Posted on 02/20/2007 6:26:46 PM PST by Tailgunner Joe
Until six weeks ago, no one knew if foreign-minister-designate, Fernando Araujo, was even alive. The then-economic development minister had been kidnapped in December 2000 and held hostage by the Marxist FARC narcoterrorists. ...Araujo spent six years in a jungle captivity...
Fast forward to December 2006, when in a hail of machine-gun fire he escaped his captors and staggered five days in the wilderness to return to civilization.
Then on Monday, President Alvaro Uribe asked the still-gaunt Araujo to be Colombia's foreign minister,...
Putting a former hostage forward seemed to be Uribe's intention. He noted that Araujo "himself suffered our national tragedy, which we are committed to ending."
The message is important because not everyone outside Colombia understands. Leading the pack is the new Democrat-controlled Congress. It controls the $586 million in anti-terror funding the U.S. has earmarked for Colombia, money that's vital to the survival of an embattled ally and critical to our own national security.
Instead of focusing on that, Democrats like Vermont Sen. Patrick Leahy, who chairs the appropriations subcommittee that funds assistance to Colombia, are chiefly interested in criticizing our leading ally in South America. ...
They've even come up with a new one — blaming Colombia for global warming because of an increase in air shipments of its roses. Never mind that those commercial rose fields were once illegal coca patches. ...these Democrats are the same people who have increased aid to Ecuador as that country pursues failed socialist models and turns into the nastiest anti-American regime this side of Venezuela. ...
Uribe and Araujo are from different political parties, but both are determined to win Colombia's war against terror. Their willingness to put aside political differences to achieve victory is admirable. If only congressional Democrats would do the same.
(Excerpt) Read more at investors.com ...
Colombia ping...
btt
How about we send 0$ in 'aid' to colombia and they legalize drugs, with or without us. It would make their lives a whole lot better down there.
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