cannabisnews.com: Drug War Strategy To Face Attack





Drug War Strategy To Face Attack
Posted by FoM on July 23, 2001 at 16:56:45 PT
By David Adams and Paul De La Garza
Source: St. Petersburg Times
In the annual debate over foreign policy spending in Congress, nothing seems to ignite greater discord than the drug war in Colombia. When the House opened debate on the $15.2-billion budget for foreign operations last week, there was solid bipartisan support for most of the Bush administration's programs. That ranged from increased support for international HIV-AIDS funding to continued major backing for Israel, Egypt and other traditional overseas allies. 
But when the debate resumes Tuesday, the Bush administration's counternarcotics strategy for Latin America is expected to come under sustained attack from members on both sides of the House, anxious about the United States deepening involvement in a war some deem "unwinnable." For next year, the administration is proposing to provide $676-million in new counternarcotics assistance to the region, mostly for Colombia. That comes on top of $1.3-billion Congress approved last year to help launch Plan Colombia, an ambitious internationally funded aid package to stabilize the war-plagued country. By the fall, the General Accounting Office, the investigative arm of Congress, expects to have two separate investigations into Plan Colombia completed. Critics of this year's bill, known as the Andean Regional Initiative, meanwhile, say the policy isn't working and needs rethinking. Several amendments, to be heard Tuesday, will attempt to slash the counternarcotics budget, as well as strictly limit the use of available funds. One amendment would shift $100-million in Colombian military aid to child survival and maternal health programs and a fund to combat tuberculosis. Another would prohibit the use of funds for the controversial aerial fumigation of coca and opium crops in Colombia, where 90 percent of the cocaine and 60 percent of the heroin that reaches the United States is produced. Both these amendments -- especially the latter -- are unlikely to pass because they would drastically undermine the administration's overall counternarcotics policy in the region. The centerpiece of Plan Colombia is a massive reduction in coca cultivation through intense aerial fumigation. Spraying began last December and has achieved record results, although it has kicked up a firestorm of protest in the most affected areas of southern Colombia where poor peasant farmers depend on coca to make a living. "There's no momentum (in Congress) to disengage at the moment," said Michael Shifter, vice president of the Washington-based Inter-American Dialogue, who monitors Colombia policy closely. "There is a commitment, but I think there's a real sense of tentativeness and lack of confidence that this is going to be successful," he said. The administration has won over some doubters this year by broadening its policy out from Colombia to include counternarcotics funding for its neighbors, principally Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia. Under the Andean Regional Initiative, Colombia will receive the bulk of the funding, about $400-million, but well below the $500-million it was hoping for. Critics are especially alarmed by a new provision to suspend the legal cap of 300 on the number of civilian contractors Washington can deploy in Colombia. Opponents of Plan Colombia see the proposal as a subtle attempt to increase the U.S. presence in Colombia by using non-military personnel, with sinister overtones of a Vietnam-style buildup. Questions about the use of civilian contractors have risen greatly after an American missionary plane was shot down April 20 over the Peruvian Amazon. A Michigan missionary, Veronica Bowers, and her infant daughter were killed after the Peruvian air force mistook their plane for an illegal drug flight. The missionary plane was targeted after it was initially spotted by a U.S. counter-drug surveillance plane operated by civilians contracted by the CIA. Critics say the use of civilian contractors should be banned or strictly limited, arguing that they are less accountable to Congress than U.S. troops or regular government employees. "They are using private contractors because there isn't the political support at home for sending our own troops down there," said Sanho Tree, director of the Drug Policy Project at the Washington-based Institute for Policy Studies. Some members of Congress are also concerned that the provision flies in the face of the War Powers Act, which gives Congress the right to control U.S. involvement in foreign wars. "The government already has the ability to increase the number of personnel," Tree said. "All they have to do is go back to Congress and ask for more. But with this provision they want to pre-empt that. You could have unlimited numbers of people being sent down there and nobody would know." But administration officials say there is a practical and far less sneaky explanation for lifting the cap. They point out that contractors perform various tasks, including aerial fumigation in Colombia, radar operation, alternative development and pro-democracy projects. Private contractors have also worked with the Defense Ministry to help reform Colombia's armed forces. Despite the cap of 300 U.S. civilian contractors in Colombia, only 171 private contractors are working there now, according to one Congressional aide working on the foreign operations budget. The State Department, however, expects to bump up against the 300-person limit next year, the aide said, when Colombia takes control of a fleet of U.S.-supplied Black Hawks to help fight the drug war under Plan Colombia. American contractors will be needed to provide maintenance on the aircraft. Officials also are looking to sidestep the cap because funding for humanitarian programs like alternative development and judicial reform under Plan Colombia has barely begun to trickle in. Opponents of lifting the cap are not convinced. "We don't buy that at all," said Nadeam Elshami, an aide to Rep. Jan Schakowsky, D-Ill. "If it's for humanitarian programs, why don't they make the provision more specific." At least two of the programs under Plan Colombia are also coming under scrutiny by the General Accounting Office. GAO investigators are reviewing the alternative development component and the State Department's operation out of Florida that supports aerial eradication in Colombia and aircraft maintenance in Bolivia and Peru, mainly under contract with Virginia-based DynCorp. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee requested the alternative development probe and the Senate Drug International Control Caucus requested the airwing investigation. GAO officials expect to wrap up the investigations by fall. That may shed some useful light on what experts agree is one of the trickiest foreign policy issues facing the United States. "It's a very complicated puzzle," said Shifter. "The Middle East and the Balkans are pretty complicated but at least there's an awareness of where we stand. On Colombia people just back away and aren't prepared to face it and wrestle with it." Note: Both sides of the House are expected to criticize Bush's Latin America counternarcotics plan.Source: St. Petersburg Times (FL)Author: David Adams and Paul De La GarzaPublished July 23, 2001 Copyright: 2001 St. Petersburg TimesContact: letters sptimes.comWebsite: http://www.sptimes.com/Related Articles & Web Site:Colombia Drug War Newshttp://freedomtoexhale.com/colombia.htmCongress Challenges Cost of Unwinnable Drugs Warhttp://cannabisnews.com/news/thread10381.shtmlBush To Raise 'Private Army' in Drugs War http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread10378.shtmlCannabisNews Articles - Colombiahttp://cannabisnews.com/thcgi/search.pl?K=colombia
END SNIP -->
Snipped
Home Comment Email Register Recent Comments Help




Comment #3 posted by Doug on July 24, 2001 at 09:35:40 PT:
Juggernaut
In the Hindu religion, a juggernaut is a wagon pulled by elephants for the worship of Krishna; followers throw themselves under the wheels and are crushed to death; nothing can stop it.Plan Columbia, and the whole War on Drugs, is a juggernaut. Once it has picked up momentum nothing can stop it. The Vietnam war was the same way: many government officials realized early on that it was futile, but they didn't want to be the ones that delivered the bad news, that were "chicken". So millions of people died needlessly. And Plan Columbia will keep going on crushing people until it is toppled by its own weight, but by then at least one country will have been destroyed.
[ Post Comment ]


Comment #2 posted by kaptinemo on July 24, 2001 at 05:17:18 PT:
Simplicity, itself.
"That may shed some useful light on what experts agree is one of the trickiest foreign policy issues facing the United States. "It's a very complicated puzzle," said Shifter. "The Middle East and the Balkans are pretty complicated but at least there's an awareness of where we stand. On Colombia people just back away and aren't prepared to face it and wrestle with it."Mr. Shifter is engaging in dissembling.Colombia is no less as easily understood as the Balkan situation is: the US military protecting the enormous sums of money that US and other Western corporations have expended in attempting to stabilize (translation: make agreements with local satraps in order to exploit local resources for enormous profit) these regions. Drugs are a convenient excuse to whip up public sentiment ("Those G*****n Marxist dope dealers are after our children!!!") for purely corporate gain.But the Guv'mint can't say that, now can it?It was never that the situation in Colombia is so difficult to understand that the American people are too benighted, ignorant and just plain stoopid to understand.It is that to explain what's happening there would be to open yourself to questions concerning the efficacy of the entire drug interdiction efforts presently underway. And why they are necessary.That's what pols are afraid of. One strategically asked question, at the right time and place, would be as devastating to them as a smart bomb dropped down an elevator shaft, blowing up in the middle of a building. This is part of the reason why antis are wet-their-pants scared at the prospect of debating us. One well-aimed question can destroy them.And they know it.
[ Post Comment ]


Comment #1 posted by The GCW on July 23, 2001 at 18:29:14 PT
Wrestle?
quote "...aren't prepared to face it and wrestle with it."  This is Florida isn't it? Let that guy that wrestled the shark have at those prohibitionist politicians. Haaa. aa
[ Post Comment ]


Post Comment