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Ambushed in Jamundi; CSMonitor.com

The war on drugs: Ambushed in Jamund
Why the massacre of an elite US-trained Colombian police team prompted Congress to freeze drug-war funding.
By Danna Harman | Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor

JAMUNDÍ, COLOMBIA
Arcesio Morales Buitrago is in charge of the keys at Mi Casita. A soft-spoken man diagnosed as schizophrenic, he is the doyen of the patients at the leafy psychiatric home.

On May 22, right after the Monday afternoon bingo game, three cars skidded to a halt on the road that dead ends at Mi Casita. Ten men in blue jeans and police vests and one man in a ski mask piled out.

"Judicial police! Open up!" they shouted.

Mr. Morales, as the one responsible for the keys, hurried down the path to comply.

As he reached the green iron gate, however, Sergio Berrio, the administrator of the home, leaned out from the balcony above and screeched: "Stay back! Don't open!"

Morales froze. That's when the shooting started: a torrent of bullets and grenades rained down on the police from the nearby forest. "The war came here," Morales recalls incredulously, "...all the way here."

What followed in the next 45 minutes was the calculated massacre of one of Colombia's best counternarcotics police teams - all hand-picked and trained by the US. None survived.

This is a story of those policemen - of the members of Colombia's military that killed them - and of the narcotraffickers that, according to Colombia's attorney general, ordered the hit.

The investigation of the Jamundí massacre to date suggests the reach that Colombia's drug lords maintain today, and has shaken officials in Washington and Bogotá. The US Congress has temporarily frozen funding for Plan Colombia, the $4.7 billion effort to stop the illicit drug trade - and a chorus of disappointed and angry voices in both capitals is demanding an honest evaluation of the US' most expensive foreign aid program outside of the Middle East, six years after it set out to win the war on drugs.

* * *

"Three thousand Americans a year die from Colombian drugs," says US Ambassador to Colombia William Wood. "That's like suffering a World Trade Towers attack every year."

Talking about drugs in terms of an attack on the US is not new. President Richard Nixon coined the term "war on drugs" in 1971, and President Ronald Regan popularized it in the 1980s, as crack cocaine was devastating America's inner cities. Then, with the cold war drawing to a close, illicit substances and those who trafficked them became the new international enemy - and the countries that produced them became battlefields. Colombia has emerged as the biggest battlefield of all.

An estimated 5.5 million Americans have used cocaine at least once in the past 12 months, roughly the same number as were doing so in 2002, according to the annual US Department of Health and Human Services survey. More than 2.3 million Americans are "current" users, defined as consuming the drug within the last month - a slightly higher number than the regular users counted in 2002.

Cocaine consumption is rising faster in Europe, but the US still has the highest rate of cocaine use anywhere in the world.

And while Ambassador Wood's 3,000 US deaths related to cocaine use is debated, the source of the narcotic is not. Colombia supplies an estimated 80 percent of cocaine worldwide, and more than 90 percent of the cocaine (and half the heroin) in the US, according to the State Department.

Three years after President Reagan defined drugs as a national security threat, President George H. W. Bush intensified this war. Under the 1989 Andean Initiative, aid to the region was boosted and US training and support for counter narcotics military and police was sanctioned.

Bolivia and Peru, the world's two other major coca-producing nations, received sharply increased assistance too - but the majority of the drug-war funds went to Colombia. In 1989, Colombia got $18 million for military and police assistance. A year later, US funding increased five-fold, making it the Western Hemisphere's No. 1 recipient of US security assistance, a distinction it maintains today.

Plan Colombia, the counternarcotics program conceived by Colombian President Andres Pastrana, modified and launched by President Bill Clinton in 2000, and since embraced by President George W. Bush, carried this commitment to new levels.

In its first 18 months, Plan Colombia spent $1.3 billion in the region, the vast majority - $860 million - in Colombia. Of that aid, some 75 percent - $642 million - went toward security - including the formation of a new counternarcotics brigade within the Colombian army whose job was to ease the way for the massive aerial herbicide spraying of coca crops. Since its launch, Plan Colombia has cost the US $4.7 billion, of which 75-80 percent has gone to the security forces.

The plan has achieved significant results in terms of coca fields eradicated, clandestine drug laboratories burned and tons of drugs seized. Thousands of people involved in the drug trade have been caught, killed, put behind bars, or extradited to the US.

Further, the decades-old drug-fueled conflict between right-wing paramilitaries, leftist guerrillas, and the government has abated perceptibly, say analysts. A halting process of demobilizing the paramilitaries is under way, and the rebel Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) has lost ground to the army. President Alvaro Uribe was re-elected this May in a landslide thanks to his success in improving security in the country.

But the drug trade and the war against it continue to spawn violence, massive displacements of population, and high levels of corruption here, tearing at the social fabric of the country. And Colombia continues to be heavily, some say dangerously, militarized, with its army taking on internal security roles that would be prohibited in the US and many other democracies.

Now the Jamundí ambush is forcing some officials in Colombia (the No. 1 producer of cocaine in the world) and the US (the No. 1 consumer) to reevaluate their approach.

"We have spent $4.7 billion in Colombia ... and we brush under the rug a host of uncomfortable questions - about the military ... degrees of corruption, and overall efficacy of the drug war effort," says Bruce Bagley, an expert on drug trafficking at the University of Miami. "And then, along comes a Jamundí and calls the entire presumption of this war on drugs into question."

* * *

When the shooting started near the psychiatric home, Morales dove into a wide gutter along the driveway, covering his ears with his hands and pressing his face as close to the concrete as he could bear. When he finally emerged, he saw more than a dozen Colombian soldiers from the alpine battalion of the Army's 3rd Brigade descending from the hills. On the ground outside the gate were 11 bodies, riddled with bullets.

"They were my most effective, trustworthy, elite group," laments Brig. Gen. Oscar Naranjo, director of the judicial police. Seven of the men in the team were members of the police's top counternarcotics unit: a group of approximately 200 police who have gone through rigorous vetting and training by the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA).

Those seven killed in Jamundí were part of a 15-person team that had, in the past 18 months, smashed 15 drug rings, captured 205 traffickers, including 23 wanted for extradition to the US, and seized nearly 4.4 tons of cocaine.

That day in May, they had come to the Cauca Valley, 195 miles southwest of the nation's capital, together with an informant and three police specialists, on a tip that 440 poundsof cocaine were stashed in the psychiatric home.

A tragic case of "friendly fire," is how Army commander Gen. Mario Montoya originally described the "shoot out," protesting that the troops had no advance knowledge of an undercover operation and had mistaken the police for kidnappers.

But as the smoke cleared, a different narrative began to take shape.

"This was not a mistake, this was a crime; this was a deliberate decision, a criminal decision," Attorney General Mario Iguarán announced a few days later. The soldiers, he bluntly charged, "...were doing the bidding of a drug trafficker." Eight of the policemen were shot in the head, and two were shot in the back, according to forensic reports. "This is one of the gravest cases in our history," says General Naranjo. "This is active corruption, and my men are dead. This cannot be tolerated."

According to a senior official investigating the case, speaking on condition of anonymity, the police unit that day may have been looking not just for drugs, but for a specific drug trafficker: Diego Montoya Sánchez, a reputed head of the Norte del Valle (North Valley) cartel.

Since the dismantling of the Medellín and Cali cartels in the 1980s and early 1990s, the Norte del Valle Cartel has become Colombia's most powerful drug ring. Officials say that the two factions of the cartel are behind 30 percent of the cocaine sent to the US, and Montoya is on the FBI's 10-most-wanted list, right beside Osama bin Laden, with a bounty of $5 million on his head. According to the investigator, the police unit had been told Montoya was hiding in the psychiatric home, posing as a patient.

The Mi Casita administrators, who lost almost half their private funding after the media reports linked them to Montoya, deny any connection to narcotrafficking. The police investigation has turned up no drugs or evidence that a drug lord had been at the home. The police, says the investigator, may well have been on a wild goose chase set up by the army unit, acting on behalf of Montoya.

Fifteen soldiers, including rising Army star commander Col. Bayron Carvajal, were soon arrested - and the investigation, say officials in the attorney general's office, is likely to reach higher in the military ranks and will possibly include the police or even politicians.

Colonel Carvajal's younger brother, Juan Carlos, maintains the soldiers' innocence, suggesting instead the police might be the corrupt ones in the story. "Uribe needed to blame someone," says Carvajal, arguing that Colombia's president could not afford to have the DEA's top trained police unit implicated in any scandal - especially not in late May, right before the presidential elections. "My brother and the others are political pawns. They are being made to take the fall," he insists.

In fact, Carvajal's allegations are not considered to be too far a stretch - the Norte del Valle group is known for its connections to the police. Former cartel leaders such as Danilo González, Victor Patiño, and Patiño's half-brother Luís Ocampo were all former policemen - as is Wilber Varela, currently Montoya's biggest internal rival.

But, evidence against the soldiers is mounting. The most damning is a series of electronic text messages allegedly sent between Carvajal - who was not at Jamundí at the time - and his lieutenant on the ground immediately before the massacre. "Everything is set for tonight," reads one message leaked by authorities. "Get ready for the group to come with the chicken so you can get it," reads another, referring to the nickname of the civilian informant who was leading the police that day.

And now, one senior official close to the investigation says investigators have heard a tape recording of Carvajal speaking on the phone with narcotraffickers to arrange payment for his defense lawyers.

"Jamundí is the tip of the iceberg," says Professor Bagley, arguing the massacre is indicative of the serious gap between Plan Colombia's promise to train a modern, professional military and the realities of the day. The events of that May afternoon, he says, should serve as a serious wake-up call: "This is a disaster for [President] Uribe and Plan Colombia."

At Mi Casita, more than three months later, many of the patients remain traumatized by the massacre. One woman yells out "Police, police...open up!" at the slightest provocation. Another bites herself whenever she hears loud bangs. And Morales, the only eyewitness to the killings, hears the voices of the policemen crying out for mercy when he tries to sleep at night. "Was it my fault?" Morales asks, wringing his hands. "I talk to my saints and ask them for forgiveness."

Mr. Berrio, the administrator at Mi Casita tries to calm Morales, "We can't escape this war. And we can't win it either," he consoles the flustered man and himself at once. "But you did the best thing you could. You kept your head down. That's all any of us would have done."

• Coming next: Is Plan Colombia working?

Why Diego Montoya Sánchez is worth $5 million to the FBI
He likes fast cars (but police seized his personal mini racetrack last year, along with 74 ranches and eight houses). He has a flare for the macabre (his men once ambushed a rival group and then piled the corpses in a pyramid on a road). And, he reportedly likes it when people call him "El Señor de la Guerra," or Mr. War.

Heavyset and gruff, Diego Montoya Sánchez is one of the reputed leaders of Colombia's Norte del Valle cartel. He has a $5 million bounty on his head and is on the FBI's "10 most wanted list" for drug trafficking, conspiracy to import with intent to deliver drugs to the US, money laundering, and racketeering.

In the late 1990s, the Norte del Valle cartel - named for a valley in western Colombia - trafficked about half of the cocaine sold in the US. Today, officials estimate that the cartel holds about 30 percent of the market.

For the past two years, the cartel has been riven by a brutal internal power struggle between Mr. Montoya and his rival Wilber Varela, a.k.a. "Jabon" or Soap. Each faction leader has turned to different sides of Colombia's civil war for support: Varela is reportedly allied with the guerrillas of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). Montoya reportedly has ties to the right-wing paramilitaries.

By Neonovo on Oct 5, 2006, 12:43 in Politics & the war.

Wastelandlive says on Oct 5, 2006, 18:51:

No shit The question is, if this policy is so obviously retarded, so patently a failure - no, worse than a failure, it corrupts every land that it touches - why does our leadership push it?

Americans... when have you EVER been given a chance to VOTE on this drug war? For which candidate, which proposition?

What insanity: we pay for the drugs, and pour billions into the Colombian economy. We pay to fight the drugs, and hand billions more to the Colombian police and the army. The very best of them make an sincere and honest effort to use the funds as intended, and they get murdered for their integrity. Oh, some of the scum gets whacked too. There are two to replace every one of them.

But the big winners?

You tell me.

Oh... and think anybody will be signing up for these "elite units," with the intention to actually execute the mission, now that they've seen their predecessors mowed down by THEIR OWN ARMY?

What a f'ng disaster.

Wasteland

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Miguel says on Oct 6, 2006, 00:00:

Así es Locolombia.

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juancegomez says on Oct 7, 2006, 16:23:

I agree with DonGring's last paragraph Pretty much.

People tend to think that the U.S. is "pouring billions" into Colombia as if it was a matter of raining cash down on us or some other simplistic image, when the fact of the matter is that most of that "money" doesn't even to come close to Colombia to begin with. Who do you think gets really paid for all of the drug war's expenses? Not Colombia, by any means.

And on that same note, the allegedly "positive" impact of the drug trade on the Colombian economy has been exaggerated by people that don't even try to scientifically find out exactly where most of the profits go or don't go. I'll give you a hint: there's a long distribution chain in the middle of it all, that goes through several countries and wallets before druglords and drug growers inside Colombia ever physically touch it.

Ironically, the booming drug trade didn't prevent the crash of 1999, despite the fact that drug crops were at or close to record high levels then, and that begins to show the fragility of the superficial arguments that the Colombian economy is somehow significantly "wealthy" due to the drug trade. The drug business does have an impact, but much smaller than what many assume.

As for Jamundí, what else can I say about this that hasn't been said elsewhere? The only thing worth mentioning is that the Colonel and apparently the men who committed the massacre are not going to get off easily, despite their obvious intentions to do so, because there are too many important people here and outside that are angry at what happened and lobbying against impunity in this case. In many other cases, of course, that hasn't happened.

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Wastelandlive says on Oct 7, 2006, 18:32:

JG: "People tend to think?!" YAAA. JG: "People tend to think that the U.S. is "pouring billions" into Colombia as if it was a matter of raining cash down on us or some other simplistic image, when the fact of the matter is that most of that "money" doesn't even to come close to Colombia to begin with."

OMG!!! Wow. I can't even imagine why you'd make such an argument.

Let's see... the cocaine is produced there. It's a multi billion dollar industry, at the most conservative estimates. But you don't think the money is pouring in. Where exactly does it go, JG?

JG: "Several countries and wallets before it reaches Colombian druglords?"

That's a creative circumlocution. After all, the point is that it DOES reach Colombian druglords, no? Otherwise they're working awfully hard, and at great risk for nothing.

If your point is that it doesn't benefit much the average Colombian, that it distorts the economy, that it doesn't create much healthy growth, then your point is well taken. If you wish to point out that lots of other players - from American distributors, to money laundering banks in Panama - also take a big profit, then I'll gladly cede your point.

But to pretend that it doesn't represent a F'NG HUGE net inflow of cash to your economy - which does trickle down to Colombians in many forms: just check out "sin Tugurios" in Medellin - to pretend that that is somehow a "simplistic" argument is beyond the pale.

You know as well as I do about the "investment schemes" set up to support Pablos drug shipments in the 80's; you know about the spontaneous fireworks in celebration when those shipments found their mark. You probably are also aware of how Boca Grande - the enourmous tourist strip in Cartagena - virtually sprang up during the 80's.

Where'd that money come from JG?

And "smaller than many assume?" How about likely far larger than anybody can POSSIBLY measure, given the fact that it's illicit? How could you even type such a ridiculous thing?

"The cultivation, production, and trafficking of cocaine in Colombia remains a major industry, employing -- as of 2004 -- about 200,000 people and generating annual revenues estimated at 2.2 billion dollars, equivalent to nearly 3 percent of Colombia's legitimate GDP. The nature of the industry, however, has changed radically over the past few decades."

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/wideangle/shows/colombia/map.html
_______________

Now: "Who get's paid for all of the drug war's expenses? Not Colombia by any means?"

Oh boy.

Do I really need to go into the $7.5B in Plan Colombia aid that goes into fighting the sale? Sorry, but while it is true that SOME of plan Colombia goes to American contractors who provide services like the damned crop spraying program, the majority DOES not. Most goes directly to your government, which buys toys, supports institutions and programs, and pays salaries with it.

ALSO a huge net inflow of cash to your economy.

Here's social programs supported by Plan Colombia:

http://ciponline.org/colombia/020002.htm

Here are some estimates of the military and police side.

http://www.ciponline.org/colombia/aid06.htm

Your turn. You make your argument based on what? Go ahead. Show us how this whole mess has a "much smaller impact" on your economy than imagined. I want to see numbers.

Geeze... are you afraid that acknowledging the huge inflow of cash to your economy generated by maintaining the drug trade illegal somehow puts your victim status at risk?

Please. I want to smoke what you're smoking.

Wasteland

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juancegomez says on Oct 9, 2006, 10:22:

Sometimes I wish I smoked, but I don't... "That's a creative circumlocution. After all, the point is that it DOES reach Colombian druglords, no? Otherwise they're working awfully hard, and at great risk for nothing."

Of course, but as a percentage of the *total* amount of money that moves through the business, it's not as large.

"If your point is that it doesn't benefit much the average Colombian, that it distorts the economy, that it doesn't create much healthy growth, then your point is well taken."

In part.

"If you wish to point out that lots of other players - from American distributors, to money laundering banks in Panama - also take a big profit, then I'll gladly cede your point."

Nice to see that you can admit that too.

"But to pretend that it doesn't represent a F'NG HUGE net inflow of cash to your economy - which does trickle down to Colombians in many forms: just check out "sin Tugurios" in Medellin - to pretend that that is somehow a "simplistic" argument is beyond the pale."

Oh c'mon....to pretend that the 1980's "Sin Tugurios" in Medellín or any other similar example you can showcase is fully representative of the *entire country* and the *entire economy* in *2006* is, indeed, quite simplistic.

Speaking against that view is *not* beyond the pale and that's what I'm doing.

Or would you actually believe that the entire economy is made up of "Sin Tugurios", that the entire country was built and run on drug money and that the entire economy depends on such things or else it would rot? Tell me if that's the case.

And by the way, the "inflow of cash" is only *huge* by the standards of a person's or family's wallet, not by the standards of Colombia's entire economy. See further below for the data that you yourself quoted.

"You know as well as I do about the "investment schemes" set up to support Pablos drug shipments in the 80's; you know about the spontaneous fireworks in celebration when those shipments found their mark. You probably are also aware of how Boca Grande - the enourmous tourist strip in Cartagena - virtually sprang up during the 80's."

See above.

"And "smaller than many assume?" How about likely far larger than anybody can POSSIBLY measure, given the fact that it's illicit? How could you even type such a ridiculous thing?"

See below, you answered yourself.

"The cultivation, production, and trafficking of cocaine in Colombia remains a major industry, employing -- as of 2004 -- about 200,000 people and generating annual revenues estimated at 2.2 billion dollars, equivalent to nearly 3 percent of Colombia's legitimate GDP. The nature of the industry, however, has changed radically over the past few decades."

Precisely, 200,000 people in a country of more than 40 million, and only 3% of GDP.

Even if we magically doubled those estimates for the sake of arguing, that's a lot more than it should, yes, but less than what many people assume, thinking that Colombia exports nothing of value but drugs or that the entire economy runs on them or else it would tank.

That's what I strongly came out against in my original post and I still maintain that position.

"Do I really need to go into the $7.5B in Plan Colombia aid that goes into fighting the sale?"

Wasteland, let's be serious for a minute: the U.S. has *never* given $7.5 Billion to Colombia nor has it pledged to do so. CIP's own website proves that if you're willing to look.

You're taking the original total estimated *value* of Plan Colombia and hurriedly assuming that it's all meant to be $7.5 Billion of U.S. aid.

That's wrong and if you actually bothered to read on the specifics of that figure, or even those of Plan Colombia itself, freely available on CIP, you'd agree that it's a mistake to argue this. You could even try to e-mail CIP to confirm this if you want. If you actually cared, that is.

"Sorry, but while it is true that SOME of plan Colombia goes to American contractors who provide services like the damned crop spraying program, the majority DOES not."

...what about the helicopters, and the arms sales, and many other services that U.S. government officials or companies directly provide as part of Plan Colombia, which you aren't taking into account and whose value you are underestimating?

"Most goes directly to your government, which buys toys, supports institutions and programs, and pays salaries with it."

You have not proved that the U.S. actually transfers most of the money as "cash" or "as is", to Colombia. Simply quoting the total *value* of aid doesn't say anything as to what those numbers actually physically represent or how they're handled.

"ALSO a huge net inflow of cash to your economy."

Important to some sectors, but not "huge", since the U.S. doesn't provide all or most of Plan Colombia aid in "cash" given directly to the Colombian government's pockets. You assume that it does, but you haven't proved it here.

Besides, most of the money and resources given don't end up in mainstream economical activities to begin with, which destroys the entire premise.

"Here's social programs supported by Plan Colombia:"

Social programs funded and channeled to limited specific sectors of the population, many of them marginal and rural, but which often end up begin either underfounded, inefficient or counterproductive, as CIP's own website shows elsewhere. Not cash raining vaguely on the "economy", but more than a couple of white elephants that, in the end, are of little worth to anybody.

"Here are some estimates of the military and police side."

That's the value of the aid assigned to the military and police, correct, but you are ignoring everything else mentioned about it and how it works.

Do you really think that the U.S. gives Colombia all or most of those amounts in cash or checks, no questions asked, directly going into the military's pockets?

"Your turn. You make your argument based on what? Go ahead. Show us how this whole mess has a "much smaller impact" on your economy than imagined. I want to see numbers."

Much of it based pretty much on the same numbers and websites that you've quoted, ironically enough, though you are using them to make exactly the opposite argument. How's that?

"Geeze... are you afraid that acknowledging the huge inflow of cash to your economy generated by maintaining the drug trade illegal somehow puts your victim status at risk?"

I'm only afraid (in a sense) of people with simplistic views of Colombia, nothing more.

If it all were so simple, then I could also ask you if you are afraid of putting at risk the United States' "victim status" too, for that matter.

But that would be an equally simplistic argument, and it is, no matter what direction we end up taking this.

"Please. I want to smoke what you're smoking."

Nothing but air, and you?

Sometimes I wish that I did smoke, but I fortunately don't.

0 funny, 0 helpful.

juancegomez says on Oct 9, 2006, 10:52:

Since I'm still around here... Here's a couple of quotes on the often-incorrectly-cited "7.5 Billion" figure.

One:

"Plan Colombia, in its initial formulation, was a 7.5 billion dollar Colombian strategy developed with the assistance and at the urging of the Clinton Administration to address multiple aspects of the Colombia crisis: human rights and the humanitarian emergency of internal refugees, the longstanding armed conflict that had endured in one form or another for over 50 years, the economic crisis that the country experienced beginning in 1997, and the tremendous rise of drug trafficking since the early 1980s. Plan Colombia was to be funded by the United States, the European Union, multilateral development banks and the Colombian government. Its principal objective was to stabilize the country and end the country’s armed conflicts"

"But it will require a re-thinking and re-prioritizing of the component parts of the U.S. assistance program to Plan Colombia. For starters, one might want to look at the original 7.5 billion dollar –the original Plan Colombia -- developed by the Colombian government in 1999. It presents a more balanced approach."

-Testimony from Professor Marc W. Chernick, Department of Government and School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University.

http://www.ciponline.org/colombia/040617cher.pdf

Two (less clear, but makes similar points):

"We're going to get this 1.6 billion dollars... And it's not just for Colombia. It's for Peru, Bolivia, Venezuela, Ecuador. There's 270 million dollars in there for alternative economic development, support for the judicial system. It's a very balanced program. It was put together in cooperation with regional government, so this is Plan Colombia, not Plan America. And by the way, their plan is 7.5 billion dollars. It's 4 billion dollars of their own money. 3.5 billion of foreign support--European Union, United States. Our piece of it will go for a lot of things--including, for example, 6 million dollars for human rights security monitors. So this is coherent, long-range, and multi-national. "

-Interview with General Barry McCaffrey (2000)

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/drugs/interviews/mccaffrey.html

The U.S. might eventually end up providing "7.5 Billion" if the current aid is extended long enough, for another 5 or 6 years, but what's going on right now is not, in any way, the original "7.5 Billion" initiative, so quoting that figure out of context is totally wrong and misleading.

Besides, originally it all involved "7.5 Billion" over a much shorter amount of time...in fact, the original timeline for the Plan has already ended by now (and technically the current Plan itself as well, in the strictest legal, if obviously not practical, sense). The amounts spent thus far have been less than that, closer to half that number.

So no...I'm not smoking anything at all.

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Wastelandlive says on Oct 9, 2006, 12:08:

What a lot of crap... You know, I started to answer this. But I give up.

As you know, I've always considered you somewhat of a blowhard, JG. But you do normally seem like an informed one; so while I don't revel in reading your long, meandering, master-of-the-obvious essays quite as much as you do in writing them... I used to have a grudging respect for the knowledge you bring to the table.

But you clearly have no idea about what you are writing today.

Keep reading JG. And remember, 12" is NOT average.

Geeze.

Wasteland

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Tinto (Moderator) says on Oct 9, 2006, 13:27:

If I was doing the math to arrive at a "net aid" figure of the military component of Plan Colombia, I would subtract the cost of the following items because they have a single purpose (aerial fumigation). Colombia presumably wants them and continues to ask for more, but I consider them strings-attached (they seem to be necessary to get the other aid)

-spray planes

-maintenance and spare parts for the above

-training and contractors for the above

-herbicides

I would include the following items as true aid (more beneficial) because they serve two or more purposes, i.e., counter narcotics plus military/law enforcement, infrastructure, disaster assistance, institution building. Colombia would have to buy most of these things with or without an aerial fumigation program.

-helicopters plus associated training and parts

-bullets and machine guns

-radar installations

-air ambulances

-military transport equipment

-the cost associated with U.S. soldiers who conduct training

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juancegomez says on Oct 9, 2006, 13:43:

Well Wasteland, That's your opinion and frankly, if you're not going to bother then fine.

It's your right to do so, but if you really think that, then maybe I should start thinking the same about you and leave it at that.

So suit yourself, I'll do the same.

In the end, none of this matters anyways, but I'd prefer if we could actually discuss without resorting to this.

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juancegomez says on Oct 9, 2006, 13:58:

Tinto Now that I can mostly agree with. The thing is, even the equipment that doesn't have as many "strings-attached" is also subject to certain conditions (for example, human rights conditions, as little as they are enforced, do affect it a bit), and it's a form of aid that's not provided to Colombia "in cash" either.

In the end, much of the value of that kind of aid (not to mention other purchases made both inside and outside of Plan Colombia), when it's not bought by the U.S. government and simply transferred to Colombia, eventually ends up back in the U.S. via its private companies anyways (Helicopter orders and sales, for instance).

My point is that Plan Colombia isn't simply bags of dollar bills raining down in an unorganized manner "somewhere in Colombia".

Some amount of the aid may, but not the kind of things that we are all talking about here.

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Wastelandlive says on Oct 9, 2006, 16:35:

Do you see it yet Juan? JG: "My point is that Plan Colombia isn't simply simply bags of dollar bills raining down in an unorganized manner 'somewhere in Colombia'???

And a brilliant point it is, JG.

Now... raise its thundering banality an order of magnitude, and you'll understand why I'm reluctant to engage in a point-to-point response to your earlier magnum opus.

I mean, who ever claimed such a thing?

To date the US has spent between $3B and $4B of the budgetted ("erroneously cited?" By who?) $7.5B for PC on a variety of programs: all of them targetted.

Do you buy your military equipment from us? Most of it, yes.
Does that mean money spent thus end up back in the US? In a sense, sure. But then, how much coffee, oil and COCAIN do American consumers buy from Colombia? Oooh! Maybe the cash went back! :) Currency flows... hey, how do we stop this merrygoround?

Try this: when the American government gives you money, and you buy American hardware with it... you end up with the HARDWARE, right?

By your logic, apparently, it only counts if the money we give you is used to buy hardware from a third nation like France or Brazil. Or maybe then you'd write, "Well, most of that money is really going to France and Brazil, not Colombia."

???

You're loopy JG.

What this money DOES represent is a huge infusion of casholla to Colombia. And it's probably small compared to what the drug trade generates. What your investment in trying to argue otherwise is unfathomable.

Wasteland

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juancegomez says on Oct 9, 2006, 17:41:

W.... "I mean, who ever claimed such a thing?"

Not you, not per se, but many other people do believe it. Sometimes based on extrapolations or exaggerated versions of the arguments that you've employed and the statements you've made, for example.

My initial response wasn't intended to be a reply to your own views alone, and my subsequent ones aren't exclusively so either. That's why I resort to pointing out some extreme examples, based on what you've posted but not limited to it.

"To date the US has spent between $3B and $4B of the budgetted ("erroneously cited?" By who?) $7.5B for PC on a variety of programs: all of them targetted."

In this case, *you* cited the figure, giving others who might read this the impression that Plan Colombia is, in *2006*, still expected to be a $7.5 Billion initiative. And that's...wrong.

CIP's own website and the quotes I posted very clearly prove otherwise.

Please, if you're going to do one last thing, at least show us clearly where the U.S. has officially pledged to "budget" a total of 7.5 Billion in aid through Plan Colombia. You won't be able to do so, but you can at least try to, if that's still your opinion.

"By your logic, apparently, it's only counts if the money we give you is used to buy hardware from a third nation like France or Brazil."

No. My point is that those helicopters and other pieces of equipment that are part of Plan Colombia are bought *by the U.S. government* and only *then* transferred to Colombia as *aid*, without giving any money to the Colombian government.

The "money we give you" is in reality often "the helicopters, drug sprayers, trainers and contractors that we pay for *in the U.S.* and then ship to you *in Colombia*".

You've still not showed anything that proves that the U.S. provides any overwhelmingly significant amount of money directly to Colombia in *cash* or in other forms of currency.

Try and show a clear example of Colombia *directly* buying that stuff using *money* *given* by the U.S. if you can.

"Or maybe then you'd write, "Well, most of that money is really going to France and Brazil, not Colombia."

I don't see your point, see above.

"What this moeny DOES represent is a huge infusion of casholla to Colombia. "

I didn't know that helicopters, bullets, drug sprayers, trainers and human beings shipped from the U.S. and paid by the U.S. government were a form of currency, much less of cash.

"And it's probably small compared to what the drug trade generates."

Yes, indeed, but the money that the "drug trade generates" is much more than what actually ends up in Colombia. There's a painfully obvious reason why drugs are much more expensive in LA than in San Vicente del Caguán, you know: lots of middlemen, who don't work for free and many of which don't live anywhere near Colombia.

If the drug trade is 3% of GDP, that's a lot, but that still leaves more than 95% of our GDP that can't be explained by it at all (unless you want to say that the entire economy depends on that 3% and the 200,000 - 400,000 people behind it, which would be a clear exaggeration).

"What your investment in trying to argue otherwise is unfathomable."

Again, I could ask the same of you.

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Wastelandlive says on Oct 9, 2006, 17:59:

You could ask the same of me? What, my investment in demonstrating that the aid provided to Colombia to FIGHT the drug trade, and the money generated BY the drug trade, both represent huge incomes to the Colombian economy?

I guess I have no such investment. You're obtuse to the point of ninnery. Rock on with your bad self!

Too, too funny.

Wasteland

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juancegomez says on Oct 9, 2006, 18:23:

Mock anyone and anything you want But the same question does apply to you, like it or not, though its answer doesn't really matter or concern me that much, either way, so I won't wildly speculate about it here.

You still have not fully demonstrated what you've just typed, you haven't answered questions, nor replied to statements that address the same subject differently.

But if you think you've already done enough...go ahead, pat yourself in the back, it's fine by me.

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cali373 says on Nov 14, 2006, 13:45:

For those that still have a conscious http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0928/p01s03-woam.html

BTW, Colombia provides 4 billion dollars worth into Plan Colombia.

Smile if you are a thinker!

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