From: cmbr01@vaxa.strath.ac.uk
Newsgroups: soc.culture.latin-america
Subject: Re: Colombia Newsbriefs 12/9 ed-lp
Date: 14 Dec 92 11:48:26 GMT
Organization: Strathclyde University VAX Cluster

In article <1gg98nINNidq@phakt.usc.edu>, jcamacho@phakt.usc.edu (Jose Camacho) writes:
> In article <20059@ucdavis.ucdavis.edu> ez000281@hamlet.ucdavis.edu writes:
> [...]
>>>guerrilla leaders. (edlp 12/08 from AP)
>>
>>What the pinkos don't say
> 
> I had no idea that AP news was a pinko agent...
> 
> Not only has the guerrilla "senderized" itself by getting involved in drug
> businesses, but what is even worse from the point of view of Colombians, they 
> are involved in the kidnapping business. As has been often mentioned, drugs
> are grown in South America because they are consumed elsewhere. As far as 
> anyone can tell the guerrilla doesn't get involved in the coffee business, 
> because there is no profit in it. 
> In fact, the drug market is a very clear and excellent example of how market
>  economy works. If you are true to your liberal and market views above 
> everything else, as you have shown all over, why are you against this excellent
> example of how it runs?
> 
> If you want to end the drug problem it's very easy: you don't need to keep
> blaming it on producers, just stop consumption of it in the States. It would
> be much more effective, and you wouldn't need to go around invading other 
> countries and making prisoners of war like Noriega. But of course, that would
> amount to admitting that there is something fundamentally wrong with the system
> in the "world's most powerful nation", and that we don't want to do, do we?
> 
> 
>   While their at it, 
>>they have done a marvelous effort in duping what left of the U.S. "left" in 
>>making drug traffickers/addicts and environmental terrorists appears popular 
>>heroes.  Communists and druglords seem to be on the same side throughout Latin
>>America.
> 
> I won't argue with you on the "U.S. left", since I don't even know there is one
> . However, I must say that an increasing number of people on the non-U.S. left
> have been criticizing precisely that. I don't know if you are aware of the 
> letter signed among others by Garcia Marquez in Colombia against the guerrilla.
> Perhaps once again, not only the left but the country as a whole in the US is 
> not really concerned with reality in South America but rather with how that 
> affects their "interests".
> 
> So I don't think it is fair to say that "communists and druglords seem to be on
> the same side". First, as I said, several "communists" have dennounced both
> the guerrilla and the drug-cartels, second, if you knew something about how
> the drug-lords have systematically ordered the killings thousands of popular
>  leaders and representatives of the UP in Colombia (a Communist group) perhaps you wouldn't be as quick to make such senseless affirmations.
> 
> Guerrillas, as I said before, have finally converted to market economy: they 
> realized it was a great business to grow drugs. I don't approve of it, and I
> don't approve of them in general, but I don't see how that can be condemned 
> from the point of view of a economic liberal.
> 
>> and now Galan is caught red handed with his cocaine 
>>cargo while sniffing some of it himself. 
> 
> Perhaps he was following the example of the former mayor of DC, who is now
> seeking office after being convicted of that same crime. Shouldn't you take 
> care of your own house before trying to tell other people how to run theirs?
> 
>>  In any event if our Colombian friends 
>>have trouble convicting this assasin, we will happily do so for him and, who 
>>knows, perhaps he could share a cell in Marion with pusher Noriega, so that his 
>>"human rights" will not be violated.
> 
> Thanks for the offer, but as I said before, I think you have enough things to
> care about in your country. How does the cocaine get into the country? How is
> it distributed? Where does the money go? It seems that a very small percentage
> of the drug money returns/stays  in Colombia. The rest seems to be fueling
> the US economy. Why doesn't anyone ever talk about that?
> 
> Why doens't anyone ever mention the fact that the largest marijuana producer in
> the world is not Colombia, nor Mexico, but...the US? It is always so much 
> easier to blame things on other people, and perhaps invade a couple of 
> countries so that it looks like you are doing something about the problem, but
> no one in this country has the courage to face reality: the problem is in the
> US, demand is in the US, distribution networks are in the US. Money is 
> laundered in the US and other advanced Western countries. If you tackle those
> issues, I assure you, the price of cocaine will go down so quickly as that of
> coffee (and believe me, it was quick).
>>
>>Edelmiro
> 
> 
> Jose Camacho
> 
Thanks Jose.
Excellent post. I wish the US would put up or shut up 
about ITS drug problem.
Making drugs non-illegal and diverting some public money
to:
1. help drug abusers
2. provide better education facilities targeted at the 
working classes
would, I am sure, help alleviate the problem within 5 years.

Adios, J.