Negro(ponte), please

I really just wanted to post this for the title, but for people in the US who wonder what the hell is going on between Washington and Bogotá:

• John Negroponte, deputy Secretary of State, issued a declaration against an OEA condemnation of Colombia's incursion into Ecuador to kill off FARC commander Raul Reyes, who (incidently?) was about to meet with the French to negotiate the release of Ingrid Betancourt, even though not only Colombia itself, but the US had voted for it. I'm no FARC fan, but US support for anti-terrorist strikes in other countries seems spectacularly self-serving. Link from the always refreshingly obnoxious (and rabidly chavista, if you're into that sort of thing) BoRev.net.
  

• Bush paints the Colombian Free Trade Agreement as a matter of national security, which seems kinda sketchy. I'm no economist, but the same kind of free association, you might remember, got us into Iraq to hunt down Al-Qaeda, which wasn't there until the US showed up. In fact, according to analyst Adam Isaacson, the FTA might actually be counter-productive in fighting the FARC or stemming the drug trade. Link