BoRev.Net

You know how Americans are supposed to eliminate all our environmental and labor standards and send our jobs to Peru or else Hugo Chavez will have won? That’s our “trade policy,” and it’s founded on the timeless American values of “extreme self-sacrifice” and “rhetorical victory.” And now it’s our foreign policy, too!

You may have heard that back in August, Colombian President Alvaro Uribe asked Chavez to help negotiate the first steps toward peace in his country’s bloody civil war, including a hostage swap involving three kidnapped Americans, one famous Frenchie, and dozens of brown skinned “Colombians” who don’t actually merit a mention in the English language press, much less a headcount. Anyway, things were moving along until last Wednesday, when weirdness ensued.

>>> That morning, Uribe made a speech praising Chavez as the only hope for a crucial hostage negotiation

>>> In the afternoon, Uribe was contradicted by the U.S. ambassador to Colombia, who declared Chavez’s help wasn’t working because the 40-year standoff hadn’t been resolved in three months.

>>> By evening, Uribe was like “Yeah, right. Sorry,” and told Chavez his services were no longer required. The peace talks were off, and chaos had been restored to the land.

Ok. To borrow a journalistic technique from Simon Romero: “some say” this all sounds pretty fucking suspicious if you ask me. And when you read Uribe’s reasoning—that Chavez had “violated protocol” by “speaking directly” to the Colombian military—a few things sort of don’t compute, like:

· Protocol? Yeah, um, nobody with protocols on the mind calls in Hugo Chavez as a hostage negotiator, k? Hugo Chavez is like Chuck Norris: he’s the last freaking resort, and you bring him in because your stinking protocols aren’t working.

· The fact Chavez never actually contacted the Colombian military chief—at least not directly—might be worth noting. He was patched in by a Colombian Senator assigned to the case, and the Senator says it was her decision.

· The 30 second call that scuttled the whole deal consisted of Chavez asking the Colombian military how many Colombian soldiers are actually in captivity. Yes, three months in and the Colombians had never shared this type of information with their negotiator.

You might conclude that their hearts were never in this peace thing from the get-go, especially considering that Alvaro Uribe was practically raised by drug lords and that just about every prominent member of his administration (and family!) are facing charges of colluding with death squads. And lord knows the Bush administration’s multi-billion dollar investment in the never-ending cycle of violence trumps three little old American lives in this profitable global bloodbath.

Thank God we’ve got a diligent press core down there to bring investigative perspective and context to this story so we’re getting more than just the ridiculous Bush Administration line that everything was just fine until Chavez opened his big fat mouth. Haha just kidding.