The FARC About To Step Things Up?

[HonkyTonk]

Colombia foils bomb plot after rescue


BOGOTA (Reuters) - Colombia found explosives set to be used in bombs across the capital in reprisal for this week's rescue of leftist rebels' highest-profile hostages, including Ingrid Betancourt, military officials said on Saturday.


The army seized about a ton of explosives at a farm outside Bogota that it suspected the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, planned to use in attacks over the next few days, said the officials, who asked not to be named.

On Wednesday, the military dealt the rebels the latest in a series of severe blows this year, duping them into handing over French-Colombian politician Betancourt, three American defense contractors and 11 Colombian soldiers and police officers.

The bloodless helicopter rescue in the jungle was hailed around the world but also raised fears that the rebels behind Latin America's oldest insurgency could try to strike back.

This year, the FARC have managed only small-scale attacks in response to setbacks such as the deaths of three senior guerrillas. Last month, four police officers were wounded in a suspected FARC rocket attack in Bogota less than two weeks after the announcement of the death of the group's leader.

The military offensive of President Alvaro Uribe, a U.S. ally, has driven the rebels from urban areas and they now rarely attack the capital -- a huge contrast to a decade ago when the cocaine-financed FARC threatened to overrun the government.

This week's rescue could have brought the four-decade-old insurgency to the brink of defeat, political and security analysts said. It deprived the rebels of their biggest bargaining chips, likely hurt morale and exposed their fragmented organization, they said.

(Reporting by Luis Jaime Acosta; Writing by Saul Hudson, Editing by Nelson Bocanegra and John O'Callaghan)

Tonk, Here is an article from today's Los Angeles Times. It dosn't look good for the FARC.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationwo...,2850441.story

[HonkyTonk]

EMan, I agree it doesn't look good for the FARC, but don't think they're not capable of inflicting damage to Colombia as a whole and are down for the count. It's called "saving face" and I expect there will be a price to pay in the meantime. There's still about 9-10,000 FARC members today.

Peru's "Shining Path" guerrillas never numbered the members of the FARC, but still dealt devastating blows to the people of Peru. Fugimori, love him or hate him, almost crushed them; though they seem to be on the rise again after Toledo's disasterous presidency.

[LastLion]

Canadian man kidpnapped by farc this week!

http://www.nationalpost.com/news/can...html?id=635454

It hasn't ended, it might just get a little worse before they can really put these guys out of business!!

Although being the optimist I am, I would say the end is coming. I would also be careful when travelling thru colombia!!

[Airto]

Originally Posted by LastLion

Canadian man kidpnapped by farc this week!

http://www.nationalpost.com/news/can...html?id=635454

It hasn't ended, it might just get a little worse before they can really put these guys out of business!!

Although being the optimist I am, I would say the end is coming. I would also be careful when travelling thru colombia!!

They came up with this plan, I bet they have a master plan for the FARC.

[Micky10]

Airto -

You can bet Sr. Uribe has planned this thing out with moves and counter moves. And you can bet that the FARC will try to make noise (a lot ) with their last breath. I am thinking that the top dog FARCs are most likely camped out in Venezuela right now. None of us know how this will play out, but as I have stated before, I do have total confidence in Uribe's team. I do expect FARC to do some very bad things on the way out, but all my chips are bet on Uribe.

Love - Micky

[Cap'n Jib]

I believe you are spot on Micky!

As the FARC had been infiltrated for the freeing of the hostages, there will be more and more individuals providing the government with tactical information. Also we shouldn’t be surprised if the various FARC units are picked off one at a time.

One could surmise that the Colombian Government welcomes additional FARC action, at this time, so they would get necessary intelligence information as to how much the FARC has deteriorated. The worst thing might be if the FARC went to ground for a year or so with no high profile attacks.

But who knows….?

[Junfan]

We are currently seeing the endgame play out. The FARC will never be the same, relative to what they were say 10 years ago. They appear to have had their back broken. It's membership is starting to realize that being on a losing team in this game is a bad place to be. They are already looking over their shoulders, and they are seeing desertion and other signs of a rebellion in it's last throws.

[JMitch1959]

LaRouche: Now, We Can Replace Terrorists With Farmers!

July 8 (LPAC)--"The time has come for the governments of South and Central America to take the action on whose behalf we've been working for many years," U.S. statesman Lyndon LaRouche said today, in welcoming the highly successful July 2 operation carried out by the Colombian government and military which freed 15 hostages held by the FARC narco-terrorists. LaRouche was also responding to Colombian President Alvaro Uribe's July 5 call, supporting an earlier proposal by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, to build a continental railroad which would link Colombia with its immediate neighbors Venezuela and Ecuador, and have extensions into Central America and further south into all of South America.

"These developments make it possible to bring about a revolution in the region," LaRouche asserted, "which throws the British out of the area for good, as originally intended by the Monroe Doctrine." British imperial support for the FARC over decades is notorious, as is the controlling role of City of London financial interests in the international drug trade, in which the FARC is the leading cocaine cartel.

"What we now have in our hands," LaRouche said, "as recognized by various people in South America, is that the FARC, essentially, is dead meat, politically. Its time has passed. What has happened is a very sophisticated operation, carried out by elements of the Colombian government and military, with intelligence support by elements of France, including the institution of the Presidency, and institutional elements of the United States. They set up an operation, which is a long-ranging operation, which came to fruition recently."

"Although carried out in Colombia by Colombians, what has happened is not a Colombian phenomenon, as such. It's something that was created over a long period of time, probably more than 20 years, with some institutions in the United States, operating within their relevant authority, helping to set an operation against things like the FARC, against the drug-terrorist operation.

"Now, this has succeeded recently because of many years of preparation. It is not something that just happened yesterday," LaRouche explained.

LaRouche went on to discuss the Chavez-Uribe rail proposal, noting that, for decades, he and his associates throughout the region have presented detailed proposals for the physical integration of South and Central America with great infrastructure projects, including maglev rail links.

"We have worked on these rail proposals before," LaRouche stated, "including the idea of linking them up with agricultural projects. The time has come to replace terrorists with farmers. All the pieces lie at hand to do that now, including rehabilitating motion towards a Bank of the South, to facilitate such great development projects. What is needed is only the political initiative.

"The British--including British free trade and globalization policies--have no place in the hemisphere, or the world. The time has come to return to the tradition of Lincoln, of McKinley, and of Franklin Delano Roosevelt's Good Neighbor policy."

[LastLion]

JMITCH, do you ever have your own opinion??? Just curious, seams to me you just copy and post!!!!