Washington is Voting for the Candidate of War in Colombia
Nil Nikandrov - http://www.strategic-culture.org

The second round of the presidential elections in Colombia will take place on 15 July. Despite predictions, the first round did not end in favour of current president Juan Manuel Santos, who ceded three percent of the vote to his main rival Oscar Zuluaga. One would think that this gap is small, and that Santos now has the chance of turning the tide in his favour. A significant part of those who would have voted for candidates who have since dropped out are intending to give their vote to Santos, who is leading his election campaign under the slogans of achieving civil peace, demilitarisation, and the creation of favourable conditions for social and economic reforms.

The prospect of Santos’ new policy, however, which has been unconditionally subordinate to orders from Washington in the past, has prompted the Obama administration to make adjustments to its own policy toward Colombia. A stake has been placed on Oscar Zuluaga, the candidate for the right-wing conservative movement Democratic Center and protégé of ex-president Alvaro Uribe, the shadow boss of the Colombia drug mafia, and the organiser and instigator of far-right paramilitary organisations.

Time and again, reports have appeared in the media about their disbandment, along with stories about how their leaders had been tried on terrorism charges, but in the end it turns out that the most combat-ready paramilitary groups continue to operate. They are concentrated on the Venezuelan and Ecuadorian borders, and their gunmen are being used to carry out terrorist attacks in other countries including Brazil, whose government Washington regards as unfriendly, especially since Dilma Rousseff is still demanding clear public apologies from the Obama administration for America’s all-out electronic and human espionage in Brazil, and is starting to distance itself from the Empire, including in the sphere of military and technical cooperation. In response, Washington, as usual, is using its agents from the ‘fifth column’ and NGOs to wage anti-football protests, compromising the World Cup in Brazil.

Prominent Venezuelan politician José Vicente Rangel recently stated that the US has increased its infiltration of paramilitaries in Venezuela’s border areas in order to ‘argue’ for the need to deploy US armed forces and their closest allies in the country ‘in line with the OAS mandate’. Zuluaga is being regarded as a promising player in the fulfilment of this goal. He is sharply critical of the peace talks with representatives of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), preferring their complete surrender and unilateral disarmament. He also makes no secret of his harshly critical attitude toward any option which includes left-wing insurgents in the country’s political life.

More:
http://www.tiwy.com/news.phtml?id=324

From the article above:

As US political analyst James Petras writes: «US Special Forces and ideologues entered Colombia to develop military and paramilitary terror operations – aimed primarily at penetrating and decimating political opposition and civil society social movements and assassinating activists and leaders... Thousands of activists, trade unionists, human rights workers and peasants were murdered, tortured and jailed. The ‘Colombian System’ (of government) combined the systematic use of para-militarism (death squads) to smash local and regional trade union, peasant opposition and popular insurgency, and ‘emptying the countryside’ of rebel sympathizers. Large-scale multi-billion dollar drug trafficking and money laundering formed the ‘financial glue’ to cement a tight relationship among oligarchs, politicos, bankers and US counter-insurgency advisers – creating a terrifying high-tech police state».

Thank you for showing me the results of your research.
Because I do need help in understanding this history. Help in deriving some sense of all the "data", all the myriad instances of this action or that, so many of which are emotionally draining just to read about.

In one sense nothing ever changes in the violent fascist/colonialist enterprise, nothing changes in the fascist "empire" regardless of the name given to the administration. That's something that I think a lot of DUers don't understand, don't realize. Certainly something that no "Third Way Democrat" would admit to understanding.

I just got a post hidden because it did one thing: It posted a youtube video of Woody Guthrie saying and singing about what he thinks about fascism. A rather central topic to consider, both then and now. A DUer wasn't pleased, and that DUer yelped, and the DU jury hid my post in a 4/3 verdict.

So I thought about this. Would I censor myself to such extent that I give safe haven for fascists, so safe that even a Woody Guthrie song has to be erased? No, I wouldn't. In other words, I'm unrepentant and I stand by my post of the Guthrie video, and I have NOTHING BUT COMMENDATION FOR THE SENTIMENT WOODY GUTHRIE EXPRESSES IN THE VIDEO.

I would not provide safe haven for fascists or commingle with those that do.

for linking a truly U.S. American song!

From his Wikipedia:

Woodrow Wilson "Woody" Guthrie (July 14, 1912 – October 3, 1967) was an American singer-songwriter and folk musician whose musical legacy includes hundreds of political, traditional and children's songs, ballads and improvised works. He frequently performed with the slogan This Machine Kills Fascists displayed on his guitar. His best-known song is "This Land Is Your Land." Many of his recorded songs are archived in the Library of Congress.[1] Such songwriters as Bob Dylan, Phil Ochs, Bruce Springsteen, John Mellencamp, Pete Seeger, Andy Irvine, Joe Strummer, Billy Bragg, Jay Farrar, Jeff Tweedy, Bob Childers and Tom Paxton have acknowledged Guthrie as a major influence.

a population that doesn't understand the meaning of the word 'fascist', and that doesn't understand that the USA is the world's premier exporter of and supporter of fascist rule. I mean, there are threads today on DU that suggest that a huge percentage of DUers think that the US intends to export some kind of "good" toward the ME. Which is such a patently ridiculous argument that I don't know what to say ....

How can anyone settle for such a limited, stupid view of their lives, anyway?

Looks as if they can keep themselves so overstimulated they don't have time to think! Short attention spans.

Their parents weren't the ones to teach them any self-discipline, leaving them with no depth, no awareness. Just suspicion, hatred, greed, fear, delusions, and lots of strange beliefs.

I noticed around 2000, they were calling the same people BOTH "commies" AND "fascists." Nice work if you can get it! They still haven't figured it out, apparently.

As we would see, his election would be proof Uribe's "shadow" power is increasing, just as it did with Cuba's bloody dictator, Fulgencio Batista, in the years between his first Presidency, then his Presidency in the 1950's.

During that time, Batista also operated behind the scene, pulling strings, keeping Cuba dirty, and violent.

We cannot leave well enough alone.