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  Bush To Raise 'Private Army' in Drugs War
Posted by FoM on July 21, 2001 at 21:00:47 PT
By Peter Beaumont, Foreign Affairs Editor 
Source: The Observer  

justice President Bush is planning to escalate the US war against drugs from South America with new legislation that its critics say will allow him to deploy a 'private army' of former US servicemen across the region.

The disclosure comes amid mounting evidence that the controversial $1.3 billion Plan Colombia, a military support programme initiated by the Clinton administration to sever the supply of Colombian cocaine, has had a negligible impact on supplies to US cities.

Experts say coca production has been switched to neighbouring Bolivia, Venezuela and Peru.

The claim that Bush is seeking permission to deploy his own private army - unanswerable to congressional oversight - comes as Congress prepares to vote on proposals to inject cash into Plan Colombia by lifting a cap on the number of privatised military personnel allowed to be deployed there.

The cap, which was introduced following fears that the US could be dragged into a new Vietnam war, limited the total to 500, in a purely training role.

Congress also insisted that no more than 300 non-military personnel, largely working for private companies such as Dyncorp as coca- spraying pilots, could be in Colombia at any one time.

However, a new $676 million programme - the Andean Counterdrug Initiative - would allow the Bush administration to deploy as many former servicemen as it wanted.

Questions about American counter-narcotics efforts in the Andean region have risen sharply since April, when Peruvian jets shot down a US missionary aircraft over the Amazon river, believing it was laden with drugs. The Peruvian fighter was guided in for the attack by a radar plane operated by a CIA contractor.

Bush's personal involvement in lifting the cap was made clear by an official who told the Miami Herald on Friday that 'the President requested this'.

There are 171 American civilian contractors in Colombia now, involved in activities ranging from aerial fumigation and military training to administering judicial reform programmes and helping internal refugees.

Concern has also been raised by a provision in the Andean Counterdrug Initiative legislation exempting State Department contractors from a section of the Foreign Assistance Act that specifically bans them from buying weapons and ammunition with federal funds.

The new legislation would allow the companies to purchase weapons and ammunition for use in the Andean region for 'defensive pur poses', a definition, say critics, open to widespread abuse.

Underlying the concern over the escalation of Plan Colombia is a suspicion that the entire nature of the war on drugs there is threatening to take a dangerous turn in favour of overt military assistance for the Colombian military against left-wing guerrilla groups who, some US analysts claim, benefit most from cocaine production.

That suspicion has been fuelled by a report commissioned by the US Air Force from the Rand Corporation think-tank, which says 'drugs and insurgency are intertwined in complicated and changing ways, but the former cannot be addressed without the latter'.

It concludes that efforts to reduce the drug supply in Colombia have been ineffective because America has focused more on 'counter-narcotics' than 'counter-insurgency' aid.

'We are worried that this new legislation would give the President sole control over a private army in the Andean region without any accountability to Congress,' Nadeam Elshami, a staffer with Democratic Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky, told The Observer last week.

Schakowsky has tabled an amendment seeking to keep the cap on civilian military contractors in the new legislation.

'It's a back-door way of escalating our involvement in the Andean region and providing additional money to private military contractors who have not been effective.'

Note: Back-door military escalation in Andes.

Source: Observer, The (UK)
Author: Peter Beaumont, Foreign Affairs Editor
Published: Sunday, July 22, 2001
Copyright: 2001 The Observer
Contact: letters@observer.co.uk
Website: http://www.observer.co.uk/

Related Articles & Web Site:

Colombia Drug War News
http://freedomtoexhale.com/colombia.htm

Colombia Drug Policy Questioned
http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread10362.shtml

Hoover Recommends Cures for Colombia
http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread10353.shtml

Drug War Could Escalate
http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread10346.shtml


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Comment #8 posted by Sudaca on July 23, 2001 at 09:15:18 PT
puppet
Bush is a puppet for the large corporative interests of the US. It won't be Bush's private army; it'll be DynCorp, and all the rest of the "contractors" very own private army. In fact, the mercenaries are already in place; they answer, not to the president, to the interests of their employers.

So , the CIA and DEA may be paying now, but if this blows over, there'll be a nice set of well trained mercenary companies sitting available...



[ Post Comment ]

 
Comment #7 posted by dddd on July 22, 2001 at 13:11:21 PT
Wonderful things 4-U
If you wanna get even more mad about this stuff,,,then let these items help you WIG OUT!

http://www.state.gov/g/inl/rls/rpt/cbj/fy2002/index.cfm?docid=3699

http://www.state.gov/g/inl/

http://www.state.gov/g/inl/rls/fs/2001/

You'll love 'em.....dddd

[ Post Comment ]

 
Comment #6 posted by freedom fighter on July 22, 2001 at 11:56:27 PT
For the love of a God
Private army?

Where in the hell did it say in consitution of the U.S that says one can have a private army?

I am not mad at bushiewushie. It is the common folks who keep shelling out the tax money footing this false army.

So is it the stupidity that is footing the bill for this so called army?

sick!

ff



[ Post Comment ]

 
Comment #5 posted by fivepounder on July 22, 2001 at 06:41:03 PT
Lets get this straight.....
Bush what an ass ,what a disingenuious schmuck. Laws ehwhat laws, if we can fool the people whe can do anything. May you choke on your own disingenuous retoric.

[ Post Comment ]
 
Comment #4 posted by The GCW on July 22, 2001 at 06:37:30 PT
Please end the war, not escalate it.
When you think about it in simplist terms, this is possable by first deciding to kill humans for growing plants. With out that deceitful mentality, none of this is possable. Again on the 1st Page of the Bible it is written that ALL plants were VERY good and given to us for FOOD. This morning I am reading in 1 Peter chapter 3 and am reminded: THE ONE WHO DESIRES LIFE, TO LOVE AND SEE GOOD DAYS, MUST KEEP HIS TONGUE FROM EVIL AND HIS LIPS FROM SPEAKING DECEIT.
11 HE MUST TURN AWAY FROM EVIL AND DO GOOD; HE MUST SEEK PEACE AND PURSUE IT. & 1 Peter 2:16 must mean something: Act as free men, and do not use your freedom as a covering for evil,...

Humbly, I share that as I read today, it is evedent that Bush carries himself as the cunning snake.

Our U.N. Human Rights rejected leader wants to hire private armys to go to another continent to kill humans for growing plants and perhaps pick up some more oil. Is that about right? Am I out of my mind or is this for real? As a Christian, I would like to mention that this is pretty much parelell what is said is going to happen. Prophecy? When the bible was written it was the start of something and made and given for a reason... It is no accident that one of the 1st things cleared up, is the plant contraversy... and it was important enough that it could not have been put off even to page 2! Then in 1 Tim. 4:1-5 it explains what will become later... America reads like Jude. Be like Epaphroditus in Philippians 4:18. In fact be like Christ.



[ Post Comment ]

 
Comment #3 posted by metapoet on July 21, 2001 at 22:41:55 PT
Ave, Caesar!
This is how the Roman generals operated, in their republic.

............

http://uk.indymedia.org/

Long ago, when I found myself on this planet, I looked about me and was... amazed. When I looked upward I was stunned: Does this Universe not seem an extravagant stage for our small and contentious affairs? Is there not a quiet place where I can give it some thought?


[ Post Comment ]

 
Comment #2 posted by dddd on July 21, 2001 at 22:22:37 PT
it's simple
OK,,,,just think about it.....

Bush.....Big Oil........Access to huge reserves in Latin America..........Big Oil works it so taxpayers can foot the bill for armed takeover of oil rich areas,,under the ruse of fighting drugs...

....Is it not obvious??...everything bush has done so far has been done for corporate interests.....what special interest has the biggest bucks?????what business is the bush empires main game????

A + B = perhaps one of the biggest shams,,and scams ever in the history of the earth...it's mind-bogglingly devious,and astonishingly REAL AND ACTUAL!!!

dddd

[ Post Comment ]

 
Comment #1 posted by Rainbow on July 21, 2001 at 21:11:40 PT
a bipolar comparison
"Karl Marx to George W Bush, from one end of the spectrum to the other."
George W Bush 19 july 2001

Well, he said it, not me.

Karl Marx - genius.

Bush - Idiot!


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