Colombian Victory

IBD Editorials ^ | 12 Sept 2007 | Staff

[IBD editorial writer]

The War On Drugs: Only Osama bin Laden had a higher price on his head than cocaine lord Diego Montoya, No. 2 on the FBI's Most Wanted list. Now he's in custody, and the U.S. owes Colombia a debt of gratitude.

The Colombian army's capture of Pablo Escobar's successor couldn't have been more satisfying. Montoya, capo of Colombia's Norte del Valle cartel, whose spies tracked U.S. Navy warship positions to ensure control of 70% of the cocaine headed for the U.S., got busted Monday wearing only his dirty underwear.

"I lost," was the toppled kingpin's only observation.

The rest of us won.

"This is huge," DEA spokesman Steve Robertson told IBD. "This strikes at the head of the source for all the cocaine coming into the U.S. This was one of the most powerful cocaine organizations in the world, and when an organization loses someone of this stature, it's going to have a tremendous negative impact. . . . We salute the Colombian government."

[IBD editorial writer]

Congress has yanked Colombia's funding for the war on drugs and held up its free trade pact. Yet Colombia has knocked every thug in the drug war off the FBI 10 most wanted list, there's not a single Colombian name on it anymore. Isn't it about time Congress starts rewarding Colombia for making the world a better place instead of punishing it? Colombia needs encouragement.

[bajabaja]

Congress (DEMS) pulled the funding because of concern about union members in Colombia being mistreated. President Uribe’s successful military strategy has resulted in a dramatic decrease in the number of FARC/drug cartel related deaths. And his country’s economy has grown commensurately. He is a popular conservative politician in South America. Bush Derangement Syndrome, Southern Strain.

[livius]

Congress is covertly on the side of FARC, I suspect. They’ve been trying to do in Uribe since the day he took office. They’re annoyed that the policy of their golden boy, Bill Clinton, was rejected and Bush’s was put in place, implemented, and is succeeding. Bill basically gave away the entire center of the country to ELN/FARC. Bush and Uribe took it back, and now Colombia is a functioning country again. Can’t have that, can we?

[IBD editorial writer]

The amazing thing is, and you don’t see this in the media, only three union officials have been killed in Colombia this year, down from some two hundred a decade ago. There is some question as to what the motives in the killings were, too, some say the three killed were aligned with the FARC or killed for personal reasons. For practical purposes, union violence in Colombia is virtually nonexistent. Unions, by the way, are very unpopular in Colombia. Nobody wants to belong to one.

[Carry_Okie]

Perhaps the Slave Party thinks the flow of dollars in return for drugs allows their Wall Street friends to keep the printing presses going without raising the domestic money supply?