Colombia V.P. Casts Doubt on Drug War

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Associated Press

Colombia V.P. Casts Doubt on Drug War
By JOSHUA GOODMAN – 11 hours ago

BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) — Colombia's vice president said Sunday that a U.S.-backed program to fumigate coca fields is failing to stem cocaine trafficking and called for anti-drug efforts to shift away from the practice.

Vice President Francisco Santos' comments were Bogota's strongest critique yet of Washington's multibillion-dollar anti-narcotics strategy here, and came on the heels of a Senate vote to slash funding for the Colombian drug war.

"After a five-year frontal attack against drug trafficking, the results aren't the most successful or the ones we hoped for," Santos told a news conference.

He said Bogota is committed to fighting drug cartels, but "at the end of the day, the benchmark is whether the street price of cocaine in New York, London or Madrid rises or the quality falls. So far, we haven't found any statistics that bear this out."



Read more: http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5g57ZaCohjRTFxenwnw4NkjM7sMmQ

[tesla78]

1. Another endless & stupid "War"

The drug war is B.S. Our government should regulate and tax drugs like tobacco and alcohol. Regulation would put the drug dealers out of business and bring in more tax revenue. There would also be more money for education and rehabilitation. As a nondrinker and nonsmoker I believe the perpetual drug war costs too much in $$ and lives.

[ronnie624]

2. Western financial institutions

make hundreds of billions of dollars per year laundering money from drug trafficking. The CIA uses drug money to finance much of its vile activities throughout the world.

The purpose of the 'war on drugs', has always been to help facilitate and coordinate the US corporate political system's war against populist movements in Latin America.

From the Article:

Despite record herbicide spraying of coca fields last year, the White House drug czar's office said in June that Colombia is producing more of the plant used to make cocaine than when Washington enacted the $5 billion Plan Colombia in 2000.

According to recent government figures, coca production rose 9 percent last year — its third consecutive annual rise — to 388,000 acres. A recent dip in the U.S. street price of cocaine and a rise in purity also point to abundant supply.

There's plenty of cocaine, but according to other reports, the spraying destroys food crops, contaminates water and displaces farmers and local populations. How convenient, considering that most of the leftist political organization, occurs in rural areas.

[Skink]

5. The particular herbicide used acts as fertilizer for opium.

We are actually financing the crops.

[MH1]

3. Yet the emphasis in Afghanistan to fight poppy production will be...

...crop eradication programs.

:banghead:

Consider that opium is a huge funder of the Taliban. We might want to actually try effective means there.

[ronnie624]

4. The poppy season following the US invasion of Afghanistan

saw poppy production rise from 150 metric tons to over 3000 metric tons, with record increases every year since. This, despite the billions spent on the 'eradication programs'.

Something fishy is going on here.

[AndyTiedye]

6. We Used to PAY the Taliban to Eradicate Opium

[Judi Lynn]

7. Interesting drug lord captured,

World's most wanted drug-trafficker captured in Colombia dressed in underwear, T-shirt
The Associated Press
Published: September 10, 2007

BOGOTA, Colombia: Diego Montoya fought his way to the top of Colombia's bloody drug trafficking industry only to meet a humiliating end: in a pre-dawn raid, troops found him hiding in bushes clad only in a T-shirt and underwear.

When the one of world's most-wanted drug traffickers came face-to-face Monday with the people who had hunted him for so many years, authorities say his only words were: "I lost."

It was a hard fall for the man called the "Lord of War" who reputedly ran Colombia's most powerful remaining cocaine cartel, compared with the legendary Pablo Escobar and sitting alongside Osama bin Laden on the FBI's most wanted list.

Montoya is accused of leading the Norte del Valle cartel, considered Colombia's most dangerous drug trafficking organization, and of shipping hundreds of tons of cocaine to the United States and Europe.

He was arrested early Monday by an elite army unit near a farm where his mother and uncle were staying in Colombia's Valle del Cauca province. He offered troops US$5 million (€3.6 million) — the same amount as the U.S. bounty on his head — to let him go, said Defense Minister Juan Manuel Santos, who traveled with Montoya on a plane back to Bogota.
(snip)

Santos said Montoya and his army of killers were responsible for 1,500 killings in his career.
Officials said Montoya put up no resistance during his arrest. But local media reported that hours after his capture, soldiers came under fire from members of his gang.
(snip)

The government has been closing in on the cartel since last year, when soldiers killed eight members of a private militia believed to be protecting Montoya. But a wide network of cartel informants had frustrated the search for the alleged drug boss himself.

Further complicating efforts to capture him was that some local army officers were allegedly on his payroll. Around a dozen army and navy officers are in jail on charges of collaborating with the cartel.

More:
http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/09/11/america/LA-GEN-Colombia-Drug-Lord.php?page=1

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

From his Wikipedia:

~snip~
Bribing of Colombian military and police forces
On 26 August 2007 the Colombian media reported that members of the Norte del Valle Cartel had been bribing military and police units to deactivate radars and allow the cartel to ship illegal drugs from Colombia. The newspaper El Tiempo reported that the Colombian Navy had been the most infiltrated through bribes ordered by Montoya Sánchez and his men. The newspaper also revealed the possible involvement of an Admiral of the Colombian Navy named Gabriel Arango who used his influence to support drug cartels. Arango marked documents related to this as classified and with a "horseshoe logo", authorities later found that these were the flight routes of the Norte del Valle Cartel in both Pacific Ocean and Caribbean sea coasts through Ecuador, Panama, Colombia and Venezuela.<5>
(snip)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diego_Leon_Montoya_Sanchez

[Vidar]

8. But, but, but ,but. . .the drug war is the chain by which we make

Columbia our "willing" slave. We don't need no stinkin' Juan Valdez and his coffee, when we have cocaine (remember Hassenfuss) to finance CIA death squads & black ops.