WHICH IS WHY THE HOPLESSNESS OF REALISTS IS UNREALISTIC:

Some FARC rebels ready to quit: But splitting from the guerrilla group can carry big risks (JOHN OTIS, Aug. 23, 2008, Miami Herald)

Once a guerrilla, always a guerrilla.

At least that's the credo of Colombia's largest rebel group, which insists that its foot soldiers remain loyal to the cause even from behind bars.

But in a startling development, more than 700 imprisoned rebels have renounced the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, and are calling on the guerrilla army to make peace.

"We are telling the FARC that they no longer have a claim on us," Raul Agudelo, a high-ranking rebel commander, said in a prison courtyard surrounded by gray concrete walls — his home for most of the last five years.

"We don't want to ever again pick up a rifle and point it at a fellow Colombian."

Colombia is one of the surges W doesn't get credit for.

Posted by Orrin Judd at August 26, 2008 10:04 AM