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of taxpayer dollars that accomplishes NOTHING --no curbing of drug availability or use, or associated crime. All it does is create a police state.
Many countries in South America are rejecting the corrupt, failed, murderous U.S. "war on drugs" for its insanity, corruption and worthlessness, and for the additional reason that the U.S. uses it to militarize and nazify their countries and violate their sovereignty with U.S. boots on the ground and dictates from Washington. Ecuador is throwing the U.S. "war on drugs" military base at Manta, Ecuador, out of their country next year when its lease is up. The president of Ecuador said he would let the U.S. military stay in the base when the U.S. agrees to let Ecuador put an Ecuadoran military base in Miami! It is a sovereignty issue as well as disagreement with U.S. "war on drugs" policy and also anger at Bushwhack misuse of "war on drugs" facilities (the U.S. base at Manta, run by Dyncorp, was likely used this March in the U.S./Colombia bombing/raid on Ecuadoran territory, near the Colombian border, and is, without doubt, spying on Ecuador and other countries.) Guatemala just elected its first progressive government, ever, which has social justice goals similar to the Bolivarian countries (Venezuela, Ecuador, Bolivia, also Argentina and Paraguay). Guatemala's new president specifically disavowed the "police state" approach to crime and over-militarization of the problem. His first priority is solving poverty. This is the trend. And I would say that it is most dramatic in Bolivia.
Bolivia has been a leader in making the distinction between cocaine and simple coca leaves, a traditional indigenous medicine that has widespread use as a tea and for chewing, because it's full of vitamins and proteins and is essential for survival of the poor in the high altitude, cold Andes mountains. A group of Bolivian coca leaf farmers recently threw the U.S. "war on drugs" personnel out of their region. They said the U.S. agents were not helping the poor farmers, and were using the money to live in luxury, as well as to undermine the government of Evo Morales, the first indigenous president of Bolivia (a largely indigenous country), and a former coca leaf farmer. In fact, Morales, who got the biggest vote of any president ever in Bolivian history, and recently won a referendum on his presidency with 67% of the votes, is still the head of the coca leaf farmers union. He campaigned with a wreath of coca leaves around his neck.
Coca leaf farmers are ALSO ORGANIC FOOD FARMERS, and the U.S. horror of toxic pesticide spraying of small food farms, for growing a few coca leaves for local use, has caused great harm in Colombia and wherever it has been done, destroying food crops, killing farm animals and damaging human DNA--and, perhaps worst of all, driving thousands of small farmers off their land. It is VERY controversial in South America. What is done in the name of the "war on drugs" is dreadful, and the cocaine just keeps coming, with all the crime and weapons trafficking that goes with cocaine syndicates. We are spending $6 BILLION in military aid to Colombia, and the cocaine never stops flowing.
Do the math.
FINALLY, some government leaders are opting for a SANE drug policy, and the Bushwhacks are furious about it, because the "war on drugs is a military/police state BOONDOGGLE (their favorite kind of program), and because they are using the "war on drugs" military presence in Latin America to spy on and plot against the new leftist, democratic leaders, especially the ones that control great oil reserves (Venezuela and Ecuador, and in Bolivia gas and oil).
Calderon in Mexico is a curious case. On the one hand, he just accepted big bucks from the Bushwhacks (and our Bushwhacko Congress) for "war on drugs" militarization. His marching orders from the Bushwhacks are to privatize Mexico's constitutionally protected oil resource. He has the Mexican leftists (majorityists) breathing down his neck. The left came within a hairbreadth (0.05%) of winning the presidency in 2005, in what is widely believed to have been a stolen election. The Left is going to win in Mexico, next time around--if they can improve their vote counting system, if Calderon persists in trying to privatize the oil, AND if he misuses U.S. "war on drugs" money to oppress the poor.
A very odd thing happened in Mexico when Bush visited there in 2006. Calderon publicly lectured Bush on the sovereignty of Latin American countries, and he used Venezuela as an example! I was floored. And I figured out that yet another assassination/coup plot against the Chavez government had been exposed--one hatched in Colombia (Bush Cartel client state)--and all the Latin American leaders apparently knew about it (though it was never featured in the news here, of course). Bush did a tour of about six countries, and got the same lecture everywhere--from left and right, from Brazil to Mexico. The billion dollar "war on drugs" funding for Mexico was just then being negotiated, and Calderon insisted that Mexico have sovereign control of the money, rather than having U.S. DEA agents crawling all over Mexico.
So what I think is happening is that leftists like Chavez in Venezuela and Morales in Bolivia, in asserting their countries' sovereignty--on "war on drugs" policy and many other policies--are empowering even the centrist and rightwing leaders to assert their rights. It gives all Latin American leaders more bargaining power. Control over "war on drugs" money is not a particularly good use of that power, but it at least means that "war on drugs" activities will be a little more accountable to the people of Mexico (rather than being controlled in Washington).
Which brings me to this latest Calderon statement--which seems aimed at assuring ordinary Mexicans that the "war on drugs" is not aimed at them, but rather at major drug/crime syndicates. Calderon's political career may depend on, a) his backing off on the privatization of Mexico's oil, and b) NOT going further with fascist oppression against the poor (seeming more liberal).
I don't like him or trust him, but it's fascinating to observe the influence of the leftist democracy movement that has swept South America, and is moving north. Nicaragua now has a leftist government; El Salvador will elect a leftist government this winter; Honduras just defected from the Bushwhacks and joined the Bolivarian trade group, ALBA; and, as I mentioned above, Guatemala now has a left-leaning government for the first time in its history. South America is almost entirely leftist (the only exceptions are Colombia, a fascist narco-state, and Peru, where the corrupt "free trade" government has a 20% approval rating). Leftist presidents have been elected in Brazil, Argentina, Venezuela, Ecuador, Bolivia, Uruguay, Chile, and, most recently, Paraguay. So a leader like Calderon in Mexico is under great pressure to look a little more leftist, and also, and very importantly, to look a little more loyal to his own country and people, vis a vis the U.S.
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