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  Broader Role by U.S. Likely in Colombia
Posted by FoM on July 26, 2001 at 08:15:17 PT
By T. Christian Miller, Times Staff Writer 
Source: Los Angeles Times  

justice The United States is planning to expand its training role in Colombia, instructing military units to fight drugs in parts of the country where leftist guerrillas are becoming increasingly involved in narcotics trafficking, the top U.S. official in the country said Wednesday.

So far, the U.S. has focused its training efforts on three special counter-narcotics battalions that operate in southern Colombia, the source of nearly half the cocaine sold in the United States.

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Comment #2 posted by Rambler on July 26, 2001 at 09:21:42 PT
well qualified
Boy,I sure am glad we have someone like Ms. Patterson down there to handle things.She's obviously an expert on the situation,and she's got a great sense of humor!

""When I do a briefing, I'm going to put up a sign: 'Colombia is not El Salvador,' " she joked. "

What a wonderful showing of wit and good natured,down home fun.


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Comment #1 posted by kaptinemo on July 26, 2001 at 08:54:15 PT:

Beware the RAND Report back door approach!
During the Spanish Civil War, Hitler sent pilots and planes to fight on Franco's side. He dressed the Germans up in Spanish Uniforms and called them The Condor Legion. When these 'advisors' were found out, Hitler's propaganda machine went into full blast about the perils of having Communists take over Spain, so the bloody-handed Franco forces had to be supported.

A cartoon I once saw illustrated things nicely by showing Hitler and Mussolini dressed as Francos' soldiers were and dancing beside Franco, singing (to Brit and French observers) "There's nobody here but us Spaniards!"

Today, the US government might say, "There's nobody here but us - heavily armed - civilian contractors!"

Recently, the RAND report about Colombia had said that in order to win the war, we had to stop treating the DrugWar and the counter-insurgency war as if they were different; the lines have been blurred by the narcos. The present Administration seems to have taken it's recommendations to heart, in trying to lift the cap on personnel. Which has caused some pols to rouse from their three-martini lunch stupors and act:

"Rep. John Conyers Jr., a Michigan Democrat who worked out a deal to keep a cap, said he worried that the embassy's new plan would lead the U.S. deeper into Colombia's civil conflict.

"These are the kinds of developments that make it clear that we have to monitor the activities between our government . . . and the rebels much more carefully," Conyers said in a telephone interview. "What it sounds like is that we may be in the process of erasing the line between the civil war, the rebel activity and the counter-narcotics initiative. It's not going to lead us in a good direction."

But the Administration, in an act of bald-faced disingenuous lying, says it is not engaging in such blurring:

"Patterson, however, stressed that U.S. training was devoted exclusively to fighting drugs, not rebels. The three counter-narcotics battalions, for instance, were instructed by Green Berets in how to seize a drug lab, avoid firing at the workers inside and secure the scene for processing by police.

"The political stomach for going into the counterinsurgency business is zero. It's not going to happen," Patterson said. "It's not an issue for debate. It wasn't under the Clinton administration, it's not under the Bush administration. "When I do a briefing, I'm going to put up a sign: 'Colombia is not El Salvador,' " she joked.

My instructors once told me that they had been told in the 'Nam that an indig was VC if they looked up at the choppers if they flew overhead. That was how they knew how to tell who was the enemy. God knows how many innocent civs died just from looking up, and catching some M60 rounds as payment for having normal human curiosity.

So, how do we know if a person is a narco?

I don't believe the narcos will be any more obliging to the DrugWarriors than the VC were; they are hardly going to politely wear signs identifying them as 'bad guys'.

No more than the people in El Salvador did.

No, Colombia is not El Salvador...but it is becoming like El Salvador. Colombia is not Viet Nam, but it is becoming like Viet Nam. As I used to hear until I was sick of it: "Close enough for government work!"

But this is government work I want no part of, and neither should you.



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