Colombia 'foiled attempt on Bush' (assassination)

[Lone_Star_Dem]

Saturday, 27 November, 2004, 04:00 GMT

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4047199.stm

By Jeremy McDermott
BBC, Colombia

There was tight security around the Bush visit
The largest guerrilla group in Colombia ordered an assassination attempt on US President George W Bush during a recent visit there, a senior official says.
Colombian Defence Minister Jorge Alberto Uribe said Mr Bush was targeted in the city of Cartagena last Monday.

Informers and other intelligence sources revealed the attempt, he said.

The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) have long accused the US of meddling in the country's 40-year civil war.

The Farc's seven-man ruling body ordered guerrilla units to make an attempt on Mr Bush's life, Mr Uribe said.

More...

[Name removed]

1. Deleted message

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[Mojambo]

2. Not a wise question to even be pondering

IMO.

[Name removed]

4. Deleted message

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[Lone_Star_Dem]

5. It's inflammatory and not productive (nt)

[bearfan454]

3. Cheney's running the show anyway.

He's still an evil fuck though.

[katmondoo]

7. Cheney may be running the show but--====

Bush is the Cult figure. I cannot see Cheney generating the same amount of worship that the a**hole receives.

[St. Jarvitude]

6. Gee, what a strange question for you to ask.

:eyes:

[Name removed]

8. Deleted message

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[aquart]

9. Do you know what an agent provocateur is?

So do we.

[0007]

41. Thank you aquart

[Stand and Fight]

53. Thanks!

Couldn't have said it any better myself -- it's so transparent that it is very scary.

[Flagg]

10. Mind your own business Colmbians.

[The Backlash Cometh]

14. True. Bush is a nutcase, but he's OUR nutcase.

I'd rather see him go in disgrace like Nixon.

[donsu]

27. he is not just our nutcase - the bloody hands bushgang is a danger

to the entire world.

[foo_bar]

17. American politics is their chief import

in the wake of their chief export. Gives new meaning to Ross Perot's "sucking sound".

[donsu]

26. why should Colombians mind their own business, the U S has stuck it's

nose in Columbia's business including murders

[JerseygirlCT]

47. Honestly?

I'd much rather see him brought to justice than murdered like this.

I don't want any fools making some sort of perverted martyr out of the man. Let him face the music here at home. Let's hope if there's any justice out there, that's what he has to do someday.

[Stand and Fight]

55. Precisely.

I'd truly like to see justice served to the bastard. There is a reason that I do not believe in the death penalty. There are far better ways to see Bush and his minions pay for their foulness.

[Name removed]

60. Deleted message

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[izzie]

11. Yar,yar yar this always turns up at the right time.

What bill does Bush want to get done now? A cut in capital gains tax would be a good pay back for his un-safe life in the bubble. Poor man!

[Name removed]

12. Deleted message

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[Name removed]

31. Deleted message

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[Judi Lynn]

13. A ridiculous lie.They would know he's the most protected jerk in the world

I'm certain this is simply yet another yarn. He has been super protected all his life.

It's our own rightwing lunatics who actually plot and scheme against the lives of others. They are the ones who are going to have to account someday for their bitter, murderous, hate-filled lives.

Everyone else is simply trying to make it.

This is yet another stupid, goofy lie hatched to create a sense of importance to the image of a truly unimportant man.

[Demeter]

15. Like Bush "Saving" A Secret Service Guy

Right. Probably wanted the "nucular" football, is all.

[hippiechick]

18. Yepper.

Let's make the Murkan people revere the Moron In Chief even more, by stretching the tall tale every way we can:

"Brave, heroic President Bush, doing all that hard work around the world, trying to liberate all those heathens ... why, I bet they don't even have a Wal-Mart in Colombia yet !"

:hippie:

[ronnykmarshall]

28. Off topic ...

Who's the HOTTIE on your avtar?

[hippiechick]

48. Hey Ronnyk !!

:hi:

His name is Chris Brassard, he's a Canadian hunk who plays hockey for the Boosier-Shreveport Mudbugs.

www.mudbugshockey.com


His wife has no idea how LUCKY she is !!!! :loveya:



:hippie:

[ronnykmarshall]

49. Yowsa!

mmmmm! mmmmm! mmmmMMM!

What a stud!



His wife's a beauty too!

[hippiechick]

50. OMG Where did you find that pic ?

:wow: I don't have that one in my collection !! That shirt matches his eyes perfectly !! YUMMY !!!

I do have a really cool one of them at this summer's booster club picnic, though. :)

I am SO jealous that I just had to cut her out of the pic !!!

http://www.iuploads.com>


:hippie:

[ronnykmarshall]

52. Attta girl!

I did a yahoo search on his name.

That is one FINE man!

[hippiechick]

54. I'll arm wrestle ya for him !!

Last time they were in Indy, I made a HUGE sign that said "Hey Chris, I (heart) You !!" and stood with it up against the glass during pre-game warm ups.

Very few men can turn me into a drooling idiot, but ... oh my, he IS one beautiful and talented human being. :loveya:

http://www.iuploads.com>

:hippie:

[VegasWolf]

58. Girls, girls, to settle it I'll give you a picture of me. n/t

[hippiechick]

59. Only if ya play hockey, Wolfie ...

:loveya:


:hippie:

[pokercat999]

67. I tried hockey once but the ice was too cold on my "stick".

[Name removed]

69. Deleted message

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[bemildred]

21. Emmanuel Goldstein "said to be" planning an attack on our "Dear Leader"

I just love bald way Uribe claims to know what goes on in the planning
sessions of the FARC leadership.

[Robbien]

22. This story is also trying to counter the comparison to Clinton's visit

Clinton toured the city and gave speeches to the crowd. Bush went to a protected compound on an island. There were articles complaining about how Bush's visit would not help the tourist industry like Clinton's visits did.

[jdj]

44. Meanwhile, dems wonder why Colombia would attack it's best customer ever?

I bet Bush got his frequent customer card punched while he was there.

[Bush_Eats_Beef]

30. My IMMEDIATE reaction: "This smells like a Karl Rove set-up"

What a MAGNIFICENT story to accompany the COWBOY BRAVERY of our beloved leader, who risked his own safety to "rescue" his loyal bodyguard in that hell-hole known as Chile, just one more place in the world where they hate us for our freedom.

Sorry, but this is like driving down the road after someone's just hit a skunk. The sheer, unadulterated STENCH of this story won't go away.

It's a LIE, boys and girls.

[Judi Lynn]

37. As long as Bush can claim there has been an assassination plot

he will give himself absolute freedom to act out any homicidal fantasy, engage any number of unique human lives in slaughtering totally innocent people to extend and heighten his exploitation of power not honestly earned.

[American liberal]

38. That was my initial reaction as well

It's RW PR, is all.

[BiggJawn]

16. What'd they do? Find some poisoned Coke?

"Good thing we find this before The Gringo snuffled it all up his beak, eh, Jose?"

"Si. Hope the stuff he took home for his Papa is OK..."

[Pepperbelly]

25. LOL! nt

[CatWoman]

34. you are just SO bad!!

that is so damn funny!!!!!!!!

:D :D :D :D

[AllyCat]

19. They don't have to do that...just arrest and try him.

I don't like the Chimp, but I abhor the death penalty (formal or informal) even more. Not even an evil twig deserves that. Just somebody arrest him and detain him, that's all we need.

[proud2BlibKansan]

29. Did anyone else hear

there was a warrant for *"s arrest issued by an international court? And the WH asked the South Americans to agree not to enforce the warrant before they agreed on this recent visit? Is that a hot rumor or is there some truth to it?

[AllyCat]

32. Have not heard this.

Anyone have a source? That would just be too sweet, but I know it probably won't happen.

The day this happens there will be parties in the streets! :party:

[212demop]

40. That was in Chile-- I remember Mike Malloy having a field day

thinking Bush would touch down on Terra Chile and get arrested, or have to cancel the trip and face international disgrace. Obviously, neither came to pass. Our president is truly blessed.

[Gyre]

20. Well I think it's safe to say

That I can certainly see why THEY would think that "his chimperial majesty" is worth whacking.

Gyre

[leesa]

23. So is this all being staged for the build-up to overthrow oil-rich and

cocaine rich Columbia and "free" its people?

[Pallas180]

24. Leesa - my thought exactly.How much oil in Columbia & are they switching

to Euros?

2 big reasons the chimp invades.

[jwirr]

33. Don't forget the coke!

It is very interesting that drugs were a side business in the Iran/Contra issue, the Aphganistan issue and now it would be a side issue in Columbia. And the bushies were knee deep in all these issues. Wonder who was making the money off the drugs?

[ilovenicepeople]

43. Sounds logical to me "You Got Oil,You need Democracy"

[Baja Margie]

35. This has really nothing to do with the post

well, sorta, but remember when George Bush the First was on the War Against Drugs thing and his advise to the Colombian farmers was to grow another crop ? His suggestion was Crysanthemums.

Anyway, I don't know whether or not I believe this story, sounds like they're trying to make a martyr saint out of the chimpy. If the Shining Path wanted to get rid of Bush they would, real quick. Plus, the Cartels are doing good business with Bush in office, Daddy Bush goes back a long way with these dudes.

[arwalden]

36. An Assassination Would Be HORRIBLE...

There would be more George W. Bush* memorial buildings, memorial monuments, memorial highways, memorial bridges, memorial airports... and they might even find a way to put his ugly face on a coin!!

Just let me get through the next four years... let this COUNTRY get through it without having to turn him into a martyr that gets iconized and worshiped.

[amazona]

39. any merit to this story ?

"Informers" and "intelligence sources" making wild claims do not convince me that anything of the kind actually occurred.

[Chicago Democrat]

42. who believes this?

not me...

show me proof

[genieroze]

45. Oh sure, riiiight.

[Name removed]

46. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[stepnw1f]

51. SUREEEEEE

Another political pre-emption tactic to rally the citizens for another invasion probably. That or some more criminal activity for the Bush Dynasty. These people make me sick.

[Stand and Fight]

56. Rage Against the Machine

The Bush propaganda machine is in full swing now. I don't buy this story for anything. Just putting their brave leader on a higher pedestal of nonsense and bullshit.

[angrydemocrat]

57. I Think It Is All A Bunch Of BS

All this crap is, is a attempt to get people here to rally behind the a$$hole. Which will never happen. Truth be known alot of people that are hearing this BS now are sitting back thinking it is to bad it was just a attempt sure as hell wouldn't be no love loss except for the right wing nuts that think he is Jesus's brother that has been put here to save them all. It's not like this ba$tard is another JFK. This ba$tard couldn't hold a candle to JFK. Give me a break like I said this is nothing but pure BS!

[bear425]

61. CNN link

http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/americas/11/27/bush-plot/index.html

[bemildred]

62. The importants parts:

Uribe said no evidence of the alleged plot by the group -- Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia or FARC -- has been recovered.

---

FARC has frequently been accused of targeting visiting international leaders for assassination.

---

"The plots against the president's life don't seem to have advanced very far," Muse said.

[Judi Lynn]

63. No evidence! Figures, doesn't it? So typical.

The story that _Bush was a target for assassination would be a good rationale for the 15,000 troops sent to guard his cowardly a$$. Otherwise, it might just seem stupid!

[antigone382]

64. 15,000 troops! Really?

Not that I'm really surprised, but where did you get that figure?

[Judi Lynn]

66. There was a thread about it earlier.

Did a quick google for Bush Colombia 15,000 and found this, as well as similar references in other sources:

Last Updated: Saturday, 27 November, 2004, 04:00 GMT

Colombia 'foiled attempt on Bush'
By Jeremy McDermott
BBC, Colombia

....The Colombian authorities insisted that the attempt was thwarted by the heavy security net thrown up around the US president which, apart from his own secret service details, included 15,000 members of the Colombian security forces.
(snip/...)

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4047199.stm

[antigone382]

71. Geez, there's a valuable use of security forces

I wonder what they could have been doing to keep their own people safe, instead of "protecting" the boy/dicktator in a bubble.

Thanks for the info :)

[Judi Lynn]

72. Just a few of these security people would have been helpful

had the Colombian government felt it appropriate to send them along with DEMOCRATIC Senator Paul Wellstone on one of his visits to Colombia, when he was suddenly drenched in herbicide by a gummint airplane. You may remember the event...

In his own words, from a speech:

Putumayo, where the spraying has been principally concentrated, reports over 4,000 people with skin or gastric disorders, above and beyond normal averages. In January and February alone, over 175,000 animals were killed in that region. All had been sprayed with Round-Up and Cosmo Flux, a Colombian-made mix.

Mr. President, in light of this mounting evience, I don't believe that we can sit idly by as U.S. taxpayer dollars go toward such a policy. The environmental consequences are serious. The health effects are concerning at best, deadly at worst.

This is an especially personal issue for me. As the only United States Senator to withstand aerial fumigation, I feel I have a unique obligation to address this matter forcefully. When I visited Colombia last year, I was sprayed with glyphosate. At the time, I had little idea of the threats that such activity entailed.
(snip/...)

http://www.ciponline.org/colombia/102423.htm

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Senator Wellstone was loathed by some wingnuts for his intense drive to arrive at decent solutions a long time before he was killed.

I would say beyond all doubt there was far more of a threat to Wellstone anytime he even THOUGHT of going to Colombia (remember it was revealed they found a bomb planted on the road where he was expected to travel ALSO, in a different occassion) than to _{"I'm the War President" Bush:}

Bomb discovered in Colombia before visit of U.S. senator, ambassador

U.S. Sen. Paul Wellstone

December 1, 2000
Web posted at: 12:41 p.m. EST (1741 GMT)

From staff and wire reports

BOGOTA, Colombia -- Police in Colombia said Friday they had discovered a roadside bomb outside a town hours before a U.S. senator and U.S. ambassador were to visit.

Sen. Paul Wellstone, a Democrat from Minnesota, and U.S. Ambassador Anne Patterson were the likely targets, Police Col. Jose Miguel Villar said.
However, a U.S. State Department official in Washington said Patterson told department officials by telephone that she did not see it as an assassination attempt. Another official, also asking for anonymity, added that it is not unusual for such devices to be found in Barrancabermeja, considering the town's reputation for violence.

Villar said officers found two shrapnel-wrapped land mines alongside the road leading from Barrancabermeja's airport into the town just hours before Wellstone and Patterson were scheduled to arrive on Thursday. Wellstone and Patterson, a former assistant secretary of state and former ambassador to El Salvador, were visiting Barrancabermeja, 250 kilometers (155 miles) north of Bogota, to offer support to human rights activists there.
(snip)

Villar said the visit was public knowledge, but secret plans had already been in place to transport the U.S. officials into town via helicopter.
(snip)

Villar said police had not confirmed that Wellstone and Patterson were the targets, but said blasts from the devices, each carrying a 3-kilogram (6.6-pound) explosive charge, would have been severe.

"If the bomb had gone off, it could have caused immense damage," he said. "It would have spread shrapnel over a wide area and could have taken out 10 or 15 people."

Barrancabermeja has been described as the most violent town in Colombia. The region is plagued by right-wing paramilitaries and leftist rebels vying for control.
(snip/...)

http://archives.cnn.com/2000/WORLD/americas/12/01/colombia.wellstone.03/



~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

You may remember, Colombia's President Álvaro Uribe recently has scorned and denounced human rights activists in Colombia. Here's a look at his background:

May 24, 2004

President Uribe’s Hidden Past

by Tom Feiling

Colombia’s President Alvaro Uribe is, by his own admission, a man of the right. Unlike most recent Colombian presidents, Uribe is from the land-owning class. He inherited huge swathes of cattle ranching land from his father Alberto Uribe, who was subject to an extradition warrant to face drug trafficking charges in the United States until he was killed in 1983, allegedly by leftist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) guerrillas. Alvaro Uribe grew up with the children of Fabio Ochoa, three of who became leading players in Pablo Escobar’s Medellín cocaine cartel.

President Uribe’s credentials are impeccable. He was educated at Harvard and Oxford, is as sharp as a tack, and a very able bureaucrat. At the tender age of 26 he was elected mayor of Medellín, the second-largest city of Colombia. The city’s elite in the 1980s was rich, corrupt and nepotistic, and they loved the young Uribe. But the new mayor was removed from office after only three months by a central government embarrassed by his public ties to the drug mafia. Uribe was then made Director of Civil Aviation, where he used his mandate to issue pilots’ licenses to Pablo Escobar’s fleet of light aircraft, which routinely flew cocaine to the United States.

In 1995, Uribe became governor of the Antioquia department, of which Medellín is the capital. The region became the testing ground for the institutionalization of paramilitary forces that he has now made a key plank of his presidency. Government-sponsored peasant associations called Convivir’s were “special private security and vigilance services, designed to group the civilian population alongside the Armed Forces.”
(snip)

Mapiripán is the site of one of the worst paramilitary massacres to date, yet many of the town’s residents voted for the “paramilitary” candidate, Uribe. Father Javier Giraldo of the Colombian human rights group Justicia y Paz was in Mapiripán on election day: “There was a great deal of fraud. There were paramilitaries in the voting booths. They destroyed a lot of ballots. This was denounced to the Ombudsman, but nothing happened.” Electoral fraud, widespread paramilitary threats—denounced by virtually all the other candidates during the election campaign—and the almost total decimation of the electoral left in the preceding decade all contributed to Uribe’s election victory.

Though Uribe has vowed that his “democratic security” platform will bring peace and security to all Colombians, statistics from the Trade Union School in Medellín show continued threats to trade unionists and human rights activists. The number of trade unionists killed in 2003 declined to a “mere” 90, suggesting that the paramilitaries were being reigned in a little. But the number of death threats issued were 20 percent higher, and death threats to trade unionists’ families were up by 30 percent. Police raids, mass detentions and forced “disappearances” are also all higher than the previous year.

Uribe is clamping down on the opposition, while sidling yet closer to the Republican White House in Washington. Uribe was the only South American leader to back President George W. Bush’s invasion of Iraq. At the time, he even went so far as to invite the United States to invade Colombia. Uribe hopes to double the size of the Colombian Armed Forces, and has asked the United States for more helicopters and greater involvement in areas such as intelligence gathering. Many in the Bush administration are keen to see the United States expand its multi-billion dollar military investment in “Plan Colombia.” U.S. Army Lt. Gen. James T. Hill, for example, recently told a Senate committee, “It would be a terrible loss if democracy failed in Colombia. You need to let me get on the ground.”
(snip/...)

http://www.colombiajournal.org/colombia185.htm

[Cocoa]

65. Jenna will avenge this

when she gets elected President.

[Judi Lynn]

68. Slimey Colombian politics ALWAYS protect the barbaric paramilitaries

Everyone recognizes, who reads anything at all about Colombia, that there is a VERY strong bond between the Colombian military, and the right-wing death squad paramilitaries, the chain saw killers.

Colombia's Gamble: Give a Death Squad Some Big Concessions
By JUAN FORERO

Published: November 28, 2004


ANTA FE DE RALITO, Colombia — DIEGO FERNANDO MURILLO, one of the most feared commanders of Colombia's right-wing death squads, is wanted for cocaine trafficking in the United States and for mass murder in his country.

But on a recent day, he struck the comfortable pose of a gentleman farmer, relaxing without a care at the sprawling ranch where he lives outside this town in Colombia's northwestern cattle-grazing region. Attractive female waiters brought his lunch and fresh-squeezed juice. An aide scampered to answer ringing phones or fetch newly printed documents.

Pressed to talk about the group's tactics, Mr. Murillo offered no remorse for a reign of terror that has killed thousands and earned his organization, the United Self-Defense Forces, a spot on the State Department's list of terrorist organizations, along with the two Marxist rebel groups that his paramilitaries fight. Nor did he say that he or other commanders should ever serve jail time or pay reparations.

"Look," said Mr. Murillo, wearing a white T-shirt and sitting behind a desk, "we have also been victims in this conflict."

Colombia's government, with backing from the Bush administration, is moving quickly to strike a deal with the group that could lead to the disarmament of thousands of its fighters but, critics say, permit men like Mr. Murillo to avoid ever paying for their crimes. The demobilization is part of a plan, linked to Washington's effort to stop the cocaine trade, to end one of the most calamitous eras of killing and anarchy in Latin American history, a 40-year conflict that has killed at least 200,000 people.
(snip/...)

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/28/weekinreview/28fore.html
(Free registration is required)



Carlos Castaño, leader of
Colombia's feared AUC
paramilitary group, in a photo
dated Feb. 20, 2001 (Photo: AFP).

[roughandtumble]

70. What, they confiscated the comped pretzels?

Hid the beer? Stowed the bicycles, mopeds and segways? What?

[Carl Brennan]

73. This is so idiotic. FARC doesn't have the resources to waste on

bumping off the chimp and what good would it do anyway for their cause? As if Bush being out of the way would change anything. :eyes:

[chenGOD]

74. Any odds on Colombia seeing an increase in US aid?

My theory is that this is a nice little scenario that Cheney, Bush, Rummy and Rove cooked up. Rove likes it cause it makes it look like there's more terrorism in the world. Cheney and Rummy like it cause they get to give more aid (be it military or in the form of Halliburton setting up shop down there for them to profit from) to increase the US military presence in fighting the war on drugs/terra and Bush likes it cause he gets to go to Colombia and snort YAYO.

Anyone else want to take some odds that Colombia is the recipient of some more US aid in the next budget?

[lonestarnot]

75. Geeze, I look surprised.....

(LOL)

[IndianaGreen]

76. brought to you by the same people that said Saddam plotted against Bush

this is nothing more than a lie by the liars that run Colombia on behalf of the ruling elites. The purpose of the lie is to fool the easily fooled American public into committing more troops to the genocide known as "Plan Colombia," which ranks as one of Clinton's more immoral legacies right alongside Monica's stained dress.

It is not an accident that this lie is published right after Rumsfeld went to the region and told the military that they had an obligation to defend "democratic" interests in the region (whatever that means!).