Befriending Communist terrorists with American blood on their hands.
Daniel Greenfield | Front Page Magazine
Stop by your local post office and you might just see a poster of Rodrigo “Timochenko” Londono hanging next to the Most Wanted posters of bank robbers and fugitives. The State Department is offering a $5 million reward for information about the Communist terrorist leader.
But all the State Department had to do was ask Secretary of State Kerry. Obama did the wave with the Cuban dictator and Kerry met with Timochenko , the leader of FARC, a Marxist terrorist organization that appears on his own department’s list of foreign terrorist organizations a little above Al Qaeda.
Timochenko is a Communist who was trained at the USSR’s infamous Patrice Lumumba University. The State Department accuses him of ordering the kidnapping of Americans and responsibility for much of the cocaine that is smuggled into the United States. But none of that bothered Kerry who accepted a signed copy of a memoir by the terror group’s former leader which was addressed to “Senor” Kerry.
The signatures in Kerry’s new keepsake include Pablo Catatumbo, a FARC leader with a $2.5 million reward on his head from the State Department, who is wanted for “the production, manufacture, and distribution of hundreds of tons of cocaine to the United States and the world” and “the murder of hundreds of people who violated or interfered with the FARC’s cocaine policies.”Also signing Kerry’s book was Iván Márquez, who has a $5 million reward on his head for most of the same reasons.
Two of the men sitting opposite John Kerry had been convicted of forcing children to join the terror group as soldiers and sex slaves. FARC runs on thousands of child soldiers and sex slaves. Little girls as young as 7 and 9 were brought into the terror group whose fronts have a “quota” of women to fill. Families that refuse to turn over their daughters to FARC have been massacred as a warning to others.
Rape is a typical tactic for the military arm of the Colombian Communist Party. Children were seized from families. Others were “bought” from kidnappers operating in cities. Girls who became pregnant had their children forcibly aborted so the babies wouldn’t interfere with their job of servicing male fighters who protected the narcotics trade while keeping the dream of a Communist dictatorship alive.
But Kerry’s new Communist narcoterrorist chums also had American blood on their hands.
“Take them across the river and burn them.” That was how the lives of three left-wing American environmental activists had ended in the spring of 1999. Their killers were members of the FARC Marxist terror group. The victims were shot in the face after being tortured.
The Clinton administration had engaged in covert contacts with FARC terrorists even while the Marxist terrorists were helping move huge amounts of heroin and cocaine into the United States. Meanwhile it applied pressure on the Columbian government to negotiate with the terrorists by holding up weapons.
Congressman Dan Burton blasted the Clinton White House for “sitting down at the table with a group that actively seeks to wantonly kidnap and murder Americans.”
After the killings, Clinton’s press secretary warned that, “The United States will not rest until those who have committed these crimes have been brought to justice.” The US ambassador to Colombia stated that the United States, “cannot have direct contact with the FARC until it hands over those responsible for the crime.”
That comes as news to Secretary of State John Kerry. Last year, Obama Inc. said that it would not seek the extradition of FARC terrorists. It’s also possible that Obama may hand over Simon Trinidad, a FARC commander serving a sixty-year sentence for his role in taking three American hostages. Freeing Trinidad has become a popular cause for American leftists.
The three hostages, Marc Gonsalves, Thomas Howes, and Keith Stansell, were held for 5 years until they were rescued. Their pilot, 56-year-old Tom Janis, a Vietnam veteran and Bronze Star recipient, was shot. He left behind a wife and four children. Tom is yet another Vietnam vet betrayed by John Kerry.
Mark Rich, David Mankins, and Rick Tenenoff, three missionaries, were kidnapped and murdered by FARC. As were two other missionaries, Tim Van Dyke and Steve Welsh. Frank Pescatore, a geologist, was kidnapped and murdered by FARC in 1996. The Marxist terrorists packed his body with lime and formaldehyde and tried to pretend that he was still alive in the hopes of collecting a ransom for him.
FARC attempted to murder US Ambassador Myles Frechette and the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense. It plotted to bomb President Clinton during his visit to Colombia. Agricultural scientist Thomas Hargrove was kidnapped and held by FARC for almost a year. His story inspired the movie Proof of Life. Eldon Lee Horton and Clyde Nolan Killgore, two American oil workers, were also held hostage by FARC. As was missionary Ray Rising. And bird watchers Peter Shen, Todd Mark and Louise Augustine, a former nun and retired schoolteacher. Tom Fiore, another bird watcher, escaped through the jungle.
In 2003, a FARC terrorist threw grenades at bars that Americans often visited. Five Americans were injured in the blast. Vance Vogeli described his reaction. “I looked down and there was blood.” That same year, FARC had tried to set off a car bomb near the US embassy and American hotels.
FARC’s war on America dates back to 1983 when the Marxist terror group took its first American hostage. Its last American hostage, Kevin Scott Sutay, an ex-Marine, was freed only a few years ago.
Now wanted FARC terrorists have met with Kerry and attended a baseball game with Obama. These are some of the most direct contacts possible. The indictments issued by Attorney General Ashcroft and Gonzalez are null and void. The rewards will eventually be erased by the State Department.
The Bush Administration had parted ways with Clinton’s pandering to terrorists. Instead it indicted FARC leaders and helped Colombia target them with smart bombs. Martin Caballero, a FARC commander who had plotted to bomb Clinton was blown away. As was Raul Reyes, who had been indicted in the abduction of the three American hostages.
But the victories against FARC have been thrown away once again. The peace deal gives FARC the breathing room it needs. At their meeting with Kerry, FARC leaders asked for American protection. And there is little doubt that they will receive it. Obama bailed out Cuba and intends to bail out its FARC terror group. Its American victims will never see justice. Instead their killers and torturers will thrive.
In an administration of endless lows, Secretary of State John Kerry has found a new low by meeting with wanted terrorists from a Marxist organization with American blood on its hands.
“This Cuba policy is also our Latin American policy,” Ben Rhodes boasted. Rhodes is the man who wrote Obama’s Cairo speech. The Cuba policy is solidarity with Communist enemies of the United States. Reversing JFK’s inaugural address, Obama and Kerry will pay any price, oppose any friend and support any foe in order to assure the death and defeat of liberty. That much they have pledged and done.
50 years after Kerry first turned traitor, his betrayal of the United States continues without end.
SOURCE: FRONT PAGE MAGAZINE