US Senate freezes Colombia military funds

FT, via MSNBC ^ | 19 April 2007 | Anastasia Moloney

[Kitten Festival]

The US Senate has frozen the transfer of millions of dollars in funds to the Colombian military pending investigations into concerns over human rights abuses and alleged ties between the country's armed forces and paramilitary groups.

The decision to suspend 25 per cent of US military aid, worth $55.2m (€40.6m, £27.5m), was adopted by Democratic Senator Patrick Leahy, chairman of the Senate appropriations committee's subcommittee on state and foreign operations, who is an outspoken critic of the level of military aid being sent to Colombia.

[Kitten Festival]

Pure evil. They are acting like Colombia's need for victory is some favor they dole out instead of essential to the security of the US. I feel a great fury at the disgusting onesidededness of this, how would they like it if colombia stopped enforcing its drug laws at all?

[Recon Dad]

Colombia is practically our only friend in South America and the lousy Dems will do anything they can to see FARC succeed.

[Eric in the Ozarks]

I suspect we’re still sending air to Bolivia and Venezuela.

[Recon Dad]

Let us hope not. You can through Ecuador on the list.

[livius]

I can’t believe this. What a bunch of jerks we have in the Senate. Bill Clinton almost destroyed Colombia with his terrorist-friendly policies, Bush has really helped Colombia get on its feet again, and now we have these insane jerks in Congress trying to turn it over to FARC again.

[Kitten Festival]

what does ‘sending air’ mean?

[marron]

I agree with you. Congress acts like victory is something to be calibrated, not too much and not too soon. They act as if the war in Colombia is something to which we are indifferent, like we are neutrals, when in fact a failure there will have direct consequences.

The kneejerk attitude I see all around is that we are so strong we can afford to watch our allies go down in defeat, we’re so strong we can afford to lose every battle.

I see it differently. If you won’t fight when you have all the advantages, if you won’t fight when you have an ally ready to do the heavy lifting, if only you’ll back him up, then you will not fight when everything is against you.

You could not ask for a more theatrical villain than the FARC, communists, murderers, and drug traffickers to boot. They have carved out a country the size of Switzerland inside of Colombia, and half of this country finds it impossible to arouse themselves to even take an interest. Dominos are tumbling, but if its not on Oprah, its off the radar.

[Kitten Festival]

Beautifully said, I agree with every single word!

I wish we could do something for Colombia, I am in pure outrage over this (expletive deleted)

[Buckhead]

The Democrats are Commie Traitor Batards.

DCTB for short.

[ken21]

human rights abuses?

that’s commie du du.

[1rudeboy]

Yup. This isn’t about human rights, it’s about contravening Bush’s foreign policy.

[King of Florida]

Huh, the top story in Colombia is not the Senate, but Uribe denying allegations of his family's connections to the paras in his home province of Antioquia AND Gore's refusal to attend today's global warming conference in Miami because of Uribe's presence there:

Abril 20 de 2007

Presidente Álvaro Uribe negó rotundamente cualquier vínculo con paramilitares

Dijo que decidió responder las acusaciones del senador Gustavo Petro cuando estas pasaron de afectarlo a él a afectar al país y citó desplante de ex vicepresidente de E.U. Al Gore como ejemplo.

Gore, muy popular por su lucha contra el calentamiento global, decidió cancelar su participación en un foro que se realiza hoy en Miami, porque no quería estar al lado del presidente Uribe.

El mismo jefe de Estado se encargó de dar la mala nueva. A las 9:30 de la noche, cuando inició su alocución por televisión, le contó al país que Gore dijo que "no podía compartir con el presidente de Colombia, después de los debates en contra de la familia Uribe Vélez y contra el Presidente".

Antes de eso, Uribe no había dado muestras de querer responder las acusaciones que le hizo el senador Gustavo Petro en el debate del martes sobre la 'parapolítica' en Antioquia. A pesar de las críticas a la poco efectiva defensa hecha por sus escuderos (los ministros de Interior y de Transporte), el mandatario se mantuvo en silencio por 48 horas.

President Álvaro Uribe roundly denies any link with paramilitaries

He said that he decided to respond to the accusations of Senator Gustavo Petro when they began to affect him and affect the country and he cited the rudeness of U.S. ex-Vice President Al Gore as an example.

Gore, quite popular for his struggle against global warming, decided to cancel his participation in a forum that starts today in Miami, because he did not want to be next to President Uribe.

The chief of State charged himself with giving the latest bad news. At 9:30 in the evening, when he began his televised speech, he told the country that Gore said that "he could not share a platform with the president of Colombia, after the allegations against the Uribe Vélez famlily and against the President."

Before that, Uribe had not shown a willingness to respond to the accusations made by Senator Gustavo Petro in Tuesday's debate over the 'parapolitics' scandal in Antioquia. Despite the criticism of the ineffecutal defense made by his spokesmen (the Interior and Transport ministers), the leader kept silent for 48 hours.

http://www.eltiempo.com/politica/2007-04-20/ARTICULO-WEB-NOTA_INTERIOR-3521435.html

[Eric in the Ozarks]

Whoops. Aid, not air. Maybe it should be just air. We seem to be over supplied in DC these days.

[SunkenCiv]

Democratic Senator Patrick Leahy, chairman of the Senate appropriations committee's subcommittee on state and foreign operations, who is an outspoken critic of the level of military aid being sent to Colombia.

s/b, "who is a traitor to the United States of America, and a major reason we need term limits."