Sunday, May 08, 2005

In case you still don't have enough reasons for disgust, there's U.S. policy in Colombia. Here's an AP story from Friday:

The United States on Friday said Colombian prosecutors could question two U.S. soldiers accused of selling arms to far-right death squads.

The U.S. concession came amid growing anger in Colombia over Washington's refusal to allow the suspects to be tried in Colombia.

...Warrant Officer Allan N. Tanquary and Sgt. Jesus Hernandez were arrested Tuesday at a luxury estate and accused of plotting to deliver 40,000 rounds of ammunition to a paramilitary militia.

They were turned over to U.S. authorities on Thursday despite widespread calls from lawmakers and senior officials for them to face trial in Colombia. The case has deeply embarrassed Washington, coming less than two months after five U.S. service members were detained for allegedly smuggling cocaine aboard a military aircraft to the United States....

The United States has denied secretly helping the paramilitary United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia, or AUC, which has been blamed for countless atrocities in its two-decade dirty war against Marxist rebels....


As The New York Times explained on Friday, Colombians have noticed that American military peronnel found misbehaving in Columbia don't seem to get punished partivularly hard:

...Colombians are still seething that James C. Hiett, the former Army colonel who ran the American military mission here, was sentenced to just five months by a Brooklyn court in 2000 for failing to report that his wife had been smuggling heroin from Bogota to New York in diplomatic pouches....

Colombians also question whether three American soldiers arrested in Texas for trafficking cocaine from Colombia will face serious penalties....


Then again, our ally in Colombia, President Alvaro Uribe, doesn't seem to believe in punishing bad guys either -- he

is already under fire from the United Nations, human rights groups and several Colombian congressmen for pushing new legislation governing ... demobilization ....

These critics say that the bill, which will probably be approved in the coming weeks, does little to guarantee that paramilitary groups are dismantled or that commanders reveal their inner workings. Under the bill, paramilitary commanders, even those wanted for war crimes, would serve less than three years on farms in regions they control because of credits for their participation in talks and for good behavior.


Your tax dollars at work...

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