"The Obama administration is hoping to transfer key elements of Colombia’s strategy to other nations in the region.... A dozen Mexican helicopter pilots are being trained in Colombia at a US-financed training center, while the United States is also facilitating the training of Peruvian Marines in Colombia"
Meanwhile, cops, firefighters, and teachers are laid off here.
Time to DECRIMINALIZE and LEGALIZE, America.
And here is an ADDED BENEFIT, America:
Soldiers did military exercises in Macarena, Colombia, to prepare for possible deployment later this year to Afghanistan, where they would be part of a mission to train Afghan troops. (Fernando Vergara/Associated Press)
I'm sure AmeriKa loves that!
BOGOTA — It is a pretty typical scene even for a weeknight. Restaurants and bars are teeming with patrons, the beat of traditional Latin music spilling out on the crowded sidewalks. Stores are packed with evening shoppers and a steady stream of international business executives and tourists are checking in to gleaming new hotels.
But it is a remarkably different setting for Colombia’s capital than a few years ago, when many people rarely left their homes after dark for fear of bombings, homicides, and kidnappings by drug cartels, criminal gangs, and guerrilla fighters.
With billions of dollars in military and development aid from the United States, Colombia’s image as one of the most dangerous destinations is fading. And now, the Obama administration is hoping to transfer key elements of Colombia’s strategy to other nations in the region struggling with drug violence, lawlessness, and crushing poverty.
Related: Colombia Kills Cocaine Crop
So where do they go next, folks?
From Mexico, which some fear is on the verge of civil war, to Central America and the Caribbean, the United States is taking tentative steps to help export the Colombia approach. And some even suggest there are lessons here for the war in Afghanistan, where the Taliban and Al Qaeda also benefit from the illegal narcotics trade and a weak central government.
I'm so sick of that BS charge.
See: U.S. Gardening in Afghanistan
Don't you love the double-talking, double-sealing lies and omissions, readers?
“They face similar kinds of problems with insurgents and narcotics and crime,’’ Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates said on a visit here last week, itself a testament to the improved situation in a city that not long ago was considered too dangerous for an American Cabinet secretary.
Yeah, it would be nice if western governments were not running the drug trades, sigh.
The Colombians “have clearly learned some very important lessons in terms of counterinsurgency and how you have a broad civilian-military approach to dealing with security issues,’’ he added, calling for more cooperation between Colombia and other countries in the region.
Note to Gates: Colombia is OUR ONLY ALLY in the region!
The official statistics are impressive:
Government lies always are.
Coca cultivation has been cut in half since 2002, terrorist attacks are down an estimated 84 percent, kidnappings by 88 percent. According to some estimates, more than 50,000 insurgents and paramilitary fighters have been disarmed. As a result, Colombia is enjoying a construction and investment boom that is the envy of Latin America.
“This battle hasn’t been entirely won, but we are winning it,’’ President Alvaro Uribe said after meeting with Gates. “That battle can be won throughout the world.’’
How long has the "War on Drugs" been going on?
And the problem has only gotten wor$e, huh?
Related: U.S. Government Brings Drug War to U.S. Cities
Huh?
Uribe, who will leave office this summer after two terms, has been credited by many with bringing about the improvements. His leadership and almost obsession with breaking the back of the cartels and rebel groups is seen as a crucial factor.
CIA called off the drug dogs, 'eh?
Colombia, the region’s oldest democracy with a population of 45 million, has suffered the scourge of drug cartels, paramilitary groups, and leftist guerillas for decades. The largest rebel group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, known in Spanish by its acronym FARC, has waged a Marxist-inspired insurgency for much of the last 50 years, fueled by illegal profits from cocaine. Until recently, it controlled a large swath of jungle territory that made up about 40 percent of the country.
FARC, huh?
See: Freedom From FARC
I guess that is why they are still around, huh?
At some point you realize INSURGENTS and TERRORISTS are ALL GOVERNMENT CREATED, FUNDED, and DIRECTED "enemies," folks.
Other major rebel groups include the National Liberation Army, a leftist group that dates to the 1960s, as well as far-right paramilitaries such as the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia.
Yeah, HAVEN'T SEEN MUCH about the GOVERNMENT DEATH SQUADS.
But in 2000, Colombia launched Plan Colombia, a multibillion-dollar, multiyear effort to try to seize the initiative. To date the effort has received more than $4 billion from the United States that has helped finance helicopters, communications equipment, and military training.
Good thing you didn't need that money for anything, Americans, so that it could be wasted on a double-crossing, double-dealing drug "war."
The government now estimates that FARC has been reduced by as much as 80 percent, while some of the largest drug cartels have been broken up or forced into hiding. “They can no longer operate in the big cities, they can no longer operate with impunity,’’ said Carolina Barco, Colombia’s ambassador to the United States and a former foreign minister. “We have done away with a lot of their structures and they have less income.’’
But as the situation has improved in Colombia, it has worsened elsewhere in the region, adding urgency to finding ways to share what has been accomplished here.
Translation: the drug guys moved to other countries.
As Gates met with top Colombian officials, the Pentagon hosted a meeting with the top military leaders of Colombia and Mexico to help foster cooperation. A dozen Mexican helicopter pilots are being trained in Colombia at a US-financed training center, while the United States is also facilitating the training of Peruvian Marines in Colombia.
On his visit here, which also included a stop in Peru and Barbados in the eastern Caribbean, Gates said the United States is “prepared to facilitate the growing regional cooperation.’’
It's -- for lack of a better term -- the NEW WORLD ORDER, isn't it?
And Colombia may also have lessons far beyond the region, Gates said, including for the fragile government in Afghanistan. The Pentagon is helping to prepare two units of Colombian Army volunteers to deploy to Afghanistan later this year — one of about 35 soldiers with the United States and 50 others with Spain — to help train the Afghan Army.
That will always endear you to AmeriKa's heart!
However, US officials say the most promising model to replicate is not the military effort but how Colombia combined military and law enforcement operations with civilian development, judicial reforms, and greater attention to human rights to gain the confidence of the population and undercut the influence of the cartels and insurgents.
This as we fail miserably in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan and ignore our history in the region.
I love EMPIRE, don't you, America?
There is a REASON PEOPLE VOTE AGAINST OUR CANDIDATES, America!!!
There are signs of social and economic progress here to match the security gains, according to government officials, economists, and independent analysts.
For example, the percentage of Colombians who are covered by health insurance has grown from 51 percent in 2002 to 91 percent this year, and more than a million more children are enrolled in elementary and high schools than eight years ago, according to official statistics.
You smell something, readers?
The city of Medellin, once the center of the most powerful drug cartels, has seen a total of 26 schools built in the last eight years.
The economic benefits of greater stability have followed. Foreign investment topped $10 billion last year and the World Bank ranked Colombia 37 out of 183 economies in a report earlier this year on business investing — moving it up 42 positions just since 2007. Annual growth went from 1.7 percent in 2002 to 7 percent in 2008 and last year Colombia’s economy continued to grow.
Told you it was all about the New World Order.
Some analysts warn that Colombia’s model can only go so far in other countries. Colombia has a long history of democracy, while other countries have much less experience in representative government.
Yeah, because every time they did and we didn't like it in came the CIA with a coup.
Colombia’s security forces also have far more capacity than their neighbors. And without a similar US investment — seen as unlikely any time soon given Washington’s other commitments — it will be hard for Mexico, Peru, or others to take the strong stance of Uribe’s government.
Yeah, I would much rather have built up Colombia's military and paramilitary forces than fixed the bridges and roads in AmeriKa.
Markus Schultze-Kraft is the Latin America director for the International Crisis Group, a nongovernmental organization that tracks the security situation from its Bogota office.
“The government has taken strong action,’’ he said. But it has had consequences. Millions of Colombians have been displaced in recent years by government action against the cartels and insurgents, he said, while there remains strong evidence, corroborated by a recent United Nations investigation, of extrajudicial killings by government forces.’’
Hey, don't worry about those bad things saved for the afterthought paragraph of the piece!
Related: Colombia's Killers Absolved By Obama
Yeah, 'bomber has your back, guys.
If our lone ally is so great how come the Colombian people don't want it?
"Called ‘strange,’ he may be next Colombian leader; Polls showing mathematician could win race" by Juan Forero, Washington Post | May 9, 2010
BUCARAMANGA, Colombia — Polls increasingly show that Antanas Mockus, who is the son of Lithuanian immigrants and whose trademark is an Amish-style beard, might just win the presidency in elections to succeed Alvaro Uribe, a US-backed hard-liner who was prevented from running for a third term....
Political analysts and commentators call Mockus’s rise a phenomenon because he differs so markedly in style and substance from Uribe, who marshaled more than $6 billion in US aid to batter the rebel forces that have plagued Colombia. That gave Uribe a 70 percent approval rating, and pundits predicted that his natural heir, former defense minister Juan Manuel Santos, would easily sweep to victory....
Mockus’s campaign managers say his administration would contrast sharply with what critics call the downside of Uribe’s government: confrontation and scandal, including revelations that the secret police spied on opponents and helped hit men kill leftist activists.
Mockus, who heads the Green Party, has run a shoestring campaign, relying on students adept at getting the word out through Facebook and Twitter....
Oh, a PEOPLE'S CANDIDATE, huh?
That Mockus would have much of a chance in this country would seem surprising, at least on the surface. In some ways, Colombia is an insular country. Colombians rarely elect populists for high office.
No wonder they are an ally of America.
To his detractors, everything associated with Mockus smacks of naïveté and optimism, like the sunflowers that are the symbol of his campaign. Those critics say that Colombia still faces serious threats from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, its largest rebel group....
If the critics and detractors do not like him for these reasons then I say MOCKUS no MORE, 'eh?
Watch your back, guy!
Mockus responds that he will continue to use the armed forces, which have received training and funding from Washington, to battle the rebels and drug trafficking in the world’s biggest cocaine-producing country. “My philosophy is not to stop things unless there’s a sign of something being unproductive,’’ he said.
As mayor of Bogota, a city of 8 million, he invested heavily in police and instituted new tactics, resulting in a dramatic drop in homicides and winning public praise from Uribe.
So this is just another example of some false change?
Mockus also refused to parcel out posts to supporters or meet with municipal officials and council members — men known for corruption. He raised taxes on the rich and instituted unpopular measures such as closing bars at 1 a.m. to cut down on drunken driving and violence. (It worked.)
Oh, I like that last one!
What he said he cannot fathom, though, is obtaining results at any price. He referred to one scandal that has plagued the Uribe administration since 2008, the killing of peasants by army units looking to beef up combat death statistics and win favor with their superiors.
Yeah, the MASS-MURDER by U.S.-SUPPORTED GOVERNMENT AGENTS is AGAIN SAVED for the AFTERTHOUGHT PARAGRAPH!
That kind of stuff NEVER WINS ANYONE OVER!
