Blowback, Pakistani Style

The prevailing Western narrative concerning the massive blast that destroyed the Marriott Hotel in Islamabad is that this 9/11 style outrage will shove some GWOT backbone up the ass of Pakistan’s elites and compel them to get serious about the extremists they’ve been coddling on Pakistan’s western border with Afghanistan.

Much of the anger and concern are genuine and understandable. However, I also detect a note of determined special pleading, particularly by American security analysts, in the efforts to downplay the significance of a destabilizing factor in Pakistani security that is tacitly acknowledged but determinedly ignored by almost everybody pushing the current military program in Afghanistan and western Pakistan—the profound unpopularity of the US-led military effort in South Asia.

The Marriott blast is, in some ways, an opportunity to turn the focus away from some awkward facts: that Pakistan’s best days in Afghanistan were during the Taliban era, and Pakistan has no real interest in helping NATO establish a viable, pro-US regime in Kabul; that there is a distinct lack of urgency in Pakistan’s desire to bring al-Qaeda and Osama bin-Laden to justice; and there is widespread detestation of the US policy of military confrontation against the Pakistani Taliban in pursuit of NATO’s pro-Karzai, anti-al-Qaeda objectives.

And there is widespread dismay, fear, and anger inside Pakistan that NATO’s recent escalation to unilateral incursions inside Pakistan in order to rescue its tottering project in Kabul has provoked the borderland extremists to attack the encirclement campaign against it by assaulting its weakest link—the Pakistani political will to endure a campaign of urban terror for the sake of Western GWOT objectives in Afghanistan.

Packaging the Marriott blast as the impetus for a sea change in Pakistani attitudes gives the West the chance to avoid mentioning the elephant in the room: the fact that most knowledgeable observers characterize the attack as calculated blowback inside the Pakistani heartland in retaliation for US-led efforts to carry the war against the Taliban and al-Qaeda in the remote border areas.

As one prescient blogger wrote back in August (full disclosure: it was me):

As Western forces surge into Afghanistan in an effort to defeat the burgeoning Taliban insurgency by assaulting its havens in Pakistan, expect the Pakistani Taliban to retaliate—against Pakistan, in the Pakistani heartland—in order to demonstrate to Pakistani opinion the unacceptably high costs of providing material support to an unpopular American strategy.

In the lede for his September 23 front page article, Analysts fear Pakistan could fall to extremists, for the LA Times, Henry Chu chose to adopt the conventional framing:

…the devastating truck bombing of the Marriott Hotel over the weekend has presented government and military leaders here with a stark choice: Go all out against the extremists or risk the nation’s collapse into chaos.

He also quotes from an editorial in Pakistan’s The News which provides the kind of “it’s us vs. them” framing that American foreign policy experts must have found quite heartening:

“It is time we accepted this war is our own…There must be a consensus across society about the need to act with unity and determination to save what still remains or our wounded country.”

However, beneath these brave words, the traditional equivocation concerning the wisdom of Pakistan’s alignment with the US in the GWOT still persists.

The very editorial quoted by Chu goes on to say:

The opinions we still hear everywhere, in roadside cafes, in offices - and among the country’s establishment - that the militants who have entrenched themselves in northern areas are ‘good’ people, that force should not be used against them - is one reason why we today face such high levels of peril. Pakistan is now rated as the most dangerous place in the world. All those who have seen the charred graveyard of vehicles, of trees torn apart, of ash covering green belts, of people writhing in hospital beds, will not disagree with this assessment. Yet the fact that so many still believe the forces capable of the mayhem we saw in Islamabad on Saturday deserve some kind of protection, that they deserve to be regarded as men of honour with whom dialogue is possible, explains why they have so far proved invincible. Such thinking needs to change.

The News itself is aggressively pursuing a story of a mysterious delivery of steel cases of equipment guarded by US Marines and exempted from security screening to the Marriott a few days before the blast, along with the allegations that the CIA had taken over a block of rooms on the fourth floor long term to use as espionage bases. It also reports:

A hotel employee, on condition of not being named, confided that the hotel management had been receiving threats from unknown persons for the last six months to get the US officials vacated from the hotel.

So there’s an alternative narrative that places the Marriott outrage comfortably within the category of “Pakistani security as collateral damage in the struggle between Islamic radicals and the United States over Afghanistan.”

In this context, it is interesting to consider the views of Nawaz Sharif.

Sharif is best known in the West as the prime minister of Pakistan who was deposed by Musharraf.

In fact, he is the leader of Pakistan’s premier opposition party, the PML-N, which recently abandoned the coalition with the ruling PPP; his party runs Punjab, Pakistan’s prosperous heartland and economic and electoral powerhouse.

Sharif cuts an imposing political figure, is the most well-regarded politician in Pakistan by a considerable margin, and stands a very good chance of coming out on top in the next parliamentary elections and heading the national government as prime minister.

Sharif has positioned his party as the voice of the urban Pakistan bourgeoisie and the champion of civil society, and sedulously courts and heeds public opinion.

His stature and political grasp make him a formidable rival to President Asif Zardari, the one-time grifter and professional spouse who is now America’s equivocal GWOT ally and client of the moment in Pakistan.

Sharif is also a firm and consistent of US-led GWOT operations on and inside Pakistan’s western borders, and that hasn’t changed since the Marriott blast.

And that’s probably why, despite Sharif’s position at the center of Pakistani political life and opinion, you don’t hear very much about him in the Western press.

Courtesy of the Babelfish meat grinder with edits for clarity, here is the gist of an interview Sharif gave the Italian newspaper La Republica (original Italian here; h/t to the Irish Times for being the only English-language outlet to pick up his remarks):


Who is behind the attack on the Marriott? “Someone coming from the tribal areas, perhaps from the zones in which the military operations they have caused many victims. The attack has all the air of a vendetta”.

One refers to the Taliban or Al Qaeda? “We attribute always every responsibility to the Taliban or Al Qaeda: this but is the point of view of the United States. For we the things are various. We know that in the tribal areas there are those who are neither Taliban nor men of Al Qaeda. There are religious persons much, this yes. But creed cannot be only spoken about Taliban or Al Qaeda”.

… “We would have to distinguish between terrorists and members of the tribes. I do not tolerate the use of the army against our people. We must find a negotiated solution.

Will the Taliban will continue to counterattack? “That features of Taliban or the pertaining relatives to the several tribes remained killed in the tribal areas, will sure be continued to counterattack till when the government does not stop the extermination. Those persons come killed like animals: the tribal areas are being transformed in real butcher shops

What thinks some about an eventual participation of the United States in the tribal areas of Pakistan? “We refuse any participation categorically American. The United States must attend to the facts they and to leave us to make what we must make. The USA would have to stop to acting in the role of international policeman”.

He refutes therefore that Pakistan will become " Talibanized"? “The majority of the Pakistani population is moderate and it does not have some propensity for extremism. Pakistan will not never become an extremist State”.

How would he advise the government? “The government must place immediately end any military participation in the tribal areas…The issue will not be able to be resolved with the force. I condemn the attack on the Marriott, but to condemn is not sufficient to straighten the things. We must resist the pressures of the United States and think with our own heads”.


A couple comments:

First, it is remarkable that a politician of Sharif’s stature and savvy would, in the aftermath of a major terrorist attack, eschew the blood and guts rhetoric for talk of political dialogue. It’s a sign that of the significant and perhaps decisive character of the popular and political forces willing to accept accommodation with the tribal areas.

Second, contra the apocalyptic prose of the LA Times, the main concern of the Pakistani elite is not that tribal extremists from a thinly populated hinterland will take over Pakistan, an urbanized, populous, and industrialized country of 120 million people. The main concern is that the democratic institutions haltingly restored in the post-Musharraf era will be swept aside by violent unrest and a return to military rule if Pakistan is forced to bow to the United States’ demand for an all or nothing military solution in Afghanistan and western Pakistan.

If there is an impulse for a change of course in Pakistan after this devastating instance of urban terrorism, it involves a third way: not signing on to the US-led military campaign, and abandoning a not-too-effective cycle of half-hearted confrontation and hasty conciliation, with one eye on the hefty US GWOT financial subvention and another on civil peace, with something more determined and effective.

In fact, when one reads the Pakistani commentary, one sees indications of an approach that tries to thread the needle between an aggressive anti-extremist security policy and an urgent need to decouple from US GWOT activities in Afghanistan and western Pakistan and give Islamabad the breathing space to use economic and political as well as military methods to isolate and marginalize the militants in its western borderlands.

In the worst case, this won’t involve whole-hearted support of US-led incursions into the Pakistani borderlands; it will involve Pakistan’s insistence that the aggravating fact of the US presence has turned a low-level political dispute into an existential crisis for Pakistan’s civilian government and society, and the demand that the survival of the Pakistan nation take precedence over the survival of America’s unpopular project in Afghanistan—the Karzai regime.

America Drinks the COIN Kool-aid...

and prepares for a new surge in Afghanistan that may doom Pakistan

American ignorance concerning Pakistani politics and society is profound. And, in the matter of the “surge” scheduled for Afghanistan for year-end 2008, it may be fatal.

U.S. observers, both on the left and right, view Pakistan primarily through the lens of the war on terror, in terms of Pakistan’s role in pumping military forces into its western frontier in order to help George W. Bush burnish his meager presidential legacy by getting Osama bin Laden’s head on a pike before he leaves office in January 2009; and to assist the West in rescuing its tottering political project in Afghanistan, the Karzai government.

As any responsible observer of Pakistan politics would tell you—all the Pakistani media majors all have English-language outlets—the Pakistanis view things completely differently.

They believe that unremitting American pressure on Pakistan is turning a serious but manageable problem—ethnic and Islamist extremism in the border regions—into an existential crisis that is ripping Pakistan apart.

In the days since Musharraf’s departure, Pakistan has been torn by a series of terrorist attacks, including a coordinated assault on Pakistan’s main armory near Islamabad, which left nearly 100 dead.

The attacks represent a highly persuasive demonstration by Taliban extremists that peace inside Pakistan’s central, urbanized core requires accommodation with the Taliban, and not participation in America’s escalating counter-inurgency campaign in Afghanistan’s east and Pakistan’s frontier provinces.

It is a message that Pakistan’s civilian, military, and intelligence leadership are ready to heed.

But it is a warning that America—including both its political and defense establishment and its two presidential candidates—are determined to disregard in the search for geopolitical advantage, multi-national military support, and votes.

Fatally, the supposed success of the troop surge in Iraq –and the desperate optimism and opportunism an apparent military panacea excites in American politics—is fueling calls for applying the same formula to the intractable Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan.

However, Afghanistan isn’t Iraq. And, more importantly, Pakistan ain’t Iran.

For Americans infatuated with the apparent success of the surge in Iraq—and its implied vindication of the comforting notion that the scientific application of American military might, brains, and money can succeed in even the most profoundly hostile environment—it is anathema to consider that the relative quiet in Iraq is not attributable to our astounding subtlety in paying off Sunni tribal leaders and malcontents who otherwise would be engaged in a doomed insurgency against U.S. rule and Shi’a domination.

Nope.

What’s probably standing between us and the continuation of our bloody debacle in Iraq is the fact that Iran has eschewed a strategy of political violence through its Iraqi proxies. Instead, it has decided to outwait the United State and secure its gains through the political ascendancy of the Shi’a.

The Dawa party, obedient clients of the Iranians, have downplayed their military struggle and instead form the backbone of Prime Minister Maliki’s government.

The normally nationalistic and anti-Iranian Shi’a cleric, Muqtada al-Sadr has, thanks to the threats of legal and personal jeopardy deployed by the American occupation, taken up residence in the Iranian holy city of Qom. Under the influence of Iran’s persuasion and perhaps onerous hospitality, al Sadr has apparently decided to discard armed struggle and endorse the political route to power.

Iranian pressure on Iraqi Shi’a forces to stand down is, in my opinion, why the surge has worked. (And it’s also the reason why, despite martial chest-thumping from the Right, an armed attack on Iran by the U.S. or even scorched earth economic sanctions targeting Teheran are unlikely).

American politicians look at the Iraqi surge and, by a flawed analogy, expect that an escalation of three or so brigades into Afghanistan by years’ end will tip the scales in our favor.

Barack Obama, eager to burnish his CINC qualifications by boosting our “good war” in Afghanistan, talks about pouring in troops. John McCain explictly links a troop increase in Afghanistan with the apparent success of the surge.

The analogies, however, founder, when it comes to the issue of the key western neighbor.

Compare and contrast Pakistan’s attitudes toward Afghanistan with Iran’s desire to stabilize Iraq on its currently favorable terms.

According to the U.S. think tank Terror Free Tomorrow (TFT), favorable opinions of Afghanistan are at an anemic 48% level.

Hamid Karzai and his U.S. backed regime simply aren’t very popular in Pakistan. Pakistani distaste for Karzai is eagerly reciprocated by the Afghan government and relations are pretty much in a deep freeze. The Karzai government will always be closer the United States and India, not Pakistan. The route to increased Pakistani influence in Kabul lies through the violent overthrow of the Afghani government by the Taliban, not by ensuring the Karzai regime’s continued survival and success.

The U.S. is responding to Pakistan’s lack of enthusiasm for saving Karzai’s bacon by unilateral military incursions into western Pakistan in order to root out the Taliban havens (and possible bin Laden hidey-holes) that Pakistan’s army and intelligence services have pursued so unenthusiastically.

However, escalating the violence in Pakistan’s border regions looks like a recipe for disaster.

American planners originally hoped that Musharraf’s armies would be the anvil upon which Western forces crushed the Taliban in eastern Afghanistan.

Pakistan is more like a rotten melon that will fly apart under the hammer blows of a U.S. counter-insurgency campaign in west Pakistan.

The political will inside Pakistan to support the U.S. adventure in Afghanistan is virtually non-existent. According to TFT, opposition to the GWOT clocked in at a thumping 72% in June, with “strongly opposed” at 60.4%. At that time, admittedly before the recent wave of Taliban attacks, over 50% of Pakistanis blamed the US for violence inside Pakistan; the Pakistani Taliban were blamed by only 4.2%--behind India and Pakistan’s own ISI!

The salient development in Pakistani politics in the last three months has not been the democratization of Pakistan and an increased or even sustained determination to combat terrorism; it has been the collapse of the political fortunes of two would-be American clients--Pervez Musharraf and the leader of Benazir Bhutto’s PPP, her widower Asif Zardari—and the political ascendancy of Nawaz Sharif of the opposition PML-N, whose conservative, non-aligned policies have resonated with Pakistani voters since his return from exile last November.

The general elections in Pakistan in February delivered a clear mandate for removal of Musharraf and the restoration of the judiciary that Musharraf had dismissed in a clumsy attempt to secure his illegal re-election as president last November.

Asif Zardari, head of the main opposition force, the PPP, hopelessly bungled the political endgame and squandered his political capital because he was more interested in executing the political deal that Benazir Bhutto had made with Washington—by which the PPP would act as a political fig-leaf for the terminally unpopular Musharraf and make active Pakistan participation in the anti-Taliban campaign more palatable to the general populace—than he was in following the unambiguous mandate to remove Musharraf.

Six months of ignoble gyrations by the PPP with American connivance on behalf of Musharraf followed, leaving the field of principled opposition leader completely clear for Nawaz Sharif, who unequivocally called for Musharraf’s removal and the restoration of the judiciary (and, in a popular move, withdrew his people from the cabinet while continuing to support the PPP government in parliamentary votes).

As a result, Sharif is now by far the most popular political figure in Pakistan, clocking in at a favorability rating of 86%—a fact that is apparently unreported in the West (though not unknown to readers of China Matters) because Sharif also represents the majority strain in Pakistani popular opinion opposed to Pakistan’s participation in the U.S. led War on Terror.

Zardari’s increasingly risible attempts to straddle the roles of U.S. client and popular leader came to head with the disastrous visit to the United States of his hand-picked prime minister, Yusuf Raza Gillani.

In order to demonstrate that Pakistan’s newly-minted civilian government was eager and able to do Washington’s bidding in the War on Terror, Gillani announced that the notoriously independent (and pro-Taliban) Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) agency was now subject to control by the cabinet—an assertion he was forced to retract within hours.

Observing the collapse of the credibility of his government, Zardari apparently decided to get in step with popular opinion and neutralize Sharif’s appeal by jumping on the dump-Musharraf bandwagon. In contrast to his previous dilatory behavior, Zardari was able to orchestrate the departure of Musharraf in little more than a week.

U.S. political meddling has yielded the usual unimpressive results. As planned, the civilian Pakistani government was split and discredited thanks to Zardari’s maneuvering. But instead of insuring Musharraf’s survival by allowing him to score political points off of a weakened civilian government, the policy led to Musharraf’s political demise.

When the PPP decided to recover its lost political ground by ousting Musharraf, it left Washington with the worst of both worlds: Musharraf gone and the civilian government too divided and unpopular to act as an effective client.

Since Musharraf’s departure, the pressures on Zardari have only intensified.

Nawaz Sharif has threatened a de jure withdrawal from the ruling coalition if Zardari does not reinstate the judiciary; and the bloody Taliban attacks have served notice that the survival of Pakistan’s civilian government, indeed its civil society, may depend on decoupling its tribal policy from the military campaign the U.S. is escalating in eastern Afghanistan and western Pakistan.


According to Taliban-watcher Syed Saleem Shahzad , the PPP-led civilian government is attempting to remain in Washington’s good graces—and establish itself, post-Musharraf, as America’s indispensable man in Islamabad—by declaring all-out war on militants (despite the TFT finding in June that 58% of Pakistanis wanted the government to negotiate with the Pakistan Taliban) and agreeing to a planned NATO center in Peshawar, capital of the North West Frontier Provinces, that will direct Pakistan’s anti-Taliban operations inside Pakistan.

It remains to be seen whether the Pakistan’s government and Pakistani public opinion will support escalated anti-Taliban operations—under US direction!—in the face of unrelenting Taliban attacks against Pakistani assets inside the heartland, the fundamental unpopularity of the U.S.-led GWOT, and Nawaz Sharif standing in the wings ready to assume the mantle of Pakistan’s leader and provide an alternative to the close U.S.-Pakistan relationship that a majority of Pakistanis regard as catastrophic.

As Western forces surge into Afghanistan in an effort to defeat the burgeoning Taliban insurgency by assaulting its havens in Pakistan, expect the Pakistani Taliban to retaliate—against Pakistan, in the Pakistani heartland—in order to demonstrate to Pakistani opinion the unacceptably high costs of providing material support to an unpopular American strategy.

Inside the Pakistan elite, the case for disengaging from the U.S. war on terror will be made forcefully by the ISI, which has never abandoned its support for the Taliban—or its desire for a pro-Pakistan regime in Kabul.

There has been one piece of disturbing news that implies that the ISI might be ready to take matters into its own hands and assist the Taliban in to redirecting Pakistani security policy—the ISI’s alleged complicity in the terror bombing of the Indian embassy in Kabul on July 8, 2008.

The U.S. government has been in the forefront in providing intelligence linking the ISI to the attack, no doubt a sobering reminder to Islamabad that the Bush administration has a pronounced pro-Indian tilt that no amount of enthusiastic water-carrying by Pakistan on Afghan security is likely to reverse.

Karzai’s ties to India as a counterweight to Pakistan have been a source of irritation to the ISI. But orchestrating the bombing of India’s embassy might not have been a reckless act of brinksmanship; it may have been a deliberate provocation.

If Karzai indignantly broke off relations with Pakistan, and India responded to the bombing with understandable anger, then Pakistan’s army would be free to abandon the thankless project of cooperating with NATO forces in the bloody, border-straddling counter-insurgency campaign in the Pashtun areas of Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Instead, while Karzai floundered to his doom, the Pakistani army could do what it does best: deploying its divisions in a conventional order of battle in Pakistan’s east facing India and engage in the crowd-pleasing ritualized hostility that has secured the army’s place in the center of national esteem—and fattened its budget—for the last sixty years.

So, a surge into Afghanistan, instead of adding an emollient sheen to waters already smoothed by an interested regional power, might instead apply a highly flammable coating of gasoline to all of South Asia—with the Taliban and the ISI both eager to throw a match.

Light Posting

Light posting is a euphemism. As patient (and impatient) readers of this site are aware, I haven't posted anything for weeks. And this situation will persist until the week of August 11. Not that there's a lack of things to write about. It's just that, thanks to a rather mind-melting confluence of events, I'm not able to get in front of a computer long enough to write anything. I hope to remedy the situation in August. All the best, CH

The Betancourt Blockbuster

Thanks to the LA Times for reminding us of the difference between traditional print media and the Internet...

...after all, you can't wipe your ass with a blog.

That was my first thought as I opened my Sunday LAT and discovered that a piece of entertainment writing had escaped its natural habitat in the Calendar section and was instead lurking on page A4 of what was once known as the news section.

There, Betancourt's tale captivates, an article by Patrick McDonnell and Chris Kraul informs us, “The saga of [Ingrid Betancourt]...is generating major media interest in the United States...Hollywood sees box office potential in Betancourt's ordeal...”

...Betancourt's tale “has it all,” said Jim McNamara, chairman of Miami-based Panamax films...”Her captors are ugly, ugly villains out of central casting...”

Betancourt is represented by CAA and her “first decision will be whether to agree to co-operate on a “cheap TV movie that's out in two months” or do a comprehensive book and film deal...”She's holding all the cards”.

With my usual corrosive cynicism, I wonder if the photoplay will include dramatic scenes of FARC fattening Betancourt up with food and medical care in anticipation of her negotiated release; the months of talks between European intermediaries and FARC, allegedly culminating in payment of a $20 million ransom; or indications that Colombia's President Uribe hijacked the release helicopters and spun the whole event as a rescue with the help of the United States and a credulous media.

Those buzz-killing angles received considerably less ink in the article than the expert opinion of M*A*S*H scribe Larry Gelbart:

"Once again, life trumps art...[It] seems as though it was ripped from a motion picture screen and rushed with all haste to the 11 o'clock news...Such creative planning led to the best of all possible movie finishes: a happy ending."

But my genuine interest in this article is whether the emergence of this generic piece of Hollywood industry tittle tattle on the news pages represents a desperate effort by the LA Times—newly slimmed down by the severance of 150 staff members and the mandated reduction of 15% of its not inconsiderable printed bulk—to up the infotainment quotient of its coverage to compete with the Internet and TV for the ever-decreasing attention span of the American audience.

I see the Betancourt story as a sign that the traditional US media—its traditional eminence eroded by a proliferation of alternative outlets, erosion of its revenue base, and the subsequent decline of the journalistic coverage and quality that once gave it its distinction and competitive advantage—realizes that promotional partners are needed to give its generic product added prominence.

For US media outlets, the biggest promotional partner is, of course, the US government.

If the US government is willing to give a story legs by providing talking points, talking heads, details, leaks, embed facilities, video feed, statements from the Rose Garden and whatever it takes give the story forward momentum, then that's a story that the LA Times should devote its resources to covering...and keep alive by cross-promoting...while more difficult stories (and angles) wither on the vine.

Of course, it doesn't hurt to have attractive characters in a compelling setting.

In Hollywood terms, I would say the Betancourt story is the tentpole release by the big studio (the US) with the fast food tie-in (War on Terror!) and the charismatic star eager to push the picture on TV, Internet...and in the press.

And the LA Times, instead of reporting the story, is just pathetically happy to be part of it.

And, in trying to beat the blogs, it is becoming just as bad as them.

Colombian Doublecross

A few minutes with the Google leaves the Betancourt rescue story in tatters.

Did the Colombian government push aside European hostage negotiators to take control of the impending Betancourt release, hog the credit, and spin it as a rescue and a victory for counter-terrorism instead of negotiated piece of ransom-for-hostages?

If so, it wouldn't be the first time.

From Venezuela Analysis, November 30 of last year:

Caracas, November 30, 2007 (venezuelanalysis.com) - Colombia announced today that authorities arrested three people presumed to belong to urban militias of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) in Bogotá late Thursday, who were found in possession of five videos and seven letters and a digital memory card with photographs demonstrating proof of life of five civilian and eleven military hostages held by the FARC, including French Colombian citizen Ingrid Betancourt and three US defense contractors. The videos and other documents showing proof of life were addressed to Colombian Senator Piedad Cordoba and Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.

The son of Ingrid Betancourt, Lorenzo Betancourt, said the proof that his mother is alive is thanks to the mediation of President Chavez. However, he expressed concern over her health and asked that Chavez's mediation be renewed to secure her release as soon as possible.

The proof of life of the hostages appears only a week after Colombian president Alvaro Uribe unilaterally terminated the mediating role of Chavez and Cordoba, who were working to secure the release of the hostages and had assured that "proof of life would arrive any minute."

In an interview with Telesur, Codroba, who is now under investigation by the Supreme Court for "crimes of treason against the homeland and collusion," defended her role and said that the proof of life of the hostages demonstrates that the mediation of herself and the Venezuelan president was being undertaken with complete seriousness and responsibility. [emph. added]

Let's recap.

Chavez and Cordoba successfully negotiated with FARC to obtain proof of life for Betancourt.

Just as everything was going so well, Uribe unilaterally terminates Chavez and Cordoba's role as mediators, seizes control of the operation, arrests the FARC representatives delivering proof of life, and spins the double cross as a “war on terror” victory. For good measure, Cordoba is investigated for treason.

Compare that with the present case, where it is alleged that European negotiators struck a deal with FARC, the Colombian government shouldered aside the negotiators, seized the rescue helicopters, arrested a couple of FARC guys, and spun the whole operation as a repudiation of the Chavez approach to defusing tensions with FARC. For good measure, Jean Pierre Gondart, one of the key European negotiators, is accused of being a FARC bagman.

Clearly the release of Betancourt (as opposed to rescue) has been brewing for several months, as this interesting report from April 2008 on Colombia Reports makes clear:

France is to launch a fresh bid Monday in its campaign to free Colombian politician Ingrid Betancourt, but here's disagreement with the Colombian government about the involvement of Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez.

Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner will meet Colombian President Álvaro Uribe in Bogotá before visiting Ecuador and Venezuela, whose left-wing President Hugo Chávez has sought to play a mediating role in hostage releases.

Kouchner “will re-evaluate the hostage situation with the three heads of state and stress the urgency of a humanitarian solution leading to the freeing of those held by the FARC,” the French foreign ministry said in a statement.

Uribe expressed that there's no place for Chávez in possible negotions, after French President Sarkozy Thursday asked the Venezuelan President to be available for negotiations. “The only institutions that can help negotiations are the Catholic church and European delegates,” the President said on LA FM. “We love to talk to the French Foreign Ministe, but we can only repeat this point of view” he said later, after meeting the country's High Commissioner of Peace.
...
The FARC rejected one French plan to release Betancourt this month, expressing annoyance with Uribe's handling of the proposed handover.[emph. added]

So. There was already one deal to release Betancourt back in April that got screwed up by Uribe.


Monsters and Critics has more on the June deal, with indications that at the same time FARC was negotiating through the Europeans, some FARC guys were negotiating with the Colombian army:

According to the report, one of two FARC commanders in charge of the hostages - they are named Aguilar and Gafas - opened indirect contact with Colombian authorities on March 20 to ask for details about the offer, which involved money and asylum in either Venezuela or France.

As sources for its report MediaPart cited local journalists and close associates of Ingrid Betancourt's former party, Oxygeno Verge (Oxygen Green Party), which ceased to function in 2005 due largely to Betancourt's abduction.

Last week, MediaPart and the Swiss radio station Radio Suisse Romande had reported that the FARC released the hostages in exchange for the payment of a large ransom.

The negotiations between those who controlled the hostages and the Colombian Army were 'particularly tortuous,' MediaPart reported, and succeeded largely because of the intervention of a Catholic priest who had already served as intermediary between authorities and rebels.

After agreement was reached, the rebels were able to procure medicines and food for the hostages, which explains Betancourt's surprisingly good condition after six-and-a-half years in jungle captivity.

MediaPart said the FARC commanders were eager to improve the health of their hostages because they were afraid that they would be deprived of their part of the bargain if they delivered them in bad physical condition.

In June, Uribe had publicly announced he would provide an overseas haven without threat of extradition for any FARC members who assisted in Betancourt's release, which dovetails with the report of asylum for those involved in the release.

At the time, observers wondered why Uribe would go public on such a sensitive matter. Apparently he was sending a message to renegade FARC members ready to deal.

Note Uribe's insistence on dealing through the Catholic Church and not Chavez, and compare the central role reportedly played by a Catholic priest in the MediaPart report.

And further note that provision of health care to the ailing Betancourt while in FARC hands had already been the subject of in-depth negotiation, with France having prepositioned a medical jet in anticipation of her release in March.

Clearly, FARC was anticipating a negotiated release and was providing Betancourt with health care and better food so she wouldn't emerge an emaciated scarecrow and an advertisement for FARC cruelty.

It looks like that arrangement wasn't to Uribe's liking, presumably because it would provide greater stature to FARC and the European intermediaries.

In the realm of speculation, either Uribe muscled in on the negotiations between the European team and the FARC leadership and took over the operation, or the Colombian army convinced a couple of FARC renegades that it was a better idea for them to glom onto some ransom, get asylum in France, and push a couple of gormless FARC suckers on the helicopters to take the fall so the Colombian government could crow about the brilliant rescue.

I would have to say the brilliant rescue narrative is pretty much DOA.

What's left is ransom-for-hostages or bribery-for-hostages...and a Colombian double-cross.

Fishy, Fishy, Fishy...

More Problems Emerge for the Betancourt Rescue Story

[I am also grateful to a reader who pointed out that Betancourt and the other hostages appear to be in good physical condition after their ordeal, in contrast to the photograph documenting Betancourt's ill health while in captivity. Advance preparation by FARC to deliver healthy hostages would also be consistent with a planned, negotiated release--CH]

Hot on the heels of allegations on Swiss radio that Ingrid Betancourt was freed through payment of a $20 million ransom instead of clever Colombian special forces derring do and US backup, we get a couple more data points:

In Counterpunch, Clifton Ross reports that the South American media has an interesting twist on the ransom story:

The story entitled "There was no such rescue but a media 'show'" that appeared in today's Diario Vea was drawn from the work of Bolivarian Press Agency writer Narciso Isa Conde and the Popular News Agency of Venezuela. According to the article the Colombian Revolutionary Armed Forces (FARC) had agreed to turn over Ingrid Betancourt and the other hostages to Swiss and French negotiators who agreed to arrange to pick up the hostages from various locations in two helicopters. The Colombian military got wind of the upcoming release and took control of the helicopters. The collusion of the U.S. in the media spin, while yet to be proven, is quite likely, especially since McCain just "happened" to be in the neighborhood and would be able to take the spotlight in a crassly opportunistic attempt to boost his pathetic presidential campaign.[emph. added]

Apparently, Diario Vea is a pro-Hugo Chavez paper in Venezuela.

One might say “consider the source” and say these allegations are sour grapes from pro-Chavez forces resentful that their guy was sidelined and the Colombian government scored a big win.

But put that together with a report by Patrick McDonnell and Chris Kaul in today's LA Times on the Colombian government's attempts to knock down the ransom story as “absolutely false” by pinning responsibility for the leak to Swiss radio on one John Pierre Gontard, who it alleges is tainted by data on a notorious captured FARC laptop as a FARC bagman.

A few problems.

First, Gontard denies the allegation.

Second, Gontard is not some FARC fellow traveler. He's one of the key Colombian peace negotiators for the European governments, so acknowledged by the Colombian government.

Third, Gontard might have been the guy who negotiated the Betancourt release in the first place.

From the LA Times:

Gontard has been coming to Colombia for years as the Swiss representative of a three-nation team, including Spain and France, that has acted as facilitator for possible talks between the FARC and the government.

...

On June 30, the government announced that Gontard and French diplomat Noel Saez had arrived in Colombia to resume those efforts. Two days later, onetime presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt, three American defense contractors and 11 Colombian police and soldiers were rescued after more than five years in rebel captivity.

Hmmm.

So, on June 30 Gontard is a welcome emissary of the European governments.

On July 7, he's some creepy FARC hack.

That story line doesn't make a lot of sense.

Unless, as I infer from Ross's report, the Colombians hijacked Gontard's ransom-and-release operation.

Which makes you think that all the vaunted surveillance operations that the US (and apparently Israel, according to Haaretz—h/t to LR) are claiming credit for were not directed against FARC (which, if news reports are to be believed, realize their communications are compromised and now pass messages mainly through human couriers); they were targeting the hostage negotiators in order to figure out their plans.

As reported by Ross, then the Colombian military could have zipped up to the airfield at the critical moment, commandeered the rescue helicopters, and grabbed the hostages and the glory.

Now, to cover their tracks, the Colombian and US governments attempt to swamp the true story of the release with a coordinated international media blitz.

And, when somebody, plausibly some disgruntled European negotiator who knows the real story, does leak the story to Swiss radio, the Colombians react by sliming Gontard—who was possibly on the FARC computer because he was delivering a downpayment on the ransom—to discredit the European negotiating team and squelch the whole ransom story.

That's a pretty persuasive hypothetical.

The emerging outline of this story is one of FARC being willing to deal with the Colombian government, but the Colombian (and US) governments being averse to any explicit compromises that would give credibility to Hugo Chavez, European do-gooders, ransom payments, and negotiations in general and detract from the zero-sum “War on Terror” narrative.

Certainly, if the Betancourt rescue was actually a world-class double-cross by the Colombian government, FARC (and, by the way, the European governments represented by Gontard) now realizes that any good faith negotiations involving Uribe's government are impossible.

If FARC is truly flat on its behind, this approach might work.

Then again, even if FARC still has some fight left in it and prospects for a peace—negotiated or imposed--evaporate, I expect the downside for Uribe is still limited.

After all, if the Uribe government doesn't bring peace to Colombia, it can console itself with the billions of dollars of US aid that an uncompromising and open-ended COIN operation demands.

Ingrid Betancourt--This Year's Jessica Lynch?

South American affairs is obviously not China Hand's bailiwick, but I had the funny feeling that the the “rescue” of Betancourt and the other hostages from the hands of FARC by the Colombian government looked, walked, and quacked more like a negotiated release than a genuine piece of special ops derring do.

It looks like I might have been right.

Swiss radio is reporting that it cost $20 million to spring the hostages.

For those of you interested in how unworthy suspicions flower in the mind of an incorrigibly cynical blogger, I will regale patient readers with a rundown of the official story's fishier elements.

First, the Betancourt story got huge—suspiciously huge—play in US papers. In my hometime paper, the LA Times, it was the big A1 right-column, banner headline lead.

Well, Ingrid Betancourt, like Jerry Lewis, might be huge in France—she holds dual Colombian-French citizenship—but, quite frankly, before July 2 I had never heard of her.

Obviously, the US press was primed to push this story.

That's not by itself indicator of something fishy going on.

The US government has a strong interest in boosting the kinda-fascisty guys who run Colombia while running down kinda-commie Hugo Chavez in Venezuela.

It also has a strong interest in discrediting and sidelining Chavez as a regional leader who can serve as a go-between and extract hostages and concessions from FARC.

So the story that the Colombians--with indispensable US support--sprung the hostages would have received some play in any case.

However, the orgasmic and uncritical US press coverage of the action, combined with the gratuitous jibes at Chavez (including energetically interpreting some neutral-sounding statements from Betancourt as veiled Chavez criticism), appeared so promptly, ubiquitously, and hyperbolically it appeared to me we were witnessing the previously-planned orchestration of a media event rather than the reaction to a slick rescue.

Another indicator was that getting Betancourt released was a big thing for President Sarkozy of France. The French pay for hostages. Full stop.

So there was a strong incentive to get Betancourt out by any means possible--including a ransom--to steal Chavez's thunder and save Sarkozy's political bacon.

Of course, the rescue story was something that, in the context of special ops rescues, sounded ridiculous, involving some scheme where FARC unwittingly gathered the dispersed hostages and loaded them on a helicopter that fortuitously turned out to belong to the Colombian government.

However, the story sounded completely plausible if somebody had made a deal with FARC and said, hey, we're sending a helicopter for the hostages. Load ‘em up!

When Betancourt got out, she refrained from direct criticism of FARC, calling for a peace process instead of some no-holds barred war on the SOBs who imprisoned her for six years—another indication that a deal was involved.

For inquisitive reporters, I would consider another red flag the fact that nobody got killed. Indeed, not a shot was fired.

One would think that the Colombians would have taken advantage of an extraordinary intelligence and infiltration coup not just to helicopter out some hostages but also helicopter in some commandos and put a nice corpse-filled punctuation point on a signal victory in the war on terror.

So, a big media push would be needed not only to capitalize on a deal that was in the works; it would obscure the suspicion that a deal was involved and also dissuade the press from taking a hard second look at the official story it had already splashed all over its front pages.

The press—apparently having forgotten the manufactured bruhaha over Jessica Lynch's rescue and eager to confirm the suspicion that it is more interested in any narrative that the government is willing to provide legs for than messy, facty, and critical reportage--happily obliged.

Add to that the allegations of a ransom appearing in the European media, and that's something that looks like it's worth pursuing.

Here's how the Guardian reported the Betancourt ransom story.

Ingrid Betancourt arrived in France today after being held captive for six years in the Colombian jungle, amid claims that a ransom was paid to free her.

The Colombian government said that she was freed in an audacious operation after the military tricked Farc into handing the French-Colombian politician over without a shot being fired.

But quoting "reliable sources", Swiss Radio reported that a ransom was paid of around $20m (£10m).

It said that the US, which had three citizens among those freed, was behind the deal and that "the whole operation afterwards was a set-up".

The station reported that the wife of one of the hostages' guards was the go-between, having been arrested by the Colombian army.

If proved true, the allegations would be hugely embarrassing for the Colombian government which was showered with praise for the efficiency of the operation. Many commentators had predicted that it would even spell the end of Farc as a credible force.

However, I wonder how much play, serious investigation, or popular attention the Betancourt story will merit, now that its propaganda value as a one-day headline sensation has been realized.