cannabisnews.com: Colombia Toasts US-Donated Black Hawks, Drug Fight





Colombia Toasts US-Donated Black Hawks, Drug Fight
Posted by FoM on January 08, 2002 at 22:41:03 PT
Reuters News
Source: Reuters
Colombian President Andres Pastrana officially received on Tuesday the last of 16 state-of-the-art Black Hawk helicopters promised by the United States to aid the Andean nation's anti-cocaine offensive.Standing in front a $10 million aircraft hanger, also paid for the by the U.S. government, Pastrana said the ongoing U.S. military aid would be decisive in the battle to wipe out a drug trade which fueled Colombia's guerrilla war.
``I want to thank the government of the United States, the U.S. Congress and the beloved people of this nation for understanding the message we have sent out to the world,'' Pastrana said from the Tolemaida military base in central Colombia.``Colombia cannot (win) alone, but united we can defeat the scourge of drugs and its harmful consequences.''Military analysts say Colombia's increasing use of helicopters to quickly transport troops to hot spots has given it an advantage on drug traffickers and leftist rebels by radically cutting response time to arriving intelligence data.The United States, the world's biggest cocaine consuming nation, is pouring more than $1 billion in mainly military aid into Pastrana's Plan Colombia anti-drug program. It is the biggest U.S. military buildup in Latin America since El Salvador in the 1980s.Washington hopes the military aid will cut the more than 580 tons of cocaine turned out annually by Colombia, the world's largest producer of the drug, and stem financing for the more than 30,000 Marxist-inspired rebels and outlawed paramilitary fighters in Colombia's 37-year-old war.The conflict has claimed more than 40,000 mostly civilian lives in the past decade.The U.S. Black Hawk allotments alone are worth $224 million and the aircraft can be modified to launch rockets and fire mortars and can be mounted with machine guns.Including the U.S. donations, Colombia now has a fleet of 29 Black Hawk helicopters.Additionally, the United States has already delivered 33 UH-1N troop transport helicopters under Plan Colombia and has promised 25 Huey-II helicopters -- which U.S. Ambassador to Colombia Anne Patterson said on Tuesday would begin arriving later this month.``Together, these aircraft show an exceptional increase in our bilateral efforts to intercept the drug trade at its source,'' Patterson said.She said that since Plan Colombia was launched in January 2001, the anti-narcotics police eradicated 230,000 acres of coca -- double the amount destroyed the previous year. Colombian security forces also dismantled 1,400 cocaine laboratories and seized nearly 54 tons of the drug.The United States has earmarked an additional $500 million in aid to help modernize Colombia's security forces under the so-called Andean Initiative, which also allots anti-narcotics aid to Colombia's neighbors, including Peru and Ecuador. Tolemaida Military Base, Colombia Source: ReutersPublished: Tuesday, January 8, 2002 Copyright: 2002 ReutersRelated Articles & Web Site:Colombia Drug War Newshttp://freedomtoexhale.com/colombia.htmPlan Colombia Fails To Cut Supply of Drugshttp://cannabisnews.com/news/thread11663.shtmlDrug War Could Escalate http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread10346.shtml
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Comment #5 posted by E_Johnson on January 09, 2002 at 11:26:59 PT
Good morning Vietnam
Oh this will surely end the war soon.Any day now.The laws of supply and demand will reverse themselves, human nature will change completely, greed will vanish, need will vanish, poor peasants will decide they don't need to eat regularly after all, people on an extreme leftist political high will just come down from it spontaneously, people on an extreme rightist political high will just come down from it spontaneously, and the whole war will be over and America will be the undeniable victor and every cent we've spent will be repaid in a new era of peace and prosperity.Laughter is a good medicine. Hopefully one not to be covered by the CSA any time soon.
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Comment #4 posted by schmeff on January 09, 2002 at 09:05:52 PT
Good Headline!
These war machines should be toasted. In a mythical place where "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" are more than empty words, the Drug War would have been toast long ago.Message to Columbia: If we put enough cops in the air, cops in the jungle, cops in the streets, cops in your home and cops in your face...you will no longer have a drug problem.It's a lie, Amigos. As I write from the occupied terrortories of the US of DEA, I know of what I speak. You will have MORE drug use, like we do. Your benevolent Uncle to the north just wants to ensure that a big slice of your drug problems enrich Amerikan Pharmaceutical companies, and your country becomes a fuedal economy.As such, all this expensive "law enforcement" aircraft is not reallya gift. You are paying for it with your freedom.
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Comment #3 posted by Jose Melendez on January 09, 2002 at 08:27:59 PT:
let them eat hemp
Eventually, the locals will get hungry, as in Afghanistan:
http://www.upi.com/view.cfm?StoryID=08012002-024722-3570r
Perhaps both countries will eventually grow hemp:
"In 1937, Ralph Loziers, general counsel of the National Institute of Oilseed Production, told the Congressional committee studying marijuana prohibition that ?hempseed...is used in all the Oriental nations and also in a part of Russia as food. It is grown in their fields and used as oatmeal. Millions of people every day are using hempseed in the Orient as food. They have been doing this for many generations, especially in periods of famine.?
"
from:
http://www.electricemperor.com/enter/eersrch/page3.htm
Narcosoft - technology with substance
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Comment #2 posted by Joe Citizen on January 09, 2002 at 08:14:33 PT
Is it any wonder?
That the US was kicked off the United Nations human rights council and drug policy comittees? Others in the world are not so blind to our brand of Talibanism.
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Comment #1 posted by qqqq on January 09, 2002 at 01:00:49 PT
*#%&*$# #$^*(
...What a disgusting charade and abominable farce......a"donation",,as if it were some sort of benevolent humanitarian bequeathment...................I cannot resist becoming even more bitter and cynical every day, when I think about the crimes against humanity that the US government continues to commit under the cloak of a "war on drugs",,and now,"the war on terror".........there is no excuse for the officials and politicians who know what is going on....They are conspirators in that they have stood by,and approved of all this shit. They belong in prison for LIFE.....they are responsible for untold pain and mayhem around the world.!!!..they are the bin ladens of America,,and if this was a real democracy,they would be exposed,,hunted down,,and brought to justice............they are far from innocent.
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