War on Drugs in Latin America Is to Advance US Economic Interests, Not Reduce Drug Trafficking

Source: BuzzFlash at Truthout

The Latin America-watch website "UpsideDownWorld" offers analysis of a recent report with this headline, "US Spends $20 Billion Over 10 Years on Increasingly Bloody Drug 'War' in Latin America; Rejects Drug Policy Reform."
"UpsideDownWorld" describes the Associated Press investigation:

The article, authored by Pulitzer-prize winning reporter Martha Mendoza, describes how the U.S. has “spent more than $20 billion [BuzzFlash on Truthout believes $20 billion is on the extreme low end of actual expenditures] in the past decade” and deployed U.S. army, marine and navy troops to support a heavily militarized campaign to fight drug trafficking throughout the region. The fact that the efforts have been accompanied by soaring violence – with, for example, 70,000 Mexican lives lost in the last six years [actually it is likely to have exceeded a death toll of 120,000 under former President Calderon through the end of his term last November, as detailed in a Truthout article, "Fueled by War on Drugs, Mexican Death Toll Could Exceed 120,000 As Calderon Ends Six-Year Reign" – doesn’t seem to trouble the U.S. officials in charge of implementing U.S. drug policy internationally. In fact, they seem to consider spikes in violence to be a sign that the “strategy is working.”


William Brownfield who heads the State Department’s Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, told Mendoza that “the bloodshed tends to occur and increase when these trafficking organizations… come under some degree of pressure.”

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As "UpsideDownWorld" – which focuses on issues relating to Latin America – also notes:

Particularly worrying is the fact that the administration seems to be unable to account for enormous sums that have been authorized to be spent on military equipment. The article notes that, "neither the State Department nor the Pentagon could provide details explaining a 2011 $1.3 billion authorization for exports of military electronics to Honduras — although that would amount to almost half of all U.S. arms exports for the entire Western Hemisphere."….

Today Central America is increasingly the focus of U.S. militarized counternarcotics programs. As the New York Times revealed in early May of last year, tactics and personnel that were previously used in Iraq and Afghanistan have been transferred to Central America, including the DEA’s Foreign-deployed Advisory Support Team (FAST) that first operated in Afghanistan.

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