Winning the Drug War

Writing in Townhall.com, Peter Brookes proclaims that Bush Administration policies are making a difference in fighting the Colombian drug cartel.
With $4 billion in counternarcotics/terrorism training and aid from the United States under "Plan Colombia" since 2000 (plus some European and Japanese aid), Colombian President Alvaro Uribe is successfully prosecuting a 20-year-old war on drugs, while also defeating a 40-year guerilla insurgency. The results? Under Uribe, killings are 30 percent lower, kidnappings/terrorism dropped 50 percent, and insurgent attacks plummeted 90 percent. In 2005, a record 200,000 hectares of coca/poppy were eradicated, and over 130 drug lords were extradited to the U.S. (totaling over 300 since Uribe took office).
As usual, the media isn't reporting on this as that doesn't fit their "Bush incompetence" meme.

The bad news is that those gains might be short-lived.
Some congressional voices believe the White House is being lulled into a false sense of security with the success so far in Colombia. One of those members is House International Relations Committee chairman, Henry Hyde (R-IL). Hyde sees signs the administration may not support Colombia, our closest ally in the Andean region, by shifting its focus, and funding, to the "Middle East and elsewhere" in this year's budget. In a recent letter to a colleague, he wrote: "Now is not the time to cut aid to Colombia."
This is the time to keep the pressure up. This is exactly the time to crush the Cartel because Chavez is hoping to exert his influence into the region. That, along with getting a socialist president elected in Mexico, could spell disaster for America in the next decade.

As Mr. Brookes says "now isn't the time to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory by losing focus on this hemisphere and diminishing our partnership with Colombia."



Posted Monday, April 10, 2006 7:21 AM

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