US Government Given Heads Up on Rescue Attempt of Columbian Hostages. Did Bush administration pass it on to McCain's campaign? European news is reporting the hostages were released because of a deal i

Amazingly McCain decides to go to Columbia in a hurriedly announced 3 day trip to South America that astounds his campaign staff at a time that gets him there just as an incredible hostage rescue happens and is being celebrated.

Notice that even a TV news source is surprised that McCain's one day in Columbia turns out to be the one day that long term hostages are rescued.

From ABC First Alert (KCRG Iowa) "McCain Visits Columbia;Gets Backing From Christian Leaders ":

 some, including Dan Balz of the Washington Post are wondering why, as a presidential candidate, John McCain is even in Columbia in the first place.

Interestingly enough, fifteen hostages were rescued from FARC rebels during McCain’s visit, including 3 Americans and Columbian politician Ingrid Betancourt, according to the latest reports from CNN.

Dan Balz in the Washington Post piece linked in the  First Alert excerpt above notes:

Even McCain seems defensive about his short foray into Latin America -- his itinerary includes a stop in Mexico before returning to the United States for the holiday weekend -- as was evident by his appearance on ABC's "Good Morning America" Wednesday.

Before host Robin Roberts could even pose a question, McCain was explaining why he was there and what he was dong and that he would be home soon. He said he would be in Colombia only one day, in Mexico only one day and that the issues of free trade and drug trafficking were important enough to warrant his visit.

...

By November (probably even by August), McCain's trip to Latin America will have been long forgotten, but it is a symbol now of a campaign that has yet to find its cruising speed. The time spent in Colombia and Mexico matters less than the message it sends -- or perhaps more correctly, the absence of a message that it sends. What is McCain trying to tell voters by this visit?

The answer might lie in knowing that the Bush administration, not only got a heads up on the pending rescue attempt, they got one early enough that the US could provide a medical crew and transport plane. (Columbia doesn't have any of those?)  as first admitted in LA Times "15 hostages freed as FARC is fooled in cunning operation "

But another military official acknowledged that the United States had been told of the rescue plan in advance, which allowed U.S. officials to provide a transport plane and a team of medical personnel.

"They had given us enough heads-up so we could have the aircraft standing by in the event they went ahead with the mission and it was successful," said the officer. "We were aware enough of the planning to be ready to respond with the aircraft and the medical team."

But wait, what a difference a day makes.

A report on July 4th in the LA Times "Colombia hostage rescue by deception " indicates a lot more involvement:

For several weeks Colombian armed forces constructed a fake universe, and with help from U.S. intelligence and equipment, managed to fool the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia insurgent group into giving up 15 hostages Wednesday, including former senator and presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt and three U.S. defense contractors.

... 

The risks were high: one U.S. official gave it only a 50% chance of success.

Had the operation failed, the United States was prepared to participate in a "Plan B," which would have sent, within 15 minutes, 2,000 Colombian troops and U.S. advisors aboard 39 helicopters to within half a mile of the site.

A medical crew and transport?  Yeah, right.

But wait there's more!  Barney, show our readers what they get with the above steaming pile of fertilizer from our dirty tricks government:

 About 100 full time employees at the U.S. Embassy here have been working on freeing the hostages from the United States -- Marc Gonsalves, Thomas Howes and Keith Stansell -- since February 2003. They were taken captive after their drug surveillance plane crash-landed in the jungle. A fourth colleague was killed.

U.S. help included surveillance cameras that were placed along rivers the rebels were known to traverse. The U.S. also provided satellite imagery and the technology that helped the Colombians locate the rebels. The decision to go ahead with the mission went all the way to President Bush, who in recent days gave his approval, a U.S. government source said.

  Ding ding ding ding!

 Yes, folks for only nearly 30% of your income a year to the federal government you get a bunch of yokels that continually lie to you and manipulate the government, sometimes even to the point of starting wars, to help big campaign contributors acd pass on insider information to other political allies!

 I guess we're lucky this time. They could have invaded Venezuela.

The main point is that it appears that information was leaked from the US government to John McCain so he could go share the spotlight in Columbia.  That's a pretty pathetic move, but informed and intelligent analysts couldn't find much of any reason for the dude to be so far down south.  Some think he was just lucky or are all these mainstream people trying to give us a hint without losing their job?

The LA Times' Top of the Ticket post John McCain's Latin excursion works out just fine, thank you very much thinks that the candidate was very, very, lucky, apparently.  Or are they laying it on just a bit too thick?  

Commenters  at Times' LA Plaza blog "Betancourt, U..S. hostages rescued from Colombian rebels"mention that European news sources believe they know the true story of why the hostages were released:

Coby Lubliner wrote (link under name goes to Mr. Lubliner's personal site.  To find his comment use link in paragraph above and scroll down):

 It's curious that neither the LA Times nor, as far as I can tell, any other US media have mentioned the report by the French Swiss Radio (info.rsr.ch) -- widely reported in Europe -- that the liberation of the hostages was achieved through the payment of a $20 million ransom, and that the dramatic rescue operation was a sham staged for the political benefit of President Uribe.

Hmmmm.  

Commenter onexge at the  same Times blog notes that contacts to make the bribe were created through the wife of one of the FARC guards.

Double Hmmmmm

Now the US-Columbia rescue story is beginning to look more like the kind of farce created by Rove's political office about the 'rescue' of Jessica Lynch. 

And still, the question remains about why this all happened on the day that John McCain landed in the nation for a one day visit.  If this was manufactured and done to boost McCain's standing with Latinos as the Mauritius    Times believed was at the root of his Columbia visit even before the apparent coincidental convergence , his campaign doesn't have much respect for Hispanic voters.  I think they deserve the truth, myself, and given an iota of truth from mainstream or a widely spread blog post, maybe they'll remind the Republicans not to think they're likely to be fooled with a sappy story of 'rescue'.

Bloggers not associated with the mainstream press are awake and blabbing about this:

Richard Blair at All Spin Zone in post "Coinkydinks? McCain Travels To Colombia; Hostages Freed " notes that one of McCain's backers had paid off Columbian terrorist militias already, though granted that was to a group on the other side of the spectrum.  (The writer's info came from a Huffington Post report "McCain Backer's Firm Pleaded Guilty To Funding Terrorist Group In Colombia".)  Blair says this smacks of the release of the Iranian hostages on the day that Reagon took office.

We now know through the writings of many people involved in that period -- including the autobiography of Bani Sadr the president of Iran at the time (My Turn to Speak:Iran,The Revolution,& Secret Deals With the U.S. ) and Barbara Honneger a member the Reagan Bush campaign and administration (October Surprise) and others like Gary Sick who wrote another book called October Surprise -- that there was actually a deal, first to keep the hostages in Iran until after the election and then to make a big splash to keep the poor hostages even longer so they would be released as Reagan took office.  This has provided fodder for right wing trolls for decades now about Reagan's toughness scaring Iranians, when it was really the result of a treasonous deal that kept Americans imprisoned in a hostile nation for months longer than necessary. Blackmail over that treason led to the Iran Contra deals later in Reagan's term. 

Yeah, this could be even worse than the lies about Jessica Lynch.  How much longer did the hostages in Columbia have to endure to get a slot on John McCain's campaign schedule so he could be in the nation on the exact day they were released.

tags: betancourt  columbia  john mccain  bush  latino vote  hispanics  weasly  

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