How did these death squad witnesses end up in "U.S. custody" and what is the Obama administration likely to do with a request that they testify?

These witnesses were whisked out of Colombia, to the U.S., on mere drug charges, in a midnight extradition arranged by none other than Alvaro Uribe (ultimate target of these prosecutions) and the Bushwhack-appointed U.S. ambassador William Brownfield. The Colombian prosecutors strongly objected at the time (circa 2010). They were ignored.

My suspicion is that Brownfield's motive was to protect the Bush Junta which likely committed war crimes in Colombia, in collusion with Uribe--including possibly using the Colombian military and its rightwing death squads' "turkey shoots" against the peasants to train U.S. military contractors and even U.S. soldiers for Iraq and Afghanistan. The Bush Junta (and Brownfield) more than likely colluded on Uribe/DAS's illegal spying, which included spying on prosecutors and judges, as well as political opponents, trade unionists and others, and was possibly used to draw up 'hit lists' of trade unionists for assassination. And then there is the trillion-plus dollar cocaine trade, which I think the Bush Junta was also dirty on.

Uribe has been tied to the AUC (rightwing death squads) and there is evidence that he has been so tied throughout his career. In fact, it is not an exaggeration to say that Uribe was the Bush Junta's crime boss in Colombia, and used his presidential powers and $7 BILLION in U.S. military aid to kill anyone in his way--trade unionists, teachers, community activists, peasant farmers, the leaders and members of rival drug organizations and others--and to brutally drive FIVE MILLION peasants from their lands, in favor of transglobal corporations, his fascist pals and probably his favored drug lords.

Some 70 of Uribe's closest political associates are under investigation or already in jail for ties to the death squads, drug trafficking and corruption.

The extraditions of these death squad witnesses occurred with Obama as president and Bush Sr.'s close associate, Leon Panetta, as CIA Director (whose first visible travel as CIA Director was to go to Bogota). I think it is very strange that Obama left the Bush Junta-appointed Brownfield in place as ambassador to Colombia, with all these undercurrents of massive, heinous crimes during Uribe/Bush rule. That may have been accomplished by freshman Senator Jim DeMint (SC-Diebold) who at the time was holding up all of Obama's LatAm appointments admittedly (by DeMint) to blackmail Obama on the rightwing coup in Honduras, but an underlying motive may well have been to keep Brownfield in place to cover the Bush Junta's trail in Colombia. After these events--the midnight extraditions and a couple of other things, including a secret Brownfield/Uribe military agreement that granted "total diplomatic immunity" to all U.S. personnel in Colombia including military 'contractors'--Obama then kicked Brownfield upstairs to run the entire corrupt, murderous, failed U.S. "war on drugs" in LatAm.

There is a sphere of the U.S. government that Obama apparently cannot touch--and that is investigation/prosecution of Bush Junta principles. This includes all of their many war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan, and in Guantanamo Bay and elsewhere ("we need to look forward not backward," said our President), theft on a truly mindboggling scale (billions gone missing in Iraq, more billions to government 'contractors' for doing nothing, the trillions to the banksters, etc.), and any other crimes around the world, of which we can be sure there are many, and that includes Colombia. (It also includes Bolivia, where the white separatist insurrection against the Morales government was funded/organized right out of the U.S. (Bush Junta) embassy).

Given Panetta's early visit to Bogota, I think we can presume that there was much to cover up in Colombia. I don't think that these horrible crimes--death squads, massive human displacement, cocaine trafficking, warmongering (of which Uribe was also guilty)--were how Obama wanted to conduct U.S. policy in LatAm. I can't be sure about this--it's largely intuitive. Obama/Clinton's response to the rightwing coup in Honduras--to give the coupsters a rigged election--and their obliviousness to the rightwing death squad activity and the brutal military in Honduras (also funded/trained by the U.S. military), does not inspire confidence in their good intentions, to say the least. Though I think they were trapped in some ways (the coup was not of their design), their response has been to legitimate the coup and the destruction of Honduran democracy. They may not have perpetrated the coup on their own but, when it comes to Bush Junta crimes, goals and plots, they are wusses. They have--or seem to have--no power, and, at times, they seem to be IN ACCORD with the worst criminals who ever occupied the White House.

They have protected Uribe--got death squads out of the country, probably got Maria Hurtado (who headed DAS) out of the country and ensconced in Panama with instant asylum, wrote a letter to the judge in the Drummond Coal death squad case pressuring the judge not to force Uribe to give a deposition, have given Uribe cushy perks (such as academic sinecures at Harvard and Georgetown), and have protected and coddled him in various ways. Soo-o-o, it will be interesting to see what they do now--with Colombian prosecutors asking for direct testimony by this extradited group.

My guess: There has been time enough, with this group buried in a U.S. federal prison, to cleanse their testimony of any ties to the Bush Junta and maybe to Uribe (if he remains a Bush Cartel "made man&quot . So maybe it won't be so interesting.

But I'm also trying to figure out how did they end up in the US in first place.