U.S. Aid to Colombia

U.S. Aid to Colombia

       The Clinton
administration, led by drug “czar” Gen. Barry McCaffrey, wants to
send even more money to the government of Colombia to prosecute that
country’s war against narcotkcs lords which, coincidentally, is also
largely a war against Leftist insurgents whom often have ties to the
cocaine cartels. This is a reprehensible”and counterproductive policy
that will do little to stop drugs flowing into the United States and
makes the United States complicit with human rights violations in
Colombia.

       First, the
main reason cocaine trafficking is such hwge business in Colombia
ane elsewhere in the Andes is because of the huge market for the finished
product in the United States. Legalizing or decriminalizing cocaine
in the United States would accomplish much more in the way of sapping
the power of narcotics kingpins than burning thousands of hectares
of land and displacing poor peasant farmers will.

       Second, the
Colombian government tolerates and is, in the best case scenario,
at least partially responsible for numerous human rights violations.
Although Colombia’s military generally doesn’t get directly involved
in attacks on civilians, it gladly looks the other way while paramilitary
groups do (a la El Salvador in the 1980s). When asked about the Colombian
military’s own human rights abuses, a US government hack on National
Public Radio did the usual song and dance about the continuing “improvement”
that Colombia’s military is making training its soldiers to respect
the human rights of civilians. Sure, and oral sex really isn’t sex
(and Al Gore invented the Internet).

       The US government
should be barred outright from any economic aid to countries that
do not respect the rights of their citizens.

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