Third Presidential Debate Mentions Colombia

I have been watching the Presidential debates in hopes of finding some information related to my topic. Finally the third presidential debate mentioned Colombia (for a whole second!) I have to say I know that our economy is in a terrible condition and that the presidential candidates need to talk about how they plan to improve it. However, I found that they just repeated themselves in regards to the economy. It wouldn’t have killed them to talk about other issues that are also important. “Latin American countries were completely neglected by the two candidates,” I find this ridiculous even when the debates were supposed to be dealing with foreign policy they found a way of turning it into the economy. The debate consisted of the two presidential candidates attacking each other whenever possible. McCain threw one of his punch lines by saying “Free trade with Colombia is something that's a no-brainer. But maybe you ought to travel down there and visit them and maybe you could understand it a lot better.” I found that McCain was a little conceited, in regards to his knowledge about Colombia. Even though McCain has traveled to Colombia, it doesn’t mean that Obama is completely ignorant when it comes to a Free Trade Agreement with the country. If anything McCain is the one that needs to research more. He affirmatively said "the goods and products that we send to Colombia, which is our largest agricultural importer of our products."Colombia is not in any form the largest importer of U.S. products. If anything else the U.S. is the one that proves a stable market for Colombia’s drugs. I feel that McCain is simply using his trips to Colombia to try to appeal as more Latin American friendly and maybe increase his popularity. Sadly I don’t feel that many voters will be even moved by the situation in Colombia.

Nationalizing Banks

This dying economy. Rapidly ending life as we know it. Terror overwhelms the scared civilians of this unsustainable nation. Encouraging the approval of an impulsive 700 billion bailout plan to buy distressed securities tied to mortgages.Bush said affirmatively that nationalizing the banks will stabilize the tumbling economy. That money should be used to buy stocks. The dry economy affected other countries. The damage is felt internationally. Nationalizing the banks could be the only way out. Regardless, this proves controversial for a capitalist nation. In which government should not control privately owned institutions. The plan will use 250 of the 700 billion government rescued program. Promising positive needed effects on the currently frozen economic system. It will be done by injecting large amounts of money to the most influential banks. Its goal is to end the fear of lending. Helping good banks lend money to poor businesses. By doing this it strives to keep our breathless economy alive. Avoiding a deadly depression. This effort includes local and international banks. This threatening plan scares me. It’s all we can do.

Colombia's FTA

In this election foreign policy has lost all of its importance. Yet President Bush is trying to force Congress into passing a Free Trade Agreement with Colombia. He believes it is essential for the U.S. relations with their pretty much only South American Ally. He forgets the anti-American sentiment that gets stirred up when negotiations go sour, or when Congress balks because of differences with the administration over issues such as labor standards? What the President also seems to ignore is that this agreement would violate once again human rights in Colombia. The FTA was conceived by violating the rule of law. It was not consulted with Afro-Colombians or Indigenous Peoples as required by the Colombian constitution and ILO convention 169. So we would be supporting another terrible plan that would cause even more suffering to the belligerently attacked minorities. How can Bush urge us to support this direct assault of human rights? Shouldn't we unite instead in preventing the many atrocities that the Colombian government allows in the country? International Trade Critic Peter Julian said "The Harper government seems to be willing to sign anything with the Colombian government, no matter how negative the impact on human rights. This is completely irresponsible," If in fact the agreement does pass wouldn’t we be supporting a somewhat dictatorship government?

Uribe...... can we really trust him???

After researching about the damage that Plan Colombia causes, I was surprised to see that regardless people seem to support President Uribe. “Mr Uribe's approval ratings shot to 91% in Colombia after the rescue operation that freed French-Colombian politician Ingrid Betancourt and 14 fellow hostages held by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Farc).” Yidis Medina admitted that she was bribed by the senior members of congress to vote for the passing of a bill that would allow President Uribe to be re-elected a second term. Could it be that Uribe is also involved in this arrangement? Although it has not been proven he is being investigated. He even suggests that he wants to run a third time something that would require another constitutional change! I can’t help but be skeptical about Uribe’s true intentions. Even his cousin Mario Uribe is being investigated in regards to a certain alliance with paramilitaries. President Uribe’s reminds me of Hugo Chavez, the President Venezuela. He was adored almost worshiped at the beginning,so people were blinded by the hope that he would bring the "change" that the country needed. By changing the constitution many times he managed to pretty much become the Fidel Castro of Venezuela. The corrupt government is completely infected with his corruption and if you disagree with the government you better keep it to yourself. Will this happen to Colombia? Will President Uribe turn out to be corrupt like some fear he is?

Analysis Post

Drug policy has been the underdog in this election. With the current situation it doesn’t surprise me that the candidates have gotten away with excluding the subject from their debates. In certain occasions when asked to talk about the subject they have given some insight as to what their beliefs are in regards to the issue. Republican Presidential Candidate John McCain has been one of the few candidates to take a radical stand against drug use. He wants to increase penalties for selling drugs, and believes that proven drug kingpins should be given the death penalty. On the other hand Democratic Candidate Barack Obama has taken a somewhat indecisive stand in regards to drug policies. He said that the “war on drugs” was an “utter failure” and believed in decriminalizing marijuana. He has even said that if elected he wouldn’t approve of eliminate disparity between sentencing crack and powder cocaine. As different as these candidates are in regards to drug laws, they both seem to believe that the key to ending drug consumption in the United States is to attack the drug source. Which is why they both support the U.S. legislation designed to curb drug smuggling by providing funds for different drug activities in Colombia, this plan is better known as Plan Colombia. Yet the candidates once again disagree when it comes to discussing the Colombian Free Trade Agreement which in many manners can be closely related to Plan Colombia. McCain believes the FTA agreement is essential for our relations with this pro-American country, while Obama accuses him of supporting “unfair trade deals.”Obama believes in developmental initiatives for Latin American countries that should be funded through the increase of taxes.
The Statistics show that Plan Colombia has not been successful given that drugs are not limited in the United States and anyone who desires to buy some generally has a source that can supply it. In fact research has shown that “The UN Office on Drugs and Crime, whose 2006 figure of 78,000 hectares (193,000 acres) was half the U.S. government’s estimate, detected 98,000 hectares (242,000 acres) in 2007 - 20,000 hectares or 26% more coca.”Plan Colombia has simply been a waste of money in trying fund a war against drugs that simply has not accomplished any positive effects. Its strategy consists in spraying drug crops with an untested mycoherbicide known as Fusarium Oxysporum a strain of a biological warfare agent. Yet the plan was defined as a "Plan for Peace, Prosperity, and the Strengthening of the State.” When In reality it does completely the opposite. When they spray the drug crops it also lands on food crops, water resources, animals and the civilians of Colombia. It is killing their natural resources. This plan disregards human rights as people are forced to live with the fear of not knowing when the next plane will fly above their heads and spray this lethal substance. As a result “the Consultancy for Human Rights and displacement this week that at least 270,000 people have been forced to flee from their homes in the last six months. That’s an increase of 41% from 2007!" The situation is aggravated by poisonous U.S. funded fumigation.” Even though Obama has shown some concerns in regards to our relationship with Colombia a country that has one of the highest records on human rights violations, he failed to pursue Rice to declare that Colombia violated the human rights conditions. Both candidates are so concerned about other issues that they have put drug laws in the backburner.
Plan Colombia and the Free Trade Agreement are similar and the FTA will add to the consequences of Plan Colombia. Plan Colombia was unsuccessful because it targeted the peasant coca growers in the south, and coca has been known to have the “balloon effect” and it simply moves to another area when eradicated from a certain place. Many of the soldiers trained by the U.S. Army School of Americas have been linked with participating in drug taxing and trafficking. This plan continues to put money in Uribe’s government of which many congress members are being investigated over their alleged ties with the AUC paramilitaries. The FTA threatens to cause an increase in drug trafficking and violence. Considering that in most Latin American countries economic globalization results in unemployment, which would cause people to go back to growing crops and join illegal groups like the FARC guerrilla. About 20% of Colombian’s depend of agriculture as their means of a sustainable income. By requiring Colombia to cut tariff on their agricultural products it would lead to a 35% decrease in employment. This lack of ability to provide for themselves and their families would only cause people to go back to growing the illegal crops or as an even worse alternative join the Farc guerrilla. In the past when Latin American countries have been faced with economic globalization, it has brought an increase in unemployment and an increase in production of illegal substances. This plan negatively affects Colombia, worsening its economic and social situation. Causing an expense on the U.S. that has shown no true positive feedback. The source will always be there as long as the demand continues to exist. The solution to the drug war my be within our country, because even if eradicated from Colombia, other sources of supply would be found.

Deadly Plan Colombia

On my previous post I talked about how Plan Colombia was a failure that resulted in funding a terrorist group. Some seemed a little confused so hopefully I can clarify how this plan has failed and its relation to the FARC guerrilla. The main ideal behind Plan Colombia is drug crop spraying. Using planes they spread these deadly pesticides over marihuana and coca crops. Nothing wrong with that? well in reality they also spray the campesinos food crops, the same crops that U.S. encouraged them to farm instead of Coca. Shown in the video below, they spread these pesticides all over the place, falling directly on people and into their water resources. So not only do we ask them to grow food crops even though they don’t have the ability to produce a steady income from it, but we pollute their country. We continue to kill their farms over and over again, as well as their animals that inevitably drink the polluted waters. Now would we deal with having planes spraying pesticides over our farms and homes just to help put an end to the drug war…..? I don’t think so!
What does Plan Colombia really accomplishing? How is it related to the FARC Guerrilla? Plan Colombia causes conflict between the Colombian government and the FARC guerrilla both of which have been connected to controlling the drug trade in Colombia. The FARC Guerrilla gets some of their funds from taxing drug producers, so logically they are not very happy with the U.S. intervention. Plan Colombia provides planes and equipment to spread pesticides; however this equipment is also used by the FARC Guerrilla making their technology more powerful and aiding them in going against U.S. intervention. Regardless of how much the U.S. claims this war is a success in reality it is a complete failure. The only thing it accomplishes is frustration among the poor people of Colombia. They find themselves starving because their crops have been exterminated and as a result go back to growing drug crops or join the FARC Guerrilla. We are simply making people want to join terrorist groups, so that they can help end an inefficient war on drugs that is killing more Colombian civilians that anything else.

Plan Colombia

Drug Policy in regards to Colombia

With the current devastating situation of our economy, it has been almost effortless for the 2008 Presidential Candidates Barack Obama (D) and John McCain (R) to avoid voicing their opinions on drug use and laws. Obama has said at times that he supported decriminalization of marijuana use, but when confronted once again about the issue his administration declared that he didn’t believe marijuana offenders should go unpunished. This indecisive stand might be a result of admitting to previously using marijuana and cocaine. John McCain takes a somewhat more solid opinion saying that he wants to increase penalties for selling drugs. Yet neither candidate has made their views on the issue an important part of their campaign. Neither candidate is willing to take a radical stand whether it be legalizing it or giving maximum punishments for offenders, because they don’t want to risk losing votes by upsetting Americans.
On another note, they both seem to support the Plan Colombia, a 1.3 billion spending bill signed by President Clinton with the goal of funding Colombia in a war against drugs. This plan is very controversial, nothing seems to have changed. Drug is still being produced and exported massively from Colombia to other countries including the United States. This is why many believe that the U.S. aid is used in funding the FARC guerrilla. The FARC guerrilla is a terrorist group known for the kidnapping and killing of many who oppose the Colombian government. Has America become so blinded by other issues that we have forgotten about the war on drugs? So blind that we are even funding a terrorist cell and most Americans don’t even know it?