AUSTIN, Texas -- Those of you old enough to remember the Vietnam War will
recall the early years, when the majority of Americans couldn't find the
place on a map and practically nobody could tell the difference between the
Viet Cong and the North Vietnamese. Well, it's time to look up Colombia on
the map of South America and learn what FARC is.
When the history of this one is written, what will amaze everyone once
again is how hopelessly clueless we all are -- the Clinton administration,
Congress, the media. The media keep reporting "a $9 billion spending bill to
help Colombia combat drug traffickers" as though it were just that simple.
(Actually, only $1.6 billion of the spending bill is for the "counter drug
aid package for Colombia." There is $2.6 billion to pay for our military
costs in Kosovo, $2 billion for disaster relief and then, somehow,
amazingly, the thing came out of the House Appropriations Committee with the
total price tag doubled by pure pork barrel.)
We are all under the happy illusion that the money we're sending to
Colombia will be used to combat drug traffickers. Actually, there's every
likelihood that some of it will go to drug traffickers.
The civil war in Colombia has been going on for 40 years. About 40 percent
of the country is now under the control of FARC -- the Fuerzas Armadas
Revolucionarias de Colombia.
FARC started out protecting poor campesinos. The drug boom of the '90s
caused landless peasants from all over the country to flock to the southern
portion of the country to grow cocaine -- and FARC protects them. FARC
claims that it is not directly involved in the drug traffic, but it taxes
growers and transporters, and is obviously dependent on them.
Meanwhile, we have the government of Colombia, which does not control the
army; the army is pretty much out of control. And to the right of the army
are the paramilitary defense forces, a nasty bunch of thugs given to murder,
massacre, kidnapping and drug dealing.
According to the latest Human Rights Watch report on Colombia, there is
evidence linking half of the 18 brigades of the Colombian army to the
paramilitary thugs. "For years, detailed evidence has accumulated
implicating senior army commanders, mid-level officers and troops of
connivance with, or even the planning and execution of, paramilitary
massacres," writes Alma Guillermoprieto, a longtime correspondent in the
region.
Intelligence sharing is the most common form of army-paramilitary
cooperation, but Human Rights Watch reports a particularly interesting form
of collusion. The Colombian army traditionally demands a high number of
enemy casualties from officers who want promotion. So the paramilitaries
bring dead civilians to army barracks in exchange for weapons. The officers
dress the corpses in camouflage and claim they were guerrillas killed in
battle.
Is this a concept or what? And you thought we had problems with those
ridiculous body counts in 'Nam.
Fortunately, our government can be counted upon to screw up even a terrible
idea, and the Colombian aid package is now stuck in Congress. Senate
Majority Leader Trent Lott is naturally upset that the package comes to his
side with double the original sticker price on it. He wants to strip out the
pork, and he proposes to do so by letting the aid package go through the
normal appropriations process, which will slow it down by a good six months.
This prospect makes the U.S. Army unhappy because it needs the package to
pay for Kosovo costs. Meanwhile, the liberals are dubious about the whole
enterprise, while the conservatives, who are gung-ho for getting us
involved, are mad about the pork. Which leads us to the famous
liberal-cheapskates coalition. Ain't politics grand?
Just to prove that someone in Congress has some sense, Rep. Nancy Pelosi of
California tried to add $1.3 billion for drug treatment and prevention in
the United States but lost on a party-line vote. Most of them think it would
be more fun to send Blackhawk helicopters, speedboats and planes, and the
U.S. trainers and advisers and all that good stuff we all remember so well.
I always like these policies where we're funding both sides in a war.
Molly Ivins is a columnist for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. To find out
more about Molly Ivins and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers
and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate web page at
www.creators.com.
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