...the "miracle laptop" as "legitimate," I want to cite some important points in Greg Palast's analysis of Uribe/Colombia's "selective" release of info from the laptop:
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The US press snorted up this line about Chavez’ $300 million to “terrorists” quicker than the young Bush inhaling Colombia’s powdered export.
What the US press did not do is look at the evidence, the email in the magic laptop....
...here is, in translation, the one and only mention of the alleged $300 million from Chavez:
“… With relation to the 300, which from now on we will call "dossier," efforts are now going forward at the instructions of the boss to the cojo (slang term for ‘cripple’), which I will explain in a separate note. Let's call the boss Ángel, and the cripple Ernesto.”
Got that? Where is Hugo? Where’s 300 million? And 300 what? Indeed, in context, the note is all about the hostage exchange with the FARC that Chavez was working on at the time (December 23, 2007) at the request of the Colombian government.
Indeed, the entire remainder of the email is all about the mechanism of the hostage exchange. Here’s the next line:
“To receive the three freed ones, Chavez proposes three options: Plan A. Do it to via of a ‘humanitarian caravan’; one that will involve Venezuela, France, the Vatican(?), Switzerland, European Union, democrats (civil society), Argentina, Red Cross, etc.”
As to the 300, I must note that the FARC’s previous prisoner exchange involved 300 prisoners. Is that what the ‘300’ refers to? ¿Quien sabe? Unlike Uribe, Bush and the US press, I won’t guess or make up a phastasmogoric story about Chavez mailing checks to the jungle.
To bolster their case, the Colombians claim, with no evidence whatsoever, that the mysterious “Angel” is the code name for Chavez. But in the memo, Chavez goes by the code name … Chavez.(MORE)
http://www.gregpalast.com/300-million-from-chavez-to-farc-a-fake/-------------------------------
Liars and propagandists like Alvaro Uribe and his pal Bush Jr. count on the general public's ignorance of facts and details, and on the incompetence or maliciousness of the corpo-fascist press in helping to keep the public ignorant, when they create false narratives like this--that Chavez was "funding terrorists." Palast debunks key points like the spurious use of the number "300" to invent money (from Chavez to the FARC). He also makes the very important point that Uribe/Colombia had publicly ASKED Chavez to negotiate with the FARC for hostage releases. In other words, Uribe/Colombia SET Chavez UP. Of course he's going to show up in a FARC laptop as he makes contact with them
in response to the Colombian government request!This was a very treacherous business and I have my reasons for believing that it was designed by none other than Donald Rumsfeld himself.*
Understanding that this was a SET-UP is important to understanding these cables, in which the Bush Junta's tool in Colombia, US Amb Wm Brownfield, describes the issue so neutrally. I often warn people not to take the cables at face value but to understand that there are various agendas at work here--for instance, the writer of the cable may be covering his own ass about something, or covering the CIA's ass. The more you know about the context, about the cable writer and about the people and events mentioned in the cables, the easier it is to spot lies, spin, cover stories, etc. Also, these are low security cables. This is very important to know because the cable may be meant to be leaked, and/or it may be specifically intended to be useful in future legal proceedings (--the sort of thing that a judge might be asked to look at "in chambers" for "national security reasons"--it never goes public, never gets scrutinized, but is usable as mute "witness" to whatever the writer or the government wants witnessed).
I think these are multiple-agenda cables but are primarily legal ass-covering. Uribe was spying on everybody--judges, prosecutors, opposition politicians, union leaders (probably for death squad hit lists), human rights groups, embassies, the Red Cross, etc. And he was likely spying on the governments of Venezuela, Ecuador, Argentina, Spain, Switzerland, France, possibly Brazil and others--anyone involved in the hostage release efforts and the peace effort to end Colombia's 70 year (!) civil war--and the U.S./Bush Junta was no doubt
helping Uribe to do all this spying. And it is a very short leap from illegal spying to "dirty tricks" and worse. The Bush Junta was very likely also helping Uribe with "dirty tricks" and worse.
This was very illegal spying--and Colombian prosecutors were investigating Uribe for possible prosecution for spying. Uribe and Brownfield had removed many death squad/drug traffic witnesses who might have nailed Uribe (or gotten too close to the Bush Cartel)--they were extradited to the U.S. and buried in the U.S. federal prison system--so the prosecutors were going after the spying, when, recently, the chief spying witness against Uribe was spirited out of Colombia and given instant asylum in the U.S. client state of Panama. (My guess is that CIA Director Panetta--a Daddy Bush pal--is covering Junior's trail, and the Bush Junta's trail in so far as Bush Cartel "made men" might be brought to justice--and arranged this asylum, which crippled the Colombian prosecutors' investigation of Uribe.)
Uribe is the criminal. He's tied to death squads, drug trafficking, bribery, ponzi schemes and other corruption, election fraud and illegal spying. He was basically running the Colombian government as a criminal enterprise. His main job for the Bush Junta was probably consolidating the trillion-plus dollar cocaine revenue stream into fewer hands, with the farcical U.S. "war on drugs" as the cover. ("Farcical" except for the many deaths that it has caused.) So it's pretty hilarious that this rancid character was making accusations against Chavez/Venezuela and Correa/Ecuador, whose hands couldn't be cleaner, by comparison, and who have harmed no one. But Uribe was running a script. And, as Brownfield composes this neutral-sounding, low security report on what Alvaro Uribe was doing to slander Hugo Chavez, he was likely, point by point, covering his own ass and many others.
CABLE QUOTE:
"The GOC would carefully review all material before release to filter material that could be damaging to the GOC. Then-Defense Minister Juan Manuel Santos promised to give the U.S. the full set of information coming from the computers "on the condition that the USG not release any information publicly or for attribution without prior consultation with the GOC." (--from the OP) (my emphasis)
This, of course, "establishes" the impression (i.e., for legal or political purposes) that the U.S. didn't
already have a "full set of information"--which it certainly did have, if my surmise is correct, that Rumsfeld's "Office of Special Plans"* designed the whole plot (or some other spook outfit within, or 'contracted' to, the U.S. government). Brownfield was/is an "insider" (as they say) and would have been fully privy to the bullcrap that Uribe was putting out. I think he's really telling a story here, to distance himself and others from the "miracle laptop" (should it go bad--which it did), complete with his giving it a faintly sleazy odor-- "selective leaking"--as if he were picking up a dead mouse and putting it outside.
One last thing: When Interpol examined the "miracle laptop" and said that it could not be used as evidence in a court of law, because of the broken chain of custody, they deliberately did NOT employ ANY Spanish translators, because they did NOT want to address the CONTENTS of the laptop. Those contents--the leaked bits--have since been thoroughly debunked--and the Colombian government didn't dare provide Rafael Correa with the full content, when he requested it. (They gave him an unreadable, corrupted disk--and that's the last I heard of the matter.) So you see how useful Brownfield's mannered description of this business is, now that the truth is out there. Brownfield didn't make it to Asst Sec of State for the Western Hemisphere for no reason. He's a clever ass-coverer. (And this isn't the first evidence of it.)
I think they were watching Raul Reyes and the 24 sleeping people in his camp--and the last hopes for peace--die, in a live feed to the "war room" in the U.S. embassy in Bogota, as the U.S. "smart bombs" found their target. A truly ugly and terrible business, these cables were covering up.
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*(Rumsfeld published an op-ed in the Washington Post on the morning of the first scheduled, Chavez-negotiated hostage release (12/1/07), stating that Chavez's help with hostage releases "is not welcome in Colombia." Uribe had rescinded his request for Chavez's aid only a couple of days before. Rumsfeld's title is "The Smart Way to Defeat Tyrants like Chavez." Among the oddities about this op-ed is the fact that Rumsfeld was no longer an official in the Bush Junta. He'd resigned as Def Secretary a full year before. What was his interest in these hostage negotiations "south of the border"? I think the whole treacherous plan was his idea. It smells of Rumsfeld. And, although the military brass and Daddy Bush had given him the "thumbs down" (over Iran) a full year before these events in Colombia, he had a proprietary interest in how well the "miracle laptop" was going to play. First, they were going to hand Chavez a diplomatic disaster, with dead hostages (the Colombian military's firing on the first hostages as they were released). Then, they were really going to shaft him with the doctored laptop "discovered" in Reyes' camp (which they'd blown to smithereens with 500 lb U.S. "smart bombs").)
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