Brazil takes out clandestine airstrip with bombs

[Judi Lynn]

Source: CNN

Brazil takes out clandestine airstrip with bombs
By the CNN Wire Staff
August 13, 2011 -- Updated 1604 GMT (0004 HKT)

(CNN) -- The Brazilian Air Force on Friday dropped eight 500-pound bombs on a clandestine airstrip in the jungle near the Colombian and Venezuelan borders, part of wide military operation that goes beyond targeting drug traffickers.

Video of the scene, released by the air force, showed craters on the destroyed airstrip, which they say was used to move drugs.

The highly-publicized effort, dubbed Operation Agatha, is an effort against drug trafficking, illegal mining and logging, and trafficking of wild animals, the military said.

"This operation is a first coordination effort by the government to intensify actions on the border," Col. Jose Maurilo Machado de Lima said. "We are going to carry out, periodically, operations of intensification of that control."

Read more: http://edition.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/americas/08/13/brazil.military.operation/index.html

[The Magistrate]

1. If They want it, Ma'am, It Will Take About a Week To Repair

"When you sign a contract, you have to keep up the payments."

[Peace Patriot]

2. Yup. Legalize all drugs. That will finish off the Mob and its sub-gangs really fast.

Although contraband (untaxed goods) will always be a problem if we are going to have civilization and tax trade for civilized purposes (roads, airports, dams, education, pensions for the elderly, etc.)-- i.e., somebody's always going to find something they can make or steal for "black market" trade--the godawful expense of the "war on drugs"--in human life, in war profiteering, in prisons and in loss of civil rights--has reached epidemic proportions. The war is far, far, FAR worse than the targeted substances. Never should have been a "war" to begin with. Catastrophic mistake.

Legalize drugs and the mayhem inflicted by both sides of this "war" goes away, and the trillions of dollars wasted on this failed "war" are freed up for better purposes. We can go back to what we should have been doing in the first place: taxing drugs like we do alcohol and tobacco, discouraging use if necessary and providing all people with easily accessible medical care.

Dumbfuck "solution" of the Nixon administration. Typical Republican idea. And now this War Profiteer establishment has every politician by the throat--Democrats as well as Republicans--and was spread like a super-bug to all of Latin America, infecting them as well. And the more "war" has been waged on "drugs," the more of a war has it become. Now they're dropping 500 lb bombs on it, and still it lives!

You are so right.

Although this particular Brazilian police official (Col. Jose Maurilo Machado de Lima) promises "periodic" and "intense" "control," it is a fool's game, with the joke on the taxpayers, that bombing a jungle airstrip is going to have any effect at all on the cocaine traffic. It just isn't. Nor is any other kind of "war" action. The problem is the initial, huge, catastrophic mistake of making drug sale and use illegal. There is no enforcement mechanism that can stop people from turning plants into drugs, and what the "war on drugs" does so well is to give them an incentive to so, on a large scale: the price.

Gawd, it's so insane!

I do think, though, that this particular "war on drugs" operation--bombing this airstrip and whatever else they might be doing--is not just kneejerk militarism and typical, useless "war on drugs" activity. I think something else is going on, and here is the context that I think is relevant:

I think they're going after a particular Mob on the Venezuela/Colombia border that is connected to the former president of Colombia, Alvaro Uribe, whom I consider to be nothing less than a Mob boss. This is all that can be expected from the "war on drugs" when it is honest--the breakup of big gangs, and temporary relief from the power that a big gang can exercise--which of course results in opportunities for small gangs, which will eventually consolidate into big gangs, and the cycle goes on. When the "war on drugs" is NOT honest, it can result in someone like Uribe--a Mob boss/president.

There is lots of evidence that Uribe is closely tied to drug trafficking and related death squad activity in Colombia, and was using the powers of government (including vast, illegal domestic spying--even on judges and prosecutors--and the military (with $7 BILLION in U.S. military aid) to drive five million peasant farmers from their lands, in favor of the big drug lords, and to consolidate and control the cocaine trade and benefit from its trillion+ dollar illicit revenue stream.

Some 70 of Uribe's closest political cohorts are under investigation or already in jail for ties to the rightwing death squads, drug trafficking, bribery, election fraud, ponzi schemes, land theft, illegal domestic spying and other crimes. Colombian police just arrested Uribe's second in command, on the illegal spying, and his spying chief, Maria Hurtado, has absconded to Panama where she received instant asylum from Panama's rightwing president, a Uribe pal, over the objections of Colombian prosecutors. And, in addition to probably having a hand in this asylum, the U.S. government helped Uribe extradite 30 death squad witnesses to the U.S., on mere drug charges, where they were put out of the reach of Colombian prosecutors (also over their objections). We can only guess at the Obama administration's motives for protecting (and even coddling) Uribe (--academic sinecures at Georgetown and Harvard, for instance)--probably they are trying to cover up Bush Junta crimes in Colombia--but the fact remains that Uribe NEEDED such protections.

Uribe and his Mob are a threat to Santos. There is a very big political struggle going on between Uribe and his criminal network and the more lawful and legitimate rightwing political establishment in Colombia (represented by Santos). Uribe seens intent on regaining power. His criminal network is still at work in Colombia, though they have been denied direct control of the government. There have been on-going death threats and murders. For instance, FOUR legislators just resigned from the legislative committee investigating Uribe, two of them admittedly because of death threats and the other two likely because of death threats. Several more political activists have been murdered--trade unionists, leaders of displaced peasant groups, and African-Colombian indigenous leaders, as well as another journalist. The Colombian justice system has undergone a long, difficult and dangerous struggle to bring all this murder and lawlessness under control and to hold Uribe and his cohorts and appointees accountable for their crimes. But it is by no means guaranteed that they will be successful.

I was cogitating over why Brazil is bombing a Mob airstrip on the Colombia/Venezuela border. I think they are trying to break this Mob that has been controlling Colombia and threatening the peace of the region. Its powerful operative, Uribe, tried to instigate a war between the U.S./Colombia and Ecuador/Venezuela in early 2008, and was extremely belligerent against those governments. It's interesting that one of his charges was that Venezuela was "harboring FARC guerrillas." No FARC guerrillas were found in Venezuela, but what WAS found was a unit of the "Black Eagles" (main RW death squad group in Colombia), trying to set up a criminal organization inside Venezuela in a border province.

The other governments of the region moved quickly to defuse the Uribe-instigated conflict in 2008, and have created a general regional consensus on cooperation, peace, "south-south" trade, social justice and independence from the U.S. Santos seems to have decided that Colombia's interests are best served by joining this consensus. He immediately made peace with Venezuela, has instituted a program for restoring peasant farm lands and just this week promised universal health care in Colombia by next year. Though he was Uribe's defense minister for several years, and is of the same rightwing political party, this is a full-on breach with Uribe, indicative of a rebellion against Uribe within Colombia's political establishment. (The left is not a significant factor in Colombia because so many leftists have been murdered or silenced by Uribe's reign of terror. )

In summary, I think Brazil is trying to help Santos with his Uribe problem (entrenched criminal network). It won't stop the cocaine trade, but it might bust up the Mob that is supporting Uribe and that would be helping him regain power.

[Vidar]

3. Oh no, another CIA hideaway gone!!!!