US to colonize columbia

[Anonymous Sender <nobody@privacy.nb.ca>]

McCaffrey wants to be king of columbia.
One hopes he's taken out by something 
less abstract than smurfs.



Wednesday February 9 2:54 PM ET 

 U.S. Says Colombia Rebels Awash in Drug Money

 By Michael Christie

 MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - U.S. anti-drug czar Barry McCaffrey said on 
Wednesday that $500
 million a year in drug money is going to rebels in Colombia and fueling 
``unbelievable''
 violence and ``enormous'' suffering.

 McCaffrey, a retired general who heads the White House anti-drug effort, was 
in Mexico
 where he defended the Clinton administration budget request to Congress for 
$1.3 billion in
 military assistance to help fund a two-year campaign against the drug trade 
and its allies in
 southern Colombia.

 The bulk of the funds, which Congress is expected to approve, will go to buy 
helicopters for
 mobile battalions trained to take on the leftist guerrillas if they block 
Colombian police action
 to destroy drug crops and labs.

 The new money would add to $150 million a year in U.S. anti-drug assistance, 
and would
 complement a $7.5 billion plan proposed by Colombian President Andres 
Pastrana to
 eradicate drug production, promote alternative crops, negotiate peace and 
pull Colombia out of
 a deep recession.

 McCaffrey said other countries in the region had an obligation to help the 
Colombian
 government. ``Colombia is in trouble,'' he said. ``The violence is 
unbelievable, they've lost
 control of 40 percent of their land area. The suffering is enormous. The 
economy is terrible.''

 Eighty percent of the cocaine consumed in the United States and most of the 
heroin comes from
 Colombia.

 U.S. law enforcement officials say drug production has soared in the south 
where the Marxist
 Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) has fought the government for 
almost four
 decades and now controls vast areas.

 McCaffrey said the guerrilla's drug wealth was evident in their equipment -- 
brand new
 uniforms, new machine guns, helicopters, aircraft and high-tech wire-tapping 
systems.

 But he expressed support for the Colombian government in its two-front 
battle against
 insurgents and drug traffickers. ''Fortunately what isn't lacking in 
Colombia is political will,
 what isn't lacking in Colombia is courage,'' he said after delivering a 
speech in Mexico City.

 McCaffrey said the guerrillas could not win at the ballot box. But their 
fight to overthrow the
 government was being aided by ``a huge amount of money'' from drugs.

 ``If it was just kidnapping, just bank robberies, just extortion, just 
blowing up the oil pipelines,
 that would be one level of problem. Add in let's say $500 million a year ... 
that's the suffering
 that's going on in Colombia. They're really in a very perilous situation and 
we ought to stand
 with them.''

 Some Democrats in Congress worry that deepening U.S. military involvement in 
Colombia is a
 foreign policy mistake, and that additional aid for military solutions will 
only worsen the rebel
 conflict in which 35,000 people have died in the past 10 years.