AMERICAN forces near Baghdad, meanwhile, are locked into an increasingly serious battle against guerrilla snipers and bombers who stage regular hit-and-run attacks.
To Mr. Cano, a salesman who moved to New York from the mountains of western Colombia in 1999, Mr. Mockus is the anti-Uribe, a man too soft to deal with the serious threats posed by guerrilla groups, which are closely connected to the drug trade.
No serious clashes with the guerrillas were reported.
And the stunning capture of Mr. Hussein, the symbolic leader of the resistance, is bound to be a serious blow to the guerrillas.
But an immediate halt to offensive operations, and at least the start of discussion on a ceasefire, would show that the guerrillas were serious.However the talks go, Mr Pastrana must continue his efforts to create a stronger and more professional army.
"We were funny instead of super-serious all the time," a Guerrilla Girl known as "Gertrude Stein" said the other day.
It would be a serious misjudgment to see the guerrillas simply as an anarchic street gang run amok or solely as creatures of Mr. Hussein himself.
Earlier this month, Mr Pastrana ended a ten-month hiatus in Colombia's peace process by securing the agreement of the FARC, the largest of the country's left-wing guerrilla armies, to start serious talks.
A former gun-toting Trotskyist and guerrilla, Rousseff also faces serious questions about her past of the William Ayers sort.
The SLA has suffered serious setbacks in the Jezzine area from guerrilla roadside bombs.
