Free Republic

<p>When Colombian President Alvaro Uribe dared to say, in a September speech, that some "human rights" groups in this country are actually fronts for terrorists, local and international leftists took great umbrage.</p> <p>Connecticut Senator Chris Dodd, who has a well-known soft spot for the Latin left, delivered a pious lecture: "It's imperative that the administration continue to impress on [Mr. Uribe] the importance of democratic values, such as the respect for human rights and free speech."</p>

Revealed: the South American connection (Filed: 09/11/2003) A lawless frontier is helping to finance Arab extremists. Philip Sherwell reports from Ciudad del Este, Paraguay They work from dawn until dusk on the traffic-clogged Friendship Bridge that runs across the Parana River between the seedy Paraguayan city of Ciudad del Este and its neighbour, Foz do Iguacu in Brazil. By foot, bicycle and motorcycle or packed into cars, vans and buses, the people known as "ants" criss-cross the bridge several times a day with sacks and boxes laden with counterfeit cigarettes, pirated CDs and computer software and fake designer clothes. For...

RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil — Brazilian police confirm that suspected al-Qaida terrorist Khalid Shaikh Mohammed visited their country in the 1990s, and U.S. intelligence suggests that he may have hidden out in the region. Mohammed's visit — the first confirmed al-Qaida presence in South America — renews fears that Osama bin Laden's organization may have sleeper cells in South America. There have been numerous unconfirmed reports of al-Qaida training camps on Paraguay's border with Brazil. When he was apprehended in Pakistan on March 1, Mohammed was one of the world's most sought-after suspected terrorists. Dubbed the field general of al-Qaida,...

In its National Strategy for Combating Terrorism (Feb. 2003) the White House outlined a policy that calls for "direct and continuous actions against terrorist groups, the cumulative effect of which will initially disrupt, over time degrade, and ultimately destroy the terrorist organizations." The plan also recognizes that "the more frequently and relentlessly we strike the terrorists across all fronts, using all the tools of statecraft, the more effective we will be." If this is to be the measure of an effective counter-terror policy, then the Bush Administration must begin to apply its tenets more aggressively against the increasing number of...