Colombia willing to 'rethink war on drugs': Minister

[Judi Lynn]

Colombia willing to 'rethink war on drugs': Minister
Friday, 18 November 2011 10:00
Jean Carrere

Interior Minister German Vargas Lleras declared in London on Friday that Colombia was willing to rethink the fight against illegal drugs.

During a meeting of the House of Lords to address the issue of drugs, Vargas Lleras said that "Colombia is ready to participate with high interest in an overall evaluation of the successes and failures achieved in these 40 years of struggle against illegal drugs."

The minister added that Colombia was "disposed to explore new ways , without any preconceptions or prejudice, keeping in mind that this debate involves every country as part of a broader international plan."

~snip~Santos declared to British newspaper "The Observer" that if the international community thought legalizing drugs to be a solution, Santos would "welcome it," as part of an effort to "think again about the war on drugs."

http://colombiareports.com/colombia-news/news/20542-colombia-willing-to-explore-new-ways-to-fight-the-war-on-drugs-minister.html

[Peace Patriot]

1. "Think again about the war on drugs"? What about the billions in U.S. taxpayer booty WASTED

on this corrupt, murderous, failed U.S. war profiteer boondoggle.

My heart leaps with joy at Colombian officials questioning the "war on drugs." It tells me that they might not be Bush Cartel/Uribe mafia. But you also have to bring a whole lot of skepticism to these statements. Colombia is the recipient of at least $7 BILLION in U.S. taxpayer funding for the disgraced and disgraceful Colombian military and its rightwing death squads and for Uribe and his vast, illegal spying and death squad operation--all directly supported by the U.S. government and military, including--according to testimony in investigations of Uribe--a direct U.S. liaison between Uribe's spy agency, DAS, and the U.S. embassy, U.S. military "training" of Colombian forces and U.S. military on-the-ground presence at numerous military bases around Colombia, as well as USAID/Pentagon design of "pacification" programs (a la Vietnam).

We also have Mexico as an example of the murder and mayhem instigated by the U.S. "war on drugs"--in what is, in my opinion, a deliberate assault on Mexican civil society and use of U.S. tax dollars (more billions) to line the pockets of war profiteers and to bolster fascist forces in Mexico.

It's interesting--and, dare I say, hopeful--that high officials in the two biggest U.S./local war profiteer "anti-drug" operations--Colombia and Mexico--have questioned the "war on drugs." A commission of ex-presidents of Mexico has recommended legalization of marijuana and re-thinking of the entire "war". Now we have Santos and other Colombian officials talking about it. We can expect common sense and good policy from leftist governments and leaders--for instance, Evo Morales' government in Bolivia legalizing the coca leaf (but not cocaine) and Morales' government and Hugo Chavez's government in Venezuela kicking the DEA out of their countries. I'm sure that this is one main reason that our war-profiteer-run government and its corporate press hate Chavez and Morales and are constantly slandering them and trying to oust their governments. They refuse to sell their countries out to the DEA and the Pentagon. Mexico's leftist candidate for president, Lopez Obrador--who was cheated out of the presidency in 2005, and just won the nomination of leftist parties to run again--also recently and seriously questioned the "war on drugs." But, again, we expect leftists to have intelligent policies.

These other critics of the U.S. "war on drugs" are more centrist figures, and, in the case of Santos, rightwing. Santos belongs to Uribe's party--about half of whose leaders (close cronies of Uribe) are in jail or under investigation for drug trafficking, ties to the death squads and other crimes. They are not just fascists, they are murderers and thieves. But there is a big rupture in that party, Uribe vs Santos, and some of Santos' other proposals of late--for instance, universal health care by next year--are revealing him to be, well...an intriguing political figure--supposedly rightwing, certainly pro-corporate (U.S. "free trade for the rich") but maybe not a criminal (in the traditional sense, re Uribe), and possibly--and I repeat, possibly--inclined toward healing Colombia's bloodbath, alleviating poverty and not warmongering against Venezuela and Ecuador (as Uribe did, to please his Bush Junta sponsors). Indeed, his first act in office was to make peace with Venezuela.

So-o-o, it looks like there is the possibility of a consensus of the center and the left on ending the "war on drugs" in Latin America. This would be an historic divide with U.S. war profiteers and a huge benefit to the people of the region, comparable to the end of slavery and the break from Spain. Talk about a revolution! Talk about a declaration of independence! It makes you almost weep to think of it.

I don't trust Santos, though. He could be cozying up to the left in the region, as a U.S. corporate agent, because our Corporate Rulers don't have much choice. Most of the region has gone leftist and, unless the U.S. goes ahead with Oil War 2.5: South America, and alienates Latin America for centuries to come, they have to figure out a way to worm U.S. corporations and banksters back into dominance, with, among other things, "divide and conquer" tactics. These may include, say, undermining wages and benefits in Venezuela by means of U.S. "free trade for the rich" zones in Colombia, undercutting prices in regional trade, and so forth. It's no skin off Santos' nose to SAY that he wants to "re-think" the "war on drugs" (after so much carnage--jeez!) while yet having no intention of sending those billions in "war on drugs" dollars back to Washington. How are they going to force U.S. "free trade for the rich" on Colombian workers without U.S. military aid?

Another suspicion: Maybe the Bush Cartel has sufficiently consolidated the trillion+ dollar cocaine revenue stream--by killing off the small operations and driving millions of peasant farmers from their land--that they can afford to back off a bit, and help make Santos look "progressive." "Mission Accomplished!" --use of the U.S. "war on drugs" for this purpose--now they can reap in the trillions of illicit dollars and get out of the way (and get their operatives like Uribe out of the way) of various investigations by letting the yak-yak begin about legalizing the drug trade. Legalized or not, they now control it. Further, the Bushwhacks having bankrupted the U.S., there aren't billions of tax dollars lying around for the taking any more (or so we are told).

All in all, though, I think it's primarily the solidarity of the left--its new regional organizations excluding the U.S., driving the IMP/World Bank out of the region, creating social justice and prosperity for Latin Americans, and so on--that may be responsible for Santos' progressive noises (he hasn't delivered yet, so we don't know whether they are just noises or not) and the long term goal is the "worm" idea: undermining the leftist movement from within the region.

Trade unionists and other advocates of the poor are still being murdered in Colombia, with impunity. Santos has promised to restore peasant lands, but not much has been done. Colombia still has one of the worst rich/poor discrepancies in the region (while Venezuela, right next door, for instance, has THE best), and Uribe is still at large and threatening to re-install his murder and mayhem organization in power, and will most certainly receive support for that if Diebold/ES&S installs Bush Junta II here. I don't want to misjudge or underestimate Santos--but we really must be cautious about thinking that some big change for the better is occurring in Colombia. There is much reason to distrust it.