THE
MARKET FOR MARXISM
The
Republican-Clintonian united front on Colombia is in part
a boon to the armaments lobby – on the PBS Newshour,
earlier this year, Rep. Gilman was touting
Blackhawk helicopters harder than any salesman –
as well as being a clever way of blaming our drug problem
on those nasty brown-skinned "narco-guerrillas." It kind of
makes you pine for the good old days of the cold war, when
the word guerrilla was nearly always preceded by the word
"Marxist" or Communist."
Since the fall of the Kremlin, however, the market for Marxist
insurgencies has hit rock bottom. Revolutionary communism
is finished – there's no money in it. Those few guerrilla
movements of the far left that used to get sporadic subsidies
from Moscow or Havana have fallen on hard times, and in desperation
have turned to "taxing" the drug trade. The old line Stalinist
FARC and the Guevarist ELN in Colombia followed the lead of
Peruvian Maoists in extorting coca farmers and the drug traffickers
who buy their product, in return for protection. The Maoist
Shining Path (Sendero Luminoso) was crushed by Alberto
Fujimori, the Japanese-Peruvian reformer whose independence
and unorthodox methods have aroused US ire, but the FARC and
a host of other guerrilla groups persist and even flourish
in Colombia – where the nation's bloody turmoil is giving
anarchy a bad name.
THE
HUNDRED-YEAR MESS
Colombia
has been a mess for the past hundred years or so, with the
longest civil war on record and the third largest refugee
problem in the world, right behind the Sudan. Uprooted by
violence from both the left and the right, millions of people
are on the move, without jobs, without money, and without
hope. The central government has ceded huge amounts of territory
to both major guerrilla groups, and is engaged in ongoing
negotiations with the rebels; President Andres Pastrana wants
to bring them into the electoral process. The guerrillas,
for their part, are skeptical: they remember all too well
the last time they were invited to disarm and join the glorious
march to Colombian "democracy." In 1980, the guerrillas abandoned
armed struggle and formed the Patriotic Union party: this
made it much easier for the Army to hunt them down
and institute a bloody crackdown on dissent.
THE
FIRST CASUALTIES
In
spite of a
visit from the president of the New York Stock Exchange,
as well as secret negotiations with the US government [see
the Heritage Foundation policy paper, linked above], the guerrillas
have stepped up their attacks. The Colombian military,
trained and certified by their American overseers to be properly
respectful of "human rights," has struck back with renewed
attacks
on civilians, while in Washington the Clinton administration
and its Republican allies are battling to break the legislative
deadlock and get the foreign aid spigot open and flowing.
But they will have a battle on their hands, not only with
this aid package but with many in Congress and throughout
the country disturbed by deepening US military involvement:
last year, three Americans were killed when their "drug interdiction"
plane loaded with hi-tech instruments crashed in the Colombian
jungle – the first casualties in America's latest foreign
war. Will they be the last – or the first of many?
SLIPPING
AND SLIDING
We
are sliding into the deepest darkest quagmire, one that is
going to make our Balkan bungle look like a Sunday school
picnic, without any debate – either in Congress
or among the presidential candidates – and without the
knowledge (let alone consent) of the American people. Here
is one area where the campaign of Patrick J. Buchanan, the
only antiwar candidate who will get any significant exposure
this presidential election year, has been sadly lacking: not
only that, but Pat doesn't even mention Colombia (or South
America, for that matter) in A
Republic, Not an Empire, his otherwise comprehensive
book on American foreign policy. Gore naturally supports the
policy of the Clinton administration in this matter" –
in addition to having a
financial interest in defeating the rebels, as the Vice
President is a major stockholder in BP Amoco, whose oil fields
have lately been under attack. Bush's foreign policy advisors
have yet to clue us in as to Dubya's thoughts on this matter,
but perhaps their silence is due to a certain squeamishness
about having the words "cocaine" and "George Bush" appear
in the same news story.
A
MADE FOR TV POLICY
Why
is Colombia's century-old civil war our fight? Propagandists
for the arms lobby, like copter salesman Ben Gilman, have
painted the FARC and other leftist rebel groups as little
more than glorified street gangs, more criminal enterprises
than political movements, bent on exporting drugs in order
to corrupt the natural purity of American youth. This made-for-TV
mythology overlooks the roots of the insurgency in the long
history of Colombia, which has been riven by fratricide since
its first day of independence: the country has been the scene
of a bloody conflict over land and the distribution of the
nation's wealth that has raged, with only a few interruptions,
since the late 1800s. The addition of the drug trade as a
factor in this ongoing civil war cannot be ascribed to the
rebels: the trade would exist without the FARC, or the ELN.
They are merely getting their cut – as is virtually everyone
in Colombia, including the last President, Ernesto
Samper, who was supported by the US right up until his
exposure
as the creation of the drug lords. The right-wing paramilitary
outfits, closely aligned with the Colombian military, are
also deep
into the drug trade, perhaps on a larger scale than the
rebels: will we take on the "narco-terrorists" of the right
as well as the left?
FARC
YOU
To
blame Colombia's FARC (or the right-wing paramilitaries) for
America's drug problem is like the rest of the world blaming
the US government for permitting American tobacco companies
to function and market their products internationally –
while extorting them for all the taxes they're worth. In Colombia,
where everyone is either armed, or dead, the authorities should
be grateful that FARC is policing rural areas where the central
government is only a rumor: at least they are enforcing a
kind of order, which is more than Bogota can claim. But it
is pointless to look for any logic in our Colombian policy,
for this is a war to sustain the careers of demagogic politicians,
and fill the pockets of the makers of helicopter gunships,
far more than it is a war against mysterious "drug traffickers"
and "narco-terrorists" who have all the reality of a grade-B
Hollywood epic. Now that Communism is dead, they think they
can create this new villain: the Narco-whatever. We have
to fight this war – after all, it's for the children,
our children. Like hell it is.
GOP
– HANDMAIDEN OF THE WAR PARTY
The
Colombia aid package has already passed the House, but got
held up in the Senate because Majority Leader Lott objected
to the way it was becoming one of those wish-list bills, in
which so-called "pork" items are attached to legislation deemed
essential. Not that Lott objected to Colombian aid in principle:
it was the President's methods, not his goals, that evoked
the Senator's ire, and the bill stalled. But now Lott and
Hastert, under pressure from the Pentagon – and its attendant
military contractors, whose campaign contributions fill the
GOP war chest – want to bring the Colombia measure to
a vote and send $13 billion to Clinton and his Colombian clients
by June 30, when Congress goes into its fourth of July recess.
That also happens to be the day before the Pentagon says it
will have to start making cutbacks that could affect force
readiness – this from an agency that plans
on spending over $291 billion in fiscal year 2001! "Military
prudence dictates we must plan now for the worst case," read
the leaked message to field commanders – oh boo hoo hoo,
you're breakin' my heart. Are these people kidding?
That the most lavishly expensive military in the history of
the world is now crying poverty has got to be a joke
– right?
GETTING
AWAY WITH IT
All
too wrong. Here is how they get away with dirty little wars
like the one in Colombia – they wrap it up in a legislative
"package," a potpourri of "essential" or even "emergency"
items, including "natural disasters" such as aid to the victims
of September's Hurricane Floyd, which hit North Carolina and
parts of the East coast, or those burned out by the recent
fires in New Mexico – as well as $9 billion for maintaining
US troops in the conquered Yugoslavian province of Kosovo.
Are there a few members of Congress reluctant to go along
with the bipartisan decision to deepen our intervention in
Colombia? No problem. We can take care of that right now by
giving them a choice between voting with the War Party –
or else voting against disaster assistance to their own constituents.
TYPO
ALERT
Gee,
I wonder why they included money for Kosovo under the general
rubric of natural disasters? It's probably a typo: what they
meant to say was "national disaster."
IT
ISN'T TOO LATE
The
opposition is beginning to coalesce, and it isn't too late
to call your congressional representatives and let them know
how you feel about this vital issue. Use
the form below to get your Congressional contact information.
Congressional Democrats who want the money spent on fruitless
and counterproductive domestic anti-drug programs, and anti-interventionist
Republicans who distrust virtually all foreign meddling could
still stop the War Party from getting its hooks into Colombia
– and committing the US to a war down the road that only
American soldiers can fight and win. (Or, more likely, lose).
We are being led down the slippery slope, into a morass from
which there will be no easy extrication – unless you
act. The upcoming vote on aid to Colombia will probably be
attached to an "emergency" military appropriation, perhaps
bundled with money earmarked for Kosovo, perhaps not. Whatever
form the legislation takes, this is a moment when Congress
can assert its constitutional prerogatives – indeed,
its duty under the law – and take back our foreign
policy from the arms salesmen, underemployed cold warriors,
and outright megalomaniacs who are leading us to disaster.
Find
your representative and his or her contact information. Enter
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