OT - War on Drugs…

[Suntzu]

...with a twist (http://www.madison.com/captimes/opinion/column/guest/32280.php)

[LEGEND]

Sup...so whass the problem???

[rogue]

Hard to believe that came from the Peoples Republic of Wisconsin. Does professor Sunshine have a solution?

[fa_jing]

The article was a little biased as far as projecting an ulterior motive of the United States. The U.S. policy makers are mostly misguided and trying to "win" the war on drugs, or win the votes of their constituents. Rather it is some of those in power in Colombia who want to use the drug war as an excuse to exert control and fight personal battles among themselves. The level of corruption is high there, as it is in many other 3rd world countries. Furthermore, Colombia has been involved in internal conflict since 1948, when the second bloodiest war in this hemisphere was fought (after the American Civil War.) The common man is in a desperate enough situation in some places that he will join an armed group such as the National Police or a guerrilla group.

It doesn't make sense for Colombia fight drugs, on a wide scale, from their own perspective. Not when the human cost to society is so great. It is only because the political cost of abandoning the campaign with the US, and to some extent the rest of the world is too great to consider such an option.

It's a shame because Colombia is a beautiful country and they would be much better off if they didn't have these internal problems, and would economically be far better off without the drug trade. It is filled with natural resources, and has a long and celebrated history of Latin American culture.

[rogue]

Read the book Killing Pablo.

[fa_jing]

I read a lot of that on the Philly Inquirer web site - didn't have the last few chapters, however. It was a good picture of the inept Colombian legal system and Pablo boy as a drug terrorist, but it was out of the scope of those articles to explain how things got that way in the first place.

To wit: not too long ago, Colombian parliament was found to owe 30-40 thousand dollars in phone-sex costs stemming from calls made from their personal office phones. Some of these phone lines had been re-routed out of their offices and into nearby cafe's, where some of the politicians counducted their "business."