Guerrilla Armed With Beer Sighted in Venezuela

[Judi Lynn]

Guerrilla Armed With Beer Sighted in Venezuela
07/30/2010 by Steve Rendall

The Washington Post's latest attack on Venezuela comes in an editorial headlined: "Colombia Proves Again That Venezuela Is Harboring FARC Terrorists."

The editors don't say why a point already proved needs be proved again, but before offering the new evidence, they recount the old claim that laptops captured by Colombia from FARC guerrillas have clearly established links between the Venezuelan government and the FARC:

That Venezuela is backing a terrorist movement against a neighboring democratic government has been beyond dispute since at least 2008, when Colombia recovered laptops from a FARC camp in Ecuador containing extensive documentation of Mr. Chávez's political and material support.

The alleged FARC laptop evidence certainly is in dispute. (On March 11 of this year, Gen. Doug Fraser, head of U.S. Southern Command, testified before the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee that he knew of no official Venezuela/FARC links--"We have not seen any connections specifically that I can verify that there has been a direct government-to-terrorist connection"--before retracting his statement a day later after an apparent trip to the woodshed.)

The new evidence? The Post cites a presentation to the Organization of American States (OAS) by Colombia's ambassador to that body, who said he could pinpoint the locations of 75 FARC camps within Venezuela, and then offered up more concrete evidence in the form of photos and videos. Brace yourselves: The single piece of such evidence the Post editors chose to describe was a photo of a man purported to be a top commander in the ELN--which is not the FARC, but a smaller Colombian guerrilla group--"sipping Venezuelan beer on a popular Venezuelan beach." So a photo of an alleged official of a different organization drinking beer in (allegedly) Venezuela is proof that Hugo Chavez' government is working with the FARC?

The last time the media pushed allegations (Washington Post, 2/5/03) that an official U.S. enemy (then, Saddam Hussein) was harboring a terrorist leader (Abu Musab al-Zarqawi), it turned out to be a bogus claim (Washington Post, 4/6/07) that played a crucial role in tricking the nation into war.

http://www.fair.org/blog/2010/07/30/guerrilla-armed-with-beer-sighted-in-venezuela/

[EFerrari]

1. LOL. Invisible rec!

[Wilms]

2. FAIR is on it!

To the Teabagger's chagrin.

[naaman fletcher]

3. by tea-baggers,

Do you mean Hillary Clinton, Obama, and others who support Colombia and opposed Chavez?

[Wilms]

4. Stirring it?

Keep your bullshit equivalencies.

I support FAIR calling out the the editorial's BS.

[naaman fletcher]

5. Why bring up tea-baggers?

There have been other posts in the last two days suggesting that there are a bunch of tea-baggers around here, I am just trying to figure out who that means exactly.

[Wilms]

6. The VZ "opposition" reminds me of teabaggers.

Granted, teabaggers in the US are often the poor who've been convinced by Hannity that tax cuts for zillionaires is in their interest.

[naaman fletcher]

7. OK,

I misinterpreted your original comment and I apologize.

[Wilms]

8. No need to apologize. It was a reasonable enough question. n/t

[rabs]

9. Dying to know; is the beer

Polar: A popular Venezuelan beer


or an


In which case the photo could be from the Beach at Santa Marta, Colombia.

But it kinda looks like Heineken from Holland.

FARC has one of these in the jungle