The so called war on drugs in Columbia, is just another calumny of the Bush administration against FARC. What we have here is 2 drug dealing bad guys; one that supports the U.S.and is a puppet and the other a rebel and it has nothing to do with the drugs, except to keep the unfriendly rebel drug dealers from gaining power and $.If Uribe turned against the U.S, like Chavez, and FARC became the puppet the billions of dollars for the so called eradication of drugs would go to FARC.We support the thugs that support are foreign policy: nothing changes.

It is the neo conservative version of good and bad dictator. A good dictator does what they want and a bad one does not. Panama and Iraq are examples. When those dictators played along they were friends. When they did not or were no longer useful they were not. Sounds more like a crime family than a government.

I have a few questions for CD readers: What is the connection between the US "support" of Uribe and the recent crash of a CIA "rendition" plane in Mexico loaded with over four tons of cocaine? What is plan Columbia? A plan to keep Americans high on poisoned coca? How is a man who has won five democratic elections and was re-installed as president after a failed CIA/corporate oil led coup a dictator? How many US troops are there inside Columbia? Why exactly did the Bush Empire use the US armed forces to invade Panama 18 years ago? Could it have anything to do with the fact that Noriega was taking control of the cocaine trade between South and North America and stole 9 billion dollars in cash and drugs from the BFEE? Who owns all those fancy hotels on the waterfront in Panama, could it be George H. W. Bush? Who really killed the award winning reporter Gary Webb? Why aren't the entire Bush family in prison? Will Americans ever wake up? Do you buy or use cocaine? Do you know where that money really goes?

I think both Hillary and Obama supported Colombia, too, along with Bush.

Lots of good questions! The best one is:
Why aren't the entire Bush family in prison?

Money and power, my friend. Old George was head of the CIA, the head spook, so he knows how to run the game. It has been rumored for years that the CIA runs drugs to buy and continue their black ops. I read an article pre Bush II (Shrubby) that the former Halliburton sub Kellogg, Brown & Root was the company tool used most in the drug trade for CIA smuggling. This so called plan which began in 1999 was when Darth Vader ran Halliburton. And, yes, Noriega and Saddam both defied bush the almighty and just look at what happened.
Now we have poisoned cocaine and crack which will give cancer to we the people and there will be less of the unwashed masses to raise their voices.
Wake up people! Why do you think the old guard wants Hillary and not Obama? He is dangerous - makes the people think, can't have THAT!!
I'd better stop now before I hear a knock at my door. Scary isn't it?

This is BBC investigative journalist Greg Palast's response to Colombia's attack on FARC, which can be linked here: www.ourfuture.org/blog-entry/300-mllion-chavez-farc-fake

Palast writes:

This past weekend, Colombia invaded Ecuador, killed a guerrilla chief in the jungle, opened his laptop – and what did the Colombians find? A message to Hugo Chavez that he sent the FARC guerrillas $300 million – which they're using to obtain uranium to make a dirty bomb!

That's what George Bush tells us. And he got that from his buddy, the strange right-wing President of Colombia, Alvaro Uribe.

So: After the fact, Colombia justifies its attempt to provoke a border war as a to stop the threat of WMDs! Uh, where have we heard that before?
The US press snorted up this line about Chavez' $300 million to "terrorists" quicker than the young Bush inhaling Colombia's powdered export.

What the US press did not do is look at the evidence, the email in the magic laptop. (Presumably, the FARC leader's last words were, "Listen, my password is ….")

I read them. While you can read it all in español, here is, in translation, the one and only mention of the alleged $300 million from Chavez is this:

"… With relation to the 300, which from now on we will call "dossier," efforts are now going forward at the instructions of the boss to the cojo [slang term for 'cripple'], which I will explain in a separate note. Let's call the boss Ángel, and the cripple Ernesto."

Got that? Where is Hugo? Where's 300 million? And 300 what? Indeed, in context, the note is all about the hostage exchange with the FARC that Chavez was working on at the time (December 23, 2007) at the request of the Colombian government.

Indeed, the entire remainder of the email is all about the mechanism of the hostage exchange. Here's the next line: "To receive the three freed ones, Chavez proposes three options: Plan A. Do it to via of a 'humanitarian caravan'; one that will involve Venezuela, France, the Vatican[?], Switzerland, European Union, democrats [civil society], Argentina, Red Cross, etc."

As to the 300, I must note that the FARC's previous prisoner exchange involved 300 prisoners. Is that what the '300' refers to? ¿Quien sabe? Unlike Uribe, Bush and the US press, I won't guess or make up a phastasmogoric story about Chavez mailing checks to the jungle.
To bolster their case, the Colombians claim, with no evidence whatsoever, that the mysterious "Angel" is the code name for Chavez. But in the memo, Chavez goes by the code name … Chavez.

Well, so what? This is what.

Colombia's invasion into Ecuador is a rank violation of international law, condemned by every single Latin member of the Organization of American States. And George Bush just loved it. He called Uribe to back Colombia, against, "the continuing assault by narco-terrorists as well as the provocative maneuvers by the regime in Venezuela."

Well, our President may have gotten the facts ass-backward, but Bush knows what he's doing: shoring up his last, faltering ally in South America, Uribe, a desperate man in deep political trouble.

Uribe claims he is going to bring charges against Chavez before the International Criminal Court. If Uribe goes there in person, I suggest he take a toothbrush: it was just discovered that right-wing death squads held murder-planning sessions at Uribe's ranch. Uribe's associates have been called before the nation's Supreme Court and may face prison.

In other words, it's a good time for a desperate Uribe to use that old politico's wheeze, the threat of war, to drown out accusations of his own criminality. Furthermore, Uribe's attack literally killed negotiations with FARC by killing FARC's negotiator, Raul Reyes. Reyes was in talks with both Ecuador and Chavez about another prisoner exchange. Uribe authorized the negotiations, however, he knew, should those talks have succeeded in obtaining the release of those kidnapped by the FARC, credit would have been heaped on Ecuador and Chavez, and discredit heaped on Uribe.

Luckily for a hemisphere on the verge of flames, the President of Ecuador, Raphael Correa, is one of the most level-headed, thoughtful men I've ever encountered.

Correa is now flying from Quito to Brazilia to Caracas to keep the region from blowing sky high. While moving troops to his border – no chief of state can permit foreign tanks on their sovereign soil – Correa also refuses sanctuary to the FARC . Indeed, Ecuador has routed out 47 FARC bases, a better track record than Colombia's own, corrupt military.

For his cool, peaceable handling of the crisis, I will forgive Correa for apologizing for his calling Bush, "a dimwitted President who has done great damage to his country and the world." (Watch an excerpt of my interview with Correa here.)

Amateur Hour in Blue

We can trust Correa to keep the peace South of the Border. But can we trust our Presidents-to-be?

The current man in the Oval Office, George Bush, simply can't help himself: an outlaw invasion by a right-wing death-squad promoter is just fine with him.

But guess who couldn't wait to parrot the Bush line? Hillary Clinton, still explaining that her vote to invade Iraq was not a vote to invade Iraq, issued a statement nearly identical to Bush's, blessing the invasion of Ecuador as Colombia's "right to defend itself." And she added, "Hugo Chávez must stop these provoking actions." Huh?

I assumed that Obama wouldn't jump on this landmine – especially after he was blasted as a foreign policy amateur for suggesting he would invade across Pakistan's border to hunt terrorists.

It's embarrassing that Barack repeated Hillary's line nearly verbatim, announcing, "the Colombian government has every right to defend itself."
(I'm sure Hillary's position wasn't influenced by the loan of a campaign jet to her by Frank Giustra. Giustra has given over a hundred million dollars to Bill Clinton projects. Last year, Bill introduced Giustra to Colombia's Uribe. On the spot, Giustra cut a lucrative deal with Uribe for Colombian oil.)

Then there's Mr. War Hero. John McCain weighed in with his own idiocies, announcing that, "Hugo Chavez is establish[ing] a dictatorship," presumably because, unlike George Bush, Chavez counts all the votes in Venezuelan elections.

But now our story gets tricky and icky.

The wise media critic Jeff Cohen told me to watch for the press naming McCain as a foreign policy expert and labeling the Democrats as amateurs. Sure enough, the New York Times, on the news pages Wednesday, called McCain, "a national security pro."

McCain is the "pro" who said the war in Iraq would cost nearly nothing in lives or treasury dollars.

But, on the Colombian invasion of Ecuador, McCain said, "I hope that tensions will be relaxed, President Chavez will remove those troops from the borders - as well as the Ecuadorians - and relations continue to improve between the two."

It's not quite English, but it's definitely not Bush. And weirdly, it's definitely not Obama and Clinton cheerleading Colombia's war on Ecuador.
Democrats, are you listening? The only thing worse than the media attacking Obama and Clinton as amateurs is the Democratic candidates' frightening desire to prove them right.

The whole "War on Drugs" is a sham and waste of time, money and resources(people). Our drug and many other laws are a direct result of legislating Christian morality (homosexuality, sodomy, gay marriage, recreational use of "illegal" drugs, etc.). There aren't any instances of marijuana use causing death for such use, but it is illegal. Meanwhile, two of the most detrimental drugs, tobacco and alcohol, are readily available and advertised to an unbelievable extent, and formerly subsidised.

We spend up to $20 billion federally and another approximately $100 billion combined at the state and local levels for marijuana crimes only. This is pure insanity for society to accept; for a crime that has no victims (other than those that get caught). The same for sodomy laws. There isn't any victim if conducted between consenting adults, but there are laws against it if not consentual. I believe it would be classified as rape. Any type of sexual contact that isn't consentual is rape, but practiced consentually can be extremely pleasurable. Consent is the key.

For a much better explaination, see Sam Harris', "The End of Faith", Chapter 5, West of Eden - The War on Sin". "..... The idea of a victimless crime is nothing more than a judicial reprise of the Christian notion of sin."

Continuing, "To see that our laws against "vice" have actually nothing to do with keeping people from coming to physical or psychological harm, and everything to do with not angering God, we need only to consider that oral or anal sex between consulting adults remains a criminal offense in thirteen states." Four states prohibit same-sex sodomy and the other nine prohibit any act of sodomy.Demography will explain - the bible belt plus Utah and Idaho.

Back to drugs, "Of course, pleasure is precisely the problem with these substances, since pleasure and piety have always had an uneasy relationship."........ "Anyone who would seriously attempt to argue that that marijuana is worthy of prohibition because of the risk it poses to human beings will find that the powers of the human brain are simply insufficient for the job."

It all goes back to morality, commerce, and a means to control the masses; prisons and prison jobs, the "War on Drugs", veiled support of Colombia's dictatorship as support for the "War on Drugs", a dumping ground for our war materiel, etc. Many better ways to spend this wasted money. How about health-care, education, infrastructure improvement, renewable energy, diplomacy to name a few.

The purpose of the "war on drugs" is to kill about 2 911s of people in the US annually, and fill jails and prisons. This reduces the pool of voters unlikely to vote Republican. I suppose it also helps the CIA by giving it another source of income, but I believe they actually let their agents keep the income. This goes back to Iran-Contra for certain, and almost as certainly to the Vietnam war.

"The glyphosate spray not only kills the coca plants but also just about everything else growing around them including agricultural crops."

I disagree... I took a tour of a "facility" while traveling through Colombia. The guide pointed out all of the agricultural crops being destroyed at the same time pointing out all the healthy crops of coca.

Coca is one of the most resilient plants being cultivated. And you're going to tell me in the is day and age of biotechnology that the enterprising coca growers haven't figured out how to create a coca cash crop resilient to all the -ides the states can throw there way?

A pretty good piece, but it lacks historical perspective. US involvement in Colombia began long before the 1999 Clintonian Plan Colombia.

Can we say Monroe Doctrine? Can we remember the fact that the US created Panama (formerly Colombian territory) as fiefdom to have land for the canal?

Can we please acknowledge that the FARC and similar groups evolved from a climate in which the CIA, the US military, US-owned puppet governments and brutal US mercenary armies and bandits (fronting for various corporations)made any manner of sane governance impossible and so the sole rational alternative is (often violent) revolution?

If we could use the historical as a starting point, then maybe the smell of the sulphur can be understood as more than a quite apt metaphor.

The spreading of cocaine into South Central LA by the CIA to raise money for contra terrorists who were trying to overthrow the Nicaraguan government is well documented in Dark Alliance by Gary Webb and Whiteout by Alex Cockburn and Jeff St. Clair. They also reported on the Wadministration-harbored terrorist Posada Corralles.

Bumper sticker "Help fund the the CIA, do coke it's the real thing!"

Right Texas, the Roundup ready Coca survives, while everything else non-resistant dies. Gotcha. Never understood it til now. Thanks.

Smell sulfur?

I read that the person who became pope in I believe 1964, and upon arriving at the Vatican or soon after, said that he smelled Satan's smoke, sulfur; meaning that evil had infiltrated and was present, involved.

Just a side note. :)

Keep in mind that this entire 'Plan Columbia' began when Uribe's predecessor came to Washington to ask for economic aid. Clinton told him right off that he was wasting his breath unless he wanted military aid. The president then, Andres Pastrana, told Clinton that the only thing they DIDN'T NEED were more weapons but Clinton persuaded him to accept military aid because then he would be able to piggyback some REAL aid on the defence provisions. What Columbia got was one portable school house along with billions of dollars worth of Black Hawk helicopters, Mosanto's latest agent orange and the company of DyneCorp psychotics hell bent on murdering those 'pot smoking hippies' (as one DyneCorp helicopter pilot expressed it to me). The Columbian tragedy is an excellent example how the MIC runs our foreign policy with no regard for the needs of the civilian populace here or abroad.

Excellent postings. I would like to add one little thing. To the end the period of violence which was between liberals and conservetives, the parties agreed to alternate power every four years- the Frente Nacional or national front. This meant that democracy was brought to a halt. The FARC arose because in such a system, the only way to power for any third party is by the gun.

I agree with a number of posters that pointed out that "the war on drugs" has been around for some time. You think we would have learned from prohibition that this is a losing battle. In a free society people expect freedom. This includes freedom to be stupid. We allow alcohol and cigarettes (and over-eating)which all kill folks every day. Its not that drugs are good. Its that prohibiting them is stupid. It creates an under-culture of violence, just like during prohibition. If politicians did not fear the conservative right, change might be possible. This is analogous to the "pro-life" movement. Nobody is "pro-death"; it is just that bringing unwanted babies into the world is more objectionable to some. Instead of attempting to solve the social issues that will reduce destructive behavior, some think that making these self-destructive behaviours illegal will help. Vote the bums out of there!-and don't let them think that there are not consiquences of their actions. And this should not include putting the wife of a president in the Whitehouse after her husband told a bold-faced lie to everyone in the country. I may have reservations about Obama, but what other choice do we have?

The FARC didn't emerge because the liberal and conservative parties representing Colombia's oligarchy didn't allow the non-elite representation.

They emerged because during La Violencia many peasants didn't want to get caught in the murderous crossfire; so many migrated to Colombia's southern regions.

However, the oligarch's couldn't allow peasants to independently control their land and peacefully run their lives without an oligarch's oversight. As a result, death squads and the military invaded these areas and did what they do best: massacre peasants.

The FARC became the defensive arm of these threatened peasants.

However, it is true, ealier, the political leaders that eventually organized the FARC did run for elections. But because they represented Leftist parties, they were regularly murdered by death squads and other extra-judicial groups.

And the Leftist parties were never involved in the oligarch's La Violencia.

To sum up, during the early '60s, peaceful peasant migrants and non-violent Leftist politicians were murdered, massacred and tortured by the military and extra-judicial forces of Colombia's oligarchy -an oligarchy that ruthlessly murdered thousands during a long running civil war between the oligarchs.

What the hell would you do in a situation like that?

Of course, the US corporate press totally ignores the murderous history of Colombia's oligarchy and its present propensity for killing union leaders, independent journalists and scholars, democratic Leftist politicians, and peasant land reformers.

The FARC weren't even designated a terrorist organization until the Bush regime started slapping that label,after 9/11, onto all groups, organizations and countries it didn't like. Of course, all revolutionary political movements were instantly labeled terrorist.

That is why it wasn't far out when President Chavez asked the EU to take FARC off of their terrorist list.

By the way, President Chavez's Bolivarian movenment emerged as a response to the same murderous activities initiated by Venezuela's oligarchs. Read about it by looking up the Caracazos Riots of the late 1980s.