Out of Captivity : Surviving 1,967 Days in the Colombian Jungle

192 OUT OF CAPTIVITYtance and sophisticated equipment. That is what we need to crush terrorismin Colombia.’ ” Jorge sat back, obviously feeling as though he’dbeen crushed.“Uribe’s words echo my thoughts exactly,” I told the others. “Withoutthe right combination of expertise and equipment, a rescue wouldbe a danger to us all.”Gloria said, “Uribe has other motives. He wants to appear to bestrong so the people will reelect him. I’m not convinced he has all ourinterests at heart—”Lucho cut her off. “That’s it exactly. He wants your Congress”—hepointed at Marc, Keith, and me in turn as though Congress were trulyours and we were responsible for its actions—“to enact legislation thatwould provide him with even more sophisticated and expensive toolsfor his military. That way he can control the people by demonstratinghis might—a surrogate might since it is not his own.”“Are you talking about things like the Predator?” Keith asked.“Unmanned drones may not put people like us in danger, but I don’tthink you can ever replace us with whatever the latest widget is.”I had to explain what Keith meant by widget and added that I agreed.Maybe I was a dinosaur, but I would have rather seen the U.S. give theColombians better training in how to fight the insurgency than outfitthem with the latest toy from the catalog. The conversation continuedalong those lines.Uribe also mentioned that he hoped Predators could be used in rescueoperations and specifically referenced the three of us as a way tosway President Bush and the Democrats in the U.S. Congress. Orlandoand Consuelo told us that there had been a lot of debate recently in theU.S. Congress about the viability of Plan Colombia and the $700 millionin aid it provided to Colombia. In spite of the doubts, Congress hadapproved the money that kept our drug interdiction program in the airand even expanded the scope of the operation to allow for surveillanceto search for and track arms shipments in the country. The bad news