Month: July 2001

House Approves $670 million “Plan Colombia” Budget

On July 25, 2001 the U.S. House of Representatives approved the $670 million ‘Plan Colombia’ spending package designed to fight the drug war in Colombia. Democrats in the House of Representatives wanted to divert some of the money to drug treatment programs in the United States, but that proposal failed to garner enough votes. Meanwhile, new evidence is emerging that even if you accept that Plan Colombia’s methods are ethically justifiable, they simply are not working. In fact Plan Colombia is backfiring in dangerous ways.

The main focus of the plan is to eradicate coca crops in Colombia by spraying herbicides on large patches of crops. The plan has created a number of controversies. Aside from the repugnancy of spraying toxic chemicals on the land of peasants struggling to get by, the United States is using mercenaries to carry out the risky spraying operations.

A recent audit of the spraying by the United Nations Drug Control Program found that the spraying was, in the words of The BBC, “inhuman and ineffective” since spraying occurred even only small plots of land where only a very small amount of illegal crops were being grown. Of course the United Nations hardly has its hand clean since it accepts the right of the United States and Colombian governments to spray herbicides on larger plantations where coca crops are being grown (so much for the “freedom to farm” promised by Republicans so many years ago).

Meanwhile, the spraying is not nearly effective as it was originally claimed to be, except perhaps at creating outrage among farmers.

In an analysis for the Cato Institute, Ted Galen Carpenter reports that the United States claims there are about 340,000 cares of coca under cultivation, and that spraying that began in December has occurred over about 75,000 of those acres.

But a new study by the United Nations suggest that there are far more than 340,000 acres of coca under cultivation, and that U.S. estimates of Colombian cocaine production ere far too low. Whereas the United States estimated that about 780 tons of cocaine were produced ever year, the United Nations reports estimates that as many as 900 tons of cocaine come out of Colombia each year.

The upshot is that despite claiming to have fumigated 22 percent of all farmland growing coca, there has been absolutely no movement in cocaine prices within the United States. If the spraying were really eliminating coca plants, there should have been a rise in cocaine prices as coca became more scarce. As Carpenter writes, “The fact that not even a modest price spike has occurred clearly indicates that Plan Colombia is having now meaningful impact on the supply of cocaine.”

What it is having an effect on, however, are Colombians’ attitudes toward their government and the United States. Carpenter reports that at a recent trip by Colombian President Andres Pastrana to a drug-producing region, Pastrana was met by demonstrators carrying signs showing a Colombian flag being subsumed by the American flag with the caption, “Plan Colombia’s Achievements.” According to Carpenter,

Given the political situation in Colombia, the outpouring of such sentiments is cause for great concern. The Pastrana government already confronts a three-decade-old insurgency being waged by two left-wing guerilla armies. The last thing Bogota should be doing is giving in to U.S. pressure to wage a drug war against its own population. That course of action is certain to produce more recruits for the radical leftist insurgencies.

It won’t stop the drug flow, it will alienate Colombians, and it is going to cost American taxpayers $672 million. Only in Washington, DC, could such a plan stand even a chance — but there, of course, it will flourish.

Source:

Plan Colombia: Washington’s Latest Drug War Failure. Ted Galen Carpenter, Cato Institute, July 27, 2001.

US congress approves anti-drugs aid. The BBC, July 25, 2001.

US backs Colombia drugs fight. The BBC, July 25, 2001.

Would a Worldwide Ban on DDT Increase the Risk of Malaria?

Rich nations such as the United States have long been pushing for a worldwide ban on DDT and are currently negotiating to ban the chemical along with 12 other so-called persistent organochloric pollutants. But DDT is still the most effective way to control Malaria in the developing world. Does the DDT ban impose unacceptable risks for people in the developing world in order to accommodate environmentalists in rich countries?

As the national Center for Policy Analysis pointed out recently, South Africa agreed to stop using DDT for malaria control in 1996. By 1999, however, cases of malaria began to increase dramatically — up from just a few thousand a year to well over 50,000 cases a year.

Using an exemption provided for some countries in the global ban on DDT, South Africa quickly returned to spraying DDT and the number of malaria cases has begun to decline.

Even without an explicit worldwide ban, only two countries — China and India — still produce DDT, and they do so mostly for internal use.

Source:

Environmental quandary: Malaria or DDT?. National Center for Policy Analysis, July 26, 2001.

The Horrors of those "Happy Cow" Commercials

The California Milk Advisory Board has been running ads featuring cows in fields with tag lines like, “Great cheese comes from happy cows. Happy cows come from California.” Last Chance for Animals filed a complaint against the ads a few months ago, claiming that the ads “deliberately mislead the public, as they do not reflect the horrendous conditions in which California’s dairy cows actually live.”

The animal rights group sent undercover footage of a couple dairies to the California Attorney Generals’s Office that the group claims prove that “the cows … are anything but ‘happy.'”

In a press release announcing the complaint, Last Chance for Animals urged activists to “please ask the Attorney General’s Office to issue an injunction against the CMAB, disseminate a retraction, and enforce a criminal penalty against the company.”

Source:

California “Happy Cow” Ads. Last Chance for Animals, Press release, 2001.

Karen Davis, Songwriter

Back in April, as it has for the last four years, United Poultry Concerns promised to protest at the annual White House Easter Egg Roll. The event was marred by rain, but that wasn’t about deter UPC. In a report for their Summer 2001 Poultry Press, UPC claimed that the “Big Chicken in the Sky Rains out Egg Roll, Not UPC.”

Apparently UPC handed out a pamphlet to kids and parents containing song lyrics written by Karen Davis meant to be sung to the tune of “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star.” Somehow I don’t think this is destined to become a children’s classic, but you can judge from the lyrics,

Chicken, chicken, why aren't you
With your mother hen so true?
Pecking, playing, running around
Taking sunbaths on the ground.
Chicken, chicken, why aren't you
With your mother hen so true?


Chicken, chicken, why aren't you?
With your sisters and brothers, too?
Scratching, running, having fun,
Taking dustbaths in the sun.
Chicken, chicken, why aren't you
With your sisters and brothers, too?


Chicken, chicken, baby bird
May your cheeping cries be heard,
Hushed and soothed by those who see
We are all one family.
Chicken, chicken, why aren't you
With your mother hen so true?

I suspect those lyrics made even the “Big Chicken in the Sky” cringe.

Source:

Big Chicken in the Sky Rains out Egg Roll, Not UPC. United Poultry Concerns, Summer 2001.

A Pyramid Scheme with a Feminist Twist Hits Great Britain

The Sunday Times recently ran a story about a pyramid scheme that has tricked thousands of women out of their money in Great Britain. The pyramid scheme uses semi-feminist rhetoric about women’s empowerment to sell its get rich quick message.

According to the Times the scheme originated with a 57-year-old businesswoman named Theresa Hammer who joined a group known as Women Empowering Women, which apparently had its start in the United States. Literature for the WEW scheme claims,

It is the belief of the WEW gifting groups that there is plenty for everyone. When we are open tot give, receive and encourage each other, emotional and financial benefits will follow.

We are literally creating a new economic experience. The old belief of having to work hard for anything worthwhile in life is now changing and shifting with this process … the process is strong and continues to grow stronger with each participant, created through the wisdom of Women Empowering Women.

Of course what is really going on is that money is simply changing hands without any productive work taking place in a scheme that is unsustainable and quickly burns out — but not before thousands of people lose everything they put into the scheme.

It wouldn’t be a feminist-tinged pyramid scheme, however, if there wasn’t a blame-the-men angle to it. The Times reports that it contacted friends of Hamer who claimed she was getting a raw deal from her critics,

They denied, however, that she had made money out of other people’s misfortune. Her intentions and actions had been entirely charitable, they said, but the WEW ideal had been hijacked by men who had transformed it into money-making schemes. They also denied that Hamer, now in America again, had fled there with funds made by exploiting other women.

The really shocking thing about this is that more than 80 years after Charles Ponzi invented the pyramid scheme and pulled off one of the biggest con jobs in history, all con artists need to do is dust off the scam, add a twist such as “women empowering women,” and people will still fall head over heels to give their money away.

Source:

Crackdown on feminist pyramid scheme. Tom Robbins and Rachel Dobson, The Sunday Times (UK), July 29, 2001.

Hare Krishna's Object to McDonald's Restaurant

I’ve heard of churches objecting to bars being built nearby, but members of a Hare Krishna temple in east Dallas are complaining that a proposed McDonald’s restraunt would offend their religious practice of vegetarianism.

“We just really feel offended that McDonald’s is planning to come here,” temple member Mike Meyer told The Dallas Morning News. “A big part of our religion is vegetarianism; it’s one of our main beliefs. It’s like an in-your-face type of thing.”

Of course the Hare Krishna objection to a McDonald’s in the neighborhood couldn’t havev anything to do with not wanting competition for the vegetarian restaurant run by the temple.

Source:

Hare Krishnas fight McDonald’s plan. The Associated Press, July 6, 2001.