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that I hadn't heard of--that it is in fact being ended, if slowly. But, alas, after reading the article to its conclusion, I don't think he has some kind of insider or investigative reporter knowledge that this might be true. I think he is more just hoping that it is--and maybe trying to influence it to be.
I see almost no signs that the U.S. is ending this horrendous policy, even at a slow pace, and rather compelling evidence that the U.S. is actually ramping it up. There are two powerful forces keeping it going, and President Obama doesn't seem to have the power to buck them (if he is inclined to) and I expect absolutely nothing from the allegedly Democratic Congress on this matter. These impregnable forces are: 1) The "military-industrial complex" itself and its war profiteers, added to it now the "prison-industrial complex" and the "justice system-industrial complex"; and 2) the CIA and other powerful drug cartels (including probably the Bush Cartel). I don't see any sign of any of them giving up their "gravy train" nor of anybody pressuring them to do so.
THEN we have the hard evidence of recent U.S. escalation of the corrupt, failed U.S. "war on drugs":
1) SEVEN new U.S. military bases in Colombia, NO LIMIT on the number of U.S. soldiers and U.S. 'contractors' who can be deployed there, NO LIMIT on diplomatic immunity for U.S. soldiers and 'contractors,' and U.S. military use of all civilian airports and other facilities in Colombia. The Colombian government and military, supported by multi-billions of U.S. taxpayer dollars, are heavily into the drug trade--and are also into rightwing paramilitary death squad murders of union leaders, community organizers, human rights workers, peasant farmers and others who get in the way of the big drug/crime networks or of U.S. global corporate predators;
2) The sneaky U.S. supported rightwing military coup in Honduras, where grass roots activists are also now being murdered. The Pentagon thus secured its military base in Honduras, allegedly for the "war on drugs." The rich, rightwing elite and the military in Honduras are notorious for drug trafficking. They are now in charge.
3) The U.S. has also reconstituted the U.S. 4th Fleet in the Caribbean, has added bases in Panama, and has a whole "Southern Command" plan for "full-spectrum" military operations in Latin America, with the first justification being the U.S. "war on drugs."
4) The U.S. State Department's continued demonization of the Chavez government in Venezuela, the Morales government in Bolivia and the Correa government in Ecuador, continued efforts to overthrow these governments, failure to acknowledge their major drug interdictions, and lying about them that they somehow favor drug, crime and "terrorist" networks. Venezuela, Bolivia and Ecuador have thrown the U.S. "war on drugs," the U.S. military, the USAID and other malevolent U.S. entities out of their countries. The big drug networks have thus lost their protector and anti-dangerous drug efforts have thus improved, while decriminalization of beneficial plants proceeds (most advanced in Bolivia regarding the sacred plant of the indigenous, the coca leaf). And I am not being sarcastic. Wherever the U.S. "war on drugs" goes, drug traffic and a lot of other crime, increases. I think the U.S. "war on drugs" is protecting the big crime networks.
5) The U.S. government is still opposing decriminalization of medical marijuana in the states, let alone decriminalization of all marijuana, or any other police state, "gravy train," prohibition.
It may be that the U.S. "war on drugs" changed, from being simply a VERY BAD policy, to being a CRIMINAL policy, under the Bush Junta, and it is possible that the Obama administration is just finding this out, and is considering at least a house-cleaning. That's what this writer suggests. And maybe he does have some investigative reporter hints that this is the case. But he doesn't say much about it, and the other evidence that he marshals is mostly regarding the rebellion in Latin America, not that the Obama administration is listening to them. The Obama team has been obdurate about not listening to Latin American leaders on everything that's come up in that region thus far. They have shoved U.S. bully power in Latin American leaders' faces, and have pursued a course set by fascists like Jim DeMint (Puke-SC) and John "death squad" Negroponte.
Really, my heart leapt. If there is anything I most want to see in my lifetime it's the end of the U.S. "war on drugs." If you add up all the costs and all the carnage, it is arguably worse than the Iraq War. But Mr. O'Shaughnessy has not convinced me that there is any change coming, and I suspect that, in fact, the Pentagon is planning to use the "war on drugs" to escalate to a region-wide corporate resource war. They may have to empty the prisons here, for "cannon fodder" and because they've bankrupted state governments. That doesn't mean that they've finished with U.S.-inflicted horror in Latin America.
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