04-Mar-01

The US backs a Latin American military that aids and abets bloody right-wing paramilitary forces, including death squads that slaughter scores of innocent villagers. At the same time, drug cartels work hand-in-hand with these counterinsurgent forces. Think we are talking about El Salvador, Guatemala or Nicaragua in the 1980's? Guess again...this is about modern-day Colombia. The reports from the field are horrifying. "During the first 18 days of January alone, paramilitary groups committed 26 massacres; in one incident paramilitary thugs beat more than 20 people to death with sledgehammers and stones." The writer argues that nobody wins, but modern history shows that one side does win in the game of counterinsurgency warfare - the cartels and the US intelligence community that siphons off the profits. We still want to know what Bush Daddy's CIA is doing down there under "Plan Colombia". Already Congress wants a whopping $1 billion more to fund this scary policy that includes spraying herbicides that kill not only coca (not cocoa!) plants, but also essential food crops. And as with the Reagan administration, we have a "President" who can easily be manipulated by an ambitious and ruthless cabinet. (See the eerie parallels at "Back to the Future: GW Bush and the Iran-Contra Affair" http://www.bushwatch.com/foreign.htm).