The communist revolutionaries in Colombia, that the U.S.
congress recently approved 1.6 billion dollars to fight against.
These people are guerillas, and involved in the Colombian drug
trade.
So it is a good idea to try and combat them and spray
pesticides on their coca crops, right?
Well, yeah, if the FARC
were the only people involved in the drug trade for economic reasons.
As it turns out, the paramilitary group(s) that formed to combat the
guerillas (by killing civilians with chainsaws) and the Colombian
armed forces are just as involved in the shipping of drugs as the
FARC.
Now this leaves us U.S. citizens with the question of how
long are we going to let a few blood thirsty, 1950's style
anticommunists waste our money fighting a civil war in a country where
our "air strike" methods just don't work?
Ok. There is my ranting node of the month.
today... uhh... may 19th 2000
update.
Friend didn't get the cash for this summer, but who knows. This subject defies common description.
update June 11th 2002, they are still around, and well. I just wanted to update this to say that I in no way condone the taking/killing of hostages by revolutionary groups. and really, revolutionary groups in most cases are pretty
outmoded, no?
update July 2nd 2008,
I will leave this up as a testimony to my knowledge of FARC as it came to me as an anti-drug war US Citizen. In 2002 after the kidnapping of Presidential Candidate
Ingrid Betancourt FARC lost their credibility with me. Today news of her daring rescue by the Colombian military broke. Thank god she survived a 6 year ordeal. As complete innocents, her and the contractors with her never deserved to be used as pawns in the FARCs deadly war games.
May the political argument against armed intervention in coca farming continue without violence and without FARC.