It All Makes Perfect Sense

This piece arrived from Doug McVay via Preston Peet and evoked this Roger Waters song in my head. We were just talking about Uribe's warm reception in DC. How unsurprising that Colombia will now commit an unknown number of their own soldier's lives in trade for increased US funding to combat alleged "narco-terrorism."

Colombia could send a contingent of troops to support US-led forces in Iraq, as part of an attempt to secure an intensification of the US military aid it receives to combat domestic drugs-financed insurgents.

The move is being considered following a visit last week to Washington by President Alvaro Uribe, according to a well-placed Colombian government source.

Mr Uribe, the US's staunchest ally in Latin America in its "war on terrorism", asked the US government to raise the limit on the number of US military personnel and contractors allowed to operate in the country under Plan Colombia, the counter-narcotics aid programme.

They want to double the number of personnel in the name of a failed war on drugs. Four hundred extra personnel does not sound that alarming unless you realize that it translates into the extinction of not only the biodiversity of the flora and fauna in the Amazon rain basin but in the human diversity as well.

The prohibitionists are thinking this is a done deal.

An increase in the number of US personnel operating in Colombia would have to be approved by Congress, a decision that is likely given the relative success of Plan Colombia and Mr Uribe's domestic security policies.

Don't let them get away with it. It would cost you fifty cents to call your Congressperson's office and tell the sweet young intern to pass on a message telling them not to fund this scheme .