-Caveat Lector- > Unknown war leaves victims in anonymity > > > > August 5, 1999 > > BY ROBERT NOVAK SUN-TIMES COLUMNIST > > At 1:30 a.m. Tuesday, the remains of 29-year-old Capt. Jennifer > J. Odom, U.S. Army, arrived at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware. > The television cameras, usually present at such events, were > nowhere to be seen. Indeed, the news media were totally absent, > and the event went unrecorded. Nor was President Clinton there to > feel her family's pain. > > Odom, along with her co-pilot and three other crew members, died > July 23 when the DeHavilland RC7 reconnaissance plane she was > piloting crashed into a mountain in southern Colombia. The > Pentagon says there is "no evidence" that narco-guerrillas shot > down the plane, but adds that the investigation is continuing. > > In any event, the five-member crew constituted the first U.S. > military personnel to be killed in the war against the > drug-financed, leftist insurrection subverting Colombia. Jennifer > Odom is an unsung heroine in an unknown war. > > The non-stop propaganda machinery during 78 days of bombing > Yugoslavia was mute about the death of Odom, the first American > woman pilot killed in action. The Clinton administration says as > little as possible about Colombia. It never wanted to get > involved there, but has been dragged into a conflict it deplores, > and still presses for a negotiated settlement with the > Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC. If Kosovo was a > liberal's war, Colombia certainly is not. > > Thus, the nation and even most of Congress were unaware that the > United States dispatches aircraft on hazardous duty over > FARC-occupied Colombia. U.S. planes have been on such missions > for years, but what is new is the DeHavilland RC7s, carrying > signal intelligence equipment to eavesdrop on the guerrillas' > highly sophisticated communications system. "This is a very black > [secret] operation," said one military source. > > A Pentagon spokesman said that the Odom plane's principal mission > was "imagery" (taking pictures), but added that signal > intelligence equipment was on board and might have been used. > Independent military experts, however, contend that less > technologically advanced aircraft--or, indeed, satellites--could > handle imagery. The RC7 is configured to tap enemy communications > (as it did in helping Peru's government in 1997, when terrorists > seized the Japanese embassy in Lima). But the lid has been placed > on Odom's outfit, the 204th Military Intelligence Battalion in > Fort Bliss, Texas, to bar conversations with the press. > > Similarly, military sources questioned the likelihood that Odom's > death was accidental. The RC7's navigation equipment is so > sophisticated that it is hard to imagine an experienced pilot > crashing into a mountain without some provocation by enemy forces > below. > > Such questions went unasked amid the news blackout of the > disaster. The wreckage was spotted July 25, but the names of the > crew were not officially disclosed until Monday (long after next > of kin had been notified). > > Pentagon sources speculated that the high command did not want a > female pilot's death in Colombia to interfere with the > celebration of Lt. Col. Eileen Collins' successful command of the > Space Shuttle Columbia. It surely did not. At this writing, only > Newsweek, among the mass media, has published a news report on > the crash. > > Thus did the first casualties of Colombia's war go unmentioned in > much of the country. In addition to Odom, they include her > co-pilot, Capt. Jose A. Santiago, as well as Chief Warrant > Officer Thomas G. Moore, Specialist T. Bruce Cluff and Specialist > Ray E. Krueger. Typically, when Republican Rep. Constance Morella > took the House floor Tuesday morning to praise astronaut Collins, > there was no mention of her fellow Marylander whose remains had > arrived at Dover only hours before. > > Republican Rep. Roscoe Bartlett, whose district contains Odom's > hometown of Brunswick, Md., reported that her family was > frustrated by inability to get calls immediately returned by the > Defense Department, while the military searched for John F. > Kennedy Jr. Senior military officials later telephoned Odom's > mother. But President Clinton, usually adept in commiserating > with tragedy, said nothing. > > Although Attorney General Janet Reno led a government delegation > to honor the slain pilot at Dover, nobody was there to represent > the White House. The omission was hardly accidental. If Jennifer > Odom's death continues to be ignored, there can be no debate > about how well this war is being fought, and little attention may > be paid to Friday's hearing on Colombia by a House investigating > subcommittee headed by Rep. John Mica of Florida. > > Robert Novak appears on the CNN programs "Capital Gang" at 6 p.m. > Saturday and "Evans, Novak, Hunt and Shields" at 4:30 p.m. > Saturday and 10 a.m. Sunday. >From http://www.suntimes.com/output/novak/novak051.html << A<>E<>R ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The only real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes. -Marcel Proust + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + "Believe nothing, no matter where you read it, or who said it, no matter if I have said it, unless it agrees with your own reason and your common sense." --Buddha + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + A merely fallen enemy may rise again, but the reconciled one is truly vanquished. -Johann Christoph Schiller, German Writer (1759-1805) + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + It is preoccupation with possessions, more than anything else, that prevents us from living freely and nobly. -Bertrand Russell + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + "Everyone has the right...to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers." 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