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  President Bush’s Cocaine Haze
Posted by FoM on July 27, 2001 at 08:03:04 PT
By David V. Mitchell  
Source: Point Reyes Light  

justice Comic Paul Rodriguez once observed, "Sometimes I think war is God’s way of teaching us geography." Indeed, how many of us would know where East Timor is had not Indonesian militias attempted to crush that country’s independence movement?

How many of us could locate Burundi and Rwanda on the map (they’re west of Kenya and Tanzania) were it not for their civil wars? Or Sierra Leone (just north of Liberia on Africa’s west coast)? Or Kosovo?

Unfortunately, these days we’re also learning more than we want to know about Colombia, which stretches from Panama in Central America to the Amazon Jungle, from Venezuela on the Caribbean to the Andean nations of Peru and Ecuador on the Pacific.

The House of Representatives this week is again debating whether to keep funding a $1.3 billion war against leftist guerrillas in Colombia under the guise of fighting cocaine trafficking. The problem is that while the guerrillas do, in fact, protect small-time coca growers, the Colombian military is passing along to rightwing militias much of the military aid we are supposedly providing to the Colombian government.

Somewhat surprisingly, the militias themselves have acknowledged being as involved in cocaine trafficking as the guerrillas they’re fighting. It’s just that the militias protect cocaine agribusiness while the guerrillas protect Indian farmers.

This civil war has been going on for four decades, but when the Clinton Administration last year decided to get the US militarily involved, it predictably forced Colombia’s guerrillas to move much of their cocaine production into neighboring countries such as Ecuador, Brazil, Peru, Venezuela, and Panama. And bad as this development has been from those countries’ point of view, the problem has been compounded by: 1) refugees fleeing across Colombia’s borders to escape increased fighting, and 2) by Colombian guerrillas moving some of their bases to remote areas of neighboring countries.

As to what little counternarcotics activity has actually been carried out in Colombia, most of it has consisted of helicopters spraying herbicides on Indians’ coca fields. However, as a Chronicle editorial noted Monday, "Aerial fumigation from helicopters has also left many peasants with health problems and contaminated their land so that it cannot sustain edible crops. Six governors from southern provinces, in fact, recently signed a letter to President Andres Pastrana, demanding that aerial fumigation be stopped."

What makes all this especially frustrating is that we’ve done all this before – and not so long ago. The United States has begun to repeat the folly of its wars in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia. Because Congress has limited the number of GIs that can be sent to Colombia, President Bush is trying to revive the old CIA-in-Laos ploy: use mercenaries in lieu of GIs to do the dirty work. Congress last year placed a 300-person limit on such civilian operatives, but His Fraudulency would like to eliminate any such restrictions.

The current debate in Congress would allocate $676 million to replenish that part of the $1.3 billion that has already been spent fighting leftists.

"Right now," notes The Chronicle, "71 percent of funds to the Andean region will go for military assistance. The United States should use these funds to provide assistance for governmental reforms, anti-poverty programs, and social and economic assistance for refugees. This is a war that cannot be won by military means. It has no concrete goal, no popular support, and no exit strategy."

To that I might add, Plan Colombia and the Andean Regional Initiative – two programs the Bush Administration is counting on to shore up America’s failed war on drugs – have not slowed trafficking of cocaine into the United States but are instead turning once-friendly governments into nervous neighbors.

In short, the US appears to be embarking on a strategy that is cruel toward the indigenous population and a disaster to wildlife (both local and migratory). It perpetuates the myth that we can shoot our way out of drug addiction. And it will likely leave the US politically isolated in yet one more region of the world. Sort of makes you wonder if GW himself ever escaped the drugged-out haze of his younger years.

Source: Point Reyes Light (CA)
Author: David V. Mitchell
Published: July 26, 2001
Copyright: 2001 Tomales Bay Publishing Company/Point Reyes Light
Contact: editor@ptreyeslight.com
Website: http://www.ptreyeslight.com/

Related Articles & Web Site:

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

Broader Role by U.S. Likely in Colombia
http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread10417.shtml

House Rejects Bush Request on Colombia
http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread10414.shtml


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Comment #2 posted by The GCW on July 27, 2001 at 11:54:27 PT
Is the election thief:
a CRACK - POT?
Did he turn to stealing to supply his habit?



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Comment #1 posted by Sudaca on July 27, 2001 at 11:47:34 PT
escaped
" Sort of makes you wonder if GW himself ever escaped the drugged-out haze of his younger years."

sort of makes me wonder if GW escaped his Daddy's control ever, and his Daddy's cronies, and their interests..

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