Viva Colombia
Betancourt, U.S. contractors rescued from FARC
In a secret operation a U.S. official called "brilliant," the Colombian military infiltrated rebel group FARC and deceived its members into giving up 15 hostages including former Colombian presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt, Colombia's defense ministry said.
Appearing healthy after being held hostage for six years in the jungle, Betancourt walked down from a Colombian military jet in Bogota on Wednesday and hugged her mother and husband, a broad smile on her face.
"God carried out this miracle," she said. "This is a miracle because I know that all of you suffered with my family, my children, with me. This is a moment of pride for all of Colombia for such a perfect operation."
Along with Betancourt, three American contractors and 11 other hostages who were Colombian police were rescued in Wednesday's operation.
The 46-year-old Betancourt is a former senator who fought Colombia's drug cartels as a congresswoman in the 1990s. She ran for president in 2002, calling for a nation "free of corruption, violence and free of drugs."
As a hostage, she was reduced to a frail woman whose health was reportedly in serious jeopardy.
And now she and several others are free. Read the whole thing. Colombia has knocked FARC to the ground and kept kicking it. After the blows it's taken, I don't think it will be much longer until the communist terror and drug-trafficking group falls apart and runs for shelter in Venezuela. Colombia's suffered for over 50 years from violence from the far Right and far Left, and it may be close to over, thanks to President Uribe.
No doubt, the dude is El Machaso.
LINKS: More at Blue Crab Boulevard, PJM. Richard Fernandez of The Belmont Club provides a thoughtful analysis of this rescue as an example of "information war" and the need to act:
Winston Churchill once wrote that “nothing in life is so exhilarating as to be shot at without result.” But the difference between exhiliration and tragedy is often inches; and victory and defeat is often separated by the narrowest of margins. With the loss of the hostages to the government, FARC has probably lost all opportunity to trade them for its prisoners held in Colombian jails. But it could so easily have turned into defeat. The power of information — and information security — was never more dramatically demonstrated.
But one other thing was on display in this instance: decisiveness. After the last preparations have been made and the final contingencies prepared for, there always remains the last bit of irreducible risk. Uribe had to spin the wheel and hope it worked out. He and GW Bush would probably have been pilloried by the press if the rescuers had walked into a trap or had a firefight ensued which resulted in the death of the hostages. And John McCain would have fared differently if it had failed utterly. But that’s academic. The bullet missed, and now the hostages, Uribe and his American allies can bask in their moment of exhilaration.
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