Pubdate: Fri, 5 Jan 2001 Source: Daily Times, The (MD) Copyright: 2001 The Daily Times Contact: (410) 749-7290 Author: Tony Topolski U.S. DOLLARS FUEL PROBLEMS IN COLOMBIA The wild eyed drug czar Gen. Barry McCaffrey is proposing a U.S. invasion of Colombia. The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) believe economic and political democracy are crucial if people are ever to rise above the status of servants and cheap labor for the few rich families that rule the Country McCaffrey is using the drug war as an excuse to crush the revolution FARC is winning against the oligarchy in Bogota. The hundreds of billions of U.S. taxpayer dollars pumped into Colombia is protection money to prop up an elitist government and buy the necessary weapons and violence that protect US. corporations that pay 35 cents an hour wages there. This is "The New World Order" in which corporate predators are free to impose totalitarian capitalism where, when and how they please because they know the U.S. military and nuts like McCaffrey can be counted on to protect them. The drug industry has always been a moneymaker for Colombia's rich, Its para-military death squads and police. They have the money and resources to grow the stuff (or force poor campesinos to grow it for them) and the connections for distribution. There's also plenty of evidence to make the CIA-drug connection. Not everybody forgot Oliver North ran a drugs-for-weapons operation out of the White House. McCaffrey's allegations of a FARC speed boat loaded with drugs sounds a lot like the Gulf of Tonkin incident, which was a complete lie and fabrication by the nuts in the pentagon and sucked us into a U.S. invasion of Vietnam. Since Clinton just sent $1.6 billion -~ more in blood money to Colombia, the conservative corporate media will be silent as usual or blame FARC for the new atrocities committed by -~ military and right wing death squads, but again, that's the "New World Order." In spite of U.S. opposition, Colombian President Andrew Pastrana tried to negotiate a settlement of hostilities, but when FARC's leadership came out of the jungles to negotiate and campaign for upcoming elections, silence again reigned in the conservative media here at home as right wing paramilitary death squads murdered them. If the American people can be duped into believing General McCaffrey's lies about FARC, then indeed we are brainwashed and deserve what we get. It doesn't take a genius to figure out American workers don't benefit when Colombian workers are paid 35 cents hourly wages by the same U.S. corporations that closed their factories here in the U.S. Nobody should be surprised Bush and his fascist ideologues will happily attack every social program, even Social Security, to pay for McCaffrey's war. If the money spent doing Wall Street's dirty work around the world had instead been used to make life affordable and meaningful for the American masses who've produced all the wealth, to improve our lives, we'd have a country we could truly be proud of. Just say no to any U.S. invasion of Colombia. Tony Topolski, Eden - --- MAP posted-by: Richard Lake