The recent terrorist attack in Columbia drew my attention and what I found makes me angry.
If there are death squads to be trained, weapons to be sold, and oil beneath it all there you will find American involvment.
Officially, we are now involved there in a "war on terror". Before September 2001, it was a "war on drugs"; before that, a "war on communism". The next question for
clear thinking Americans should be what kind of regime are we supporting? And lastly, why are we expected to give up our privacy and freedom at home to combat terror when what is at the root of it all is allowed to flourish?
QUOTE
The arrival of U.S. Special Forces trainers in this battered town last month signaled the beginning of a change that gives the United States more direct military involvement in Colombia's long civil war and could lead the country's two leftist guerrilla armies to broaden attacks against U.S. targets.....
In expanding the training beyond counter-drugs, the United States has abandoned an ambiguity that was once carefully cultivated by U.S. officials, promising to make the United States a higher-profile player in Colombia's 39-year-old war.
This month, U.S. officials will begin shifting military resources previously used in anti-drug operations in southern Colombia to this province, which lies on the Venezuelan border and is 220 miles east of Bogota, the capital. Helicopters will be used directly against the two guerrilla armies, which the State Department considers terrorist organizations. Under the program, the Colombian military is scheduled to buy additional helicopters and other military equipment.
The effort has been presented as a way to help Colombian troops protect an economically important government oil pipeline from guerrilla attack. But it is clear from the training taking place on an army base here that defending the pipeline will mostly entail offensive operations against the seasoned guerrillas who have prospered on this swampy stretch of oil and coca fields. The first military unit selected for training, for instance, is a counter-guerrilla battalion, not a unit whose principal task is to protect the pipeline.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/artic...1-2003Feb6.html