th Front and handed over the identification of the satellite telephone being used by the insurgency to intelligence sectors of the Colombian police. The informant went on to add that it was only then that Colombian officials were able to process the data, thereby enabling the Colombian state to decipherer the exact location of Comandante Reyes. The informant’s account of the satellite phone effectively mirrors that made during Defense Minister Santos’ first press conference. The leaked information demonstrated that the US was, at the very least, indirectly involved in the actions of March 1, 2008. That was until March 7, 2008.
On Friday, Ecuador’s Defense Minister Wellington Sandoval announced that after further investigation of the area targeted during the March 1 attack it was revealed that the site had been bombarded with at least five bombs (‘Smart Bombs’). All five detonations were within a 50-meter diameter during a nocturnal attack, a virtually impossible achievement when concerning the military capabilities and resources of the Colombian Air and Armed Forces. Sandoval claimed that the arms used during the incursion can only be deployed through the use of aircraft which have the capacity to fly at a considerable height and velocity, weaponry that is again not found within the Colombian Air Force. The only Air Force in the region with such an arsenal is the United States.
While the US and the Colombian governments claim that the United States were not involved in the attack that resulted in the death of Comandante Raúl Reyes, it is quite likely that the United States played more than an informal role in the aggression.
The Case of Comandante Iván Ríos (Murdered March 4, 2008 or March 7th, 2008)
On the afternoon of March 7, 2008, the country of Colombia was once again the witness of an interruption by Defense Minister Santos taking precedence on both television and radio. Similar to his announcement made six days earlier, Santos announced that a member of the FARC-EP’s Secretariat had been killed. To the great surprise of many, the Defense Minister claimed that Comandante Iván Ríos had been killed by another member of the FARC-EP named Rojas (in association with two other combatants associated with the insurgency) on March 4, 2008.
The Defense Minister proceeded to tell the press that after those deemed responsible had killed Comandante Ríos they severed his right hand in order to prove to Colombian officials that the youngest member of the Secretariat was dead. It was then stated that the three insurgents took the severed limb, along with Comandante Ríos’ laptop and identification and handed them over to members of the Colombian Army and the Colombian Attorney General Office’s Technical Investigation Body (Cuerpo Técnico de Investigación, CTI). During a brief press conference related to this incident, Defense Minister Santos said that the Colombian army had launched an operation designed to capture Comandante Ríos on February 17, 2008 after (again) receiving intelligence that he was located in a mountainous region in the Department of Caldas. Unlike the March 1, 2008 press conference, however, Santos did not entertain any questions or reveal any additional information other than that listed above and that Comandante Iván Ríos had been officially pronounced dead.
Confusion immediately began to envelop the events presented by Defense Minister Santos. The reason for the uncertainty was that previous to the ‘official’ pronouncement ofe Comandante’s Ríos death another state official within the Prosecutors Office of Colombia had given a different account concerning the death of the FARC-EP leader.
An anonymous official had prematurely contacted the press and reported that Comandante Ríos had been killed on March 7, 2008 during an attack carried out by a unit of the Colombian Army in conjunction with members of the CTI in Aguadas, just outside the Samaná Municipality within the department of Caldas. This again mirrors events as revealed in the case of Comandante Reyes death; intelligence provided to state officials, upper level official presenting sanitized sanctioned accounts explaining the deaths of the FARC-EP’s high command, and lower-level officials disseminating alternative accounts of the actual on goings during said transgressions.
Another strange complexity related to Comandante Ríos’ death is simply, where is Rojas? One would think that the state would put forth details concerning who Comandante Ríos’ murderer was, what his social background or personal identification is, how the killing occurred, what has happened to Rojas, etc. Interestingly, however, nothing related to the above queries concerning Rojas were released.
If Comandante Ríos was, in fact, murdered by Rojas, such events surrounding the death are quite perplexing due to the actual structure and formation of the FARC-EP. It is difficult to understand how one FARC-EP combatant let alone three were capable of breaking rank and violently reacting against not only a highly-ranked officer but a leader within the FARC-EP’s Secretariat. Each Comandante associated with the Secretariat has a cadre of more than a dozen immediate personnel which are not only responsible for the Comandante’s protection but oversee the on goings of the guerrilla camp in which the leader is situated. From first-hand experience, all meetings and interactions with the Comandante are coordinated each day and formally scheduled. Prior to each meeting, the party invited must wait and ask for approval to enter the Comandante’s barracks. Once approval has been arranged it is only then that a member is escorted into the Comandante’s quarters by at least one other armed guard. How is it then that not only one but three armed FARC-EP combatants were able to violently enter into Comandante’s Ríos’ barracks directly in front of an entire FARC-EP Front, which includes two FARC-EP Companies and two FARC-EP Guerrilla Squads which contain, on average, at least twelve combatants per squad?
For any researcher, academic, environmentalist, or journalist who has spent any significant deal of time within FARC-EP-controlled territory since 2002, the Defense Minister’s ‘official’ account of ‘Rojas’ and two other so-called FARC-EP combatants being solely responsible for the murder of Comandante Ríos is highly problematic. The discussion of Comandante Ríos’ limb being removed by a FARC-EP member is greatly out of character to any informed analyst of the Colombian civil war. There has not been one confirmed case of any FARC-EP combatant in its forty-four years of existence of employing such tactics; however, such a tactic has been systemically employed by paramilitaries, privately funded ‘security forces’, and right-wing civilian vigilantly groups dating back to the 1940s and increasingly carried out over the past decade.
Plausible Paramilitary Role in the Deaths of both Comandante Reyes and Comandante Ríos
Over the past two years the Uribe and Santos administration have increasing promoted the story that Colombian paramilitarism has come to and end with the demobilization of the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia, AUC) throughout 2003-2006. Such proclamations are in direct contradiction to existing evidence, eye-witness reports, and escalating violence targeted at civilians critical of the Colombian state and political-economic structure. More accurately the AUC has decentralized its actions and activities through various small-scale organizations rather than that experienced between 1997 and 2006 where a single umbrella organization consolidated leading paramilitary organizations into one dominant structure.
The actions related to Comandante Ríos’ murder are symbolic of those carried out by Colombia’s many far-right paramilitary groups. However, if it was to get out to the general international public that paramilitarism has, in reality, continued within Colombia there could be awkward political and economic consequences.
The Colombian state cannot afford to have a paramilitary group claim responsibility for the murder of Comandante Ríos. This would, once again, demonstrate to the state has either failed in its political capacity to demobilize the paramilitary, or more accurately, that the state has been complicit in covering up the actions of Colombian paramilitarism which are rampant throughout the Colombian countryside.
Rather than supporting the claim that ‘FARC-EP combatants’ committed the assault and subsequent amputation of Comandante Ríos’ hand it is more likely that what transpired was a tactic which has been widely utilized by the paramilitaries over the past several years. Countless researchers and journalists have exposed how reactionary forces dress up in fatigues, making themselves appear to be FARC-EP combatants. Paramilitaries have regularly presented themselves as members of the FARC-EP so as to commit atrocities against civilians in the hopes of creating false condemnations aimed at the insurgency.
Plausible US Role in the Deaths of both Comandante Reyes and Comandante Ríos
The Bush administration has had great difficulty in getting a new Free-Trade Agreement (FTA) with Colombia passed. Internal congressional protests by sectors of the Democratic Party have opposed the legislation, due to allegations and proven atrocities committed by the paramilitaries, crimes that the Colombian state has allowed to go unpunished. Many of these politicians argue that the Colombian state and the US government and military have failed to quell the illicit drug-trade or decrease the FARC-EP’s strength throughout the Colombian countryside even though billions of US dollars have been spent. Therefore, if the Bush administration was able to claim even the slightest victory over the FARC-EP than they could argue that their counter-insurgency funding has been successful and that a new FTA should be supported in Congress.
There is a distinct possibility that the United States may have been involved in the actions leading up to Comandante Ríos’ death. US Special Forces and Marines have been illegally engaged in counter-insurgency campaigns within the country of Colombia for years. Even though the legal number of US troops cannot exceed 800 state forces (and 600 private forces), thousands have been operating in campaigns against the FARC-EP. For example, Peter Gorman published that as far back as 2002 roughly 1,100 US counter-insurgent troops were on “orders to eliminate all high officers of the FARC”. This does not even highlight what possible actions private US-based contradicted counter-insurgent forces may be carrying out.
There is a two-fold psychological effect inculcated by propaganda related to the deaths of Comandante Reyes and Comandante Ríos, which is being disseminated through the centralized media, primarily El Tiempo.
1) Systemically exposing sectors of Colombia’s general public to photographs of the bullet ridden and mutilated corpse of Reyes on an hourly basis or the ‘cooler’ containing Ríos’ severed limbs is a tool utilized to intimidate and to deter sympathizers with the insurgency, political activists, and state opponents within Colombia from criticizing the state’s political dominance and promotion of far-right economic policies.
2) Telling the world that Comandante Ríos’ was murdered by his own comrades is a tactic employed to decrease external solidarity from sectors of the international community, who may now falsely believe the argument that the largest and most powerful Marxist-Leninist revolutionary social movement in Latin America is loosing ground, power, and influence in the Colombian countryside. At the same time, such accusations are internally disseminated in the hopes of destabilizing the FARC-EP itself. Claiming the rank-and-file have abandoned the leadership and that the movement is collapsing is a strategy to destabilize the insurgency’s many Squads, Companies, Columns, and Fronts.
James J. Brittain is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at Acadia University, Nova Scotia, Canada and the co-founder of the Atlantic Canada-Colombia Research Group. He can be reached at james.brittain@acadiau.ca.
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