The Colombian military's rescue last Wednesday of 15 hostages, including former presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt and three Americans, was a dramatic sign of the government's progress against a left-wing rebel group.

It highlights the increasing success of President Alvaro Uribe's administration in its struggle with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia. The FARC are hostage-taking drug dealers masquerading as social reformers. While a negotiated settlement would be preferable, those attempts have failed.

Colombia is the third-largest recipient of U.S. foreign aid (after Israel and Egypt) and its relations with the United States are complicated.

The $1 billion from Washington is given ostensibly to disrupt Colombia's drug trade, but the effort has been largely a failure. The other objective of the dollars has been to help Mr. Uribe, a staunch ally of President Bush, fight the FARC. The United States also has troops and contractors in Colombia to help protect the oil pipeline of Occidental Petroleum.

By coincidence, Sen. John McCain, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, was in Colombia last week to highlight his foreign policy record and support for a free-trade pact. He has ties to the country through one of his principal aides, Charles R. Black Jr., who led a firm until March that has been a longtime lobbyist for Colombia, Occidental and various firms and politicians there.

The Bush administration has not been able to get Congress to approve its free-trade pact with Colombia, and Mr. McCain told the government that he remained a strong supporter of the proposal. It's hard to say whether Mr. McCain was there simply to lend support to an American ally, or to show business interests in Colombia that he'd be a good investment in campaign contributions. Either way, news of the jungle rescue mission may have stolen a bit of his thunder.