And How Do We Thank Colombia? - With Raw Video
(IBD)
War On Terror: A foreign country puts its men on the line to rescue American hostages and pulls off one of the greatest rescues in history. Might a little gratitude from Congress be in order?
Not since the 1976 Israeli raid on Entebbe has a rescue of hostages held by terrorists ended so spectacularly. Wednesday’s liberation by the Colombian army of three Northrop contractors and 12 others will go down as one of history’s great strikes against terror.
In the wake of the rescue, Democrats’ caricature of Colombia as a night-haunted right-wing dictatorship, a la 1976 Guatemala, looks increasingly hollow.
The American contractors were taken hostage during a coca-spraying mission in 2003. Their flimsy aircraft went down in the jungle after their engine failed with no backup. One of their colleagues, Thomas Janis, was shot dead by FARC on the spot as he destroyed classified documents, and Luis Cruz, a Colombian on the same mission, was tortured to death.
In his 2005 book “Imperial Grunts,” Robert D. Kaplan writes that the survivors were then lost to the jungle as crucial time was lost in the initial hours of the accident because of Clinton-era restrictions on U.S. engagement.
So Marc Gonsalves, Thomas Howes and Keith Stansell spent five years with brutal terrorists tied up in the jungle with little hope. Last week’s rescue ended that nightmare, and today the longest-held American hostages are free.
For the nation identified as our best ally in Latin America, isn’t this proof enough of its friendship? A country that sticks its neck out for U.S. citizens at such grave risk to its own men deserves our thanks.
The best way to express our appreciation would be to correct another U.S. blunder by ending Congress’ shutout of Colombia’s free trade treaty. It was put on hold in April, after a rules change engineered by Reps. Jim McGovern and Louise Slaughter and executed by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
On Monday, Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart, a Florida Republican, will try to get them to make amends. “Colombia is our strongest ally in the region, and it is critical that we support Plan Colombia and a free-trade agreement with Colombia,” he said.
In the wake of the rescue, Pelosi’s continued refusal to even permit a vote on the pact now stands out as the pinnacle of ingratitude.
Democrats, pandering to Big Labor, have isolated Colombia from all the other Latin American states that have sought and been granted free-trade status. They include such troublesome countries as Nicaragua, headed by a communist regime that has extended asylum to FARC terrorists.
Colombian President Alvaro Uribe is a known quantity committed to strengthening democratic institutions and bringing peace to cities. He has knocked his country’s infamous murder rate down by 40% and murders against trade unionists by 87%. But none of this seems to cut any ice with Pelosi.
Don’t think this doesn’t hurt Colombia. In a recent interview with IBD, Colombian trade minister Luis Guillermo Plata pointed out that keeping Colombia out of free trade hobbles its competitiveness with its neighbors.
“It’s not only a disadvantage as we compete with free-trade nations like Peru, but also with Chile and Mexico,” Plata said. “These countries compete with Colombia to attract U.S. direct investment. Not having the treaty approved . . . is the equivalent of sanctions. That’s because companies in our countries upgrade factories with investment. They will get it, we won’t.”
Moreover, much of the investment that would come of a treaty would be directed into Colombia’s oil and gas industries, putting more energy on the market. As it is, 56% of the foreign investment without the pact has gone to energy and mining, Plata pointed out.
If Speaker Pelosi can’t see her way to permit a free-trade vote in appreciation of Colombia’s daring rescue of three innocent Americans, what will it take?
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Democrat foreign policy = screw our allies, bow to our enemies
July 5th, 2008 at 10:42 amscrew the democrats. bunch of punk bitches anyways. when i think of the name democrat, the first thing that comes to mind the word traitor. they are not real Americans in my opinion and they shouldnt be treated like real Americans
July 5th, 2008 at 10:46 amthe very fact that a free trade agreement with Columbia would bring more energy resources to the market possibly lowering costs is a sure killer for getting a free trade agreement passed thru the Democommies in the fist place.
Hey I’ve got my hunting license and I here the turkeys are running thick in D.C. right now, anyone else with me
We could make this thanksgiving a truly memorable occasion 
July 5th, 2008 at 10:48 amThere is a funny thing about the never been announced quantity of hydrocarbons in Columbia. If anyone remembers, several years back, BP announced how they had bought up a continous wildlife corridor throught the Americas that runs North and South. It made all the environmentalists pleased as punch. Included in this were very large tracts of land in Columbia.
Now I cannot say were I met the guy, but his name was Gary. He was a little on the nutty side and unless anyone sat down to talk with him for a while, you would think that he suffers from paranoia. Gary claimed to have been a former CIA guy down in South America. He had married a Columbian gal and they were living in Baton Rouge. He claimed that through family connections (wife’s) he had sat in a room and saw the maps with the potential oilfields plotted and the quantities were enormous. This was after the BP announcement, and it sure seem to fit together.
Now Gary could be completely bonkers, maybe even had been in the white powder trade and suffered from overuse of his product. I don’t know.
Then agan, a now deceased uncle of mine who dabbled in putting O&G deals together along with his drilling mud company that was sold to a conglomerate back in the late 70’s told me the same story in the early/mid 80’s Uncle John had a business assoiate down in Cali and they had a few startup investments together, mostly in seafood industry. It was a good excuse for the uncle to go down to Columbia and do some fishing in the Caribbean, which he thoroughly enjoyed. Before he died he told me that he was working on something really big in Columbia. He even took on a trip to Houston to introduce me to the petroleum engineering firm that was working with him as well as investment/tax law firm that did work for him. Unfortunately, when he died there was no documentation at all, it had mysteriously disappeared (probably his attorney). He was not a fly by the seat of his pants kind of guy. He was very conservative business wise and politically. I don’t ever remember seeing him wear anything other than black suits, white shirts, and old fashioned Johnston Murphy black laced dress shoes, except the few times I went hunting with him.
July 5th, 2008 at 12:07 pmI hope those three freed Americans give a press conference and point the finger directly at the Congressional traitors like Peloski, that Mass. congressman that sucks upto Chavez, and Teddy Kennedy’s congressman son, and others for giving aid and comfort to FARC as they gave aid and comfort Chavez, who has funded the FARC for at least $300 million. Their capture was prolonged by the Congressional traitors, who actively worked AGAINST our ally Columbia.
July 5th, 2008 at 12:51 pmI hope those 3 freed Americans hold a press conference when they are feeling better and directly accuse Dem traitor politicians of prolonging their capture and aiding and abetting their captors. Yes, Rep. Kennedy, Slaughter, Peloski, the rest of the gang–constantly carping about Columbia, giving aid and comfort to Chavez, who funds FARc (has given at least $300million to them). Also, Sean Penn, DannyGlover, Belanfonte, all those other lliberal idiots who went and kissed Chavez’ rear–thanks for siding with the enemy. Betancourt has already said as much in France, asked the French president not to forget the rest of the hostages still being held.
July 5th, 2008 at 1:02 pmWe got a rope
We got a tree
Now all we need
Is Pe-lo-ski….
Repeat chorus
July 5th, 2008 at 2:38 pmO-K….
We got a rope
July 5th, 2008 at 9:26 pmWe got a tree
Now all we need
Is Pe-lo-ski!