-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Americanization of Colombia's civil-drug war
Date: Sat, 8 Jul 2000 00:34:57 -0500 (CDT)
From: Colombian Labor Monitor <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Organization: ?
To: undisclosed-recipients:;
============================================
The Americanization of Colombia's civil-drug
war looks and smells like Vietnam all over
again.
___________________ ============================================
BOSTON GLOBE
Friday, 7 July 2000
**************
* COMMENTARY *
**************
Vietnam all over again
----------------------
By David Nyhan
Small, poor, remote country.
History of political instability. Rich people still screwing over poor
people as they've done from the Year One. Decades-old guerrilla war that
began with machetes and shotguns now escalating to big-time weapons. US
government sends money. Political advisers. Military advisers. More
money. Now it's two kinds of military helicopters.
Haven't we seen this movie before?
The Americanization of Colombia's civil-drug war looks and smells like
Vietnam all over again. Twenty-five years after Saigon fell like a rotting
plum from the grasp of Uncle Sam and the corrupt and incompetent South
Vietnamese regime, we're trying the same dumb thing all over again.
Oh, did I mention the herbicide? Just as we blanketed Southeast Asia's
jungles and peasantry with Agent Orange, we're getting ready to
contaminate the hillside drug crops of Colombia with herbicide.
All in the name of preventing American drug addicts from smoking,
swallowing, snorting, shooting, and otherwise making themslves first very
high and then very low with cocaine and heroin.
We are exporting the wrong solution to a problem we won't face up to right
here at home. Money is no object. Here, we pay any price, bear any burden,
right? Wrong. The $1.3 billion Congress just approved for Colombia on the
Clinton administration's say-so is good money after bad.
The loot was wrapped up in one of those fiendishly concocted congressional
stews: big bones for farmers; medium-sized cutlets for emergency aid for
hurricanes and forest fires from last year; lavish dollops of this and
that for lobbyists from here and there; add a little pork, a lot of
seasoning to kill the smell, and, presto, you have an omnibus spending
bill that legislators want in an election year to grease their return to
the trough.
So the money for Colombia was on rails. It was wired. There was no way you
were going to stop it. Too many lawmakers were turned into sausage-makers,
grinding up the scraps to serve up one giant kielbasa of a spending bill,
pork sausage by the trainload. Too many of our solons had catheters
running into their gluteus maximus from the intravenous bank labeled
"pork/saline solution." A drip here, a drip there, and now 60 brand-new US
military helicopters are on their ponderous way south, ready to zap
guerrillas on the orders from somebody in Bogota.
If there was a sound track to accompany this script, it would be the
"duh-duh, duh-duh, duh-duh" of "Jaws," the ominous incantation of
something very bad about to unfold. Yet again we embrace a pricey,
high-tech solution to a problem that is rooted in human
nature, not in the chemistry lab of the herbicide cooker-uppers. I am not
some fungicidal maniac on the point. I've never been anywhere near
Colombia. But we're making their problems our problem - big mistake. Our
drug fighting civil servants, our military, and our biological warfare
researchers have concocted this scheme, and the environmental people are
dubious in the extreme, according to yesterday's New York Times exclusive
unmasking the program.
Because of the exquisite vulnerability of the politician - any politician
- to the deadly taunt of being "soft on drugs," many otherwise sensible
legislators panic and bolt when confronted with honest choices about the
human propensity to self-dose with mind-altering chemicals.
This particular virus is at its most virulent in election years, peaking
in the fall. So rare is the congressman who proclaims that this whole
approach is a fraud, a massive, expensive, hollow, and cynical
exploitation of parental fears designed to reward cunning lobbyists and
careerists in cushy slots. It won't work. Can't work.
It's the wrong war, in the wrong hemisphere. The enemy is within, not
without. The enemy is human nature. The problem, dear Brutus, is not
within our stars but in the gene pool of frail and fragile drug addicts
here who will lie, cheat, steal, and murder for a chemically induced
endorphin rush.
Because our politicians refuse to recognize the drug debacle is a crisis
of demand and not of supply, we externalize the problem. We are trying to
build a fortress around Colombia and contain the problem there. It cannot
work. What about Mexico? Southeast Asia's Golden Triangle? There are not
enough soldiers and helicopters and narco informers to keep track of the
flow. We already know we cannot keep contraband narcotics out of our
maximum security prisons. How are we going to do it in a jungle 6,000
miles away?
The most honest and practical solution is to decriminalize the use of all
narcotics. Tax its distribution. Furnish detox beds for everyone willing
to try to shake the demons. And recognize there will be casualties. Just
as some Americans cannot tolerate alcohol and kill themselves, we'll have
to accept drug-related slow-motion suicide.
Some will say "never!" But that same old old argument will pitch global
society into an ever deepening cycle of corruption, exploitation, and
erosion of honest government if we allow the fantastic flows of drug money
to gain more traction. Human nature cannot resist the lure of fortunes to
be made dealing drugs illegally. The poor farmers who get more for coca
leaves than coffee beans will keep doing it no matter how many choppers
fly overhead.
And our addicts will keep snorting, shooting, and swallowing what they
crave until their inner spritual emptiness is filled. We can poison the
Andes and slaughter peasants and reelect the same tired politicians every
other year. It's Vietnam redux: If it's not working, double the tonnage.
Copyright 2000 Globe Newspaper Company
________________________________________________________________
****************************************************************
* CLM-NEWS is brought to you by the COLOMBIAN LABOR MONITOR at *
* http://www.prairienet.org/clm *
* and the CHICAGO COLOMBIA COMMITTEE *
* Email us at [EMAIL PROTECTED] or *
* Dennis Grammenos at [EMAIL PROTECTED] *
* To subscribe send request to [EMAIL PROTECTED] *
* subscribe clm-news Your Name *
****************************************************************
<A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/">www.ctrl.org</A>
DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER
==========
CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic
screeds are unwelcomed. Substance�not soap-boxing�please! These are
sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'�with its many half-truths, mis-
directions and outright frauds�is used politically by different groups with
major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought.
That being said, CTRLgives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and
always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no
credence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply.
Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector.
========================================================================
Archives Available at:
http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html
<A HREF="http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html">Archives of
[EMAIL PROTECTED]</A>
http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/
<A HREF="http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/">ctrl</A>
========================================================================
To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email:
SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email:
SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Om
