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Cannabis Campaigners' Guide News Database result:
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US: OPED: Undoing 'Plan Colombia' William Ratliff MSNBC (US Web) Wednesday 27 Dec 2000 Pubdate: 27 Dec 2000 Source: MSNBC (US Web) Author: William Ratliff Note: William Ratliff is a senior research fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution. His latest book, with Edgardo Buscaglia, is "Law and Economics in Developing Countries." UNDOING 'PLAN COLOMBIA' Will Bush Declare End To Clinton's Flawed War On Drugs? Dec. 27 - In a perverse way, the tragic nightmare unfolding in Colombia may be a good thing - if it gets the incoming Bush Administration to look seriously at what is happening in Latin America. This region is our largest and fastest growing market and ( with Canada ) our closest neighbor, but the Clinton foreign policy team could hardly have cared less. The challenges there of drugs and development are reaching crisis level - in part, a result of Clinton's indifference. IF THE SON is at all like the father, and the son's political appointments suggest that he is, the incoming foreign policy team should do better, not least because Secretary of State-designate Colin Powell seems to be a sound strategic thinker who is able to ascertain what genuine U.S. interests exist in Latin America. What's more, Powell's roots are in the region and he has the stature to promote those interests. Here are the issues he faces: Figuring out what is important and what is possible with the resources we have and are willing to commit. For starters, that means minimizing the influence of partisan domestic issues on foreign policy and avoiding such Quixotic and enormously time-consuming adventures as the Clinton Administration's attempts to "restore democracy" in Haiti. Active promotion of hemispheric trade through the proposed Free Trade Area of the Americas ( FTAA ), an idea introduced in 1990 by the first President Bush. This will lead the agenda at the Third Summit of the Americas in Quebec City, Canada, in mid-April, where Bush will first meet most Latin American leaders. The Clinton Administration supported the FTAA verbally, but refused to spend real political capital on it. If the new administration is serious, it will press immediately for "fast track" authority to bypass the perpetual inaction of Washington. Close cooperation with our nearest neighbors and top trading partners, Canada and Mexico. The more problematic relationship traditionally has been with the latter, though prospects have never been better than now under Mexico's dynamic new president Vincente Fox. Lifting the antiquated and counterproductive embargo on Cuba. A majority of Americans now favor such a change; even 38 percent of Cuban-Americans in the Miami area, according to a recent poll by Florida International University. But here Bush may be hamstrung by domestic politics. At the same time, Washington must keep an eye on Castro and his self-appointed anti-American successor in Latin America, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, both of whom cultivate friends like Iraq's Saddam Hussein. A critical reevaluation of the U.S. role in Colombia and of the hopelessly failed U.S. "war on drugs." Suffering from this war in the States has been nothing compared to its impact in Latin America, where the toll has been tragic in the destruction of lives, democratic institutions, social fabric, hope for the future and respect for the United States. THE POWELL DOCTRINE Will Colin Powell knock some sense into our foreign policy? Powell must have noticed that the current large and war-oriented U.S. aid package to Colombia flies in the face of his own famed doctrine: clarity of objective, use of massive force, certainty of victory and exit strategy, and public support. Clinton's ill-advised "Plan Colombia" will not greatly reduce drug deliveries to the United States, but will get us openendedly involved militarily in Colombia's decades-old civil war. The strategy does not seek to apply massive force. But when more of the 500 American advisers now down there are killed and the costs of further aid, and the replenishing of expensive destroyed equipment, become clear, Americans will become much more perturbed about our largely military involvement. Narco-Neighborhood Nowhere in the world are U.S. domestic and foreign affairs more intertwined than in the drug war. As George Shultz, Milton Friedman and many others have said, the war on drugs is now causing more harm than drug abuse itself, in the United States and abroad. The resolution of many conflicts in Latin America, and hopes for political and economic development, depend in large part upon removing the enormous corrupting profit motive from the illegal production and sale of drugs. At an absolute minimum, we should immediately end the arrogant and hypocritical congressionally mandated annual "certification" of Latin American countries by which we judge how well they are fighting our drug use problem.
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