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| America's Other Fight |
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Posted by CN Staff on May 19, 2002 at 08:05:35 PT By Michael Hill, Sun Staff Source: Baltimore Sun 
The United States military is engaged in a place where warfare has gone on for generations, where large areas are in the hands of dangerous fighters with loyalties to only themselves. Many poor residents find cultivating illegal drugs the best way to make a living. To defeat the worst of the insurgents, some advocate making alliances with unsavory characters, otherwise the fighting is left to a national army of questionable competence and undeniable corruption. That might sound like Afghanistan, but it's a place much closer to home - Colombia. A few years ago, the Clinton White House made Colombia the front lines in the war on drugs. Though Colombia was already getting almost $300 million annually from the United States - putting it third on the foreign aid list behind Israel and Egypt - Clinton drug czar Barry McCaffrey helped push a $1.3 billion package through Congress in 1999, money that was supposed to stem the flow of cocaine from the country that supplies 90 percent of America's consumption. The cocaine continues to pour out of Colombia. The Bush administration is backing a modification in the aid package, sending money for direct military assistance, this time under the anti-terrorism rubric. All of this takes place as a crucial election approaches in Colombia. But with the Middle East and Afghanistan dominating America's attention, little attention is paid to the growing U.S. involvement in what has become a three-way war, fighting that dates back almost 40 years, part of the violence that has been part of the scenery in this in Colombia for much of the last century. "This is not a civil war in the sense that you have a polarized nation with one half one side and the other half on the other side," says Michael Shifter, vice president for policy at the Inter-American Dialogue in Washington. "What you have is very well-financed, well-armed groups competing for power, and you have a state that is very weak." The difference between Colombia and many of the other countries that have endured long, intractable wars is that few contend Colombia is a basket case of a nation. "It is a viable nation-state," says Peter Siavelis, a political scientist at Wake Forest University. "It has clear national borders, a sense of national identity and longstanding political institutions." Shifter says that Colombia has the best economic performance in Latin America over the past 40 years. "It's a bizarre and strange coexistence. There are highly sophisticated sections in Colombia, but it is bloody and dysfunctional in other areas." Siavelis notes that "this is one of the longest-standing democracies in the Western Hemisphere." That democracy will go to the polls in a week in an election that most expect will lead to Alvaro Uribe becoming Colombia's next president. Uribe takes a hard line against the rebel groups. His popularity can be traced to the failure of the tactics of current President Andres Pastrana, who took office four years ago determined to negotiate with the main leftist rebel group, the FARC - the Spanish acronym for the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia. "A year ago, Uribe's rhetoric seemed way out there," says Russell Crandall, a Colombian specialist at Davidson College in North Carolina. "Now, he seems moderate." Pastrana gave the FARC dominion over a big chunk of Colombian countryside. But his attempts at peacemaking were spurned. "Pastrana gave them the ranch," says Crandall. "He bet his entire administration's success at the peace table and FARC said, 'Screw it.'" Pastrana broke off negotiations in February and fighting has intensified since. Earlier this month, a gas cylinder bomb fired by a FARC mortar hit a church in Choco, killing 119 and injuring more than 100, all civilians seeking to escape the fighting in the sanctuary. This past week, more than 80 combatants died in fighting. The ideological origins of the conflict have been lost. "In recent years, you have seen the end of ideology," says Crandall, who notes that in their early years in the 1960s, the current leftist groups had a Robin Hood-like appeal in this economically stratified country. "What these groups want right now is the $1 million question. Everybody thought, and I did, too, that once they got autonomy, they would sit down with Pastrana and cut a deal. We were completely wrong." As in Afghanistan and several dysfunctional African countries, warfare seems to have become a way of life, offering the best job many can find in the countryside. "War in Colombia is big business," says Abel Ricardo Lopez, a native of the Colombian capital Bogota who is a history graduate student at the University of Maryland, College Park. "People make a lot of money." FARC took advantage of its autonomy to expand coca production in the area it ruled, adding its profits to its main source of income - kidnapping for ransom. The U.S. State Department says there is a greater risk of being kidnapped in Colombia than in any country in the world. Pastrana ended negotiations when FARC operatives hijacked a civilian airplane in February, kidnapping Sen. Jorge Gechem Turbay. A few weeks later, they grabbed presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt and provincial governor Guillermo Gaviria. All are presumably still being held. In moving into the cocaine business, FARC joined the business of its major adversary, the right-wing AUC, a paramilitary operation funded by cocaine producers in part because the military was so incompetent in fighting the left-wing rebels. The paramilitary groups have been brutal and ruthless. But a growing number of people in Colombia seem ready to adopt their tactics. For the first time since the end of the Cold War, the Bush administration is proposing $98 million in direct military aid to Colombia. Most of that would protect the Caño Limón-Coveñas oil pipeline, which runs through northeastern Colombia. It was attacked by guerrillas 166 times last year. But $25 million would go to the military for anti-terrorism activities, justified by growing evidence of links between FARC and international terrorist groups. This money is part of a total package of $275 million in military assitance -- mainly for an expansion of anti-drug efforts -- and $164 million in economic aid. Though human rights groups are wary of such military aid, many think this is a propitious time for increased U.S. involvement - but only if applied correctly, aimed at strengthening the Colombian state, dealing with Colombian problems, not just American issues of drugs and terrorism. "Eradicating coca in southern Colombia doesn't necessarily produce a stronger state," says Shifter. "What would really contribute to moving the process further along is support directed at helping the state perform its job better. Then you could settle the conflict and deal with the drug problem." A major part of moving the state along involves forming a viable army and police force in all areas of the country that could provide security for citizens so they wouldn't turn to the rebels or paramilitary forces for protection. Most think Colombia can deal with its drug problem, noting that a crackdown in Peru drastically reduced coca growing there and that its cultivation is not endemic in other nearby countries. Peter Reuter, a drug expert in the criminology department at the University of Maryland, College Park, says that if Colombia had a similar crackdown, production would most likely move somewhere else. That would not help the United States but could improve the life of Colombians. To make that work, Colombia would have to offer alternatives to growing coca, something possible only in a well-functioning economy. "One of the reasons this war was created and has lasted this long was because of the poverty and unemployment," says Colombia native Lopez. "People go to the guerrillas or the paramilitaries just to have some money to survive because there are no other options. You have to start creating options for people. They have to have the possibility of getting a job." One problem is the high level of all sorts of violence in Colombia. The 3,500 people who die in the war annually are dwarfed by over 25,000 murders in this country of 40 million. The murder rate of 77.5 per 100,000 is more than 13 times that of the United States. "The violence goes back not just decades, but centuries," says Crandall, who adds that some of what passes for civil conflict are old feuds dressed up in political clothing. "Colombian people have traditionally solved domestic and economic problems through violence." Still, Crandall has hope for the country. "I am an optimist, one of the rare ones who studies Colombia. With the paramilitaries and FARC, it's a real tightrope for the United States to walk. We have to follow the lead of the Colombians. It's like the Hippocratic oath, 'First, do no harm.' And the United States, in its post-Sept. 11 fervor, needs to be very careful, to support a Colombian solution to a Colombian problem." Note: Amid longtime war and drug production, Colombians prepare for a crucial election. Source: Baltimore Sun (MD) Related Articles & Web Site: Colombia Drug War News Collateral Damage from Colombia's Drug War The Colombia Quandary - Patrick Leahy Home Comment Email Register Recent Comments Help |
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| Comment #11 posted by idbsne1 on May 20, 2002 at 14:48:15 PT |
| good call....another "terrorist alert" at such a suspicious time... Does everyone remember that the SAME thing happened on the day of the Cannabis Club raids? Tuesday...."FBI warns of Terrorist attack today"....the headline of the LA Times.... This is ridiculous....I pray to God that these bastards go down HARD!!! I hope that they are exposed, so that people can see these crooks for who they are....and then we can hang THEM as Traitors... idbsne1 [ Post Comment ] |
| Comment #10 posted by jack on May 20, 2002 at 04:04:45 PT |
| Bush didn't know a damn thing before 9/11 and knows even less now! If he was to pull his thumb out of his ass his head would deflate,.....thats why there are teleprompters at the press releases,...read the speech and leave,..no thinking and NO adlibbing [ Post Comment ] |
| Comment #9 posted by dddd on May 19, 2002 at 23:02:33 PT |
| ...Please,,dont stop preachin' to the choir,and everyone else p4me!,,,,,,and,,please dont worry about;("Don't worry people I am running out of things to say,...").I will try to continue to say way too much,so you wont have to worry about overdoing it. .... ..Once again,,I think your commentarys are excellent....I like the Ralph Cramden thing,,but you forgot to factor in Ed Norton.,,he would end up getting caught peeing in public,and would tell the authorities that Ralph was behind the whole "piss on" campaign,,and instead of getting rich,Ralph would end up getting busted under the homeland security/patriot act,,and they would lock him up in that special prison in Cuba.....and,,Speaking of Cuba,,isn't it absurd,to think that the empire has this prison in Cuba,where these "prisoners of war",are kept,,and then,the shrub makes some comment about Cuba not being a democracy??..I'm afraid I dont really understand how or what and why the empire has a prison in Cuba?. I guess it's obvoius ,it's the empire,and the empire does whatever it wants,regardless of what Americans think. ..This morning,,Meet the Press,with Tim Russert provided further proof that the media is a tool for the empire..We were treated to an hour with Dick Cheney,,"meeting the press"....The main topic,was about the "Bush knew" fiasco,,and questions about the latest "terror alert",for apartment buildings and shopping malls.... ...OK,,,now let's just take a look at the events of the last week or so.....First,,there was the "Bush knew" accusations,,,,then,we had the ofended Bush comments about his knowledge of anything specific prior to 9/11.... Then,,,all of a sudden there is another ridiculous,,nebulous terror alert released to the national media.. nothing specific ,just some half-assed things about intelligence reports about increased communication amongst the "Al-Quieda".,and an alert for apartment buildings.The fbi,even sent letters to apartment building owners to watch for terrorists...This is turning into an ugly witch-hunt hysteria..,........ ...So here's what I think all this is about. ...It's actually sort of obvious....When the administration was accused of knowing about the threat of 9/11,,then the highly paid advisors to the empire suggested releasing a new "terror alert".... A terror alert that PURPOSELY is void of any details!..A "general threat"...The result, is that now they can say,,,"see,,what we knew before 9/11,was a general threat,just like the general threat we just released...We want to keep the public informed."..,,and then we get to hear news that Warren Buffet claims that a nuclear attack is inevitable,,and Cheney saying that there will be an attack,not "if,but when"....Oh,,wow,,boy oh boy,, Cheney sure is going out on a limb with that daring prediction!..... .Of course we are gacked!!!...DUH!... You dont go bombing the fucking shit out of a country like Afghanistan,,killing thousands of completely innocent Moms,Dads,and babies,,and expect that there will be no pissed of relatives who seek revenge!,,,It's somewhat paralell to the situation of Palestinian people.... I admit,,If I was an Afghani,or Palestinian kid,,and some mis-aimed ,"collateral damage" bomb,,,blew my innocent Mom,or Dad,or little Brother to smithereens,,then YES!,,I would be very likely to retaliate in whatever way I could....the new era of vigilante justice from the empire is inexcusable!..Yes,,9/11 was bad!,,it was inexcusable...but the absurd response from the US cowboy military empire, is even more inexcusable!...A bunch of terrorists hijacking a plane,and flying it into a skyscraper is one thing,,but a military empire,that carelessly bombs the shit out of a defenseless country,killing thousands of innocents,while chasing some ghost of terrorism,is quite another matter indeedddd........... ....p4me,,I know I should proofread what I type too,, but I choose not to on many occassions like this...I could go back over it,,and edit out akward incoherencies,,check spellings,(luckily,I dont have to worry much about punctuation.)..,,but I like to click that Post Message button,,and proofread it after it's too late.It's kind of a stupid fun suprize to see my wayward ramblings in their raw form. .... ......you are cool p4me....keep on keepin' on......betchya I'm older than you..? [ Post Comment ] |
| Comment #8 posted by Toker00 on May 19, 2002 at 19:18:04 PT |
Amen Brother P4me! Amen, Brother!*THE AMERICAN PEE PARTY. Don't miss it. Coming to your local DEA office! Peace. Realize, then Legalize. [ Post Comment ] |
| Comment #7 posted by p4me on May 19, 2002 at 16:48:38 PT |
| Don't worry people I am running out of things to say. I just think of all the greedy filmakers are going to portray marijuana in the summers teenage skin flicks. I think we will see a tea party that will make the internet with lots of laughing and wet t-shirts. I think of the Ken Burns documentary on the Civil War and wonder if my deminsia affects my perspective. Remember how people would write the number 18 and place it in their shoe? Then when the recruiter asked are you over 18, the young warriors could honorable answer yes. What are the rules of war and who chooses to do battle and are all warriors welcome? A story from another war. Let us begin to change our drug laws now and end the sanity. Maybe a story of this war could be a Piss On Washington bottle that people hang on their neck. Pee bottles are with some of the drug testing kits and used to send pee to a laboratory for confirmation. Any bottle will do. How about taking a Washington as on the US quarter and dollar bill that has the cloth version of our beloved president and put it in the bottle with some pee. Yes that is peeeeeee.... as in freeeeeeeedom. Piss on Washington for Robin Possner on June 6th at your local DEA office. Enough about pee in the land of the used to be free. Let me say that the reformers have really just been fighting with their left hand. The right hand should be swung to knock the politians out of their public servant seats. That right hand should be the outrage that the media is biased. Hit them with the left to talk honestly about substance abuse and hit them with the right to make them restore the integrety of the press. I wonder if there will be piss balloons at some DEA office. I wish I could throw two. One balloon should read "Stop your lies" and the other would say "Yield your position." Where are the warriors that will cast the balloon for freedom. Just the idle dreams of an old man. ICBS. VAAI and Piss on Washington If there were such a thing as a Tom and Rollie Pledge what to you think it would be? Maybe that the single individuals that comprised Congress at the time of Tom and Rollie's death must be removed from Congress, the White House and even the Supreme Court. I guess we have to wait for the Supreme Court to die off but we can take a pledge to do the best we can to get rid of all those that held office in Congress those days of death last Labor Day at Rainbow Farms. [ Post Comment ] |
| Comment #6 posted by Jose Melendez on May 19, 2002 at 16:29:16 PT |
| I was riding home from seeing Star Wars today, reading two letters to the editor of the Orlando Sentinel. Robert Sharpe and Robert Sullivan do a great job of pointing out the hypocrisy of the legal status of marijuana. See: [ Post Comment ] |
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Comment #5 posted by el_toonces on May 19, 2002 at 13:15:09 PT:
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| ....p4me, you are right about convergence. When the TV converges with the net and people can choose their own content, then the WoSD is over, if only because the major media will no longer be able to script lies for the government and corporate interests. Hell, we own the net anyway! [ Post Comment ] |
| Comment #4 posted by p4me on May 19, 2002 at 12:13:31 PT |
| I really should be more careful and proofread what I type. In comment one I was unclear that 2% of the Gross National Product now goes to finance the national debt. When saying below I meant to say that 2% of your paycheck is needed to pay the national debt. If you make $400 dollars a week then your part of the bill for interest on the national debt is $8. That ratio is increasing but it is needed from you and your children long after I am gone. Pardon me for being vaque. It is the laziness that comes with old age. Starve the economy and have a thrifty meal. VAAI and Piss on Washington. [ Post Comment ] |
| Comment #3 posted by p4me on May 19, 2002 at 12:03:52 PT |
| If I were a minister I would have to address the killing of people in foreign lands by a government whose favorite drug is tobacco. I would ask the sheople in the congregation "Do you realize the government wants to spend billions on drug testing and just bought $630 million dollars of bad tobacco to prop up tobacco farmers in the face of reduced sales. It cost $130,000 a month to warehouse and when offered for sale no one bid. It must be burned and they are dragging their feet on doing so." "28.5 % of all high school students smoke tobacco. That is brand new data from the CBS Evening Evening News. Tobacco kills 20 times more people than all illegal drugs. If all drugs were regulated that multiple would be even greater. So how can Congress consider spending a billion dollars a year to throw at conglomerate media companies by the DEA over the next five years and not spend anything to prevent 400,000 tobacco deaths a year. How can Congress justify straining limited budgets all over the country and not test for the obvious is ludicrous- not that the entire drug war is ludicrous if not treasonous." Well if this is my Sunday visit with the choir and I would like to leave something with you if they come take me away. I certainly do think the country is in dire straits when we are doing what we are doing in Columbia and everywhere else in Latin America. The only thing I have to say about oil is that the US has 3 %of known reserves and uses 25% of the oil. I know we don't mind killing people over oil. I think it treason to be killing people in sovereign countries under the pretense of cocaine. I am sure there are mounds of books of government desk on justification of such actions. They are bogus books that corrupt our system and kill people all over the world. I have a cousin that was a brat and bad alcoholic so of course he loved to go to the bars and run his mouth and see what he could stir up. So along with the line "How do you spell whoop?" he used to raise his hand like asking a teacher's permission to speak and say "I call Bull$hit." It is kind of funny to me that noone in would use that term. I feel if this were a time-warped internet back in the days of alcohol prohibition and the drunks conferring that "I call Bull$hit" would have already been acronymed to ICBS. Look at just this mornings cannabisnews about the United States. Collecting pee from school children while not even mentioning tobacco testing. 732,498 marijuana arrest and how many for underage smoking when it is a rampant illegal and should be enforced act? It is all related . Don't you think it is about time for a Boston Pee Party? They are getting ready to broadcast the Cheers Reunion Show. They need to get them back together and let the Cheers gang enter the Boston Pee Party Pee Contest. NORM could win and adopt marijuana as his medicine that breaks his alcohol addiction and saves his liver and his life. I am amazed at the acceptance of the college kids of the current actions. Besides knowing that two cents of every dollar they ever make is needed by the federal government, don't they need something to film with all their new digital cameras, high priced video cards, and their 32 inch Sony HDTV/monitor. Convergence has arrived. For 20 years the concept of what convergence of television and computer monitors would mean has been debated? We now have convergence in HDTV and broadband is creating an appetite for video content on the net using animation and easily understood and powerful video editors. There is a two format issue with the new DVD burners but not even a big deal and a $400 price tag is not that bad when you consider that you can record 13 hours on one CD. So come on film students. Show us someone peeing on the Supreme Court steps. The picure of the Supreme Court steps has got to available on the net and if not just use the steps from Rocky. Practice your editing skills and at least get us a creation of someone peeing somewhere in Washington. Do you know how hard television writers have coming up with showing something new? Here is a clue for all of you video buffs. Find you some cheap statue of George Washington and have plenty of light and have someone pee on Washington. If I were Jackie Gleason on the Honeymooners and wanted to have a show about one of Ralph's schemes to have a higher standard of living, I would make it about this product. There is some rule about the language of trademarks but for fictional purposes I would have Ralph start the "Piss on Washington" company. If I were writing the show I would have him start out with a sponge material and all he does is fill one little mold with an absorbent. The Piss on Washington Company could then make molds of The Supreme Court Building and the Lincoln Memorial and the Washington Monument. His company would sell thousands of little Washington's for people to piss on and or set out in front of DEA offices. He comes out with a Piss on Washington party pack that beer distributors start giving away as promotions for gatherings that buy 50 kegs of beer or more. I would have Ralph get rich. So can someone this June 6th get a little Washington for real and put him in a pan and pour pee on him? Let's see some footage with some good signs. I sure would like to see some P4Me2 signs. Maybe a few "The Drug Wars are Treason" signs and "Stop your lies and yield your position" signs. How about "Raise your hands and step away from that treasury." How about "Get out of that chair Congress- Those seats belong to us." Is there an Extremist Party? Maybe I have deminsia but it sure likes more people would call Bull$hit. You know how you sometimes run across a find. The Family Dollar Stores are a chain out of North Carolina whose profits have benefited from cost sensitive shoppers in these troubled times. It is a good place to buy Heinz Catsup for a thrifty meal of french fries. The ketchup has to have a thrifty price and $1 for 24 ounces is very reasonable. But they had Canadian Honey for $1.50. I am so happy I have a Canadian product to buy. I can eat oatmeal by itself but since I have fought the battle not to drink sugared soda water and cut down on refined sugar, there is a void. I wil l be eating more oatmeal than ever and will buy only Canadian honey. Oh, what a find. ICBS. VAAI and Piss on Washington [ Post Comment ] |
| Comment #2 posted by Lehder on May 19, 2002 at 11:07:32 PT |
| U.S. preparations for war in Colombia already extend far beyond the
materiel and training Washington has supplied to the Colombian military.
The Pentagon has virtually completed the construction of a string of
military bases in the region designed to facilitate direct intervention. Air
bases have been set up in El Salvador, Ecuador and the Dutch colonies of
Aruba and Curacao. These facilities would be used to conduct
bombardment of the country, as well as to maintain supply lines. Meanwhile, US military “advisers” have already been deployed in 34 military bases scattered throughout Colombia. This does not include the thousands of Special Forces troops that are rotated in and out of the country under the cover of training missions and joint military exercises. The US war role in Colombia is by US terrorist, Otto Reich: Leading the Bush administration’s discussions on escalating the US intervention in Colombia is Otto Reich, appointed earlier this month to the position of assistant secretary of state for the Western Hemisphere. The position had been vacant since Bush took office a year ago. The administration lacked sufficient votes in Congress to win approval for the nomination of Reich, a right-wing Cuban exile who was intimately involved in the illegal US “contra” war against Nicaragua under the Reagan administration in the 1980s. Bush appointed Reich while Congress was in recess under a statutory provision allowing such appointments under conditions of emergency. While some Democratic Congressional leaders protested the action, the party’s leadership allowed the president to carry out this predictable action by failing to demand Congressional hearings on the appointment.... The new assistant secretary of state headed up an Office of Public Diplomacy in the State Department under the Reagan administration, engaging in what amounted to a propaganda campaign aimed at the American people to build up support for the CIA-backed contra mercenaries in Nicaragua. The office, acting in violation of the Constitution, utilized psychological warfare methods to boost the image of the contras in the US and to discredit and intimidate opponents of the US-sponsored war in Nicaragua. An investigation into the Reagan administration’s illegal operations in Nicaragua forced the closing of the office. From there, Reich went to Caracas to serve as US ambassador. He is best remembered in Venezuela for compelling the government to release Orlando Bosch, who was jailed in connection with a 1976 terrorist attack which destroyed a Cuban passenger jet, taking the lives of 73 people. http://www.wsws.org/articles/2002/jan2002/colo-j19.shtml more on Reich's background and appointment: http://www.rtfcam.org/report/volume_22/No_1/article_14.htm [ Post Comment ] |
| Comment #1 posted by E_Johnson on May 19, 2002 at 09:54:55 PT |
| To defeat the worst of the insurgents, some advocate making alliances with unsavory characters, otherwise the fighting is left to a national army of questionable competence and undeniable corruption. That might sound like Afghanistan, but it's a place much closer to home - Colombia. Oh heck and here I thought they were talking about the good old USofA DEA. I don't know if they're financially corrupt, but they live deep in the valley of bureaucratic corruption where they live only to propagate their own bureaucratic power. But the alliaences with unsavory characters -- Bill Clinton and Bob Barr -- which one was the unsavory one, I forgot. [ Post Comment ] |
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