“El Qaeda” is nothing new

Last week, I complained that Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen was using the drug bust of three African suspected al Qaeda members as proof of an alliance between al Qaeda and Colombia’s FARC rebels when there weren’t even actual FARC members involved. But it turns out that this isn’t the first time officials have pushed the "El Qaeda" meme.

Mitchell Prothero, a Beirut-based foreign correspondent for The National specializing in crime and terrorism, writes in to point out that Rand Beers, now Under Secretary of Homeland Security, filed a court motion in 2002 which included the claim that FARC members were being trained by al Qaeda in Afghanistan. Beers, who was then assistant secretary of state for narcotics and law enforcement, filed the motion in order to convince a federal judge to throw out a class-action suit against defense contractor DynCorp on national security grounds, but later withdrew the claim when it became clear there wasn’t any evidence for it. Prothero covered the story for UPI. The original piece has been taken down but is reprinted here:

One point in the original proffer made the case for links between FARC and al Qaida, including the presence of FARC personnel in Afghanistan as part of a close relationship between the two groups.

"It is believed that FARC terrorists have received training in Al Qaida terrorist caps in Afghanistan," Beers says in the original document.

"I wish to strike this sentence," the new version filed by Beers says. "At the time of my declaration, based on information available to me, I believed this statement to be true and correct."

"There doesn’t seem to be any evidence of FARC going to Afghanistan to train," a U.S. intelligence official said. "We have never briefed anyone on that and frankly, I doubt anyone has ever alleged that in a briefing to the State Department or anyone else." 

"That statement is totally from left field," said a top federal law enforcement official, who reviewed the proffer. "I don’t know where (Beers) is getting that. We have never had any indication that FARC guys have ever gone to Afghanistan."

"My first reaction was that Rand must have misspoke," said a veteran congressional staffer with extensive experience in the Colombian drug war. "But when I saw it was a proffer signed under oath, I couldn’t believe he would do that. I have no idea why he would say that."

In an interview, Beers said that in the ensuing period since he filed the original document it has become clear it is unsupportable.

"At the time it was put before me in November, I had received some indications that it was possible," Beers said. "In the hindsight of history I determined that I could no longer stand by that statement and corrected it in a re-filing."

Given FARC’s dual status as a political militia and a criminal enterprise and its alleged murky connections to government supporters, it’s not hard to tie it within a few degrees of separation to almost any nefarious global enterprise. Unfortunately, that also makes it very tempting to hype those connections when there’s virtually no evidence for them.