Why the Colombia NGO scam worked against FARC

Mary Anastasia O'Grady:

As we learn more about the Colombian military's daring hostage rescue last week, one detail stands out: In tricking FARC rebels into putting the hostages aboard a helicopter, undercover special forces simply told the comandantes that the aircraft was being loaned to them by a fictitious nongovernmental organization sympathetic to their cause called the International Humanitarian Mission.

It may have taken years for army intelligence to infiltrate the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, and it may have been tough to convincingly impersonate rebels. But what seems to have been a walk in the park was getting the FARC to believe that an NGO was providing resources to help it in the dirty work of ferrying captives to a new location.

I am reminded of President Álvaro Uribe's 2003 statement that some "human rights" organizations in his country were fronts for terrorists. Connecticut Sen. Christopher Dodd got his back up over Mr. Uribe's statement, and piously lectured the Colombian president about "the importance of democratic values."

But as the helicopter story suggests, Mr. Uribe seems to have been right. How else to explain the fact that the FARC swallowed the line without batting an eye?

This warrants attention because it adds to the already robust evidence that left-wing NGOs and other so-called human rights defenders, including Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez and Colombian Sen. Piedad Cordoba, are nothing more than propagandists for terrorists.

...

It is why I often call them terrorist rights organizations. They are pretty predictable on that point. They have been strangely silent about the freeing of the hostages. Why? You would think that the NGOs would be happy to see these people freed. O'Grady makes a powerful case that the NGOs were just front groups for FARC working directly with the organization and Hugo Chavez.

They have also been engaging in a calculated lawfare campaign against the government of Colombia with the assisstance of people like Sen. Patrick Leahy who was uses the cases to work against aid to the government. I suspect the same groups have been active in getting the Democrats to kill the Colombia Free Trade Agreement.

Gateway Pundit notes more contacts between FARC and Nancy Pelosi.