US Drug Czar Urges Funds for War on Mexico Cartels - Adriana Garcia, Reuters

White House drug czar John Walters urged the US Congress on Tuesday not to "sabotage" relations with Mexico and pass a $1.4 billion anti-narcotics package to help crush drug cartels. Congress has scaled back the so-called Merida initiative that President George W. Bush proposed in October as a three-year plan to provide Mexico with aircraft, equipment and training to fight drug traffickers.

Mexico at the Brink - New York Times editorial

The War on Drugs may be fading from memory north of the Rio Grande, but south of the river, bloody battles are threatening to overwhelm Mexico’s democratically elected government. The timid assistance package proposed by the Bush administration and pared down by Congress suggests that Washington doesn’t grasp either the scale of the danger or its own responsibilities. President Felipe Calderón’s decision to take on the traffickers shows great courage and a sound understanding of the threat they pose to his country. But he seems to be in over his head. More than 4,000 people, including about 450 members of the police department, have been killed in drug-related violence since he took office a year and a half ago. Just last month, four top security officials were gunned down in Mexico City, including the acting chief of the federal police.

Drug Cartels Siphon Pipelines - Kelly Hearn, Washington Times

Colombian cocaine cartels are tapping into pipelines in neighboring Ecuador, stealing with impunity thousands of gallons a day of "white gas" that can be used to process raw coca into cocaine, Ecuadorean and US officials say. The black market trade in petroleum ether - a solvent used by clandestine cocaine labs - is undermining U.S.-backed counternarcotics efforts in this low-lying jungle border region spanning northeastern Ecuador and southern Colombia.

Intelligence Law Draws Protests - Christopher Toothaker, Associated Press

A new intelligence law that President Hugo Chavez enacted by decree is drawing protests from human rights activists who say it could lead to serious violations of civil liberties and become a tool for cracking down on dissent. Chavez says the Intelligence and Counterintelligence Law will help Venezuela detect and neutralize national security threats, including any assassination attempts or attempted coups. But human rights activists warn that the law infringes on rights to due process and defense.

Chavez: Beginning of the End - Alex Crowther, Strategic Studies Institute opinon

The President of Venezuela, Hugo Chavez, is on the way into the history books. Although he is still positioned to create problems for the Venezuelan people, the Colombians, and others throughout the Western Hemisphere that he chooses to victimize, he is no longer on the ascent.

Chavez's Party Revives Re-election Issue - Associated Press

Venezuela's ruling party is pledging to push through reforms that would allow President Hugo Chavez to run for re-election indefinitely. Venezuelan voters already have rejected proposed constitutional changes that would have lifted limits on re-election, greatly expanded the president's powers and pushed the economy toward socialism.

FARC's Top Military Commander Ailing? - Aaron Mannes, Counterterrorism

The Colombian daily El Tiempo reports that Mono Jojoy, the top FARC military commander has a severe form of diabetes. (A picture from El Tiempo is posted below.) Head of the “Eastern Bloc” Mono Jojoy is generally believed to be the organization’s top military leader. With 4000 fighters the Eastern Bloc is one of the stronger FARC Blocs. It borders Venezuela and is heavily engaged in the drug trade.

Cubans Put Money Worries First - Marc Lacey, New York Times

A rare study conducted surreptitiously in Cuba found that more than half of those interviewed considered their economic woes to be their chief concern while less than 10 percent listed lack of political freedom as the main problem facing the country. “Almost every poll you ever see, even those in the US, goes to bread-and-butter issues,” said Alex Sutton, director of Latin American and Caribbean programs at the International Republican Institute, which conducted the study. “Everybody everywhere is interested in their purchasing power.”

Haitians March Against Kidnappings - Jonathan Katz, Associated Press

Thousands of protesters rallied outside government buildings in the Haitian capital Wednesday, demanding officials crack down on a four-year kidnapping scourge that has terrorized the Caribbean country. Well-dressed Haitians from the hills above Port-au-Prince and sitting lawmakers were among more than 2,000 demonstrators marching to the Justice Ministry and Supreme Court in a peaceful protest. Thousands more lined the streets to watch.

Chavez Backtracks on Venezuela Spy Law - Associated Press

President Hugo Chavez says his government will rewrite a new intelligence law to calm Venezuelan fears that the decree could be used to stifle dissent. Many Venezuelans were alarmed that the law could force them to spy on neighbors or risk prison terms. Human rights activists and representatives of Venezuela's Catholic Church have criticized the decree, saying it violates civil liberties.

Venezuelans Protest Banning - Christopher Toothaker, Associated Press

Thousands of opponents of President Hugo Chavez on Saturday protested a "blacklist" unveiled by Venezuela's top anti-corruption official that bars key opposition candidates from running in upcoming elections. Comptroller General Clodosbaldo Russian has blocked more than 400 mostly opposition politicians from running for office in state and municipal elections in November while he investigates corruption allegations. Opposition leaders say the list is illegal, saying that under Venezuela's Constitution the basic rights of all citizens are guaranteed unless they have been charged with a crime and sentenced by a court. They also contend the investigation targets Chavez opponents.

Colombia 'Holds Venezuelan Guard' - BBC News

Colombia says it has arrested a Venezuelan national guard officer who was trying to deliver assault rifle ammunition to Marxist rebels. The officer is said to have been captured along with three others in the southern Colombian province of Vichada, near the border with Venezuela. The arrest comes at a time of tension between the two neighbours. The Bogota government has accused Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez of supporting Colombia's Farc guerrillas.

This item, posted on Tom Dispatch, has implications well beyond the regional issues it addresses.

Losing Latin America
What Will the Obama Doctrine Be Like?
By Greg Grandin Google "neglect," "Washington," and "Latin America," and you will be led to thousands of hand-wringing calls from politicians and pundits for Washington to "pay more attention" to the region. True, Richard Nixon once said that "people don't give one "expletive deleted"" about the place. And his National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger quipped that Latin America is a "dagger pointed at the heart of Antarctica." But Kissinger also made that same joke about Chile, Argentina, and New Zealand -- and, of the three countries, only the latter didn't suffer widespread political murder as a result of his policies, a high price to pay for such a reportedly inconsequential place.

Latin America, in fact, has been indispensable in the evolution of U.S. diplomacy. The region is often referred to as America's "backyard," but a better metaphor might be Washington's "strategic reserve," the place where ascendant foreign-policy coalitions regroup and redraw the outlines of U.S. power, following moments of global crisis.

When the Great Depression had the U.S. on the ropes, for example, it was in Latin America that New Deal diplomats worked out the foundations of liberal multilateralism, a diplomatic framework that Washington would put into place with much success elsewhere after World War II.

In the 1980s, the first generation of neocons turned to Latin America to play out their "rollback" fantasies -- not just against Communism, but against a tottering multilateralist foreign-policy. It was largely in a Central America roiled by left-wing insurgencies that the New Right first worked out the foundational principles of what, after 9/11, came to be known as the Bush Doctrine: the right to wage war unilaterally in highly moralistic terms.

We are once again at a historic crossroads. An ebbing of U.S. power -- this time caused, in part, by military overreach -- faces a mobilized Latin America; and, on the eve of regime change at home, with George W. Bush's neoconservative coalition in ruins after eight years of disastrous rule, would-be foreign policy makers are once again looking south.

Goodbye to All That

"The era of the United States as the dominant influence in Latin America is over," says the Council on Foreign Relations, in a new report filled with sober policy suggestions for ways the U.S. can recoup its waning influence in a region it has long claimed as its own.

Latin America is now mostly governed by left or center-left governments that differ in policy and style -- from the populism of Hugo Chávez in Venezuela to the reformism of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in Brazil and Michelle Bachelet in Chile. Yet all share a common goal: asserting greater autonomy from the United States.

Latin Americans are now courting investment from China, opening markets in Europe, dissenting from Bush's War on Terror, stalling the Free Trade Agreement of the Americas, and sidelining the International Monetary Fund which, over the last couple of decades, has served as a stalking horse for Wall Street and the Treasury Department.

And they are electing presidents like Ecuador's Rafael Correa, who recently announced that his government would not renew the soon-to-expire lease on Manta Air Field, the most prominent U.S. military base in South America. Correa had previously suggested that, if Ecuador could set up its own base in Florida, he would consider extending the lease. When Washington balked, he offered Manta to a Chinese concession, suggesting that the airfield be turned into "China's gateway to Latin America."

In the past, such cheek would have been taken as a clear violation of the Monroe Doctrine, proclaimed in 1823 by President James Monroe, who declared that Washington would not permit Europe to recolonize any part of the Americas. In 1904, Theodore Roosevelt updated the doctrine to justify a series of Caribbean invasions and occupations. And Presidents Dwight Eisenhower and Ronald Reagan invoked it to validate Cold War CIA-orchestrated coups and other covert operations.

But things have changed. "Latin America is not Washington's to lose," the Council on Foreign Relations report says, "nor is it Washington's to save." The Monroe Doctrine, it declares, is "obsolete."

Good news for Latin America, one would think. But the last time someone from the Council on Foreign Relations, which since its founding in 1921 has represented mainstream foreign-policy opinion, declared the Monroe Doctrine defunct, the result was genocide.

Enter the Liberal Establishment

That would be Sol Linowitz who, in 1975, as chair of the Commission on United States-Latin American Relations, said that the Monroe Doctrine was "inappropriate and irrelevant to the changed realities and trends of the future."

The little-remembered Linowitz Commission was made up of respected scholars and businessmen from what was then called the "liberal establishment." It was but one part of a broader attempt by America's foreign-policy elite to respond to the cascading crises of the 1970s -- defeat in Vietnam, rising third-world nationalism, Asian and European competition, skyrocketing energy prices, a falling dollar, the Watergate scandal, and domestic dissent. Confronted with a precipitous collapse of America's global legitimacy, the Council on Foreign Relations, along with other mainline think tanks like the Brookings Institute and the newly formed Trilateral Commission, offered a series of proposals that might help the U.S. stabilize its authority, while allowing for "a smooth and peaceful evolution of the global system."

There was widespread consensus among the intellectuals and corporate leaders affiliated with these institutions that the kind of anticommunist zeal that had marched the U.S. into the disaster in Vietnam needed to be tamped down, and that "new forms of common management" between Washington, Europe, and Japan had to be worked out. Advocates for a calmer world order came from the same corporate bloc that underwrote the Democratic Party and the Rockefeller-wing of the Republican Party.

They hoped that a normalization of global politics would halt, if not reverse, the erosion of the U.S. economic position. Military de-escalation would free up public revenue for productive investment, while containing inflationary pressures (which scared the bond managers of multinational banks). Improved relations with the Communist bloc would open the USSR, Eastern Europe, and China to trade and investment. There was also general agreement that Washington should stop viewing Third World socialism through the prism of the Cold War conflict with the Soviet Union.

At that moment throughout Latin America, leftists and nationalists were -- as they are now -- demanding a more equitable distribution of global wealth. Lest radicalization spread, the Trilateral Commission's executive director Zbignew Brzezinski, soon to be President Jimmy Carter's national security advisor, argued that it would be "wise for the United States to make an explicit move to abandon the Monroe Doctrine." The Linowitz Commission agreed and offered a series of recommendations to that effect -- including the return of the Panama Canal to Panama and a decrease in U.S. military aid to the region -- that would largely define Carter's Latin American policy.

Exit the Liberal Establishment

Of course, it was not corporate liberalism but rather a resurgent and revanchist militarism from the Right that turned out to offer the most cohesive and, for a time, successful solution to the crises of the 1970s.

Uniting a gathering coalition of old-school law-and-order anticommunists, first generation neoconservatives, and newly empowered evangelicals, the New Right organized an ever metastasizing set of committees, foundations, institutes, and magazines that focused on specific issues -- the SALT II nuclear disarmament negotiations, the Panama Canal Treaty, and the proposed MX missile system, as well as U.S. policy in Cuba, South Africa, Rhodesia, Israel, Taiwan, Afghanistan, and Central America. All of them were broadly committed to avenging defeat in Vietnam (and the "stab in the back" by the liberal media and the public at home). They were also intent on restoring righteous purpose to American diplomacy.

As had corporate liberals, so, now, neoconservative intellectuals looked to Latin America to hone their ideas. President Ronald Reagan's ambassador to the UN, Jeane Kirkpatrick, for instance, focused mainly on Latin America in laying out the foundational principles of modern neoconservative thought. She was particularly hard on Linowitz, who, she said, represented the "disinterested internationalist spirit" of "appeasement" -- a word back with us again. His report, she insisted, meant "abandoning the strategic perspective which has shaped U.S. policy from the Monroe Doctrine down to the eve of the Carter administration, at the center of which was a conception of the national interest and a belief in the moral legitimacy of its defense."

At first, Brookings, the Council on Foreign Affairs, and the Trilateral Commission, as well as the Business Roundtable, founded in 1972 by the crème de la CEO crème, opposed the push to remilitarize American society; but, by the late 1970s, it was clear that "normalization" had failed to solve the global economic crisis. Europe and Japan were not cooperating in stabilizing the dollar, and the economies of Eastern Europe, the USSR, and China were too anemic to absorb sufficient amounts of U.S. capital or serve as profitable trading partners. Throughout the 1970s, financial houses like the Rockefellers' Chase Manhattan Bank had become engorged with petrodollars deposited by Saudi Arabia, Iran, Venezuela, and other oil-exporting nations. They needed to do something with all that money, yet the U.S. economy remained sluggish, and much of the Third World off limits.

So, after Ronald Reagan's 1980 presidential victory, mainstream policymakers and intellectuals, many of them self-described liberals, increasingly came to back the Reagan Revolution's domestic and foreign agenda: gutting the welfare state, ramping up defense spending, opening up the Third World to U.S. capital, and jumpstarting the Cold War.

A decade after the Linowitz Commission proclaimed the Monroe Doctrine no longer viable, Ronald Reagan invoked it to justify his administration's patronage of murderous anti-communists in Nicaragua, Guatemala, and El Salvador. A few years after Jimmy Carter announced that the U.S. had broken "free of that inordinate fear of communism," Reagan quoted John F. Kennedy saying, "Communist domination in this hemisphere can never be negotiated."

Reagan's illegal patronage of the Contras -- those murderers he hailed as the "moral equivalent of America's founding fathers" and deployed to destabilize Nicaragua's Sandinista government -- and his administration's funding of death squads in El Salvador and Guatemala brought together, for the first time, the New Right's two main constituencies. Neoconservatives provided Reagan's revival of the imperial presidency with legal and intellectual justification, while the religious Right backed up the new militarism with grassroots energy.

This partnership was first built -- just as it has more recently been continued in Iraq -- on a mountain of mutilated corpses: 40,000 Nicaraguans and 70,000 El Salvadorans killed by U.S. allies; 200,000 Guatemalans, many of them Mayan peasants, victimized in a scorched-earth campaign the UN would rule to be genocidal.

The End of the Neocon Holiday from History

The recent Council on Foreign Relations report on Latin America, arriving as it does in another moment of imperial decline, seems once again to signal a new emerging consensus, one similar in tone to that of the post-Vietnam 1970s. In every dimension other than military, Newsweek editor Fareed Zacharia argues in his new book, The Post-American World, "the distribution of power is shifting, moving away from American dominance." (Never mind that, just five years ago, on the eve of the invasion of Iraq, he was insisting on the exact opposite -- that we now lived in a "unipolar world" where America's position was, and would be, "unprecedented.")

To borrow a phrase from their own lexicon, the neocons' "holiday from history" is over. The fiasco in Iraq, the fall in the value of the dollar, the rise of India and China as new industrial and commercial powerhouses, and of Russia as an energy superpower, the failure to secure the Middle East, soaring oil and gas prices (as well as skyrocketing prices for other key raw materials and basic foodstuffs), and the consolidation of a prosperous Europe have all brought their dreams of global supremacy crashing down.

Barack Obama is obviously the candidate best positioned to walk the U.S. back from the edge of irrelevance. Though no one hoping for a job in his White House would put it in such defeatist terms, the historic task of the next president will not be to win this president's Global War on Terror, but to negotiate America's reentry into a community of nations.

Parag Khanna, an Obama advisor, recently argued that, by maximizing its cultural and technological advantage, the U.S. can, with a little luck, perhaps secure a position as third partner in a new tripartite global order in which Europe and Asia would have equal shares, a distinct echo of the trilateralist position of the 1970s. (Forget those Munich analogies, if the U.S. electorate were more historically literate, Republicans would get better mileage out of branding Obama not Neville Chamberlain, but Spain's Fernando VII or Britain's Clement Richard Attlee, each of whom presided over his country's imperial decline.)

So it has to be asked: If Obama wins in November and tries to implement a more rational, less ideologically incandescent deployment of American power -- perhaps using Latin America as a staging ground for a new policy -- would it once again provoke the kind of nationalist backlash that purged Rockefellerism from the Republican Party, swept Jimmy Carter out of the White House, and armed the death squads in Central America?

Certainly, there are already plenty of feverish conservative think tanks, from the Hudson Institute to the Heritage Foundation, that would double down on Bush's crusades as a way out of the current mess. But in the 1970s, the New Right was in ascendance; today, it is visibly decomposing. Then, it could lay responsibility for the deep and prolonged crisis that gripped the United States at the feet of the "establishment," while offering solutions -- an arms build-up, a renewed push into the Third World, and free-market fundamentalism -- that drew much of that establishment into its orbit.

Today, the Right wholly owns the current crisis, along with its most immediate cause, the Iraq War. Even if John McCain were able to squeak out a win in November, he would be the functional equivalent not of Reagan, who embodied a movement on the march, but of Jimmy Carter, trying desperately to hold a fraying coalition together.

The Right's decay as an intellectual force is nowhere more evident than in the fits it throws in the face of the Left's -- or China's -- advances in Latin America. The self-confidant vitality with which Jeane Kirkpatrick used Latin America to skewer the Carter administration has been replaced with the tinny, desperate shrill of despair. "Who lost Latin America?" asks the Center for Security Policy's Frank Gaffney -- of pretty much everyone he meets. The region, he says, is now a "magnet for Islamist terrorists and a breeding ground for hostile political movements… The key leader is Chávez, the billionaire dictator of Venezuela who has declared a Latino jihad against the United States."

Scare-Quote Diplomacy

But just because the Right is unlikely to unfurl its banner over Latin America again soon doesn't mean that U.S. hemispheric diplomacy will be demilitarized. After all, it was Bill Clinton, not George W. Bush, who, at the behest of Lockheed Martin in 1997, reversed a Carter administration ban (based on Linowitz report recommendations) on the sale of high-tech weaponry to Latin America. That, in turn, kicked off a reckless and wasteful Southern Cone arms race. And it was Clinton, not Bush, who dramatically increased military aid to the murderous Colombian government and to corporate mercenaries like Blackwater and Dyncorp, further escalating the misguided U.S. "war on drugs" in Latin America.

In fact, a quick comparison between the Linowitz report and the new Council on Foreign Relations study on Latin America provides a sobering way of measuring just how far right the "liberal establishment" has shifted over the last three decades. The Council does admirably advise Washington to normalize relations with Cuba and engage with Venezuela, while downplaying the possibility of "Islamic terrorists" using the area as a staging ground -- a longstanding fantasy of the neocons. (Douglas Feith, former Pentagon undersecretary, suggested that, after 9/11, the U.S. hold off invading Afghanistan and instead bomb Paraguay, which has a large Shi'ite community, just to "surprise" the Sunni al-Qaeda.)

Yet, where the Linowitz report provoked the ire of the likes of Jeane Kirkpatrick by writing that the U.S. should not try to "define the limits of ideological diversity for other nations" and that Latin Americans "can and will assess for themselves the merits and disadvantages of the Cuban approach," the Council is much less open-minded. It insists on presenting Venezuela as a problem the U.S. needs to address -- even though the government in Caracas is recognized as legitimate by all and is considered an ally, even a close one, by most Latin American countries. Latin Americans may "know what is best for themselves," as the new report concedes, yet Washington still knows better, and so should back "social justice" issues as a means to win Venezuelans and other Latin Americans away from Chávez.

That the Council report regularly places "social justice" between scare quotes suggests that the phrase is used more as a marketing ploy -- kind of like "New Coke" -- than to signal that U.S. banks and corporations are willing to make substantive concessions to Latin American nationalists. Seven decades ago, Franklin Roosevelt supported the right of Latin American countries to nationalize U.S. interests, including Standard Oil holdings in Bolivia and Mexico, saying it was time for others in the hemisphere to get their "fair share." Three decades ago, the Linowitz Commission recommended the establishment of a "code of conduct" defining the responsibilities of foreign corporations in the region and recognizing the right of governments to nationalize industries and resources.

The Council, in contrast, sneers at Chávez's far milder efforts to create joint ventures with oil multinationals, while offering nothing but pablum in its place. Its centerpiece recommendation -- aimed at cultivating Brazil as a potential anchor of a post-Bush, post-Chávez hemispheric order -- urges the abolition of subsidies and tariffs protecting U.S. agro-industry in order to advance a "Biofuel Partnership" with Brazil's own behemoth agricultural sector. This would be an environmental disaster, pushing large, mechanized plantations ever deeper into the Amazon basin, while doing nothing to generate decent jobs or distribute wealth more fairly.

Dominated by representatives from the finance sector of the U.S. economy, the Council recommends little beyond continuing the failed corporate "free trade" policies of the last twenty years -- and, in this case, those scare quotes are justified because what they're advocating is about as free as corporate "social justice" is just.

An Obama Doctrine?

So far, Barack Obama promises little better. A few weeks ago, he traveled to Miami and gave a major address on Latin America to the Cuban American National Foundation. It was hardly an auspicious venue for a speech that promised to "engage the people of the region with the respect owed to a partner."

Surely, the priorities for humane engagement would have been different had he been addressing not wealthy right-wing Cuban exiles but an audience, say, of the kinds of Latino migrants in Los Angeles who have revitalized the U.S. labor movement, or of Central American families in Postville, Iowa, where immigration and Justice Department authorities recently staged a massive raid on a meatpacking plant, arresting as many as 700 undocumented workers. Obama did call for comprehensive immigration reform and promised to fulfill Franklin Roosevelt's 68 year-old Four Freedoms agenda, including the social-democratic "freedom from want." Yet he spent much of his speech throwing red meat to his Cuban audience.

Ignoring the not-exactly-radical advice of the Council on Foreign Relations, the candidate pledged to maintain the embargo on Cuba. And then he went further. Sounding a bit like Frank Gaffney, he all but accused the Bush administration of "losing Latin America" and allowing China, Europe, and "demagogues like Hugo Chávez" to step "into the vacuum." He even raised the specter of Iranian influence in the region, pointing out that "just the other day Tehran and Caracas launched a joint bank with their windfall oil profits."

Whatever one's opinion on Hugo Chávez, any diplomacy that claims to take Latin American opinion seriously has to acknowledge one thing: Most of the region's leaders not only don't see him as a "problem," but have joined him on major economic and political initiatives like the Bank of the South, an alternative to the International Monetary Fund and the Union of South American Nations, modeled on the European Union, established just two weeks ago. And any U.S. president who is sincere in wanting to help Latin Americans liberate themselves from "want" will have to work with the Latin American left -- in all its varieties.

But more ominous than Obama's posturing on Venezuela is his position on Colombia. Critics have long pointed out that the billions of dollars in military aid provided to the Colombian security forces to defeat the FARC insurgency and curtail cocaine production would discourage a negotiated end to the civil war in that country and potentially provoke its escalation into neighboring Andean lands. That's exactly what happened last March, when Colombia's president Alvaro Uribe ordered the bombing of a rebel camp located in Ecuador (possibly with U.S. logistical support supplied from Manta Air Force Base, which gives you an idea of why Correa wants to give it to China). To justify the raid, Uribe explicitly invoked the Bush Doctrine's right of preemptive, unilateral action. In response, Ecuador and Venezuela began to mobilize troops along their border with Colombia, bringing the region to the precipice of war.

Most interestingly, in that conflict, an overwhelming majority of Latin American and Caribbean countries sided with Venezuela and Ecuador, categorically condemning the Colombian raid and reaffirming the sovereignty of individual nations recognized by Franklin Roosevelt long ago. Not Obama, however. He essentially endorsed the Bush administration's drive to transform Colombia's relations with its Andean neighbors into the one Israel has with most of the Middle East. In his Miami speech, he swore that he would "support Colombia's right to strike terrorists who seek safe-havens across its borders."

Equally troublesome has been Obama's endorsement of the controversial Merida Initiative, which human rights groups like Amnesty International have condemned as an application of the "Colombian solution" to Mexico and Central America, providing their militaries and police with a massive infusion of money to combat drugs and gangs. Crime is indeed a serious problem in these countries, and deserves considered attention. It's chilling, however, to have Colombia -- where death-squads now have infiltrated every level of government, and where union and other political activists are executed on a regular basis -- held up as a model for other parts of Latin America.

Obama, however, not only supports the initiative, but wants to expand it beyond Mexico and Central America. "We must press further south as well," he said in Miami.

It seems that once again that, as in the 1970s, reports of the death of the Monroe Doctrine are greatly exaggerated.

Greg Grandin teaches history at New York University. He is the author of Empire's Workshop: Latin America, the United States, and the Rise of the New Imperialism and The Last Colonial Massacre: Latin America in the Cold War.

Copyright 2008 Greg Grandin

US Sees Mexico Drug Gang Violence Worsening - Associated Press

A powerful coalition of drug gangs led by Mexico's most-wanted man is collapsing, meaning the surge in bloodshed and police killings will get worse, a senior US counternarcotics official said. Internal conflicts, greed and pressure by Mexico's military are causing a split among gangs from the Pacific state of Sinaloa, with each group seeking new alliances to smuggle illegal drugs into the United States.

Intellectual Takes Rebel Reins in Colombia - Forero and Dudley, Washington Post

The death of the world's oldest rebel commander has ushered in a new chapter in Colombia's long civil conflict, with a bookish communist intellectual now leading a waning guerrilla force against a government convinced of its ability to deliver a resounding defeat. Guillermo Sáenz Vargas had been an anthropology student from one of Bogota's most desirable neighborhoods when, spurred by radical university politics and determined to oust the ruling elite, he joined the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia and took the nom de guerre Alfonso Cano. Now, 26 years later, Cano is leading Latin America's last significant rebel movement, a hermetic, anachronistic organization committed to armed struggle long after the Soviet Union's collapse.

Giving Colombia a Chance - William Ratliff, Washington Times opinion

The death of one of Latin America's top guerrilla leaders, Colombia's Manuel "Sureshot" Marulanda, who died last month of a heart attack at age 77, increases the chances for peace and stability in the region. But much depends on the United States, which needs to understand that what happens in Colombia impacts all of Latin America. The end of Marulanda, founder of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, a narco-terrorist group known as FARC, could, of course, have the opposite effect by giving the next generation of guerrilla leaders a boost. But it also could trigger a series of steps - including release of 700 or so guerrilla prisoners - that could further blunt FARC's already declining influence and allow Colombian President Alvaro Uribe to focus on his country's development.

Morning in Colombia - Mary Anastasia O'Grady, Wall Street Journal opinion

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi refuses to allow a vote on the US-Colombia Free Trade Agreement because she says that President Álvaro Uribe has not done enough to quell political violence in this country, particularly against unionists. In large numbers, Colombians challenge that assertion. On the basis of statistics alone, the Pelosi charge is absurd. Since 2002, when Mr. Uribe took office, the murder rate among all Colombians is down 40% while the murder rate among union members - whom Mrs. Pelosi seems singularly worried about - is down 87%. Government funding for protection of unionists has increased by 285% under Mr. Uribe. Today, life as a unionist is far safer than it is for the population at large. And the population at large is safer than it has been in years.

Chávez Urges Rebels to End Struggle - Simon Romero, New York Times

President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela called on Sunday for Colombia’s largest guerrilla group to end its four-decade struggle to overthrow Colombia’s government, a surprising policy shift just months after he called for the rebels to be recognized as a legitimate insurgent force. Mr. Chávez’s comments came a day after Colombian authorities announced the capture in eastern Colombia of two Venezuelans, including one man identified as a Venezuelan national guard officer, carrying 40,000 AK-47 assault rifle cartridges, which the Colombians said were intended for use by the guerrilla group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC.

Chavez Urges FARC to End Struggle - Chritopher Toothaker, Associated Press

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez urged Colombian rebels on Sunday to lay down their weapons, unilaterally free dozens of hostages and put an end to a decades-long armed struggle against Colombia's government. Chavez sent the uncharacteristically strong message to the leaders of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, saying their ongoing efforts to overthrow Colombia's democratically elected government were unjustified.

Chavez Urges Colombian Rebels to Free All Hostages - Reuters

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez urged the new leader of Colombia's FARC rebels on Sunday to release all prisoners held in jungle camps, in an effort to galvanize international efforts to free high-profile hostages. Chavez, who Colombia accuses of supporting Latin America's oldest insurgency, mediated the first major hostage releases in years in January and February but there has been no further progress toward freeing more prisoners for months.

Chavez to Revoke Spying Law - Chris Kraul, Los Angeles Times

Bowing to popular pressure, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said he would rescind a new intelligence law that critics said would have forced citizens to spy on one another and would have moved the country toward a police state. During his Sunday talk show "Alo Presidente," Chavez said he had had second thoughts about the National Intelligence and Counterintelligence Law that he decreed May 28, a law that has been under attack from the nation's human rights and legal experts as unconstitutional. "All Venezuelans can be sure that this government will never trample on their liberty, regardless of their politics," Chavez said. "To err is human. We're going to correct this law." Chavez has the constitutional right to make and undo laws by decree, and he previously described the intelligence law as a defensive measure against a possible US invasion. But speaking Saturday in Maracaibo, he acknowledged that it had generated fear.

Chavez Reverses Course on Citizen Spying Rules - Reuters

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said he would scrap new rules that oblige citizens to spy on each other, backing down after an outcry from the opposition, rights groups and the Roman Catholic Church. "Nobody can oblige me to turn into a snitch - nobody," Chavez said on his Sunday TV show. "To err is human. We made a mistake and we have to correct the law. We will never trample on the rights of Venezuelans - no matter what their politics - never." An intelligence law decreed last month fueled criticism that Chavez - who calls ex-Cuban President leader Fidel Castro his mentor - wants to imitate the communist island's political system in Venezuela.

Chavez Tells FARC to Free Hostages - Chris Kraul, Los Angeles Times

Chased by the US-backed armed forces, this country's largest rebel group is now under pressure to surrender from a surprising new source - President Hugo Chavez of neighboring Venezuela. During his nine years in office, the populist Chavez has regularly expressed support for the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC. Just months ago, he was pressing for steps that would lead to the FARC's being recognized as a belligerent, and no longer designated a terrorist group, as it is now by the US. But Chavez surprised analysts and government officials when he advised the rebels to unconditionally release more than 700 hostages, lay down their weapons and make peace after 44 years of fighting.

Will Colombia Rebels Heed Chavez's Call? - Frank Bajak, Associated Press

The bearded Marxist intellectual who has just taken command of Latin America's last major guerrilla army has been put on the spot by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, who is calling on him to abandon armed struggle. Alfonso Cano and his lieutenants, the subjects of an intense manhunt by Colombia's US-supported military, are believed to be isolated in jungle and mountain hideaways. Their rebels are hunkered down as well, holding scores of hostages as human shields against increasingly successful attacks.

US Welcomes Chavez Comments on Colombian Rebels - Reuters

The United States welcomed on Monday statements by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez urging Colombian rebels to free hostages, but Washington said Caracas should also distance itself from the rebel group. Colombia accuses the anti-US Chavez of supporting the rebels, known as the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC. But on Sunday he urged them to release unconditionally all prisoners from jungle camps, saying Colombia's decades-old civil war was anachronistic.

Chávez Goes Over the Line, and Realizes It - Simon Romero, New York Times

President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela started this month as the most prominent political supporter of Colombia’s largest rebel group and a fierce defender of his own overhaul of his nation’s intelligence services. But in the space of a few hours over the weekend, he confounded his critics by switching course on both contentious policies. In doing so, Mr. Chávez displayed a willingness for self-reinvention that has served him well in times of crisis throughout his long political career. Time and again, he has gambled by pushing brash positions and policies, then shifted to a more moderate course when the consequences seemed too dire.

Thousands of Bolivians Protest at US Embassy - Ana Maria Fabbri, Reuters

Thousands of supporters of leftist president Evo Morales protested outside the US Embassy in La Paz on Monday, demanding the United States send home for trial two right-wing Bolivian politicians. The protest followed comments by former Defense Minister Carlos Sanchez Berzain, who told a local radio station last week that a US court had granted him political asylum. The protesters blame Sanchez Berzain and former President Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada, who also lives in the United States, for the deaths of 60 people and wounding of hundreds more in an army clampdown on anti-government protests in 2003.

Chavez Backtracks on Spy Law, Rebels - Christopher Toothaker, Associated Press

Hugo Chavez has held on to power for a decade in part because he knows when he's gone too far. Chavez angered many Venezuelans by openly supporting Colombia's leftist rebels, and then frightened many citizens by decreeing a tough new intelligence law. Another leader with Chavez's considerable control over his nation's institutions might have dug in his heels. Instead, Chavez pivoted. Facing a chorus of outrage with only months to go before crucial state and local elections, he now says the guerrillas should give up their fight, and insists he never wanted to force people to spy on their neighbors.

Hugo Chávez: A Man With Many Faces - Milton Coleman, Washington Post

That's Chávez. You never know which character you're going to get. The lectern-pounding revolutionary? The petro-populist? The crooning romantic? Chávez was a mystery to me. What was he really all about? How much substance, how much style, how much, even, sheer stupidity? No easy call, I was learning. And even after watching his performance at a three-hour news conference (short by Chávez standards) as part of my visit with a delegation from the American Society of Newspaper Editors, he seemed more complicated than even I had presumed.

A Welcome Flip-Flop - Washington Post editorial

Colombia's FARC terrorist movement has been reeling from a series of devastating blows in the last several months, ranging from the death of its legendary leader to the killing of its second in command in a government air attack and the capture of his laptops. Now it has suffered another bolt from the blue: Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, the FARC's most valuable ally in recent years, has abruptly reversed his public support. The obvious explanation for this sudden somersault lies in those laptops recovered from a FARC camp in March, for which Mr. Chávez and his supporters have offered no coherent answer. Their thousands of digital files contain powerful evidence that Mr. Chávez and Ecuadoran President Rafael Correa accepted aid from the FARC while rising to power and later provided or promised the group money, weapons or safe harbor. On Saturday, the day before Mr. Chávez spoke, a Venezuelan national guard officer was caught inside Colombia with 40,000 rifle cartridges he was trying to deliver to the FARC.

EU Nears Deal Ending Cuba Sanctions - Ingrid Melander, Reuters

European Union states are nearing agreement on ending sanctions on Cuba in defiance of U.S. calls for continued pressure for democratic reform on the communist island, diplomats said on Tuesday. Closed-door talks on the move are continuing as EU leaders host President George W. Bush for a farewell summit in Slovenia. EU foreign ministers could endorse the step at a meeting in Luxembourg next Monday, the envoys said.

Leading Dissident Plans to Return to Cuba - Danica Coto, Associated Press

A leading Cuban dissident said Tuesday that he plans to return to the communist-run island after a nearly two-year absence to fight for the freedom of political prisoners. Hector Palacios, who was in Puerto Rico for a two-day visit, told reporters that he and his wife Gisela Delgado - also a Cuban dissident - would soon travel back to their Caribbean homeland to resume leadership of his outlawed opposition group, Liberal Unity.

Cuba Oil Plans Could Put Hole in US Embargo - Jeff Franks, Reuters

Sometime next year, Cuba plans to begin drilling a major oil field off its northern coast that might do what little else has done -- bring change to US-Cuba relations. In a rare confluence of circumstances, oil could grease the wheels for the two bitter enemies to come together in the middle of the Florida Straits out of mutual need, experts say. Getting there would require a sea change in US policy - namely putting a major hole in the US trade embargo imposed against Cuba in 1962 to topple Fidel Castro's communist government.

Ex-chief of Colombia Secret Police Freed - Associated Press

Colombia's Supreme Court has ruled that a former head of the secret police facing charges of working with far-right death squads should be set free. The court is calling for Jorge Noguera's immediate release because prosecutors failed to properly file charges against him. Noguera was arrested in February 2007 and was the highest-ranking government official to be tried on links to the far-right paramilitaries. He was Colombia's intelligence director for 2002 to 2005.

Chavez Sings a Different Tune - Washington Times editorial

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez stated on his weekly radio program that the Marxist guerrilla organization, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), should release its hostages and abandon its quest to overthrow Colombia's democratic government. "Guerrilla wars have become history in Latin America," Mr. Chavez said. This is a dramatic reversal of policy for the Venezuelan strongman who has been insisting that FARC is a legitimate insurgency rather than a terrorist organization. Mr. Chavez is at last taking a more sensible position - but it remains to be seen whether he will follow his words with deeds. Mr. Chavez has long been suspected of providing financial and military assistance to the rebels. Recently, the Colombian army killed a prominent rebel leader, Raul Reyes, and seized his laptop. Interpol is examining 37,000 files in the computer and has confirmed that there are close ties between FARC and the Chavez government. The computer files indicate that Mr. Chavez promised to give FARC $300 million, a portion of Venezuela's oil earnings and access to ports for arms shipments from Russia.

Armed Militia Replaces Drug Gangs - Alexi Barrionuevo, New York Times

Rio De Janeiro - When several Brazilian journalists decided to go undercover here in May to report on life in one of the hundreds of slums that have sprouted up around Rio, they thought they had chosen carefully. The slum they picked, Batan, was under the control of a militia that had expelled a drug gang last September. The journalists assumed that a slum under the thumb of a gun-toting militia, which included off-duty policemen, would be safer than one controlled by drug dealers. They were wrong. And what they lived through has become a public scandal that has focused attention on the growing danger posed by these militias, which have supplanted drug gangs as the violent overlords who run many of Rio’s slums and their illicit enterprises, often with links to corrupt police officers and politicians.

Colombia's Peacemaker - Mary Anastasia O'Grady, Wall Street Journal opinion

"We are ready for a humanitarian exchange. But we are not ready to serve as idiots to the proposal of FARC to use the hostages as a way to regain criminal power in Colombia." Sitting in the elegant Casa de Nariño - the official residence of the head of state - Colombian President Álvaro Uribe is talking about one of the hottest political issues of the day: to what lengths his government should go to win the release of some of the kidnap victims held by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). These hostages include three American contractors and the French-Colombian Ingrid Betancourt, who has been held for more than six years and whose plight has become a cause célèbre in Paris. Mr. Uribe, a man of boundless energy, can have trouble staying in one place for very long. But at the moment he is still and looking me straight in the eye as he emphatically states that he will not give in to terrorist demands.

USAians tend to be too quick to accept the party line of explanations and rationales feed to them
by the government and the Media concerning what is going on in other sovergn Nations in the Americas...

Drugs Cartel Dominates Tijuana - John Harlow, Times of London

It was a quiet Wednesday night in the Tijuana city morgue: only eight murder victims were on ice, including two young Mexican women shot through the back of the head and dumped on waste ground. These are the latest victims of the United States’ seemingly insatiable demand for cocaine, heroin and methamphetamine, which has sparked the bloodiest drugs war in the Americas and cost more than 4,000 lives in the past 18 months. The war has pitted the Mexican government, with American help, against a ruthless drugs cartel led by a Mexican female mastermind who has a degree in business administration. The victims in the mortuary may have been smugglers who ran into a rival faction. Their stories are unknown: undertakers do not have time to find their relatives. “They’ll find us,” said one.

Hugo Chávez, New and Improved - New York Times editorial

It turns out that Hugo Chávez is an adaptable man. The Venezuelan president, who has championed - and almost certainly helped arm - Colombia’s FARC rebels, called last week for the rebels to lay down their weapons and unconditionally surrender their hostages. We suspect this change of heart has been driven more by self-interest than conviction. Mr. Chávez is increasingly unpopular at home and increasingly isolated abroad, especially as evidence has mounted of his meddling in Colombia. The change nevertheless is welcome and well timed.

FARC Loses a Booster? - National Review editorial

When the Colombian government discovered documents on captured computers detailing Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chávez’s ties to the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (known by its Spanish acronym “FARC”), his first reaction was typical Chávez: buffoonish defiance. He called the documents “forgeries” and hinted that U.S. agents had planted the laptops to frame him. Venezuela’s defense minister called it “a big lie, prepared in U.S. laboratories.” (If it was a “big lie,” it was good enough to fool Interpol, whose experts determined that the laptops had not been tampered with.) It therefore came as an enormous surprise this week when Chávez reversed his longstanding policy of recognizing the FARC as a legitimate army and called on the group to lay down its arms and release its hostages “in exchange for nothing.” Chávez called Latin America’s tradition of leftist guerilla warfare “history,” adding, “At this moment in Latin America, an armed guerrilla movement is out of place.” The apparent loss of its biggest state sponsor is just the latest setback to a group that in recent months has seen its top commanders killed and captured in increasingly daring Colombian military raids.

With the OAS in Medellin - John Thomson, Washington Times opinion

An air of nonexpectation permeated the recent 38th Annual General Assembly of the Organization of American States in Medellin, Colombia. A veteran attendee said, "The location changes yearly, the players less frequently. There is a sameness to the proceedingsthe results are always hard to define." Every member of the 34- state OAS holds veto power. Thus, St. Kitts and Nevis, with fewer than 40,000 citizens, has an equal voice with other nations. This assures tepid resolutions, resulting in an essentially passive organization.

Tijuana Strip Turns Ghostly - Manuel Roig-Franzia, Washington Post

Daylight gun battles, beheadings and kidnappings have scared away tourists, forced layoffs and turned some areas of once-vibrant Mexican border cities into virtual ghost towns. The drug wars, which have killed more than 6,000 people in the past 2 1/2 years, have accelerated a decline that merchants also blame on the US economic slowdown and delays at the border because of increased enforcement. In Tijuana, where at least 200 people have been killed in drug violence this year, merchants say tourism is down as much as 90 percent compared with 2005, when an estimated 4 million people visited. Half of the downtown businesses -- more than 2,400 -- are shuttered. Farther east along the border, empty markets have become the norm in Ciudad Juarez, where fighting between rival cartels has killed 200 people this year. In Nuevo Laredo, five hotels have shut down.

Panama City: Boomtown With Growing Pains - Chris Kraul, Los Angeles Times

The city is still redolent of the intrigue that fascinated John le Carre and Graham Greene, both of whom wrote books about Panama and its murky politics. It's long been a meeting ground and place of exile for characters such as former President Juan Peron of Argentina, the shah of Iran and Colombian drug trafficker Pablo Escobar. Its cosmopolitan ambience has a renegade element: Panama has long been and still is a staging ground for illegal arms going south to Colombian armed groups and for drugs traveling north to US consumers. But Panama's leaders insist their country is on a trajectory toward First World status and respectability.

Colombia: What a Difference Six Years Makes - Miami Herald editorial

The leftist, narco-terrorist movement known as the FARC had the nation by the throat and was slowly tightening its grip. Vast parts of the countryside were under the sway of FARC rebels. City dwellers were prisoners of their urban enclaves. Residents of the capital, Bogotá, dared not venture far beyond the city limits for fear of being kidnapped, robbed or murdered by FARC marauders. Enter President Alvaro Uribe, who was elected in May of 2002 on a ''get-tough'' platform. Within days of his Aug. 7 inauguration, he declared a national state of emergency, imposed a wartime surtax and vowed to take a ''firm hand'' against the rebels. Did he ever.

A Humbled Hugo - San Francisco Chronicle editorial

Venezuela's hyperbolic Hugo Chavez is trying out a new role. He's now a reflective realist, willing to retreat from flamboyant fights and foolish causes. His erstwhile allies such as Colombia's rebels and the Castro clan in Cuba must be wondering what happened to their fire-breathing ally. This past week, he broke the news to the jungle rebels in next-door Colombia that their 40-year fight was up: "The guerrilla war is history." At the same time, he dumped a plan to implant a secret police program at home, complete with a neighborhood surveillance feature that was ridiculed as the "Gestapo law" and compared to the block-watching snoops in Cuba.

Coca Cultivation Rises In Colombia - Juan Forero, Washington Post

The amount of land devoted to production of coca, the leaf used to make cocaine, has grown at a dramatic pace in Colombia despite a huge American-funded counter-drug program of aerial fumigation and aggressive interdiction, a UN agency said Wednesday. In a 132-page report based on satellite imagery and on-the-ground surveys, the United Nations' Office on Drugs and Crime said that Colombian farmers planted 245,000 acres of coca last year, 27 percent more than in 2006. Coca cultivation in the world's three top producers, Colombia, Peru and Bolivia, increased 16 percent, to 448,743 acres, a swath of land slightly smaller than Delaware.

Venezuela Puts Troops on Buses to Deter Crime - Associated Press

Venezuela's government started posting National Guard troops on buses Wednesday to try to prevent violent crime. About 500 guardsmen have been assigned to ride on buses in Caracas as a deterrent against frequent armed robberies and killings of bus drivers, Gen. Alirio Ramirez told the state-run Bolivarian News Agency. Some will escort buses by motorcycle through crime-prone areas. President Hugo Chavez announced the idea on his Sunday television and radio program, but it wasn't clear if the project would be permanent. Polls regularly show that crime is Venezuelans' leading concern - above unemployment and inflation.

Castro Video Puts Rumors to Rest - Jeff Franks, Reuters

Former Cuban President Fidel Castro's appearance in a televised video on Tuesday night put to rest the latest rumors of his imminent demise and suggested he still plays a significant role in Cuba's government. Castro, 81, looked vigorous as he chatted with his close ally, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, and his brother, Cuban President Raul Castro, in a sun-dappled garden in the first public images of the ailing former leader since mid-January. The man who took power in a 1959 revolution and led Cuba for 49 years has not been seen in public since undergoing intestinal surgery in July 2006, but has surfaced sporadically in videos and photographs shown in the island's state-run media.

EU Ready to Lift Diplomatic Sanctions on Cuba - Associated Press

The European Union on Thursday agreed to lift its diplomatic sanctions against Cuba but imposed tough conditions on the communist island nation, officials said. EU External Relations Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner said the bloc felt it had to encourage changes in Cuba after Raul Castro took over as the head of the country's government from his ailing brother, Fidel.

Venezuela Upholds Ban on Candidates - Fabiola Sanchez, Associated Press

Venezuela's national electoral council has dealt a setback to President Hugo Chavez's foes by tentatively accepting a blacklist barring nearly 400 potential candidates - most from the opposition. German Yepez, one of the council's five directors, said the agency decided Wednesday to abide by the anti-corruption blacklist drawn up by the government's top anti-graft official, Comptroller General Clodosbaldo Russian.

Chavez Threatens to Block Oil Over EU Rules - Associated Press

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is threatening not to sell oil to any European country that applies strict new rules for expelling illegal immigrants. Chavez also says Venezuela would block investments from such nations.

FARC Rebels Release Hostage Video - BBC News

Colombian rebels have released a video designed to show that a leading politician they have been holding hostage is alive. It was not clear when the video was filmed, but it appeared to be recent. Sigifredo Lopez is the only survivor of a group of 12 politicians who were killed by the Farc rebels in 2002.

Chavez Refutes US Hezbollah Charges - Associated Press

President Hugo Chavez says the United States is trying to bring him before an international court. Chavez says the United States is using accusations that the Venezuelan government is supporting the Lebanese group Hezbollah to "see if the world will make a move" against him. The US has charged a Venezuelan official and others with helping Hezbollah. Washington considers the armed group and political party in Lebanon a terrorist organization.

4th Bolivian State Moves Toward Autonomy - Associated Press

Natural gas-rich Tarija became the fourth Bolivian state to declare autonomy from the central government of leftist President Evo Morales on Sunday when voters backed greater independence in a referendum, according a private quick-count of votes. Autonomy supporters celebrated in the city of Tarija's main plaza after polling company Ipsos Apoyo, Opinion and Mercado released results showing the "yes" vote getting 82 percent support. Electoral officials said there would be no final results until Wednesday.

FARC Rebels Release Hostage Video - BBC News

Colombian rebels have released a video designed to show that a leading politician they have been holding hostage is alive. It was not clear when the video was filmed, but it appeared to be recent. Sigifredo Lopez is the only survivor of a group of 12 politicians who were killed by the Farc rebels in 2002.

Bermuda's Diplomacy - Gregory Slayton, Washington Times opinion

Three years ago, the Parliament of Bermuda was debating whether to establish diplomatic relations with Cuba and to publicly censure the United States over Iraq. Throughout the island nation, "respect and admiration" for the U.S. was near a 25-year low. Business leaders of all stripes were concerned that the U.S. and Bermuda - allies for almost 400 years - were inexorably drifting apart. Fast forward to today: Bermuda-U.S. trade is at an all-time high (and Bermuda has the highest GDP/capita in the world – an astounding accomplishment for a small island nation with almost no natural resources). "Respect and admiration" for the U.S. is near a 25-year high - and this morning the Premier of Bermuda and I will sit down for a brief meeting with President Bush to lay the groundwork for even closer partnership going forward.

US Withholding Aid to Haiti - Marc Lacey, New York Times

An array of human rights groups has strongly criticized the United States government, saying it withheld money meant to provide clean drinking water to Haiti as leverage for political change in the country. The activists, in a report released Monday, called the delay of $54 million in international loans to the Haitian government “one of the most egregious examples of malfeasance by the United States in recent years.”

El Salvador: Letists on Center Stage? - Ken Ellingwood, Los Angeles Times

Like a prizefighter nearing the ring, Mauricio Funes strides through a gantlet of feverish fans. The 48-year-old television journalist, a newcomer to politics, has jolted El Salvador by grabbing a sizable early lead in the race as the candidate of the leftist group that fought a guerrilla war in the country two decades ago.

Federal Police Official Killed in Mexico - Manuel Roig-Franzia, Washington Post

A high-ranking federal police official and his bodyguard were assassinated here Thursday, the latest in a string of killings attributed to drug cartels seeking revenge against law enforcement agencies. The killings appear to be part of a recent coordinated effort by drug cartels to go after the federal police agency, which is generally thought to be less corrupt than most state and local police forces. Thousands of federal police officers have been dispatched around the country in the past year and a half to confront the cartels and sometimes to disarm entire local police departments suspected of aiding drug traffickers.

Anti-Drug Assistance Approved - Manuel Roig-Franzia, Washington Post

A US plan to provide Mexico with a major anti-drug aid package has received congressional approval, following months of negotiations in which Mexico proved itself to be a far more assertive neighbor than in the past, according to current and former high-ranking officials in both nations. The US Senate approved the aid -- known as the Merida Initiative -- late Thursday after stripping conditions that Mexican officials said would have infringed on their sovereignty, particularly on the issue of human rights. The measure includes $400 million for Mexico -- the bulk of which would be spent on equipment and training -- and $65 million for Central American nations.

Mexico Accepts Anti-Narcotics Aid - Marc Lacey, New York Times

With a deadly drug war spreading around the country, beleaguered Mexican officials on Friday welcomed $400 million in anti-narcotics assistance in a bill that was given final Congressional approval in Washington on Thursday night. The White House said that President Bush would sign the bill, though lawmakers had trimmed $100 million from his request. The aid package, which will send helicopters, drug-sniffing dogs and technical help to Mexico, came dangerously close to falling apart.

6 Mexico Police Officers Killed - Tracy Wilkinson, Los Angeles Times

Mexico's raging drug war claimed the lives of six more police officers, ambushed on patrol in the marijuana-rich state of Sinaloa, authorities said Friday. The attack followed the slaying Thursday of a senior police commander, part of a long string of killings apparently aimed at eroding public confidence in the government's ability to challenge drug gangs. The six officers were killed when two carloads of heavily armed men cut off their vehicle in the Sinaloa capital of Culiacan, an official with the state attorney general's office said by e-mail. More than 4,400 people have been killed in drug violence in Mexico, among them hundreds of police officers, since President Felipe Calderon launched an all-out offensive against drug cartels after taking office in December 2006.

A Populist Future for Mexico? - Georgie Anne Geyer, Washington Times opinon

The Iraq story makes the papers about once a day, although ever more unenthusiastically for the American reader. Afghanistan edges into newsprint occasionally. But our own hemisphere? Or our important, long-suffering neighbor, Mexico? There the coverage is even worse. The only stories you read about Mexico these days are of the bitter gang and drug killings along the Mexican-American border. More than 4,000 people, including some 450 members of the police, have been murdered in drug-related violence since the conservative President Felipe Calderon took over a year and a half ago.

Venezuela Supplies Britain's Cocaine - David Blair, Daily Telegraph of London

President Hugo Chavez's Venezuela has become the key trafficking route for most of the cocaine sold on Britain's streets, anti-drugs officials believe. Last year, about 250 tons of cocaine are thought to have passed through Venezuela - up to a five-fold increase on 2004. Much of this ended up in Britain. Anti-drugs officials estimate that more than 50 per cent of all the cocaine consumed in Britain has been trafficked through Venezuela - under the "revolutionary" regime of Mr Chavez. The figure could be as high as two thirds.

Uribe Calls for Referendum on '06 Reelection - Juan Forero, Washington Post

Colombia's Supreme Court on Thursday questioned the legitimacy of President Álvaro Uribe's reelection in 2006, prompting Uribe to call on Congress to enable a new presidential election that could ultimately extend his stay in office. The president's decision to seek a referendum on whether to hold a rerun of the 2006 election plunged the South American country into what the largest newspaper, El Tiempo, called "confusion and uncertainty" yesterday. Some analysts said it appeared that Uribe saw the plebiscite as a way to gain popular support and propel efforts by his supporters, who would like him to run for a third term, which is not permitted under the current constitution.

Uribe Seeks Replay Of ’06 Vote - Simon Romero, New York Times

Faced with an intensifying corruption scandal involving his re-election to a second term in 2006, President Álvaro Uribe of Colombia threw the country’s political establishment into turmoil on Thursday night by calling for the vote to be held again. The move opened Mr. Uribe to accusations that he was seeking to extend his stay in office beyond 2010, when his term expires. His political supporters had already been trying in recent months to amend the Constitution to allow him to run for a third term.

Which Way, Argentina? - Washington Times editorial

The economy is spiraling out of control due to the foolhardiness and intransigence of its current leader, President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner. Argentina has strong commercial ties with America. It is also a major non-NATO US ally in South America: the nation's stability is vital to American counterterrorism, counternarcotics and nonproliferation efforts. Mrs. Kirchner came to power in December, following four years of rule by her husband, Nestor. She sailed to victory on the promise that she would continue Argentina's stellar economic performance. Since then, Argentina has been in turmoil.

Drug Wars Next Door - Clarence Page, Real Clear Politics opinion

As if our military didn't have its hands full in Iraq and Afghanistan, the head of the Minuteman Project border security group seems to think they might also make good narcotics cops. Minuteman cofounder Jim Gilchrist suggested in recent radio interviews that the US give Mexico 12 months to corral its criminal drug cartels and rising violence, particularly in border towns like Juarez and Tijuana - or deploy the US Army to do the job. That's the Minutemen. Their remedies for the drug war next door sound simplistic, but at least they're paying attention.

Chavez Faces Political Crisis - David Blair, Daily Telegraph

President Hugo Chavez, the "socialist revolutionary" leading a global campaign against America's "empire", is facing a political crisis in Venezuela where crucial elections are approaching and old allies have turned against him. Mr Chavez, a devoted admirer of Fidel Castro, has forged an anti-American front with leaders ranging from President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran. At home, however, Mr Chavez is in trouble. State elections are due in November and Venezuela's opposition, which now includes former followers of South America's standard-bearer for socialism, is expected to perform well.

The Rival Chávez Won't Permit - Jackson Diehl, Washington Post opinion

Defenders of Hugo Chávez like to argue that there is no alternative to the Venezuelan caudillo other than the feckless and unpopular politicians who preceded him in the 1990s. The simple refutation of that canard is Leopoldo López, the 37-year-old mayor of central Caracas, whose boyish good looks only underscore the fact that he represents a fresh generation. López, a hyperarticulate graduate of Kenyon College and Harvard, is a pragmatic center-leftist, like most of the presidents elected in South America since the turn of the century. He won his last election in the Caracas district of Chacao with 80 percent of the vote. An opinion poll taken this year showed his popularity rating at 65 percent in greater Caracas, compared with 39 percent for Chávez; nationally, he beat Chávez 42 percent to 41. In the upcoming election for mayor of the capital district -- the most important elected post in the country after the presidency -- López leads the Chávez-backed candidate by 30 points.

Farewell to the Revolution? - Jorge Castaneda, Miami Herald opinion

''The FARC are finished, no matter how many men and weapons they may still have.'' Former Salvadoran guerrilla leader Joaquín Villalobos' lapidary conclusion about the Colombian narco-guerrilla movement is worthy of consideration, given his unmatched insight into Latin America's armed, revolutionary left. So is the almost tearful acknowledgement by Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez's ideological guru, Heinz Dieterich, that ``Chávez's speech on the FARC (calling on it to abandon armed struggle and free its hostages) is the equivalent of unconditional surrender to Washington's hemispheric ambition.'' However hasty these judgments may end up being, it certainly seems that the region's oldest and last political-military organization is, at long last, on the brink of defeat. Colombian President Alvaro Uribe's strategy of ''democratic security'' appears to have paid off, supported by the US-financed Plan Colombia, as well as by much plain good luck, such as finding thousands of incriminating computer files three months ago in an attack on a FARC camp in Ecuador.

Agencies Join Forces to Tackle Gangs - Jennifer Haberkorn, Washington Times

Federal law enforcement authorities have coupled multi-agency task forces with strategies that once focused on Mafia-era crime syndicates to target national and international gangs, many of which have brought warfare to the nation's cities. With a propensity for indiscriminate violence, intimidation and coercion, some of the gangs are considered security threats. One of the largest is Mara Salvatrucha, or MS-13, with an FBI estimate of 10,000 members in 42 states, including Maryland and Virginia, as well as the District. An FBI threat assessment issued in January said MS-13 uses firearms, machetes and blunt objects to intimidate rival gangs, law enforcement officers and the public.

A Hulking Drug Problem - Los Angeles Times editorial

It was probably unintentional, but "The Incredible Hulk" is much more than a summer afternoon's escape; it's clearly a satire, a perfect depiction of Washington's boneheaded belief that firepower can resolve any problem. Although the creature is obviously bulletproof, soldiers shoot him anyway. They get bigger guns, then tanks. He survives. They get cannons. They shoot and shoot. The Hulk sulks for a bit and then is fine. Unfortunately, combative redundancy is also our strategy for fighting drug trafficking. In South America, we throw money, military equipment and aerial fumigation at the problem, and as a result, coca growers relocate, regroup and production thrives. We repeat the cycle. Yes, there may be occasional dips in production after a particularly successful mission (the Hulk sometimes goes for months "without incident"), but inevitably the coca growers, cocaine producers and drug traffickers return.

Videos of Violent Police Training Appear - Manuel Roig-Franzia, Washington Post

Videos showing Mexican police learning torture methods appeared on the Internet this week as the country, soon to receive hundreds of millions of dollars in US anti-drug aid, is seeking to improve its human rights record. The videos show officers in the city of Leon, about 150 miles northwest of Mexico City, forcing one of their colleagues to crawl through vomit and injecting carbonated water into the nose of another. An instructor, whose face can be seen in one video, barks out commands in English. Leon Police Chief Carlos Tornero told the Associated Press that the instructor is from a private US security firm, but he declined to say which one.

Drug Wars Next Door - Clarence Page, Washington Times opinion

As if our military didn't have its hands full in Iraq and Afghanistan, the head of the Minuteman Project border security group seems to think they might also make good narcotics cops. Minuteman cofounder Jim Gilchrist suggested in recent radio interviews that the United States give Mexico 12 months to corral its criminal drug cartels and rising violence, particularly in border towns like Juarez and Tijuana - or deploy the US Army to do the job. That's the Minutemen. Their remedies for the drug war next door sound simplistic, but at least they're paying attention.

Rural Argentina Now an Opponent - Alexei Barrionuevo, New York Times

Mayor Fernando Fischer was beaming in early March when this small town in Santa Fe Province hosted 200,000 visitors for a giant international farm show. Vendors fanned out over 1,200 acres of farmland, displaying everything from harvesting combines to the latest crop seeds. Sales for local companies were brisk. It was a proud moment for Dr. Fischer and for Argentina’s booming agricultural industry. But less than a week later the government raised export taxes for farmers to levels they could no longer stomach, setting off a political crisis that now threatens the government of Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, Argentina’s Peronist president, after a little more than six months in office.

Not Winning the War on Drugs - New York Times editorial

John Walters, the White House drug czar, declared earlier this year that “courageous and effective” counternarcotics efforts in Colombia and Mexico “are disrupting the production and flow of cocaine.” This enthusiasm rests on a very selective reading of the data. Another look suggests that despite the billions of dollars the United States has spent battling the cartels, it has hardly made a dent in the cocaine trade.

15 Hostages Freed as FARC Fooled - Chris Kraul, Los Angeles Times

Armed forces disguised as rebels Wednesday rescued former Colombia presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt, three U.S. defense contractors and 11 other hostages held by leftist insurgents, in a daring operation that delivered the latest in a series of blows to the country's largest anti-government force. Colombian forces apparently infiltrated the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, and duped them into grouping Betancourt and the other hostages in a remote jungle location about 200 miles southeast of Bogota and putting them aboard a helicopter, supposedly for a meeting with new FARC commander Alfonso Cano.

15 Hostages Rescued in Colombia - Juan Forero, Washington Post

Colombia's military yesterday rescued the most prominent of several hundred hostages held by Marxist rebels, a group of 15 that included the French-Colombian politician Ingrid Betancourt and three American Defense Department contractors who had been imprisoned in remote jungle camps since 2003. In what Colombian officials called an elaborate ruse, commandos deceived a rebel unit entrusted with the prized hostages into turning them over in a grassy field deep in southeastern Guaviare province. The prisoners, who included 11 Colombian soldiers, were then flown to freedom in what amounted to a powerful blow to a fast-waning insurgency.

Colombia Plucks Hostages From Rebels’ Grasp - Simon Romero, New York Times

Colombian commandos in disguise spirited 15 hostages to freedom on Wednesday, including Ingrid Betancourt, a French-Colombian politician held for six years, and three American military contractors. “I never expected to get out of there alive,” said Ms. Betancourt, 46, her voice sounding frail but charged with excitement, in comments broadcast on the radio. On Colombian television, Ms. Betancourt wept and smiled as she recounted a chain of events that seemed scripted for film, complete with Colombian agents infiltrating guerrilla camps and borrowing Israeli tracking technology to zero in on their target.

Betancourt, 3 Americans Freed - Steve Salisbury, Washington Times

Colombian forces scored a big victory in a 44-year war against Marxist insurgents Wednesday by infiltrating their enemy and rescuing former presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt, three American hostages and 11 Colombian troops without firing a shot. Mrs. Betancourt later embraced her mother and her husband on the tarmac of an airport in Bogota after six years in captivity, much of it spent moving from hide-out to hide-out in dense steamy jungles and towering mountains.

Mexico Drug War Rages - Reuters

The severed heads of four men were found dumped on a Mexican street on Wednesday with a message accusing a drug gang kingpin of treachery, police said. Neighbors in the northern city of Culiacan found the men's bodies wrapped in plastic sheets and a blanket, with their heads stuffed into white plastic bags. An obscenity-laden note scrawled onto a piece of cardboard invited Joaquin "El Chapo" (Shorty) Guzman -- the head of the Sinaloa drug cartel -- "to see what his stupid acts had caused." Guzman, who is considered Mexico's most-wanted man, is battling a rival gang led by his one-time ally Arturo Beltran Leyva, whose hitmen reportedly killed one of Guzman's sons in May.

ASIA PACIFIC

Mongolia Enforces Martial Law - Jim Yardley, New York Times

Armed soldiers enforced martial law on the streets of Mongolia’s capital on Wednesday, a day after five people were killed as hundreds angered by election results rioted, Mongolian state news media reported. President Nambaryn Enkhbayar responded to the unrest by declaring a national state of emergency late Tuesday.

Violence in Mongolia Leaves 5 Dead - Mark Magnier, Los Angeles Times

The capital of Mongolia remained under a state of emergency Wednesday after five people were killed in postelection violence amid allegations of voter fraud. The crisis erupted late Tuesday when several thousand protesters associated with the opposition Democratic Party clashed with police in Ulan Bator and set fire to the headquarters of the ruling Mongolian People's Revolutionary Party, according to news reports and witnesses.

Calm Returns to Mongolia, Still No Election Result - Reuters

Calm has returned to the Mongolian capital Ulan Bator after rioting in the wake of election fraud allegations left five dead, but there is still no official result from the weekend's parliamentary polls. The violence has dampened hopes for a period of stable government to develop the mining sector and tackle inflation in the vast but thinly populated country, strategically sandwiched between China and Russia.

Blast Kills 4 in Southern Philippines - Reuters

At least four men were killed and 11 others wounded when a grenade exploded on Thursday at a bakery in the southern Philippines, a military spokesman said, blaming Maoist-led rebels for the attack. Hours later, another group of communist New People's Army (NPA) guerrillas raided a town hall in a nearby province on the troubled southern island of Mindanao, wounding a police officer, and carted away three assault rifles and a handgun.

80 Burmese Rescued from Traffickers - The Australian

More than 80 women and child victims of Burma's recent cyclone have been rescued from human traffickers who were scheming to smuggle them to neighbouring countries, a media report said today. Border police caught the traffickers, who had taken victims of Cyclone Nargis from the Irrawaddy delta to frontier areas, between June 11 to 14, the well-regarded biweekly journal Eleven reported, quoting police. Police Lt Col Rahlyan Mone, from the force's human trafficking division, told the Rangoon-based journal that victims facing hardship were being enticed with job offers abroad by traffickers disguised as aid workers.

The Madness of Chris Hill - James Rosen, National Review opinion

‘You will be better advised,” John Mitchell once famously said, “to watch what we do instead of what we say.” This maxim, uttered by Richard Nixon’s pipe-smoking attorney general, has echoed through the ages, applauded and denounced for its frankness in acknowledging the occasional need for duplicity, or at least the odd sleight of hand, in the practice of government. Now, with the arrival of North Korea’s declaration of its nuclear programs - long overdue and woefully inadequate in its disclosure of key data - and with the enthusiastic reception afforded the document by the current White House and State Department, the Bush administration seems to have taken Mitchell’s maxim to heart.

Chavez and Farc are the Big Losers - Thomas Catan, The Times

The operation to free 15 of Farc’s most prominent hostages has not only triggered a surge of optimism in Colombia that Latin America’s oldest surviving guerrilla insurgency could be nearing an end. It has also vindicated the uncompromising approach of the country’s leader and reshaped the region’s balance of power. The biggest winner - apart from the hostages - is President Uribe of Colombia, who has resisted calls from many hostages’ families to sit down with the rebel movement and negotiate. Despite the careful planning, security experts say that the rescue operation could have gone badly awry. The operation also represents a serious setback for the Venezuelan President, Hugo Chávez, who has lambasted his Colombian counterpart as a “pawn of the [US] empire” and sought to position himself as a key go-between in Colombia’s four-decade conflict.

Bold Rescue Built on Rebels’ Disarray - Romero and Cave, New York Times

At 5 a.m. on Wednesday, the sun had yet to peek through the jungle canopy in this country’s Guaviare Department when the guerrillas told their captives to gather their belongings. A call had come in from a top adviser to Alfonso Cano, their new supreme commander. He said to move. Immediately. Or so the guerrillas thought. In fact, the gravelly voice that sounded so full of authority belonged not to Mr. Cano, a grizzled leader of Latin America’s most feared insurgent group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, but rather to a government officer.

3 Hostages Rescued in Colombia Return to US - Associated Press

Three American hostages rescued from leftist guerrillas in Colombia were back in the United States today, more than five years after their plane went down in rebel-held jungle. They returned to the US late Wednesday, as their plane landed at Lackland Air Force Base shortly after 11 p.m. All appeared well as they exited the Air Force C-17 without fanfare. The men were flown by choppers to Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio, where they were expected to undergo tests and be reunited with their families.

Hostages Reunited With Families - Fox and Branigin, Washington Post

On their first full day of freedom, the hostages rescued from guerrilla captivity in Colombia were reunited with relatives, as new details emerged Thursday about their captors and the conditions under which they were held. Ingrid Betancourt, a onetime presidential candidate and the best known of the 15 hostages rescued, embraced her two grown children for the first time since she was kidnapped six years ago. In a poignant scene after the pair arrived in Bogota aboard a plane from Paris, she rushed up the stairs to greet them, apparently unwilling to wait for them to disembark.

'Nirvana' in Bogota - McDonnell and Kraul, Los Angeles Times

Ingrid Betancourt, whose plight in captivity came to embody Colombia's fratricidal social strife, embraced her grown children for the first time in more than six years Thursday and prepared for a trip to Paris and a state welcome in France. The exhilarated Betancourt, thin but seemingly in good health and flashing a broad smile after being rescued from her rebel captors Wednesday, has generated a sense of euphoria and hope in a nation eager to shed the legacy of more than four decades of civil conflict and generalized despair.

Who Dares Wins - The Times editorial

It will be remembered as one of the most audacious rescues of modern times, comparable in its derring-do to the Entebbe raid that snatched Israeli hostages from Uganda in 1976. The Colombian Army's dispatch of a helicopter deep into the jungle to rescue Ingrid Betancourt and 14 other hostages held by Marxist rebels, with the help of American Intelligence, was a masterstroke of meticulous planning, ingenious deception and faultless execution that has won high praise for Álvaro Uribe, the President, and dealt a critical blow to Farc, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia. The reaction of the outside world has been almost as ecstatic as in Colombia, where there was huge rejoicing at this latest setback to a ragtag guerrilla army that has, for more than 40 years, terrorised Latin America's oldest democracy. In France, the release of Ms Betancourt after six harrowing years in captivity was treated as a cause for national celebration.

Colombian Kudos - Wall Street Journal editorial

If most world news seems depressing these days, consider the exception of Colombia. Yesterday, the Colombian military rescued Ingrid Betancourt and three American contractors who had been held hostage by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) for more than five years. Chalk up one more antiterror win for Colombian President Álvaro Uribe, the best US ally in South America. Also freed in the operation were 11 other FARC hostages. News of the successful rescue came only a short time after John McCain had left Cartagena after his visit this week to tout a free-trade agreement with Colombia that Barack Obama opposes.

Free at Last - Washington Post editorial

Superlatives fail in describing the Colombian army operation that rescued 15 hostages from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC. Having painstakingly infiltrated the guerrilla organization's communications network, the Colombian forces apparently deceived the captors into handing the hostages over to Colombian troops disguised as guerrillas. The rescuers played their roles superbly, even adding a touch of the rebels' characteristic cruelty as they bound the hostages and shoved them aboard a helicopter. Once all were airborne, the soldiers subdued the rebels who had escorted the hostages, then removed the captives' restraints. Thus were the French-Colombian citizen Ingrid Betancourt, three American defense contractors, and 11 Colombians liberated from years of captivity -- without a shot being fired. Europe and the United States, as well as Colombia, owe these brave and skilled men, and their commander in chief, President Álvaro Uribe, a large debt of gratitude.

Freeing Ingrid Betancourt - New York Times editorial

There is every reason to celebrate the daring rescue from FARC guerrillas of the Colombian-French politician Ingrid Betancourt, three American military contractors and 11 members of the Colombian security forces. The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia still holds many more hostages. But the operation by undercover Colombian commandos - who tricked the rebels into handing over the captives without a shot - offered further evidence that the guerrilla group is in disarray. The rescue (pulled off with intelligence from the United States) was another coup for Mr. Uribe’s relentless assault on the FARC, which he has waged with billions in American aid. The movement has lost three of its top seven commanders in recent months, and defectors say the forces are increasingly fractured. The FARC is still flush with drug money and still holds more than 700 hostages. The rebels are unlikely to be so easily tricked again, and an all-out assault could cost many lives.

Hillier Passes the Torch - Allan Woods, Toronto Star

It was a ceremony fit for a king, but engineered to usher out one "warrior" and welcome in his successor. The official procedure that handed responsibility for the Canadian Forces from outgoing Chief of Defence Staff Gen. Rick Hillier to Gen. Walter Natynczyk took just a few minutes to complete. Governor General Michaëlle Jean accepted the former chief's white ceremonial flag and passed it to his successor, the beaming Winnipeg native Natynczyk. But the entire affair stretched to two hours, with speeches from politicians, a 21-gun salute, planes, guns and cheering crowds.

Penetrating the Fog of War - Raymond J. de Souza, National Post

Since Canada went to war in Afghanistan, it has become customary to pay special tribute to the troops on the Dominion Day holiday. It's fitting: Soldiers in battle deserve a high place in the thoughts of their compatriots, especially on patriotic festivals. The Armed Forces' more prominent place in our national conversation is also in large part due to General Rick Hillier, who retires as Chief of the Defence Staff this week. Not only did General Hillier push to make the Canadian Armed Forces a fighting, combat force again, he was tireless in insisting that Canadians give prominent attention to their Forces. He was all over Canada, and frequently in Afghanistan, usually with a camera crew in tow. He knew that an overseas war in a remote place that few Canadians know very much about, let alone have any direct experience of, can easily become out of sight and out of mind. That did not happen on General Hillier's watch, to his great credit.

Colombian Rebels Splintering - McDonnell and Kraul, Los Angeles Times

The sensational rescue of 15 hostages from the grip of Latin America's largest rebel group has highlighted the diminished state of an organization that just six years ago threatened to overrun the Colombian government. Once fueled by Marxist ideology and awash in narcotics profits, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, now finds itself facing a more robust Colombian military led by a popular president. The group has suffered the deaths of top leaders, seen large-scale defections of supporters, and is being squeezed for the money it needs to sustain its operations.

Brazen Rescue in Captured on Video - Juan Forero, Washington Post

A video shot by a commando posing as a journalist recorded the rescue of 15 hostages in a daring operation that was celebrated Friday from Colombia to as far away as Paris, where French leaders welcomed the best known of the hostages, Ingrid Betancourt. The video shows Betancourt, a French-Colombian politician and author, looking grim as guerrillas hand her and other hostages over in a grassy field in southeastern Guaviare province. The rebels didn't know it, but those taking custody of the prized prisoners were Colombian soldiers, playing the part of relief workers and fellow guerrillas.

Colombia Releases Video of Jungle Rescue - Simon Romero, New York Times

The captives emerged from a coca field looking confused, despondent even, as the rebels tied plastic handcuffs on their wrists before putting them on a helicopter in a video released here on Friday of the rescue this week of 15 hostages in the Colombian jungle. Seeking to respond to some assertions about the rescue mission that have sprung up internationally since the hostages were freed, Colombian military officials also offered more details on the operation.

Betancourt Details Her Captivity - Erlanger and Cowell, New York Times

Two days after her rescue, six years after being captured by guerrillas in the Colombian jungle, Ingrid Betancourt arrived in Paris on Friday to thank the joyful nation that had championed her cause and to begin to share some of the painful details of her long ordeall. In comments to Europe 1 radio, she said that her captors had chained her day and night for the first three years, but that she was sustained by her Roman Catholic faith and thoughts of her family. “I was in chains all the time, 24 hours a day, for three years,” she said. “I tried to wear those chains with dignity, even if I felt that it was unbearable.”

An Impressive Rescue - Miami Hearld editorial

In 40 long and painful years of war against insurgents, the Colombian government has never scored a bigger or more important success than the daring and perfectly executed rescue of 15 hostages that took place this week. Among the freed captives were the most prominent prisoners ever held by the FARC guerrillas -- one-time presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt and three Americans employed by a Northrop Grumman Corp. subsidiary that has supported Colombia's fight against drugs. Among other things, this episode shows that Colombian military intelligence has penetrated the FARC's leadership. Placing an agent within the ruling circle allowed the military to carry out a sophisticated ruse that enabled soldiers to snatch the hostages and turn the tables on the rebel captors, who are now in government hands -- reportedly, without killing anyone, and apparently without firing a shot.

Rescuing Colombia - Boston Globe editorial

Screenplays are almost certainly being written about the bold rescue of Ingrid Betancourt, the Colombian presidential candidate who was freed Wednesday after being held hostage for six years by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, the left-wing insurgency group known as FARC. To save Betancourt and 14 other hostages, Colombian commandos posing as rebels herded the prisoners onto a helicopter, purportedly to move them to a new location. Once they were in the air, the hostages learned the truth: They were free. The rescue has generated international joy and relief. But celebrations can only be temporary. This is only one part of an ongoing, decades-long internal struggle. Colombia is beset by insurgency groups and the remains of rightist paramilitary groups. These groups rely on illegal drug trafficking for money and weapons.

Vindication for Uribe - Edward Schumacher-Matos, Washington Post opinion

More politically breathtaking than the dramatic rescue of Ingrid Betancourt this week is the unexpected message that the former presidential candidate delivered after six years of captivity in Colombian jungles. Betancourt, slight but still well-spoken, deftly discredited critics of President Álvaro Uribe's two-pronged approach toward the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia. Her support for Uribe's carrot-and-stick policies -- beefing up the military while offering to negotiate with the guerrillas -- countered many of her self-proclaimed supporters, including human rights groups, Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, leftist lobbyists in Washington and her own mother.

No Way to Treat an Ally - Mona Charen, National Review opinion

The rescue of three Americans from the jungles of South America is a terrific Fourth of July present to the nation. (And John McCain gets high marks for timing in being present for the happy event.) American contractors Keith Stansell, Thomas Howes, and Marc Gonsalves had been captured by the Colombian communist guerrilla group FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia) when their antinarcotics surveillance plane crashed in rebel territory five years ago. At the time, considering the weakness of the Colombian government, the growing strength of the neighborhood bully Hugo Chavez in Venezuela, and the terror that FARC inflicted upon the Colombian people, the future looked grim for them and for the hundreds of hostages held in various remote areas. Ingrid Betancourt, a former presidential candidate who was likewise snatched and held by FARC, was freed with the Americans on July 2.

UN to Feed One in Four People in Haiti - Baptiste Etchegaray, Washington Times

The UN World Food Program is scaling up efforts to feed millions of people in Haiti, where riots over rising food prices have toppled one government