First, the good news: as you may have seen on the evening news, after six years as hostages in the jungle, Colombian presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt, along with eleven Colombian police officers and three Americans, have been rescued from Colombian terrorist group FARC. As it happens, John McCain is visiting Colombia right now, and was briefed before the rescue took place.
You may recall about a year ago, Chiquita Brands pleaded guilty to paying off FARC and another group to not harm their workers. Sort of the same thing as paying off the Taliban to not bother you while you harvest your poppies, but in Colombia, and with bananas.
Carl H. Lindner, Jr., the chairman of Chiquita at the time, just held a major fundraiser for McCain. McCain is accepting money, a lot of money, from Lindner, who funded this terrorist group in Colombia to the tune of more than a million dollars, allowing them to hold Americans hostage for years. Silly old bear.
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4 comments:
I hate to nitpick - well, that's not true, I love it actually - but the nation is spelled Colombia. Columbia has more to do with US history.
Like your blog, though!
Chilly -- I corrected it, and thanks for educating me. I'm such a stickler for spelling, you'd think I would have picked up on that at some point. Huh.
Comparing the harvest of poppies to the harvest of bananas? Seriously?
Well, yes. To the person doing the harvesting, it's not illicit, it's a living, and you have to pay off the local warlord/militia to leave you alone. In Afghanistan, poppies aren't a big deal; you don't see our military or the Taliban or anyone else burning or herbiciding those fields. They're grown in the open -- not like hydroponic cannabis.
Liked your pensieve.
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