Israel, Death Squads, and Colombia

https://consortiumnews.com/2024/05/13/the-secret-history-of-israels-role-in-genocide-in-colombia/

https://www.democracynow.org/2024/6/12/chiquita_funding_death_squads_in_colombia

I post this must-read article because I believe it's important for Christians to have a better understanding of what has happened in Colombia and the role of US policy, the US military - and the outsourced role Israel often plays at the behest of Washington.

Like many Christians I get the newsletters from VOM and other ministries in my mailbox and for years we've read about all the terrible things the FARC and other Marxist guerrilla movements have done. Indeed, war is terrible and I find it appalling that it is often glorified within the Church and even worse, during worship services.

War is little more than a series of atrocities which is also why it's so critical for the Church to understand that the wars of Israel in the Old Testament were not 'wars' as we think of them but Divinely mandated and sanctioned episodes that were of a typological nature and connected with Redemptive-History. They set the stage for the coming of Messiah but also anticipate the Final Judgment. They are exercises in righteousness, something that cannot be said about any war this side of the cross and the dissolution of the Old Covenant order. If this is not understood, then Christians will sanction and even sanctify atrocity and this is exactly the course the False Church has followed since it embraced wealth and power with the advent of Constantine - who far from being a saint is actually a man of sin or antichrist figure.

Returning to Colombia, the American Establishment has done all it can to demonize the armed groups that resist the Empire and its proxies in Bogota. As stated, the rebels have engaged in some terrible behaviour but some of this has been fueled by the conduct of the military and the paramilitaries and mercenaries associated with the state and the many energy companies and other interests operating there - often connected to the United States. Even Colombia-based companies like Ecopetrol are traded on the New York Stock Exchange and are thus interwoven with the US economy. Drugs are also part of this story and it's complicated as all sides and players have been involved as the money is just too tempting.

When the situation gets sticky for Washington to be directly involved, they turn to proxies. For years the Apartheid regime of South Africa fulfilled this role and there have been others but the surest and most steadfast of these allies is the Zionist state of Israel. From weapons to training, to covert ops, the Israelis are among the best in the world and everyone knows it. Rafi Eitan (mentioned in the Consortium piece) was an almost legendary figure involved in so many operations and plots - they could make a series of movies about his life.

Tel Aviv is consistent in its defiance of accountability. If the US is the exceptional nation, Israel is on a greater scale. Because of the Holocaust, every action is justified and moral. Israel's interests are in all cases paramount and if that includes helping the Colombian government to butcher peasants - then so be it.

Eitan's statement quoted in the article is in keeping with what other intelligence chiefs have uttered at one time or another:

"All intelligence work is a partnership with crime. Morals are put aside,”

As the counterfeit Christian and former CIA director Mike Pompeo stated:

"I was the CIA director. We lied, we cheated, we stole. It’s – it was like – we had entire training courses. It reminds you of the glory of the American experiment.”

Basically intelligence agencies are thieves and when not stealing directly or paying someone to do so, they are searching for material to blackmail people into doing the stealing for them. They sabotage, plant false data, mislead, hurt and destroy people - and kill. As such, it's natural that intelligence agencies work with and often rely on figures within the underworld. The relationship between intelligence agencies and the criminal class is well established and openly discussed in some quarters. There is no honour in this work unless the interests of the nation are placed above all else, all morality, all accountability. The nation and thus the mission are tantamount to God. How many Christians have fallen for this lie, this idolatry!

And yes, the thieves don't trust each other. The United States spies on all of its allies and has on many occasions intervened in their politics. This goes without saying for America's foes but Washington is probably more diligent in guarding its own client states and satrapies. And indeed, Israel has spied on the United States as well. When it comes to nuclear technology, material, and some of these controversies over weapons and software - it's hard to know if the agents involved are deceiving their allies or if in fact a great deal of this is actually collaboration meant to deceive and work around government accountability - a reality that is especially true in the United States. The CIA has its foreign adversaries but it also spends a great deal of time evading the clutches of the FBI and the occasional attempt at oversight by the congress.

And as suggested in the article, intelligence agencies gather dirt on their own political class - to keep them in line. The CIA has done this as was revealed in the 1970's and America's domestic intelligence agency (the FBI) does as well - J Edgar Hoover's reign of 48 years was made only possible by the fact that he had dirt on every powerful congressman and president that might decide to challenge him. This so-called patriot was corrupt and actually blackmailing the leadership of the country. He viewed himself to be above and unaccountable to the dictates of the American Idealism he purported to uphold and protect.

If Eitan was notorious, the story of Yair Klein almost seems unbelievable but the lives of both of these men are instructive to say the least. They reveal so much about how this shadow world works - and the way the lines are blurred. Once again it's a tale of death squads and drugs but as Klein is a mercenary, his ties to the state are more tenuous - allowing for plausible deniability. Western media can howl about Viktor Bout but what about Klein and the dozens of other agents and weapons dealers like him? How is Klein not a 'merchant of death'?

Was he 'rogue' or 'off the reservation' when he supplied weapons to the Medellin Cartel? We know the US works with cartels - a lesson suggested even in Hollywood. One thinks of Clear and Present Danger and more recently Sicario. These are movies but the stories they convey are not only realistic but based on a composite portrayal of people and events - with the expected Hollywood license of course.

Klein's story overlaps with the Chiquita story (linked above) - a company with a sordid history throughout Latin America, including the notorious CIA-led plot to overthrow Guatemala's Jacobo Arbenz in 1954. Chiquita was known as United Fruit Company at the time and had ties to the Dulles brothers who dominated Eisenhower's foreign policy. The Democracy Now! piece is only the tip of the iceberg. One quote from the article hints at this:

"Now, it’s important to note that these eight deaths represent only the start of Chiquita’s potential liability for its conduct, not the end of it. These deaths represent less than 1% of the claims for killings that have been filed against Chiquita in U.S. courts. There are thousands of claims that have been filed. And so, if you do the math from the verdict here, Chiquita’s potential exposure in potential future trials for more victims is well into the billions of dollars."

Regarding Klein's failure to be extradited to Colombia, one has to wonder if the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) was pressured by not only Tel Aviv but Washington as well. Moscow who had him in custody at the time had no desire to antagonize Israel, nor to help a US proxy and enemy of the one regime in South America that is friendly to Russia - namely Venezuela. The US can always claim it didn't condone Israeli actions in Colombia, but they wouldn't have been there if Washington hadn't condoned it - or set it up for that matter. And Washington certainly never condemned Israel for their involvement.

For that matter Washington never wanted to call attention to any of it - and certainly not their defoliant spraying all over the countryside, a form of chemical warfare that many people thought had ended with the Agent Orange scandal in Vietnam. Right up through the 1990's and early 2000's the US was still at it and the tale is a familiar one - lots of poisoned water, birth defects, and untold suffering. It wasn't Agent Orange but it was still toxic and unbelievably there is talk of starting it up again.

These articles reveal a long and complicated but also compelling tale. It's beyond what most people are going to be able to grasp. But this does not excuse the way it is commonly portrayed in Western media and especially in Christian-targeted materials by various 'Persecution'-related ministries which often act as fronts for Right-wing political interests - which includes some of the corporations involved in these crimes. This (to me) is perhaps the darkest aspect of this tale.