>
> On Mar 5, 2008, at 9:01 PM, C. G. Estabrook wrote:
>
> > the days of Kennedy-administration death squads
>
> Wasn't it creepy when Obama called for another Alliance for Progress?
> And when Caroline Kennedy said he would be "a president like my father"?
Damn right, Doug!
There is no difference that I can see between Clinton, Obama, and McCain on the issue of support for the terror state in Colombia. I do not remember any main-stream presidential candidate (ever) expressing any kind of skepticism about U.S. support of the Colombian regime. Does anyone remember any mainstream dissent here? The terror regime in Colombia has had one of the worse human rights records for years, and yet no one seems to focus much on it and not many care. The U.S. has stationed military trainers there, has used defoliants, has instructed Colombian bombers and helicopters to wipe out whole villages, all in the name of fighting the FARC and fighting a war against drugs.
As far as I can see, except for small activist groups there is hardly any movement at all in the U.S. that opposes U.S. policies in Colombia. Estabrook is correct in his above statement concerning long term and "bipartisan" U.S policy in Colombia. Both the Democratic and Republican parties have been consistent in their support of mass murder in Colombia. But there is no reason why either party would change its policies. There seems to be very little costs at all to slaughtering and starving peasants in Colombia. There is certainly no pressure from U.S. movements to change Colombia policy and there is not even an attempt to embarrass the U.S. by getting the facts out. People such as Chomsky speak up and there are a few solidarity groups. The only mainstream group (as far as I know) ever to question U.S. support for the Colombia terror-state has been the Conference of Catholic Bishops. So why would either Clinton or Obama take the risk to speak out against a consensus so "universal"? Certainly not for moral reasons, moral reasons being irrelevant to state-craft, unless the rulers are forced to confront them.
Part of the fault is in fact "ours" (the left, the U.S. people) for not in fact raising the costs to the U.S. state of its policy in Colombia.
Jerry
>
> I'll post my fundraiser interview with Chomsky soon - he makes some
> nice points about JFK founding the LatAm death squads.
>
> Doug
> ___________________________________
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>
-- Jerry Monaco's Philosophy, Politics, Culture Weblog is Shandean Postscripts to Politics, Philosophy, and Culture http://monacojerry.livejournal.com/
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