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| The War on Drugs and the Implosion of Colombia |
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Posted by FoM on April 12, 2002 at 21:30:31 PT By Matthew Nickson Source: Yale Daily News 
Here at Yale, we talk a lot about America's war on drugs. The debate usually hinges on the issue of an individual's right to use drugs, and then often involves some discussion of the relative dangers of specific drugs. But we don't talk as much about countries like Colombia. We need to.Why? Because Colombia is proof of the failure of our war on drugs. Today, Colombia is imploding. On Feb. 20, President Andres Pastrana broke off peace talks with the country's main rebel group -- the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC -- in response to an airplane hijacking that led to the kidnapping of Sen. Jorge Gechem Turbay. The rebels, who finance their struggle through kidnappings and the drug trade, have since intensified their campaign of terror, blowing up major roads and bridges in an effort to paralyze the transportation infrastructure. On Feb. 23, the country was shaken by news of the FARC's abduction of presidential candidate and renowned author Ingrid Betancourt and her campaign manager. On March 2, Sen. Martha Catalina Daniels was found shot to death in a ditch outside Bogota. And so, two weeks ago, in response to the violence, President George W. Bush announced that American advisers will train Colombian soldiers in anti-terrorist tactics. This move should spark some concern, especially given the Colombian military's poor human rights record, as well as its reputation for collaboration with right-wing paramilitaries. And though the Leahy Amendment to President Bill Clinton's Plan Colombia -- the 1999 initiative that provides $1.3 billion for Colombian anti-drug efforts -- prohibits American assistance to units of the Colombian army that commit or are complicit in the commission of atrocities, there is a renewed fear of militarily sanctioned impunity. Already, American Blackhawk helicopters patrol Colombia's skies, denuding the countryside with toxic defoliants. To date, the human and environmental toll of this aggressive spraying campaign has been devastating. And for what? The U.S. State Department has been unable to produce evidence of a significant decline in Colombian coca production. According to The New York Times, a U.S. government report released last month estimates that coca cultivation in Colombia has increased almost 25 percent in the past year. While that figure includes areas not surveyed before, it still points to a spurt in drug cultivation. Moreover, State Department officials have just deemed a $50 million crop substitution plan an utter failure, particularly due to the Colombian government's lack of will to implement it, as well as its lack of control over large swaths of its territory. Our anti-drug efforts are going nowhere, and more and more Colombians are suffering. So why do our politicians persist in spending more on this ineffective war on drugs? I fear it is because some of our leaders do not care enough that we are harming innocent Colombians. Citing Sept. 11 and the undeniable need to prevent future terrorist attacks, some argue that the FARC is a terrorist organization. The majority of Colombians would probably agree, though they would make it clear that the FARC do not pose a threat to the United States. By the same token, the rightist paramilitary groups allied with the government must be considered terrorists as well, as they brutally massacre innocent civilians suspected of being guerrilla sympathizers. Indeed, the government itself, while a democracy on paper, is but a plaything of the elites. But politicians are shrewd. They have learned a valuable lesson from the Vietnam War: never commit large numbers of U.S. ground troops abroad, unless it is absolutely necessary. The American people will not protest an intervention unless there are heavy American casualties involved. Politicians also know that Americans want their leaders to be tough on crime. Fighting drugs plays very well in most of the country, especially if it is spun correctly. It matters little if this war on drugs is effective. Unfortunately, it is not. Drug use is still prevalent in our society. I do not believe the government will be able to curb it without addressing its root causes -- namely, the basic problems of our inner cities. While I acknowledge that many drug users are middle- and upper-class suburbanites, we must combat the scourge of inequality and the lack of opportunity that afflict our urban poor. Why are our public schools so woefully inadequate? Why is so little federal funding made available to them? And when will "drug prevention" come to mean not only anti-drug education programs like DARE, but a renewed commitment to the revitalization of each and every public school? Perhaps after we have taken a long, hard look at the war on drugs. Matthew Nickson is a junior in Berkeley College. He is a former editorials editor of the Yale Daily News. Source: Yale Daily News (US CT) Related Articles & Web Site: Colombia Drug War News DEA Sees Colombian Rebel Link To Cocaine Promotion of Legal Crops Fails to Stem Coca US Seeks to Protect Colombia Pipeline Home Comment Email Register Recent Comments Help |
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| Comment #7 posted by FoM on April 14, 2002 at 14:12:26 PT |
| The National Mobilization on Colombia - April 19-22, 2002 Washington, DC
Colombia Events
4/19: SOA Watch Vigil & Lobby Action at the Capitol US military aid to Colombia over the last couple of years has violently inflamed a 40-year-old civil war and poisoned the people and biodiversity of the Amazon River basin, without reducing the supply or abuse of illegal drugs in the US one bit. NOW, hawks in Washington want to increase and expand US involvement in Colombia to direct counter-insurgency and corporate protection. We can- and must- act to change these policies! This April we will meet and share, protest and lobby, reflect and march. http://www.colombiamobilization.org
Colombia Drug War News [ Post Comment ] |
| Comment #6 posted by Patrick on April 13, 2002 at 10:48:52 PT |
| UPDATED: 7:45 p.m. EST March 12, 2002
WASHINGTON -- America is on "yellow" alert today -- as the nation goes on a new color-coded security alert system. Appearing on CBS's "The Early Show," Ridge said he thinks America will be at yellow alert "for the foreseeable future." That came from the following link… http://www.thewgalchannel.com/wgal8/1298435/detail.html Anyway… I agree with dddd. Try to find the out what "color" we are on today at a .gov site. So we are on Condition Terror Yellow? Or is it YELLOW ALERT: TERRORISM or maybe… Today's Terror Factor = YELLOW or even "This is only a test, a test of the TERRORIST BROADCASTING SYSTEM. CONDITION YELLOW! CONDITION YELLOW! TAKE EVASIVE MANEUEVERS CODE YELLOW IMMEDIATELY. Or maybe the morning radio…Hi this is Jake in news copter5 and the freeway rush hour is on full blast. We got sunny skies and 72 degrees over the downtown interchange and my terror indicator says we are under condition YELLOW yep folks that's right its condition YELLOW today be sure to pack some heat before heading out to the mall, the café, or the pizzeria. Once again this is Jake in news copter5 back to you in the studio Jane… What a joke. I want my money back. [ Post Comment ] |
| Comment #5 posted by Nuevo Mexican on April 13, 2002 at 10:31:15 PT |
| Between U.S. support of Genocide of the Palestinian population, and our overt involvment in the overthrow of Chavez in Venezuela, the emporer is naked for all the world to see. How long will it be safe to reside in America? Well, it hasn't ever been safe. Not if you are one of the 2 million people in jail(concentration camps is a better word) for drug war violations. Not if your are Black, Hispanic, Long-haired or poor. This overthrow will backfire, as Mexico, and many other countries in the region are completely pissed-off and coming to the realization the the U.S. doesn't care anymore who see the manipulations we are behind. The Right-wing McCartyites are out of the closet and right where they need to be to be dealt with. If we concentrate on exposing the IMF as the true power, the exposure itself will kill the daylight fearing vampires. Spread the word people, as the momemtum has shifted and we have all the evidence needed to hang these monstrous criminals and enenmies of democracy, civil rights and freedoms! Educate yourselves here: http://narconews.com/ more evidence of our leaders complicity in war crimes against a civilian population, and any defenders of Israel (Joyce, etc.) read this and then let's here your strongest defense, as there is none, I don't expect any takers! Spread the word, as that is our only weapon against this mushrooming era of bush crimes supported by our corporate media! Peace!
http://commondreams.org/headlines02/0413-02.htm
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| Comment #4 posted by letsgetfree on April 13, 2002 at 10:30:45 PT |
| man thats so f***** up man! i was reading about venezuela and thought that smelled funny. IT'S OIL EVERYWHERE! they're doing it right in front of us and nobody cares. What is going on???
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| Comment #3 posted by Lehder on April 13, 2002 at 07:59:13 PT |
| for Greg Palast: http://www.gregpalast.com/ [ Post Comment ] |
| Comment #2 posted by Lehder on April 13, 2002 at 07:46:11 PT |
| Greg Palast is an investigative reporter who has written lots of good stories, including one about the crooked Florida election that appeared in Harpers: http://google.yahoo.com/bin/query?p=Greg+Palast&hc=0&hs=0 In his March 4 interview with Alex Jones, he predicted the ouster of Venezuela's Hugo Chavez: What they said was here you've got an elected president of the government and the IMF has announced, listen to this, that they would support a transition government if the president were removed. They are not saying that they are going to get involved in politics - they would just support a transition government. What that effectively is is saying we will pay for the coup d'etat, if the military overthrows the current president, because the current president of Venezuela has said no to the IMF. He told those guys to go packing. They brought their teams in and said you have to do this and that. And he said, I don't have to do nothing. He said what I'm going to do is, I'm going to double the taxes on oil corporations because we have a whole lot of oil in Venezuela. And I'm going to double the taxes on oil corporations and then I will have all the money I need for social programs and the government - and we will be a very rich nation. Well, as soon as they did that, they started fomenting trouble with the military and I'm telling you watch this space: the President of Venezuela will be out of office in three months or shot dead. They are not going to allow him to raise taxes on the oil companies. http://gregpalast.com/detail.cfm?artid=125&row=1 Two days ago the oil companies took over Venezuela and replaced Chavez with a dictator who has neutered all Venezuelan popularly elected officials. You can read all about the politics of the coup and new government at narconews.com: http://www.narconews.com/siegel1.html Greg Palast explains in his interview the general process of how entire countries are bankrupted and taken over by corporations. Here's Alex Jones' summary from his introduction to that interview: AJ: We are talking to Greg Palast. He is an award-winning journalist, an American who has worked for the BBC, London Guardian, you name it, who has dropped just a massive bomb-shell on the Globalists and their criminal activity. There is no other word for it. You link through at inforwars.com, you can link to his web site - gregpalast.com, or any of the other great reports he has been putting out. He now has the secret documents. We have seen the activity of the IMF/World Bank for years. They come in, pay off politicians to transfer the water systems, the railways, the telephone companies, the nationalized oil companies, gas stations - they then hand it over to them for nothing. The Globalists pay them off individually, billions a piece in Swiss bank accounts. And the plan is total slavery for the entire population. Of course, Enron, as we told you was a dummy corporation for money laundering, drug money, you name it, from the other reporters we have had on. It's just incredibly massive and hard to believe. But it is actually happening. Greg Palast has now broken the story world-wide. He has actually interviewed the former top World Bank economist. Continuing Sir with all these points. I mean for the average person out there, in a nutshell, what is the system you are exposing? read it all: http://gregpalast.com/detail.cfm?artid=125&row=1 Next stop - Argentina. And the process is already underway in the US. [ Post Comment ] |
| Comment #1 posted by monvor on April 13, 2002 at 06:46:54 PT |
| "Politicians also know that Americans want their leaders to be tough on crime. Fighting drugs plays very well in most of the country, especially if it is spun correctly. It matters little if this war on drugs is effective. " I saw a video clip on the news of a couple of guys ( the Afghan army ) half-heartedly knocking the tops off some poppy plants an Afghanistan. I laughed out loud. The WoD in Afghanistan. Ha Ha Ha What a joke. What you and the rest of America's drug warriors don't see is this: "Cut!", Yells the beturbanned man in Arabic. He hands a couple of farmers the equivalent of 20 USD. A month's wage in this region. The motly crew of cammoflaged young men make there way out of the poppy field and back onto the truck heading back to town. This is the WoD in Afghanistan. The bumper crop grows on. [ Post Comment ] |
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