News of the Restless

Oh noes! I’ve been accused of being wrong about something going down in Bolivia, it seems. The accuser gives the e-mail address “bolivia@gmail.com”, but a quickie check of his/her IP address (which gets conveniently left in my mailbox, along with the comment) tells me s/he is posting from someplace rather far from there:

General Information

Hostname: 205.160.23.2

ISP: Sprint

Organization: NAVIGANT

Proxy: None detected

Type: Corporate

Geo-Location Information

Country: United States

State/Region: DC

City: Washington

Latitude: 38.9097

Longitude: -77.0231

Area Code: 202

So of course, this person would know what s/he is talking about when it comes to Bolivia, right?

Well, let’s dissect what was actually said by the commenter, and see if s/he merits the ban I meted out.*

Here’s the post I put up; here’s the unedited comment, in toto:

well, what can I say, but that although I expected something better from the same person who scolded me for not showing regret at the passing of Alfonsin, I see that Sabina is simply spewing hate, concerned more about scoring ideological points rather than objectively reporting FACTS.

My guess if that innocent til proven guilty only applies for those who you simpathize with? We can agree that the bolivia/hungarian dude was a nut missing a few screws. However there is absolutely no evidence that they were after Evo. The more likely scenario is that they wanted to fight his regime, but that is far different from an assasination attempt. What is really worrysome is that there is indications that these guys were executed and no gun fight occurred. Some are reporting that their hands were tied as they were shot point blank, but I won’t go that far since I was not there. But the pictures and video clearly do not support the govt version of a gunfight. And yes, there is still no evidence what so ever of an plot to kill Evo other than him, and he made that call even before we knew who had been killed.

The first paragraph is a nasty ad feminam attack, no? It’s indicative of a grudge-holding mentality on the part of the troll, because I had put that comment out of my mind shortly after chiding this person (on El Gaviero’s blog) for being disrespectful to an Argentine former president who recently passed away, and who also happened to be the one to transition the country from dictatorship to democracy. You can get the details on Raúl Alfonsín from Otto and The Mex Files, if you like.

The second is more immediately relevant, and makes some accusations which are pretty ludicrous in light of known facts (no ideology necessary, unless of course you’re a spinny ‘winger troll.)

First off: No gunfight? That’s funny, every major media report says there was one that went on for about thirty minutes. (Here’s the Reuters version, for those who still doubt. You’ll note that it is NOT Evo-friendly.)

Thirty minutes, people. That’s a long time to be shooting it out barrel to barrel. Why would Big Media, no friend to Evo, report that unless it actually DID happen that way?

And what does it tell you about the guys shooting back at the cops? What it tells me is that they were pretty damn heavily armed, is what. Here’s another article, with some photos (again, from Reuters, the not-Evo-friendly news agency) showing what the cops found on those guys.

Then there’s the “their hands were tied” part. Um, no, they weren’t, and here’s some graphic (and grotty) proof:

That’s Michael Dwyer’s corpse immediately after the shootout, BTW. See how the hands are tied together?

Neither do I.

The tying-up happened, incidentally, when the bodies were being removed from the hotel. That is, only AFTER they were killed (and photographed for the record, as above). They were wrapped in garbage bags, and I’m guessing they had to be trussed up pretty tightly to keep the bags in place and make the bodies easier for the removers to carry. Why garbage bags? Well, either the authorities didn’t have any body bags to hand (my guess is they weren’t anticipating a need for them, since they conducted the raid in the wee hours, when these guys were presumably sleeping, and they probably didn’t expect so much resistance). Or else (and this is less likely) they considered these assassins worthy of nothing better. Either way, get one thing straight: The decedents were NOT tied up and then summarily executed. There was a gunfight, and they lost. Period.

Finally, one doesn’t have to have a partisan viewpoint to realize that yes, this is a terrorist incident, and not some cockamamie “freedom fighter” bullshit. When the parliament agrees to convene a multipartite commission to investigate the incident, you can be sure that it’s serious.

Finally, there is the “fighting against his regime” bullcrap. WHAT “regime”? We’re talking about a democracy here. Evo was elected in December 2005 with 54% of the vote, which might not sound like much until you realize it’s the most that any elected Bolivian president in history ever got–and more than double the percentage of his nearest rival. If you’re fighting against that, you’re fighting against democracy, and that, by definition, makes you a terrorist. If the opposition can’t take their defeats gracefully, too bad for them–but that’s no excuse to try to overthrow him. The man deserves respect. What else do you think the very democratic concept of “the loyal opposition” means?

One would have to be pretty ideologically twisted to argue with facts like these, but crapagandists in Washington, DC, are as twisted as they come.

And now that we’ve got this much straight, let’s move on to other things. I’ll still be following this case as new details emerge, and as justice takes its course with the two who were taken alive. But I will not have any more patience for people trying to muddy the waters with obvious and patent bullshit.

*I don’t often do this, BTW. I do, however, make exceptions to my general live-and-let-fly comment policy for spammers and trolls. Spammers get insta-dumped; the trolls get baseball rules–three strikes before the umpire calls ’em out. Since most trolls I get are one-time poopers, I have more fun with a good factual beatdown than banning them, unless they’re truly and pornographically obnoxious. In which case I make an exception to the baseball rule, and just delete their comment AND ban them in one go. Since this troll has defecated here more than three times, s/he was overripe for a pul
ping.