Clinton's "Plan Colombia"--which lards billions of dollars in military aid on the worst government in South America, fascist thugs whose security forces and paramilitaries have slaughtered thousands of union leaders, peasant farmers, political leftists, human rights workers and journalists--forms a continuum with Bush junta policy, which has totaled aid for this highly corrupt and failed policy, and dirty rotten government, to $5.5 BILLION.
Chief beneficiary: DynCorp.
Maaura Harty was not only ambassador to Paraguay, 1997-1999, while Plan Colombia was being implemented--Paraguay with a rightwing, and highly corrupt, entrenched government (being challenged this year by a leftist, the beloved "bishop of the poor," Fernando Lugo, who is ahead in the polls)--but DynCorp is the State Dept. contractor at issue in the spying on Obama's passport records.
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Good for DynCorp
The premise of the policy (Plan Colombia/"war on drugs"), that revving up the Colombian military to fight the guerrillas who protect coca plantations will affect the street price of cocaine, has been thoroughly discredited. So we might ask: Who, besides the corrupt Colombian military, has benefited from the $5.5 billion appropriated for Plan Colombia since 2000? The No. 1 beneficiaries in dollars are the U.S. companies that produce Blackhawk gunships and run the program of chemical warfare in Colombia’s coca fields. These include the companies providing the U.S. government with “services” to aid the Drug War.
DynCorp Interntational has signed contracts with the State Department for about $150 million annually since 2000 for its operations in Colombia. It also also handles most of the operations at the Manta base (U.S. air base in Manta, Ecuador). The company’s corporate offices, like those of many of the growing band of mercenary outfits, are located in suburban Virginia, outside Washington. (The company’s headquarters are in Falls Church, which is adjacent to the Congressional district of Representative Frank Wolf, the ranking Republican on the House of Representatives Foreign Operations subcommittee that marks up the hundreds of millions of dollars in funds that Congress approves for DynCorp.) The company in turn has consistently given thousands of dollars to Wolf’s campaign. Such a blatant conflict of interest is another demonstration of Plan Colombia’s corrupt underlying dynamics, which should be cause for a fundamental re-casting of the policy.http://www.fpif.org/fpiftxt/5042--------------
As this article concludes, a Democratic victory in the U.S. presidential election this year, would be an opportunity to reform the fascist-supporting U.S. policies in South America. But not if Clinton is elected. The Clintons' policies are the same as the Bush Junta's, and it is unlikely (given what Hillary Clinton has said about the matter) that she would break from those policies of oppression and exploitation. But Barack Obama well might do so. Billions and billions of dollars in war profiteering are at issue. Would DynCorp aid the Clinton campaign? Obviously it would. Did it? We don't know. Is Maura Harty dirty on DynCorp, privatization of our passport processing, and/or Plan Colombia? Could well be. Needs investigation.
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