VHeadline's Washington D.C.-based commentarist Chris Herz writes: Today, the WASHINGTON POST, always the best source for learning how the DC policy elites want to manipulate public opinion, has published a column by the incomparable Jackson Diehl on the US "hostages" held by the FARC-EP in Colombia.
Mr Diehl and his paper have a simple little deal with the elites here: Put out the party line, and get access to the State Department and the Pentagon.
Faithful as ever to this bargain we learn from the immortal prose of Mr Diehl of the sad fate of the three US "hostages", captured in Colombia by the insurgent forces five years ago. We are told they are kept chained up in their captors' jungle hideaways.
Of course these men, employed by US war contractor Northrup Grumman were captured after the aircraft which they were operating was shot down by the FARC-EP. This occurred whilst it was on a mission of surveillance we must believe designed to bring Colombian government fire to bear on the guerrillas.
No mention is made of the plain fact that these were three of the mercenaries so prominent in the ranks of imperial forces in Colombia and world-wide. No mention is made that they are subject, as are their colleagues in Iraq to no law. They do not wear US uniform. They are not part of the US military chain of command. Their work is designed, in fact, to thwart US law, Colombian law and international law.
In the column we are invited to believe that because of some bureaucratic red-tape the US government are not being sufficiently aggressive in efforts to obtain the release of these men. Really, of course, the issue is as it always has been: The imperial leadership are not interested in opening any possibility of public discussion of just what is the role of the US in this long-running sore, the Colombian Civil War. They are quite prepared to suffer the loss of three pawns, as Mr Diehl describes the mercenaries, in order to avoid opening again such embarrassing discussions here.
All that is important to official Washington is that proxies for US corporate interests maintain their hold on Colombian resources, including the drugs, in order to make profits available to their masters.
Let us note that these three individuals, Messers Marc Gonsalves, Thomas Howes and Keith Stansell hold no military rank, they are every bit the same sort of unlawful combatant as the US side shamefully hold under secret and atrocious circumstances in Bagram, Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib, and now we learn, even on its naval ships at sea. The Colombian insurgents, who see themselves as the defenders of their own people from what is just another US supported death squad government, are perfectly within their rights to execute these mercs after summary court martial. Perhaps Mr Diehl should express his thanks to the FARC-EP for the mercies they have already been shown.
If people in Washington want to do something for these three and all other victims of this forty-year horror, they might consider joining with Hugo Chavez Frias of Venezuela and Nicolas Sarkozy of France in negotiating a real end to this fighting on a basis which will protect everyone. Not like last time, when all that was accomplished by a cease-fire was to render the rebels up to the death squads.
I'm about tired of the never-ending claims by the POST, via Mr Diehl's keyboard, that President Chavez is "authoritarian". That he arms and finances the FARC-EP, who are only about kidnapping and drug dealing. It is past time that this paper, one of my country's most important, returns to at least a modicum of independent journalism.
This constant drum-beat of official mendacity has damaged for too long any possibility of a rational US policy as well as the reputation of a once-great institution of a formerly free press.
From the Imperial Capital
Chris Herz
cdherz44@yahoo.com
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