comment by Jerry Gordon

Investors Business Daily, Editorial, March 7, 2008

Terrorism: The March 1 death strike by the Colombian army against FARC warlord Raul Reyes broke open a trove of contacts in his computer. So why did the name of Barack Obama turn up there?

Admittedly, it pales compared with other material from the dead thug’s computer — such as FARC efforts to obtain uranium or Hugo Chavez’s $300 million support.

But the little Obama reference within the 15 FARC letters released by the Colombian government signals a disturbing pattern of contacts with rogue actors. It’s not the first time, and Obama has yet to distance himself.

In a Feb. 28 letter, FARC chieftain Raul Reyes cheerily reported to his inner circle that he met “two gringos” who assured him “the new president of their country will be Obama and that they are interested in your compatriots. Obama will not support ‘Plan Colombia’ nor will he sign the TLC (Free Trade Agreement).”

Aside from some interesting possibilities about who these “gringos” are — a congressional delegation did visit Ecuador and an international leftist “congress” was held in Quito around this time — the real question is why anyone secretly consorting with FARC would be able to speak for presidential candidate Obama.

Obama hasn’t said a whole lot about Colombia other than to criticize President Bush’s good relations with President Uribe. With this correspondence suggesting that FARC knows what he thinks, maybe the American voters have a right to know what he thinks, too. Five questions come to mind:

1. Is it true Obama would cut off Plan Colombia military aid to our ally, which would serve the terrorist group FARC’s interests?

2. Does Obama still oppose a free trade agreement for Colombia, even though that puts him on the same side as FARC in the debate?

3. Does Obama know or care that one of his staffers or supporters is claiming to disclose his positions in secret meetings with FARC terrorists outside government channels?

4. Can he tell us why his supporters would pass on such information to terrorists, and what he or she could gain from it?

5. Will Obama, as president, treat FARC as the serious terrorists they are, given that they still hold three Americans hostage?

These aren’t idle “gotcha” questions, by the way. Based on his campaign so far, Obama favors meeting and negotiating with rogue leaders without preconditions, passing secret messages to foreign countries at odds with his public positions and tolerating Che-flag wielding leftists among his supporters who advance a radical agenda in his name.

Now that FARC seems to have an inside line to Obama’s campaign, maybe he ought to come tell voters what he really stands for.