Cocaine Sustains War in Rural Colombia

[groovedaddy]

PASTO, Colombia — Along with Colombia’s successes in fighting leftist rebels this year, cities like Medellín have staged remarkable recoveries. And in the upscale districts of Bogotá, the capital, it is almost possible to forget that the country remains mired in a devilishly complex four-decade-old war.

But it is a different story in the mountains of the Nariño department. Here, and elsewhere in large parts of the countryside, the violence and fear remain unrelenting, underscoring the difficulty of ending a war fueled by a drug trade that is proving immune to American-financed efforts to stop it.

Soaring coca cultivation, forced disappearances, assassinations, the displacement of families and the planting of land mines stubbornly persist, the hallmarks of a backlands conflict that threatens to drag on for years, even without the once spectacular actions of guerrillas in Colombia’s large cities.

For those caught in the cross-fire, talk of a possible endgame for the war seems decidedly premature, even given the deaths this year of several top guerrilla leaders, the desertion of hundreds of rebels each month and the rescue of prized hostages like the former presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/27/world/americas/27colombia.html?th&emc=th

[Vincardog]

1. Does anyone believe that "America wants to stop the drug wars"?

HELL Saint Ray Gun started them.
The * crime family profits of them and the GOP is financed by them.
Why would they want to stop them?

[groovedaddy]

2. It's no coincidence that opium/heroin production was way down in Afghanistan and

then skyrockets after Bush & Co. invade.

[Vincardog]

3. It might be because the Taliban banned drug cultivation and the TaliBornAgain profit off them.

[groovedaddy]

4. I believe NOW had a program on Afghanistan a few weeks ago

It showed the U.S. military meeting with a "community leader" in some village. He told them that the U.S. had bombed his house and he wanted to be compensated. A Captain & crew then met with the guy at his home to show the damage. Around the house were fields of marijuana and poppy. As part of his thanks, the Afghani offered the Captain a rather large ball of opium, which the Captain graciously declined. It was a little on the hilarious side!

[Morpheal]

5. END US GOVERNMENT SUPPORT FOR COLUMBIAN NARCO-STATE

Hey, when you are revolutionary idealists fighting an American government supported narco-state
(and there are US intelligence analysts who have confirmed that latter fact), you get discredited
by being forced to use the same methods as your narco-state opponents (Columbian drug lords
and the Columbian government that they are married to).

So what did you expect ?

As long as America supports the Columbian narco-state, the way the Republicans have been
doing, with billions of dollars, it only gets worse, never better.

Robert Morpheal