George Bush and Dick Cheney may be gone, but it looks like we're still not very popular in some places. In the last week, the government of Ecuador has expelled two United States diplomats. They said the diplomats in question were interfering in the internal affairs of the South American country.
Last week, customs attache Armando Astorga was kicked out. Ecuador's President said Astorga was "insolent and foolish", and had tried to dictate Ecuador's choice of a commander for an anti-drug unit in exchange for $340,000 in U.S. aid. Yesterday, first secretary of the U.S. Embassy in Quito, Mark Sullivan, was given 48 hours to leave the country for the same thing.
The U.S. State Department has said the charges were unjustified, but they also claimed the right to vet any candidates for the post (created with American "war on drug" dollars). That sounds like the U.S. wants to have it both ways -- claim they're not interfering and then interfere.
Stop and think, would we let another country pick the head of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency -- even if they gave us a boatload of money? Of course not! So why would we think it's OK to do that to another country? Does our government still think rules don't apply to us -- just to all the other countries?
The State Department needs to make a decision. Do we trust Ecuador or not? If they trust them, then give them the money. If they don't trust them, then don't give them the money. It's as simple as that. But either way, they don't get to pick the officials of another country.
The "war on drugs" has been a massive and expensive failure. We shouldn't let it destroy our relationship with a friendly country in our own hemisphere.
The war on drugs has been declared a failure, see http://cabdrollery.blogspot.com/2009/02/escalating-war.html
ReplyDeleteright you are, we are endangering our relations with all of Latin America by our ideological stance.
What I can't figure out is, how come nobody since Bill Hicks has tried to draw attention to the fact that the ENTIRE "war on drugs" has been directed and partially funded by the PHARMACEUTICAL INDUSTRY?!??!? Not just the Murkin CIA-brained Mengeles, either, the French Pharmacorps are just as dangerous, and willing to spend even more money on suppressing anything NATURAL. Granted, I don't think that anybody aside from Mayans, Aztecs & other indigenous peoples should be allowed to gnaw on coca leaves, because, face it, cocaine is Instant Asshole Powder: Just add snot & stir! But there's a helluva lot more out there that should be used to HELP people, instead of an excuse to keep the police states in control.
ReplyDeleteBut if they ever REALLY legalized marijuana, imagine how many billions of dollars in antidepressant/mind-control drugs would be lost by the pharma-controllers. I'm surprised that Orwell and Huxley didn't see THIS part of the dystopia coming... It's not about "saving lives," "stopping gangs," or any of the bullshit reasons that the "non-profits" who put those PSAs on TV claim that it's about, it's about having a MONOPOLY. There isn't a pharmaceutical product short of straight THC drops that can compete with weed, medicinally or recreationally, and the powers that be just can't be having that.
I can't indulge, haven't been able to since the sarcoidosis diagnosis in '98, but damn if I don't miss it every damned day. The CIA & Pentagon used (and still uses) its military personnel as unwitting guinea pigs to try out everything from LSD to whatever in the fuck they're shooting the kids up with nowadays, that has them coming home sick or suicidal. But for US to expand our own brains and see through their bullshit, whether through acid, shrooms, or peyote, whatever --- oh, that's just INTOLERABLE.
So gee, two Bushistas fuck it up with Ecuador. Whatta shock. Have any of his appointees/cronies EVER been qualified for the jobs they've held? Does the name "Brownie" ring any bells? "Chertoff," maybe? Give yer money to Poppy, and Junior will give you a job!
Y'know what I'm really curious about? Since he did run the CIA at one point, uber-Nixonite Poppy Bush prolly experimented with more than halcyon & those THC eyedrops he did in the Oval Office. Have y'all noticed how they don't let him speak out in public anymore, since he started breaking-down into tears in public two years ago? I think that the residue has finally come home to roost, and I would dearly love a ringside seat to watch that evil bastid fall apart completely. Not that Bar really needs him, anyway, but still, it's got to be karmically entertaining.