Bush pledges more funds for Colombia’s dirty war

By Bill Van Auken, wsws.org

excerpt:
Under “Plan Colombia,” Washington has provided the Colombian government with some $3 billion worth of helicopters, arms and military training since the program was inaugurated under the Clinton administration in 2000. The program has made Colombia the third largest recipient of US military assistance, following Israel and Egypt. The funding is set to expire in December 2005.

Initially, the Clinton administration maintained the pretense that the military hardware was intended solely for the eradication of coca cultivation, as part of a joint effort to stem the export of cocaine from Colombia to the US. Following the September 11, 2001 attacks on the US, however, the Bush administration incorporated the Colombian civil war into its global “war on terrorism.” It erased any distinction between attacking narcotics trafficking and suppressing the country’s rural-based guerrillas, whom it and the Colombian government refer to as “narco-terrorists.”

Bush praised Uribe for bringing about “significant results” through Plan Colombia, declaring, “he number of acres under cultivation are down significantly. The number of arrests are up.” He added, “Since July of last year, dozens of leaders and financiers of the FARC narco-terrorist organization had been killed or captured.”

The reality is that Colombia remains the source of some 90 percent of the cocaine coming into the US, and there is no sign that the drug is any less available today than it was four years ago. The attempt to eradicate crops through aerial fumigation has only led to the dispersal of coca fields over a far larger area of Colombia and into neighboring countries, which ship coca leaves back for processing.

The Bush administration has expanded the US intervention in Colombia with the organization of a specific military aid program aimed at protecting an oil pipeline running through the province of Putumayo against guerrilla attacks. A special Colombian army battalion was created for that purpose, with its operations directed by US Special Forces advisors. Meanwhile, Washington has pushed through “free market” reforms that have opened up Colombia’s oil fields to nearly unrestricted exploitation by US-based energy corporations.

On October 10, with the passage of the 2005 Defense Authorization Act, the US Congress approved a provision doubling the size of the US military contingent permanently deployed in Colombia from 400 to 800. It also raised the ceiling on the number of US-supplied military contractors and mercenaries from 400 to 600. These forces are regularly supplemented by military units rotating through Colombia on “exercises” and training missions.

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http://www.wsws.org/articles/2004/nov2004/col-n24.shtml

I thought as a nation we were in debt up to our eyeballs.