Shocker! Marxists Team Up With Al Qaeda

This ought to really give pause to Obama considering his administration is top heavy with Marxists. Gee, it might even give pause to some of the leftwingers in this country who seem to admire Marxists so much.

Nah.

Al Qaeda thugs and drug-dealing Colombian guerillas have formed “an unholy alliance” to traffic cocaine through Africa into Europe, a Drug Enforcement Administration official said.

In an alarming move, the Revolutionary Armed forces of Colombia, or FARC, have enlisted the aid of Muslim terrorists - including Al Qaeda – to smuggle cocaine through increasingly unstable West Africa, as European countries have become more adept at intercepting and disrupting smuggling operations through their ports.

"In the mid- to late-1990s when the Europeans became better at maritime interdiction, off the coasts of Portugal and Spain for example, traffickers started moving their routes southward. So the next progression was to Western Africa," Jay Bergman, the DEA director for the Andean region of South America, told Reuters.

"As suggested by the recent arrest of three alleged Al Qaeda operatives, the expansion of cocaine trafficking through West Africa has provided the venue for an unholy alliance between South American narco-terrorists and Islamic extremists," he said.

The three alleged Qaeda henchmen were arrested in December after plotting to smuggle drugs to raise money for jihad.

One of the suspects was caught bragging on tape that "without him, [Al Qaeda] could not eat."

The three were brought from Africa to New York where they were charged with terrorism-related offenses.

In addition to the Colombian cartels using Africa to reach Europe, Mexican drug gangs are using the same routes to ship raw ingredients for producing methamphetamine.

Airplanes have become the preferred means of trans-continental drug-schlepping, Bergman told Reuters -- with Venezuela emerging as the preferred springboard for these 21st century cocaine cowboys.

There are still many in this country who look upon narco-thug Hugo Chavez fondly (I'm looking at you, Joe Kennedy). But they'd get in bed with Marxists and terror thugs long before they'd begrudginggly thank a conservative (see Cheney, Dick) for keeping us safe.

Pelosi In Bed With FARC

There has been much in the news lately about the terrorist group in Colombia known as FARC. Recently, there was a highly successful mission to rescue 15 hostages held by FARC, including three Americans and former Colombia presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt.

Well, now news is coming out that in addition to some Democrat members of congress who had ties to FARC, the Queen Bee herself, Nancy Pelosi, may have been calling the shots.

Gateway Pundit has been all over this from day one, so go visit and get caught up on the latest. If true, she should be facing federal prosecution.

Humiliated FARC Looks to Open 'Peace Talks'

President Uribe needs to continue the pressure and put his foot on the throat of these leftist goons once and for all. Is it any wonder after Wednesday's raid, when they were embarrassed for all to see, that they'd now come crawling and looking for "peace"?

A NEWS outlet close to Colombia's leftist FARC guerrillas left open the possibility that the group would be open to peace talks with the government of President Alvaro Uribe.

It is the first reaction from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) guerrillas since Colombian soldiers rescued Franco-Colombian politician Ingrid Betancourt, three Americans and 11 other hostages they were holding in a daring operation on Wednesday.

"Definitely the future of Colombia cannot be civil war," read the statement on the pro-rebel Anncol news agency website.

"We call for common sense and to make room for peace."

Funny how these leftist scum around the world all mouth the same talking points about "common sense" and "peace" when those are the last things you'll ever find coming from them.

Nice seeing another piece of garbage looking stupid now.

Reason Number 135,753 for Voting All the Bums Out of Congress

Of course this involves our friends from the Democrat Party. I have never seen a political party that has so many open ties to enemies of this country, and in fact, as evidence has shown, are actually actively working with our enemies. Enemies who wish to see you dead. The citizens of this country need to wake up and realize that the "real and present danger" to our fundamental rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness is being sold out from under us.

Instead of merely dismissing this as another case of business as usual from those folks in Washington, let's bring it down to the local level.

You have a neighbor who is talking to a violent street gang and has offered to them a safe place to hide out in, but he has told them there is a slight problem with a neighbor, meaning you, that they might have to take care of. The gang, in exchange for safe haven offered by your neighbor begins to work on you. First they try talking tough, but when you either ignore them or take a stand they realize they will have to move on to the next step. So they torch your car, vandalize your home, and leave a final warning on your door written in the blood of your dog.

I don't think you would take it for one minute and no doubt you would be contacting the police or even taking things into your own hands.

Who do you call when it is your Congress critter that is the enabler? And the threat is just that real.

The Republicans by standing by and allowing their partners in crime to get by with this sort of activity makes them just as culpable.

Hat tip to Gateway Pundit for the story.

No Thugs Left To Pander To

What is it with all these Democrats and their freelance diplomacy? You had that fossil Jimmy Carter over being emasculated by the terror goons of Hamas last week (how'd that work out, Jimmah?) and now you have failed presidential contender and Barack Obama's new best buddy Guillermo Richardson slobbering over Hugo Chavez.

Why do I get the feeling Democrats would be lining up for dialogue with Osama bin Laden if he were still alive?

The governor of New Mexico met on Saturday with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez in an effort to restart talks with neighboring Colombia to secure the release of hostages held by leftist rebels.

Chavez this year helped free six hostages held for years by the Marxist FARC rebels in Colombia's four-decade old civil war, but talks have sputtered amid continued bickering between Chavez and Colombian President Alvaro Uribe.

"I've had a good meeting with President Chavez ... (he) has told me that he is willing to help in this situation," Gov. Bill Richardson told reporters after the meeting.

"Many times in a conflict like this we forget the human side, that human beings are being held hostage."

You ever notice how Democrats treat anti-American thugs with such reverence but view Republicans as if they were evil incarnate?

Why Look Who's Funding FARC

To the tune of $300 million, reportedly.

Colombia's police commander said on Monday documents found at the camp of a top rebel commander killed in a raid showed evidence Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez had made $300 million payments to FARC guerrillas.

Gen. Oscar Naranjo earlier said computers found in the camp of FARC commander Raul Reyes had revealed documents showing ties between the rebel leader and a representative of the government of Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa.

No wonder this pig is threatening war with Colombia.

He's got a huge investment at stake.

Journalist Sean Penn was unavailable for comment.

Thanks to Gateway Pundit for the link!

Better Yet, Call Them Activists

You can't make this stuff up.

Here we have Venezuelan thug Hugo Chavez calling on world governments to refer to terrorist groups as insurgents and by the fourth paragraph of the story, Reuters indeed refers to them as insurgents.

Why not just call them activists?

Colombia rebels not terrorists - Venezuela's Chavez

Venezuela's leftist President Hugo Chavez on Friday urged world governments to label Colombia's cocaine-funded Marxist guerrillas insurgents instead of terrorists, a day after rebels freed two women hostages.

Colombia's interior minister immediately denounced the call to meet a major rebel demand as "completely off-the-wall."

Chavez, who brokered the rare hostage release, said the rebel fighters, the FARC and ELN, "are not terrorist groups, they are armies, real armies that occupy space in Colombia."

Colombia's conservative President Alvaro Uribe later issued a statement saying the insurgents are indeed terrorists who fund their operations with cocaine smuggling, recruit children and plant land mines in their effort to topple a democratically elected government.

The FARC and ELN use kidnapping as a weapon in their decades-long war on the state. Along with right-wing paramilitary, they are self-financed through involvement in the Andean nation's multibillion-dollar narcotics trade.

"I ask you (Uribe) that we start recognizing the FARC and the ELN as insurgent forces in Colombia and not terrorist groups, and I ask the same of the governments of this continent and the world," Chavez said in his annual state of the nation speech.

Led by the United States, which funds Uribe's counterinsurgency war and has military advisers in the country, many allies of Colombia consider both groups terrorists.

"Colombia's violent groups are terrorists because the only thing they have produced is displacement, pain, unemployment and poverty," Uribe's statement said.

On Thursday, Chavez was showered with praise by governments from Argentina to France after the FARC set free Consuelo Gonzalez and Clara Rojas, politicians they had held for years in secret jungle camps.

Uribe and Chavez have bickered for months over the leftist's role in mediating a swap of hostages for guerrillas imprisoned by the government.

Chavez is determined to help free more of the dozens of politicians, soldiers and police the FARC hold, and has offered to open a "peace camp" in Venezuela.

Surely "Peace Mom" Cindy Sheehan will be in attendance.

From Peace Activist to FARC Guerrilla

Let this be a lesson to those alleged peace activists who harbor romantic visions of Che Guevara while bashing capitalism and feeling guilty about their existence.

Joining up with the bad guys can be hazardous to your health.

Dutch Woman Joins Guerrillas in Colombia

The army stumbled on the handwritten diary during a raid on a guerrilla camp. It lay near the embers of a communal kitchen where fleeing rebels left their breakfast untouched.

"I'm tired, tired of the FARC, tired of the people, tired of communal living. Tired of never having anything for myself," wrote the author, a 29-year-old Dutch woman.

Sucks, doesn't it? Maybe you should have thought about that before aligning yourself with terrorists.

Colombia's government couldn't have hoped for better propaganda against the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC. It leaked excerpts from the diary found last June to the media, even making available an English translation of the Dutch entries.

The first known person from outside Latin America to join the region's largest rebel army wasn't just disillusioned. Like most FARC foot soldiers, Tanja Nijmeijer apparently wasn't permitted to leave.

"This would be worth it if I knew I was fighting for something. But I don't really believe that anymore," she wrote on Nov. 24, 2006, according to the excerpts released by the government.

What exactly impelled Nijmeijer, a child of Europe's bourgeoisie, to take a journey from peace activist to guerrilla fighter with the nom- de-guerre "Eillen" remains largely a mystery—even to people who knew her well before she joined the FARC in early 2003.

More than a dozen friends, former colleagues and fellow peace activists interviewed by The Associated Press described a young woman deeply disturbed by social inequalities and guilt-ridden over her privileged life. Nijmeijer's family refused to discuss her plight, saying doing so could endanger her life.

Defense Minister Juan Manuel Santos, meanwhile, was happy to use the case to counter "guerrilla chic" in Europe, where the FARC—classified a terrorist group by both the United States and the European Union—has a small but determined group of supporters who run pro-rebel Web sites.

In the diary, Nijmeijer abhors the strict discipline imposed by FARC's male commanders—no smoking, no phone calls, no romantic relationships without their consent. She says the rank and file are hungry and bored, and describes FARC leaders as both materialistic and corrupt.

"How will it be when we take power? The wives of the commanders in Ferrari Testa Rossas with breast implants eating caviar?" she writes.

Funny how that works. It's amazing how long it takes these useful idiots to catch on.

Santos told AP that the Nijmeijer case should help dispel foreign leftists of the notion that the FARC is heroic.

"In certain circles in Europe, there still exists the romantic image of the guerrillas as Robin Hood, or Che Guevara, fighting the bad guys for the benefit of the poor," he said. "Nijmeijer fell into this trap."

Now, nobody can tell for sure where she is, if she's even alive. Useful idiots do indeed have a limited shelf life once they no longer prove useful.

Read the rest.

Also at A Tangled Web.

Hotel From Hell

No doubt they'll be selling Che t-shirts in the lobby gift shop.

A miserable time is guaranteed for all.

Caracas Hilton gets name change; government plans 'socialist' hotel

The landmark Caracas Hilton hotel was renamed the Alba on Saturday by President Hugo Chavez's government, which owns the building and says it will now be a "socialist" establishment, the state news agency reported.

After 38 years under the management of Hilton, the hotel is now called the Alba Caracas, the Bolivarian News Agency said. The new name means "dawn" in Spanish and is also the acronym of Chavez's Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas trade initiative, which he started to counter U.S.-backed free trade deals.

"The goal is to convert the hotel into a socialist tourism business for the enjoyment of citizens," said Eustacio Aguilera, president of the Simon Bolivar Center, a government cultural institution that owns the hotel.

The name change came after Hilton's concession to manage the 900-room hotel expired on Friday, hotel officials said.

Hilton Hotels Corp., based in Beverly Hills, California, did not immediately return calls or e-mails seeking comment.

Meanwhile, Al-Ajzeera is slobbering over the jug-eared freak.

Chavez frees Colombian 'plotters'

Venezuela has freed 27 Colombians convicted over an alleged plot to overthrow Hugo Chavez, the president, in 2004.

Chavez pardoned 41 men in total as a "gesture of goodwill" as he attempts to arrange the exchange of rebels held by the Colombian government for hostages held by the guerrillas.

While the freed Colombians boarded a bus to return home on Saturday, Chavez said in a speech in Caracas that he expected to meet with a high-ranking representative of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, soon "to begin the search for solutions".

The men released on Saturday were among more than 100 people arrested over the alleged plot against Chavez.

Authorities said the young men wearing military uniforms were arrested on a ranch near Caracas in May 2004 and were suspected of belonging to a Colombian paramilitary group.

Chavez said they planned to attack the presidential palace. The men had been convicted of military rebellion.

Pedro Carreno, Colombia's justice minister, said at a ceremony for the freed Colombians in the southwestern town of San Antonio that with Chavez's pardon "a beautiful message is being sent to the world".

Can the Nobel Peace Prize be far behind?