BOGOTÁ, Colombia — In recent weeks, the biggest political scandal yet to confront the Uribe government has been grimly unfolding in Colombia. Three senators and one congresswoman have been purged from office. They have been arrested for alleged conspiracy and links with former paramilitary groups. Worst still, a former governor has been charged for masterminding the murder of a mayor and the former director of DAS (Colombia’s secret police) is also accused of collaborating closely with paramilitary groups. The details of how members of congress and the paramilitaries worked in close partnership have been revealed in the computer archives of [...]
In a commentary about the situation in Iraq today, WPR contributor Charles Crain offers a very bleak assessment of the situation in Iraq’s Anbar province, in the far West of the country. Crain says the province would likely become a haven for terrorists if the U.S. quits Iraq: The Sunni insurgency is about more than the American occupation of Iraq, and will not wither away in the absence of an American enemy. From Sunni nationalists to ex-members of Saddam’s regime to foreign jihadists, members of the insurgency have much to lose and little to gain from the rise of Shiite [...]
