McCain and the Colombian Hostage Rescue


By Frank James, Baltimore Sun
July 3, 2008

Article Excerpts:

Sen. John McCain certainly had great timing to be in Latin America at the same time that the Colombian military launched its daring rescue mission which liberated former Colombian presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt and three U.S. military contractors who had been held for years in the jungles by the FARC rebel group.

The rescue's timing may have merely been coincidental with McCain's visit to Colombia.

But if Colombia's President Alvaro Uribe were going to help one of the presidential candidates, it would likely be McCain more than Sen, Barack Obama since the all-but-official Republican presidential nominee supports the U.S.-Colombia Free Trade Agreement while Sen. Barack Obama doesn't.

Indeed, Uribe aided McCain by letting the senator look presidential, briefing him before and after the military action in which members of the Colombian military impersonated FARC guerillas in order to fool the hostages' guards into letting them get on an unmarked white helicopter.

In a statement , the McCain campaign avoided making any overtly political points. It didn't even mention McCain's own history as a prisoner of war.

It merely expressed the senator's happiness and the fact of the presidential level briefings. The presidential politics of the situation was left for others to highlight.

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