Video: Fighting the FARC with Christmas

Turns out South Korea isn’t the only country trying to use Christmas trees to vanquish a longtime enemy. CNN reports: This holiday season, the Colombian military is trying a unique angle to get guerrillas to lay down their arms: It is creating Christmas trees deep in the jungle in hopes the holiday spirit will tug ...

By , a former associate editor at Foreign Policy.

Turns out South Korea isn't the only country trying to use Christmas trees to vanquish a longtime enemy. CNN reports:

Turns out South Korea isn’t the only country trying to use Christmas trees to vanquish a longtime enemy. CNN reports:

This holiday season, the Colombian military is trying a unique angle to get guerrillas to lay down their arms: It is creating Christmas trees deep in the jungle in hopes the holiday spirit will tug the rebels back home.

The first tree of "Operation Christmas" was decorated in the jungle of southern Colombia, the military said.

Two units in two Blackhawk helicopters dropped in on a supply path that the guerrillas are known to use and picked a 25-meter (82-foot) tree to decorate with sparkling blue lights.

I don’t mean to get all "bah humbug" here, but I feel that Hollywood may have done the rest of the world a great disservice by instilling in governments a vast overestimation of the power of the Christmas spirit. 

Joshua Keating was an associate editor at Foreign Policy. Twitter: @joshuakeating

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