The American Left’s Love Affair with FARC & Friends

NRO ^ | 29 Jan 2021 | Kevin D Williamson

[Rummyfan]

FARC, whose leaders are going on trial, is one of the many murderous offshoots of that ‘real socialism’ the Left insists ‘has never been tried.’

A special court has been convened in Colombia to try eight leaders of the Marxist-Leninist terrorist outfit known as FARC — Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia — on war crimes and crimes against humanity charges. Perhaps justice will be done upon these eight — will it ever be done for their enablers in the United States and elsewhere?

FARC is one of the many murderous offshoots of that “real socialism” that our leftist friends always insist “has never been tried.” Like the Taliban, it is part political movement and part drug cartel; like Hamas, it has sought legitimacy by repackaging itself as a political party, now known as Comunes.

FARC never enjoyed quite the celebrity status of, say, the Sandinistas in Nicaragua, the communist militia that enjoyed the support of, among others, Bill de Blasio, who returned from a visit to the war-ravaged country in his late 20s with “a vision of the possibilities of an unfettered leftist government,” in the words of the New York Times. (And how are you enjoying it, New York?) The Sandinistas got a Clash triple-album named after them, whereas FARC was always more an enthusiasm of cloistered academic Marxists and left-wing activists with a commitment to worldwide revolutionary movements. They were trained by IRA bomb-makers, and their interests were advanced in the U.S. Congress by elected Democrats, with American activists acting as back-channel go-betweens. Left-wing activists have long agitated for the release of FARC terrorists held in U.S. prisons.

[kearnyirish2]

FARC’s public image got a real black eye when they kidnaped Ingrid Betancourt, a centrist politician who publicly railed against kidnappings. She was rescued over six years later; it was hard to paint them as the “good guys” in that situation.

[Demian]

I’ll never knowingly click on any National Review link.

[mrsmel]

Amen. Their firing John Derbyshire was the last straw for me. They were either cowards or complicit, their history since indicates complicity (with uniparty, globalism, etc-all the memberships of self-appointed elites).

[piasa]

HEH... "My main objection to Representative Frank’s taking the gavel as chairman of the House Financial Services Committee was that he had somehow managed to lose money hosting a whorehouse in Washington."

[Harmless Teddy Bear]

The author has openly stated that he hates Americans and would like to see them replaced by people from south of the border that he praised as smart hard working brown people.

I have NO interest in what should dribble from his pen.