After the rescue

Re “The end of FARC,” editorial, July 5

The Colombian government’s rescue of 15 people from kidnappers would have been laudable had it not put thousands of others at risk. In creating a fake nongovernmental organization, it has given license to insurgents and rogue governments all over the world to treat humanitarian aid workers as enemy combatants. In simpler terms, which the editorial board might understand, it is as though it distributed maps of Doctors Without Borders clinics in the Democratic Republic of Congo marked “bomb them.”

I thought that nobody outside the Bush administration could be so myopic and cavalier about the lives of others, but I was wrong. Newspaper editors ought to talk to representatives of the NGOs whose security has been irreparably damaged by the Colombian government’s actions. They might tell you a little something about unintended consequences.

James L. Kilgore

Long Beach

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The Colombians obviously know how to track down guerrillas and flawlessly execute a rescue operation.

How about Homeland Security hiring the Colombians to get Osama bin Laden?

Judi Laing

Los Angeles

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Re “‘Nirvana’ in Bogota for freed hostage,” July 4

The post-liberation treatment of former Sen. Ingrid Betancourt and the three American contractors is a study in contrasts. Betancourt was instantly reunited with her family and was free to speak and move around. The contractors were whisked off to a military base for medical observation, re-integration and decompression.

Colombians put heart before brains, while we do the opposite. This cultural difference may be summed up by Pascal’s saying that the heart has its reasons, of which reason knows nothing.

David S. Cantor

Los Angeles