When Colombian narco-traffickers are sent to the United States they are given long sentences. Col. Hiett and his drug dealer wife have it a lot better than ordinary Americans who are caught smuggling drugs into this country. Mrs. Hiett got just five years for a crime that would ordinarily get you at least 20 to 30 years in the slammer. But agents and employees of the US government are exempt from the rules they impose on the rest of us. Although they are not, of course, immune from the temptations that bedevil us all, as the rest of this developing story makes all too clear.
Tensions are high.
If the government falls, only the Colombian military stands between the guerrillas and Bogota. The DEA has conducted its own internal investigation of Ayala's allegations, but has taken no action against the official named. In all the reporting on this story, one phrase stuck out. For clearly this is just the beginning. In the all-pervasive atmosphere of corruption that permeates Colombian society like a poisonous fog, all who come in contact with it are infected.