The Fog Smoke and Mirrors of War

They say that victory has a thousand parents. Reading Frank Bajak’s Associated Press piece on the Columbian hostage rescue, I’d say that one of those fathers—that would be US Ambassador William Brownfield—knows how to put on a pretty good spin. And that Bajak is the spinee.

Take two points of departure:

• We’ve given Columbia $500 million annually in military aid since 2000. Sounds like, give or take, about $4 billion.

• This rescue was an entirely Columbian operation. No Americans on board, or in sight.

So, what’s a poor ambassador to do? Hey, he didn’t get this job by sitting around with a lunchbox up his butt. He knows how to pick up the phone and say “years of intense U.S.-Columbian military cooperation. … U.S.-provided remote-controlled video monitoring devices—which can zoom in and out—along rivers that are the only transport route through the dense jungles …” Zoom in and out you say? Ooh, these guys are too tough.

“About seven times, [Brownfield] said, the U.S. government had to make decisions –‘at the highest levels’—about proceeding.” Ah—by highest levels, do you mean “above 12,000 feet”? Anyway, what sort of decisions did you have to make? And what were the decisions? And did the Columbians pay the least attention? And: “”’When I first got briefed, I said, ‘This is realistic? Can it truly work? … And obviously, the answer was yes.’” Well, obviously it did work. But 20-20 hindsight doesn’t tell us a thing about what you said or thought at the time you were “briefed”—and whether you endorsed it, or tried to stop it, or indeed, were not asked to offer any opinion at all.

So far as I can tell, the story includes only one direct, declarative assertion about specific American assistance: “U.S. spy satellites helped track hostages on a monthlong journey that … ended with Wednesday’s rescue.” Brownfield is also quoted as saying that “for four days [i.e., before the rescue] ‘we had our eyes on them,’” although this doesn’t specify exactly who “we” are [nor, indeed, “them”].

I wouldn’t want to go all the way off the cliff here. I would assume that for $4 billion you could buy some cool toys (even at Costco). And it may be that some of them played a role. What I do know is that Bajuk isn’t telling us exactly what role, probably because Brownfield didn’t tell him, perhaps because (a) he has nothing to tell; or (b) he’s so far out of the loop he doesn’t yet know whether he has anything to tell or not. But for smoke and mirrors like this, I'd say he deserves at least an oak-leaf cluster on his PowerPoint.

Afterethought: I just caught up with a New York Times account, quoting Brownfield on Larry King, saying:

We were able to cooperate. ...We were able to endorse. We were able to share our own experiences, and some small bits of equipment for this particular operation.

Ah, now that sounds a little more like it. The Times piece, BTW, has a lot of good blow-by-blow on the operation itself.

Technical Note: I draw my quotations from a print edition of the San Francisco Chronicle, July 4, 2008, Page A2. A Google News search turns up a lot of versions of the Bajak story, and I won’t guarantee that all, or indeed any, exactly matches what I’m reading.