IN NOVEMBER 2006, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Columbia (FARC), the Marxist terror group that has waged a nearly half-century war against the Colombian state, circulated an open letter to the academic and Hollywood left, requesting that their “always generous solidarity” with Third World liberation movements again be marshaled to “pressure President Bush and his government to support a prisoner exchange in Colombia.” The mediation request was addressed to Oliver Stone, Michael Moore, Angela Davis, Noam Chomsky, and, bizarrely, Denzel Washington. It was signed, with comradely greetings, by FARC “foreign minister” and second-in-command Raul Reyes.

Last Saturday the Colombian military briefly trespassed the border of neighboring Ecuador and, in a combined arms raid, disposed of Reyes. Acknowledging his military’s one mile incursion into Ecuadorian territory, Colombian President Alvaro Uribe offered the country’s chavista president, Rafael Correa, a perfunctory apology. Predictably, he refused to be assuaged. When Colombia claimed that the terrorists were killed during a “hot pursuit” operation that spilled across the border, Correa complained that Reyes, along with 23 other members of his execution and kidnap gang, had in fact been killed “in their pajamas.”