No Solution for Revolution

With the Bush administration's focus on "narco-terrorism" we can't seem to get away from Colombia these days. For one thing the term was invented for the paramilitary and revolutionary forces fighting the decades long civil war in the country.

PINR has a great analysis of how the Medellin and Cali drug cartels laid the groundwork for the corruption and continued drug operations that FARC and AUC ultimately inherited. The drug cartels under the leadership of men like Pablo Escobar paid off the government officials and law enforcement authorities and committed acts of terrifying violence, gaining enough control over their legislature to virtually buy a ban on extradition to the US. When those cartels were ultimately destroyed and their kingpins either jailed or murdered, the paramilitary organizations easily filled the void and continue funding their "armies" with the profits to this day.

You need a scorecard to keep up with the current quagmire going on there now. The only certainty is that the US backed war on drugs has fueled this so-called narco-terrorism to the point where the indigenous peasants live in fear of violence from all the factions and with their tiny farms poisoned by misfired eradication flyovers, are dying and being otherwise displaced by the thousands.

A cruel and inhumane approach on the United States' part to be sure. As the article notes:

[T]he U.S. strategy of supporting a repressive military in league with brutal paramilitaries ignores Colombia's economic realities that have forced the impoverished farmers to turn to coca and poppy production as a means of survival.