This is Almost Too Exquisite

Image from Infinite Monkeys

From the Washington Post:

15 Hostages Rescued in Colombia

Military Tricks Rebels Into Freeing Politician Betancourt, 3 American Contractors

Colombia's military yesterday rescued the most prominent of several hundred hostages held by Marxist rebels, a group of 15 that included the French-Colombian politician Ingrid Betancourt and three American Defense Department contractors who had been imprisoned in remote jungle camps since 2003.

In what Colombian officials called an elaborate ruse, commandos deceived a rebel unit entrusted with the prized hostages into turning them over in a grassy field deep in southeastern Guaviare province. The prisoners, who included 11 Colombian soldiers, were then flown to freedom in what amounted to a powerful blow to a fast-waning insurgency.

Here's the best part.

Yesterday, two white helicopters arrived in a jungle clearing where the hostages were being held. The men in the helicopters looked like guerrillas, Betancourt later said, describing details of the rescue at the military airport.

"Absolutely surreal," she said, noting that some of the men who got off the helicopter wore T-shirts emblazoned with the iconic image of the Argentine revolutionary Ernesto "Che" Guevara. "I thought this was the FARC," she said.

Nope, it wasn't the FARC, nor was it myriad deluded college students and 'sixties hangers-on: rather, it was freedom-loving Colombians, down in the trenches (unlike those pseudo-warriors previously mentioned), who have seen the true and ugly face of communism up close and are fighting against that wretched tyranny. What a splendid and appropriate gift the people of Columbia have offered our nation on the anniversary of its founding.

Happy Independence Day.