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Colombia's 70-year civil war should NEVER have been included in the "war on terror," and that inclusion--which occurred in the mid-2000s--resulted in the Colombian military, funded with $7 BILLION in U.S. tax dollars, specifically targeting trade unionists and peasant farmers, with about half of the murders of trade unionists committed by the Colombian military itself (and the other half by their closely tied rightwing paramilitary death squads). Everyone in the opposition was targeted for death by the Mob Boss/President, Alvaro Uribe, in his public statements (everyone who opposes him is "a terrorist")--including human rights workers, teachers, community activists, Indigenous leaders, peasant farmer organizers and activists, journalists, academics, political leftists and others, in addition to trade unionists (poor mine workers, farm workers and others). In addition, the military drove FIVE MILLION peasant farmers from their lands, with state terror--THE worst human displacement crisis in the world.
Uribe was meanwhile spying on everybody--according to recent testimony, with U.S. money, equipment and technical assistance, and an American go-between reporting directly to the U.S. ambassador--including spying on judges and prosecutors, and reportedly using the spying to draw up "hit lists" for death threats and assassination. This spying was also likely used to identify witnesses that posed a danger to Uribe and his criminal network--and possibly also a danger to the Bush Junta--for extradition to the U.S. and "burial" in the U.S. federal prison system, out of the reach of Colombian prosecutors--initiated by Uribe and the U.S. ambassador with the DOJ and other agencies (Obama administration) cooperating.
Uribe was so incredibly corrupt that I suspect that he was specifically designated by the Bush Junta to consolidate and control the trillion+ cocaine revenue stream out of Colombia--and the U.S. "war on drugs" was used for this purpose, for instance, to drive the small coca leaf and food farmers from the land and turn the land over to the big, protected drug lords and cocaine operations.
The U.S. "war on terror" is EXTREMELY corrupt, in all of its aspects. It is a war profiteer boondoggle. Its prototype is the "war on drugs." And all of the murder, mayhem and corruption of these two "wars" was combined in Colombia.
The death toll in Colombia probably approaches the death toll in Iraq in the first weeks of bombing and invasion (100,000 range). There are over 60,000 'disappeareds'--vanished people, bodies not yet found. Some mass graves have been discovered; there are no doubt others as yet undiscovered. There is also growing evidence of probable U.S. military/security agencies/embassy involvement in some of these crimes.
It is absolutely appalling what occurred as the result of combining the "war on drugs" with the "war on terror"--and including native Colombian citizens, who have taken up arms against fascist terror in their own country--the FARC guerrillas--as "terrorists." The Colombian military EQUALLY deserves the epithet "terrorist" if a civil war is to be included in the "war on terror." And obviously the Obama administration agrees with this Bushwhack policy of using the U.S. "war on terror" for other purposes, given their bombing of one side (when they weren't bombing civilians) in Libya's civil war. (The legitimate, recognized Gaddaffi government had not aggressed against any country, and the loyal Libyan military believed that they were defending the legitimate, recognized government and the sovereignty of Libya.)
The new policy is this: ANYONE who does not acquiesce to U.S. domination--and most especially any country with lots of oil which will not agree to privatization of the oil and "first world" theft of the oil profits--is a "terrorist" country and can be bombed and invaded. And, ANY country that does acquiesces to U.S. corporate/war profiteer domination will be given assistance in killing their own people. And this will be done without discussion or vote by the U.S. Senate and the U.S. House of Representatives, as required by the U.S. Constitution, and without discussion with or consent of the American people, as required by our claim to be a democratic country. Obama has actually done more damage to the U.S. Constitution than even Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld, by not even bothering to lie to Congress and the American people and simply conducting war by presidential fiat.
Neither the Colombian civil war, nor the Libyan civil war, had anything whatever to do with 9/11 or the non-state-sponsored bombings by Al Qaeda or other violent jihadists, that the U.S. "war on terror" was allegedly declared to address. Nor did the Saddam Hussein regime in Iraq. All three have been economic wars for the control of resources and slave labor workforces--and the U.S. wars in Colombia and Afghanistan very likely had also to do with control of the drug trade (well-flourishing in both countries after U.S./Bushwhack intervention).
I'm very glad that the International Federation of Human Rights (FIDH) has taken on this issue in particular--the wrongful wedding of the "war on terror" with the "war on drugs." This is very pertinent to the horrors in Colombia. But more needs to be said about the one-two punch of Bushite and Democratic militarism and war profiteering which leaves no room for peace, ever.
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