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I've been following a story about the bloody-handed little mafioso, Alvaro Uribe, the Bushwhacks' tool in Colombia, just retired by Panetta, but with certain perks and protections that, along with some other evidence, point to a Bushwhack war crimes scandal in Colombia, that Panetta is covering up. (Panetta is current CIA Director, appointed by Obama, if you can believe that, and was a member of Daddy's Bush's Iraq Study Group. My guess is that he is charged with cleaning up after Junior.) One of the things that just occurred is that all of the witnesses against Uribe in a big domestic spying scandal in Colombia were whisked out of the country--out of the reach of Colombian prosecutors and over their objections--and given weird overnight asylum in Panama (U.S. client state). The chief spying witnesses against Uribe--former head of his spook agency--used threats to her life as her reason for fleeing.
Last year, death squad witnesses were extradited to the U.S., from Colombia, on mere drug charges, and were then buried in the U.S. federal prison system, by the complete sealing of their cases in U.S. federal court in Washington DC--which put them out of the reach of Colombian prosecutors and, again, over their objections.
Uribe--who has been given cushy academic sinecures at Georgetown and Harvard, and an appointment to a prestigious international legal committee--recently asked the State Department for "sovereign immunity" in the U.S. (...um, he is the ex-president of Colombia) regarding a death squad victims' lawsuit in the U.S. against Drummond Coal (Alabama-based U.S. multinational corp in Colombia). He was served with a subpoena to give a deposition in the case, and was a no-show. We'll see if Hillary crowns him ex-king of Colombia.
Something going on with this. Possibly related to the U.S. State Department recently "fining" Blackwater for "unauthorized" "trainings" of "foreign persons" (don't know who) IN COLOMBIA "for use in Iraq and Afghanistan" (!). I don't believe the word "unauthorized."
Thousands of trade unionists, human rights workers, teachers, community activists, journalists, political leftists, small peasant farmers and others have been murdered by the Colombian military and its closely tied rightwing paramilitary death squads--all funded with $7 BILLION in U.S. military aid. The Pentagon has bases, "forward operating locations" (presence at Colombian military bases) and several thousand U.S. military personnel and 'contractors' in Colombia. Last year, Uribe engaged in secret negotiations with the U.S. and secretly signed a U.S./Colombia military agreement that, among other things, granted "total diplomatic immunity" to all U.S. military personnel and all U.S. military 'contractors' in Colombia. Those who touted the agreement after it became public--for instance, Pentagon spokespeople--claimed that it was merely ratifying "existing arrangements." This agreement was recently declared unconstitutional by the Colombian supreme court, but could still conceivably be used as an excuse to prevent prosecution of U.S. military personnel/'contractors,' as it was signed by the president. The secretiveness and last-minute nature of this agreement--nearly a decade into U.S. military presence in Colombia-- points to some emergency need for this signature. (The extraditions of death squad witnesses to the U.S. occurred about the same time.)
Some 70 of Uribe's closest political cohorts, including family members, are under investigation or already in jail in Colombia, for ties to the death squads, drug trafficking, spying, bribery and other crimes. Colombian prosecutors are on Uribe's tail about all this, while Uribe enjoys honors and protection here, and the CIA and the DOJ take care of the witnesses against him. I think that it is quite likely that U.S. military personnel/'contractors' did not just wink at the "turkey shoots" going on in Colombia but participated. (There are documents describing a Pentagon/USAID "pacification" program in Colombia very similar to their ops in Afghanistan, in an area of Colombia where a mass grave has been discovered containing 500 to 2,000 unidentified bodies.) I think it is quite likely that Uribe's knowledge of who "authorized" U.S. war crimes in Colombia are why such extraordinary efforts have been made to foil investigations of him in Colombia, and how we ended up with this fascist thug teaching our young at Georgetown and Harvard.
Anyway, re the CIA station chief in Pakistan--the excuse that his life was threatened sounded familiar. Little alarm bells going off. It's probably bullshit, as with the Panama asylum for Uribe witnesses.
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