On Colombia: The Forgotten Ally
DIPLOMAD BLOG: Continuing the Conservative Underground Revolution in America's Most Liberal Institution, the State Department.
By Diplomad
Please forgive the somewhat sloppy nature of this post. I will be able to provide only a limited number of links as I am sitting in an airport using my laptop, and suffering from a very slow (but free) internet connection. I hate laptops. I just can't get used to their keyboards, and the things need cup holders, too. I am about to spill some very hot, vastly overpriced, and not very tasty airport coffee! Not pretty! But, of course, it is all the fault of Bush and Rove, as my memoirs will show. I remember that Bush and Rove held meetings in the White House to which they did not invite me; right after those meetings, the price of my coffee went up. Coincidence? I think not! Get me booked on MSNBC!
I am heading to a brief overseas assignment and will likely be out of blogging range for a few days. I thought I would take the opportunity offered by a delayed flight to reflect on the nation of Colombia, one of my favorite places, one of America's best allies, and one which gets savaged by the MSM and liberals in general.
I have visited Colombia off and on for the past nearly thirty years. The Colombia of today is a far, far cry from the Colombia of the late 1970's; it is not the same country it was in the 1980's, nor even that of the 1990's. It is no longer the country described in Canadian diplomat Nicholas Coghlan's superb The Saddest Country.
At one time, Colombia was in much, much worse shape than Iraq ever was. Drug cartels and drug violence were rampant throughout the country; Marxist guerrillas, primarily the FARC, and "right wing" paramilitaries (note: I never understood what was "right wing" about them, but that is the term the MSM uses) battled for control of the drug trade; many cities were in total anarchy; there was scant government presence in the majority of the country's municipalities. It was a very dangerous place to be – and not just for "human rights workers" or labor leaders. It was dangerous for everybody! Judges, cops, politicians, foreigners, private citizens rich and poor, all could instantly fall victim to the violence. The economy was in shambles. It was the definition of a complete and total failed state, with one exception, one very big exception. It was populated by Colombians who remained faithful to the idea of democracy and the rule of law. Incredibly brave Colombian soldiers, judges, policemen, journalists, and just ordinary citizens refused to give up on their country. The democratic system survived the mayhem. The military remained faithful to the constitution and to democratic processes, despite enormous costs and temptation to take over. They all waited for the system to produce a leader, and, as we will see, it did.
To hear some of the liberal loons, e.g., Pelosi and company, one would think that Colombia remains some horrid gulag where freedom is suppressed by some Yankee-run oligarchs. Nothing could be further from the truth. To begin, Colombia has perhaps the best President in the world today. President Uribe is what every world leader should seek to become. He has intelligence, political savvy, a deep respect for democracy, and a real patriotism, the kind that leads him to take tough, at times unpopular stances, and to put not only his career on the line but his very life. He is a great man and a great friend of the United States. Under his leadership, and with the help of the United States under the "tyrant Bush," Colombia has make one of the most dramatic turn-arounds for the better in modern history.
As I said I am having trouble navigating the internet so let me just provide a few facts I happen to have in my briefcase. During 2007, over 1100 FARC combatants were killed and nearly 2000 captured; that on top of the nearly 1800 killed and over 4000 captured the previous year. The once formidable pro-Castro, drug trafficking FARC terrorist organization has been reduced to a shadow of its former self (at its highpoint it had some 17-18,000 combatants; I doubt it has half that number today). It continues to suffer high rates of defection, including senior leaders (most notably the deranged female comandante Karina), and has suffered the death of its long-time leader, the world's oldest terrorist Marulanda, AKA Tirofijo. The death of Marulanda came shortly after the March 1 death of FARC number two, Raul Reyes, killed in a brilliant operation by the Colombian military who struck him in his Ecuadorian sanctuary. Colombian commandos subsequently recovered computer hard drives from Reyes' compound full of interesting information, including the links of Venezuelan President Chavez and Ecuadorean President Correa to the FARC.
As a result of Uribe's policies of unrelenting pressure on the FARC, and economic liberalization, the Colombian economy is booming (GDP grew by 6.7% in 2007; unemployment in 2007 dropped to 9.7% down form over 18% in 2002), and since 2002, the year Uribe took office, terrorist attacks have decreased by 85%, homicides down 40%, kidnapping has dropped by 90%. Drug seizures are way up and the traffickers no longer dare fly their loads out of Colombia as the Colombian air force can and will shoot them down -- they smuggle drugs overland into Venezuela and fly from there. The government has re-established its presence in all of Colombia's nearly 1100 municipalities. Foreign investment is pouring in and has increased some 33% since 2002. Colombian defense spending is way up as Uribe has convinced his countrymen that they must shoulder the financial burden for their own nation's defense. Uribe maintains an approval rating of over 70%.
President Bush has been a strong supporter of Uribe and Colombia and deserves at least some of the credit for the turn-around. (In a later piece, I will write about how successful Bush foreign policy has been, much more so than you would think from reading the MSM.) Bush has continued to support Colombia by trying to get the Colombian Free Trade Agreement through Congress, where the Democrats have stalled it with nonsense arguments. The bottom line is that somewhere around 95% of Colombian goods already enter the US duty free, thanks to President Clinton's Andean preference legislation. The FTA with Colombia would allow US goods and services to enter Colombia's booming economy duty free just like Colombian goods now enter the US! But the Democrats are blocking it with blather about human rights and protecting American jobs. Neither argument is worth its weight in spit.
Yet another reason to keep the Dems out of the White House. diplomadic.blogspot.com |
