The concept is this: We eliminate the supply of drugs at its source by furnishing the world's most corrupt and criminal country, Colombia, with our military resources and proven drug war tactics.

McGruff the Crime Dog joins forces with Monsanto, everyone's favorite Agent Orange manufacturer, to spray campesinos' coca crops with the glycophospate Round-Up, a common brand of weed killer.

Sometimes, though, the chemical misses its mark and lands on people, like Sen. Paul Wellstone found out when he went to Colombia to relieve his skepticism about the spraying's accuracy and instead found himself doused in it. Other times Round-Up lands on farmers working their legal food crops, leaving them with rashes, headaches and nausea.

Meanwhile, well-equipped "good guys" shoot drug traffickers out of the sky with American weapons. Sometimes they make mistakes, though, and American missionary families come tumbling to the ground like the Bower family in April after a CIA plane misidentified their personal aircraft. Whoops.

But in the end, all demand for drugs will disappear in our beloved country because the supply no longer exists. A new, D.A.R.E.-ing era of happiness and drug-free harmony will dawn.

America is to the drug problem what the bullfighter is to the bull: We wave a red carpet in its face, and it chases us around and around. We hope to kill it, but it may get us first.

Maybe it really is Colombia's fault. If they didn't make 90 percent of America's cocaine and 50 percent of our heroin there wouldn't be a problem.

Those poor suburban white kids in Traffic would be practicing violin or shopping at the mall if the rural poor in South America weren't busy growing drugs to corrupt our youth. The blame rests squarely on the shoulders of those who grow whatever crop pays their meager bills.

The peasants shouldn't be complaining anyway; Plan Colombia offers displaced and devastated campesinos $106 million of $7.6 billion in "support for alternative development and displacement costs." Surely that money will find its way through the government jungle and the jungle itself to these evil wardens of the coca plant.

In the War on Drugs, there's only us-and-them - and we can tell whose side they're on. And just because the $25 billion we've spent on interdiction since 1982 hasn't stemmed the amount or demand of cocaine on the market doesn't mean a more militarized, hard-line approach won't work now. And just because the street price of cocaine is $70 cheaper than it was in 1971 doesn't mean that it won't work someday, somehow.

At least think of it this way: The 18 state-of-the-art Blackhawk helicopters and 20 Vietnam-era Huey helicopters we're giving the corrupt Colombian army this year is providing the U.S. military-industrial complex with much needed work in this era of relative peace. With the economy taking a downturn, this war might be just what we need.

Speaking of Vietnam, isn't U.S. meddling in the jungle taboo? Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia is a communist insurgency army that places an excise tax on coca production to fund their internal rebellion against the Colombian government.

FARC certainly complicates matters when declaring a War (on Drugs or whatever). It doesn't take too much of an imagination or skeptical edge to realize that more than drugs may be involved in U.S. intervention. Open up Colombia to American corporations, give Lockheed-Martin something to do, put down the Commies, and tell the American public "we're tough on drugs."

If reductionistic thinking is the hallmark of governmental agencies, then Plan Colombia is the cause de celebre of the drugs must be eliminated at any cost crowd.

The fact is, America will never win its war on drugs as long as it keeps treating itself with such contemptible innocence. The problem does not lie with those who provide the supply, but with those who create and constitute the demand. There is no enemy casting mean eyes on America's susceptible youth, there is no War on Drugs, there is only the rot of a country that blames everyone but itself.

Wilder is a English senior

Source: Daily Texan (TX)
Author: Forrest Wilder, Daily Texan Columnist
Published: September 25, 2001
Copyright: 2001 The Daily Texan
Contact: texaned@uts.cc.utexas.edu
Web Site: http://www.dailytexanonline.com

Related Articles & Web Site:

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

Meanwhile, Back in Colombia
http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread10960.shtml

Colombia Guerrillas Blast U.S. 'Intervention'
http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread10925.shtml

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[ Post Comment ]

Not exactly exuding what I would call 'grace under pressure'. More like he realizes now that it's no game anymore. He successfully pimped himself to the Powers-That-Be, and probably expected to cruise through 'his' Presidency like Ronnie did...on the backs of his Daddy and the CFR puppet masters. But I think that now his handlers have impressed upon him how easy it would be. Just like they did with Ronnie; he quit making those 'true conservative' noises after John Hinkley managed to get too close for comfort. I think ol' W has finally realized that he's little more than a pawn...and an expendable, one, too.

[ Post Comment ]

I have no interest in taking any of the harder stuff, so I might have spoken too quickly on the tax issue, but anything beats the status quo.

[ Post Comment ]

...... ..dddd

[ Post Comment ]

..:)

[ Post Comment ]

Reporting from Outer Space...........................dddd

[ Post Comment ]

ff

[ Post Comment ]

Just a thought or two!

[ Post Comment ]

:) ff

[ Post Comment ]

If we encourage taxing, just to regain a particular freedom, not only will the tax rate will soar, but the money stolen from us will still be used to oppress us. This is one of the problems with "Alternative Taxes" because the destruction of Constitutional Rights is merely "Alternatively Funded".

[ Post Comment ]

and to rebut: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/edit/letters/letterform.htm

[ Post Comment ]

Anyway, pot smokers aren't the problem - never have been, never will.

• http://www4.petitiononline.com/butrbomb/petition.html

Legalize, yes. Tax, no. I pay enough taxes already that are used for unconstitutional government activities. If people are sincere about helping addicts get the rehab they need, they should pay for it voluntarily through contributions.

• demoss.org

[ Post Comment ]

• demoss.org