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Ear to the Ground

Colombia Claims FARC Planned to Make Dirty Bomb

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Posted on Mar 4, 2008

Defending their position after the killing of members of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) in Ecuador heightened tension among Colombia, Ecuador and Venezuela over the weekend, Colombian officials said the slain FARC members had been plotting to make a dirty bomb.


The New York Times:

The accusation, made by Colombia’s vice president, Francisco Santos, at a United Nations disarmament meeting in Geneva, represents a sharp verbal escalation surrounding the three-country dispute involving Colombia, Venezuela and Ecuador. The quarrel began over the weekend when Colombian forces hunted down and killed a Colombian guerrilla leader on Ecuadorean soil.

Material found on a laptop computer recovered in that raid provided the basis for Mr. Santos’s accusations about a dirty bomb, a weapon that combines highly radioactive material with conventional explosives to disperse deadly dust that people would inhale.

“This shows that these terrorist groups, supported by the economic power provided by drug trafficking, constitute a grave threat not just to our country but to the entire Andean region and Latin America,” Mr. Santos said in a statement that was posted in Spanish on the disarmament conference’s web site. The rebels were “negotiating to get radioactive material, the primary base for making dirty weapons of destruction and terrorism,” he said.

It was unclear from Mr. Santos’s statement whom the rebels were negotiating with.

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By Mac McKinney, March 5, 2008 at 9:40 am Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)

This is what the international Right-Wing does, lie, murder, then lie again to justify murder, demonize, terrorize, again and again. Columbia is carrying out honed US/Israeli tactics of fabricating evidence to destroy its enemies and victims with. Do not believe a damned thing that comes out of their mouths.

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PatrickHenry's avatar

By PatrickHenry, March 5, 2008 at 3:37 am Link to this comment

Exxon vs Mobil

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By P. T., March 4, 2008 at 8:05 pm Link to this comment

The Colombian government “security” forces and their paramilitary allies are up to their necks in the drug trade.

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ApprxAm's avatar

By ApprxAm, March 4, 2008 at 6:51 pm Link to this comment

“we firmly oppose any act of aggression that could destabilize the region,”. 2002 Antebellum Iraq?  No, yesterday regarding Colombia v. Chavez.  He seemed to be familiar with the phrase and expects the moral high ground. Oh my Prius, Toyota save us!

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PatrickHenry's avatar

By PatrickHenry, March 4, 2008 at 3:01 pm Link to this comment

They wouldn’t be giving up the profitable cocaine trade which they are accustomed.  They are nothing but bandits.

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By Maani, March 4, 2008 at 1:06 pm Link to this comment

Joe:

My thoughts exactly.  Just as OBL and Al Qaeda have become the all-purpose bogeymen in the “war on terror” - trotted out each time something “bad” happens or is planned (“carried out by Al Qaeda,” “lnked to Al Qaeda,” even “inspired by Al Qaeda” - a TRULY tenuous connection) - it seems like the dirty bomb is (or is going to become) the all-purpose bogey to create fear and panic in the general population - who, as you suggest, are unaware of what a dirty bomb actually is (and isn’t) or does (or doesn’t) do.

And because of their ignorance, the people will BUY it, and react accordingly.

Sad.

Peace.

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By P. T., March 4, 2008 at 1:03 pm Link to this comment

Bush tipped off the Colombian government.  wink

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By Joe Franks, March 4, 2008 at 12:15 pm Link to this comment

This is hilarious: Washington’s servants in Bogotá attempting to copy their master’s propaganda; meanwhile the media dutifully spreads the propaganda, thereby literally making an otherwise harmless dirty bomb dangerous.

Dirty bombs cannot actually cause widespread harm due to radioactivity; they can only harm a population by inciting panic.  By failing to point out the negligible risk of actual physical harm from a dirty bomb, the media actually gives them some potency as a weapon - if only as a panic-inducing weapon.

What a sorry state of affairs.

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