It's Really a War on the Poor: A War on Coca Nobody Believes In

[Judi Lynn]

Weekend Edition
November 20-22, 2009

It's Really a War on the Poor
A War on Coca Nobody Believes In
By JAMES J. BRITTAIN

Since their systemic targeting of producer nations through militarized methods of eradication, government officials in Washington have regularly brandished bogus data when concerning the effectiveness and validity of the US’s so-called ‘war on drugs’. Dating back to the 1980s, Colombia became a figurative and literal battleground in this war, as the world’s principal cultivator of coca. As liberalized economic policies debilitated Colombia’s rural political economy hundreds of thousands of small and medium-sized producers, campesinos, and landless farmers gravitated toward the narcotic industry, via cultivation, as a way of life and survival. The United States, denounced such activities a threat, as drugs were proclaimed a risk to ‘national security’ (White House, 1986). In turn, Washington devoted a great deal of time, money, and military resources to curb coca ‘at the source’. Yet this militarized approach toward eradication has consistently produced incredibly poor results. Rather than facilitating a decline the narcotic industry witnessed an enormous expansion over the past two decades.

A fascinating shift related to this historic debacle was reported in early November. The United States Embassy in Bogotá announced a miraculous 29 per cent decrease in Colombian coca cultivation and an estimated 39 per cent drop in cocaine production in 2008 alone. Such figures are incredible, for rates of coca cultivation have, in actuality, significantly risen since Washington embarked on its war on drugs in Colombia. Throughout the 1980s, when Colombia was identified as a threat to US national security, cultivation averaged 46,000 hectares. <1 hectare = 2.47 acres.> By the 1990s levels had reached 61,000 hectares, while the past decade saw median rates hovering at 140,000 hectares. Taking the subject a step further, when one situates rates of coca cultivation in conjunction with rates of coca eradicated via manual and aerial techniques it becomes glaringly apparent that growth rates have done anything but declined. To the contrary, coca accelerated – especially under the administration of Álvaro Uribe Vélez <2002-2010>. Such information devastates the ‘success’ Washington (and Bogotá) today claim.

Who drafted and released the information to the public? While formally released through the US Embassy in Bogotá, the report and findings came from the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) – specifically the US Director of Central Intelligence, Crime and Narcotics Center (CNC). What is unique about this is the unspoken absence of the White House’s Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP). For the greater part of the last decade, the ONDCP has been the principal medium for formally releasing information related to coca cultivation levels within Colombia. The fact that the CIA/CNC released this report and not the ONDCP should spark some question and debate.

Many, particularly US officials in Washington and Bogotá, have shown disdain and upset toward the ONDCP’s data over the past several years. Embarrassingly, the ONDCP has shown that coca levels have not decreased but rather climbed to heights never witnessed in Colombia’s history. When one compares levels of coca from the 1980s to those of today the data disclose inclines averaging 350 per cent. During the late 1990s and early-mid 2000s, as the US spent just under $8 billion in counter-narcotic missions in Colombia, the ONDCP illustrated that levels did the opposite of deteriorating. This unquestionably caused a great deal of stress for government officials within both the US and Colombia, as was shown in 2006 when that latter’s former Interior Minister Sabas Pretelt chastised the ONDCP – going so far as to argue the office manipulated and systematically inflated levels of coca in Colombia (United Press International, 2006).

Tfhe United States has long attempted to manipulate figures related to Colombia’s coca levels. During the 1990s, Washington was vocal in its promotion of a clear decrease in Colombia’s narcotic industry due to US involvement and approach toward drug eradication. However,– to the embarrassment and discredit of Washington – research, external to government sources, found that cocaine productivity had greatly increased. Figures showed cocaine levels to be two times higher than the US had claimed.

Continued:
http://www.counterpunch.org/brittain11202009.html

[Peace Patriot]

1. It's now become clearer WHY the US is so militarily invested in failed coca eradication.

It's not just the highly desirable corpo-fascist goals of militarizing and brutalizing Latin American societies.

It's not just protecting the big drug lords, and big CIA slush funds.

It's not just the excuse to infiltrate democratic countries and destabilize and topple leftist governments.

And it's not just war profiteering--which had been my suspicion for some time.

It's an actual WAR that the Pentagon is planning, to commandeer Latin America's OIL.

This is becoming clearer with the Pentagon's deal with Colombia for SEVEN new US military bases in Colombia and "full spectrum" military operations "throughout South America," with full diplomatic immunity in Colombia for US military personnel AND for US private contractors, no limit on US military personnel and contractors; new US military bases in Panama; securing of the US military base and port facilities through a fascist coup in Honduras; and the reconstitution of the US 4th Fleet in the Caribbean.

This is South Vietnam deja vu all over again, if I ever saw it--including the vast SILENCE in this country about the dramatic US military buildup in Colombia.

The failed, corrupt, murderous US "war on drugs" has all of the above purposes, PLUS installing the US military in Latin America for an OIL WAR.

All of these US war assets--the seven bases in Colombia, the Honduran base and the 4th Fleet--now have Venezuela's main oil reserves and facilities--on its Caribbean coast, adjacent to Colombia--surrounded.

And if we look back over the last two years, we see a US/Colombian military practice bombing/raid on Ecuador ( adjacent to Colombia to the south, allied with Venezuela, big oil reserves, member of OPEC), in March 2008, and a US/Bushwhack practice run on instigating a civil war and secessionist scheme in Bolivia, in September 2008, as well as the most intense psyops-disinformation campaign against a country--Venezuela--since the phantom WMDs in Iraq.

It's all set up, all under the false flag of the "war on drugs," and now we are seeing increased border incidents on the Colombia/Venezuela border, including Colombia shooting and killing two Venezuelan soldiers who were navigating a designated international river, and other potential "Gulf of Tonkin"-type incidents. Once US soldiers and contractors are placed in the region, the war spark can be lit.

Colombia's military and its closely tied rightwing paramilitary death squads have cleared a big area of northern Colombia of tens of thousands of peasant farmers (Colombian has a massive crisis of displaced people-one of the worst in the world), adjacent to Venezuela's northern oil region--a region where fascist politicians openly talk of secession. This is probably the plan--to coordinate a border incident with traitors within Venezuela, who will parade as "patriots," declare their "independence" and invite the US military into the northern states. (This would be like the Bolivia scenario, which was tried out last year but failed.)

It's quite possible that we are looking at the pending deaths of another million people, to fill Exxon Mobil's pockets--in our name.

Why else establish SEVEN new US military bases in Colombia--to the consternation of all of Latin America? Weren't we going to have, um, "peace, respect and cooperation" in US/Latin American relations?

Last time I heard crap like that it was from LBJ. Is that who you are, President Obama?

Beware of Democrats bearing peace--is the notion that has stuck in my mind, from way back then. Yeah, I'm still a Democrat. Yeah, I voted for him. I voted for peace...again. And what am I going to get for doing so, this time?

I fear it. I do. I think it's coming. I don't know if Obama is on board for it, or if they'll wait to Diebold him out of office in 2012, which the bad guys now have the easy--EASY!--capability of doing.

I can't see any other reason for this US provocation of Latin America--the alienation of leaders across the board, the expense, including $6 BILLION in military aid to Colombia--during Great Depression II, no less--the infusion of US military personnel and contractors into the corrupt cauldron that is Colombia, the reconstitution of the 4th Fleet mothballed since WW II, the Obamites' strange and backstabbing behavior in Honduras...

It makes no sense, except when you begin looking at it as a war plan. Then all the pieces fall into place.