cannabisnews.com: America's Other War 










  America's Other War 

Posted by FoM on November 01, 2001 at 11:12:31 PT
Editorial 
Source: San Francisco Chronicle  

As the bombs fall in Afghanistan, all too easily forgotten is the other U.S. foreign military mission -- the drug war in Colombia. Washington's role in Colombia has grown rapidly in the past two years. More than $1 billion has been spent, hundreds of U.S. military advisers and private military contractors are helping the Colombian army, but the result has been failure. 
The production of cocaine and heroin keeps increasing, and the Colombian army keeps committing bloody human-rights abuses. In the next few days, Congress will decide whether to impose some prudent safeguards. A House-Senate conference committee must work out differences between competing versions of the $15 billion foreign aid bill. The Senate version has several crucial advantages: The Senate bill would spend less overall on Andean drug-fighting than the House bill -- $547 million rather than $675 million -- with the savings going to much-needed programs, such as international AIDS prevention and nuclear nonproliferation in former Soviet states. The Senate bill also requires that aerial fumigation of coca and poppy- growing areas be delayed until programs are fully in place to help Colombian farmers plant legal crops. Without this measure, premature spraying will drive desperate farmers to join the leftist guerrillas and rightist paramilitary groups, thus fueling Colombia's 37-year-old civil war. The Senate version also stiffens requirements that the Colombian army stop its rampant collaboration with the paramilitaries and end its stonewalling of civilian prosecutors who investigate army abuses. By adopting the Senate's language, Congress would be taking a few small, incremental steps to repair its anti-drug strategy. But the overall policy is deeply flawed. Studies have repeatedly shown that domestic drug treatment and education programs are much more dollar-effective at reducing U.S. narcotics abuse than foreign military aid. U.S. support for Colombia's army has drawn Washington into a quagmire of a civil war, similar to the Reagan administration's adventures in Central America in the 1980s. Under the rubric of anti-terrorism, some Bush administration officials now predict that the U.S. military will take a more direct role in fighting the guerrillas. The choice is stark. Rather than getting caught in a morally and strategically dubious war in Colombia, the United States should adopt a more practical, effective strategy to fight drug abuse at home. Source: San Francisco Chronicle (CA)Published: Thursday, November 1, 2001 Copyright: 2001 San Francisco Chronicle  Page A - 24 Website: http://www.sfgate.com/chronicle/Related Articles & Web Site:Colombia Drug War Newshttp://freedomtoexhale.com/colombia.htmColombia Defends US Backed Anti-Drug Programhttp://cannabisnews.com/news/thread11236.shtmlCoca Invades Colombia's Coffee Fields http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread11218.shtml

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