[burzum]

Chiquita is the successor to the much loathed United Fruit Company. I would like to see any executive who supported paying the protection money end up in a dirty Colombian prison. I will do my part by only buying fruit from Dole from now on.

[billorites]

I like Uribe.

He's as close as any of these Latin countries has to a straight arrow.

[mc6809e]

I would like to see any executive who supported paying the protection money end up in a dirty Colombian prison.

Would it have been much better for those executives to have been murdered?

[Caipirabob]

I can understand the anger of the Colombian government. Each day these people are risking their lives and their families lives confronting and facing down the evil of these terrorist groups. Do not doubt it, these people are terrorists. My own family has been confronted by some of the leftist terrorists and my MIL has denied them money when they demanded it.

So when you have executives who are basically guests in the country simply pay these evil SOBs cash when you have so many brave patriots risking their lives, well, you're going to make enemies on the wrong side.

When you are a guest in such a country, you need to respect the agenda of the government. That agenda has been to face down the terrorists and starve them of cash, not pay them off.

When those executives accepted their jobs and their posts, this should have been the understanding. If nothing else, they should have consulted and worked with the government instead of funneling cash to the enemy.

Colombia and President Uribe are a good friend to our nation. More than people generally know. We need to stand by our friends, especially in Colombia.

That being said, AUC is killing off FARC and ELN members. Sounds kind of like a broken clock scenario in their case. Yet if they aren't a legitimate government entity they only weaken the nation as a whole. They need to be dismantled as any other terrorist group.