In late April.US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice visited Colombla to give enthuslastic backing to the right-wing Urbe government, which has uillised death squads and the Colomblan army to commit hundreds of murders agalnst leaders of peasant and oiner radical movements.
Rice stated on her visit that the notorlous 'Plan Colombla', passed by the US congress four years ago, had been 'highly succassful. The plan was posed as an attempt to crush Colombla's drug lords, but In reafity the bull of the $4 billon spent by the US on the plan so far has been spent on the Colomblan mllitary, to ald them In the fight against tho FARC and ELN leftwing guerrillas.
After 9/11 the pretence that the programme was about drugs fell away, and now it Is presented as part of the war on terrorism'. The money is used to boost the the Colomblan Army and defend an oll pipeline partly owned by Los Angeles-based Occidental Petroleum.
U.S. funds have pald for a Colomblan army commando battallon charged with hunting down guerrllla loaders. U.S. personnel have helped set up Spectal Forces, moblle brigades, river-based Marines and other speclalized unlts all over the country. The United States Is also heavily supportIng Plan Patriota (Patriot Plan), a massive, year-old military offensive In the guerrilla jungle strongholds of southern Colombla.
This offensive requires sig nificant logistical support, latol ligonce and advice from U.S. mllitary and private contractors, so the Southern Command asked Congress for a doubling to 800 of the number of U.S. troops who may be In Colombia at a time. It also got a 50 per cent increase in the U.S. citizen contractor presence (to 600).
The use of 'civillan" contractors from private military companles enables the direct particaption of Americans In combat to be deniable.
After years of US training and mllitary bulld up, last year, the Colomblan army launched Plan Patriota, the largest milltary operation In modern Colomblan history, which, according to the Now York TImes, was dosigned "to make potentially oll-rich regions sate for exploration by private companies and the government-run didn't even pretend to be antiwar) means that there is no pressure on the corporate media to reveal the facts of the defeat.
Even photographs of U.S. troops killed in the war are suppressed by the media as a matter of policy. Those who know the truth best are U.S service personnel who have seen Iraq up close
Their stories are beginning to emerge, but too slowly and without the mass megaphone that only a powerful antiwar movement can provide.
As this is written, squabbling antiwar coalitions (now three where there used to be two) have announced plans for an antiwar mobilization September Washington. This is not as soon and definitely not as unified as we need to be, but it's a beginning.
• David Finkel is managing editor of the U.S. socialist magazine Against the Curren (www.solidarity-us.org)
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Joe Craig continues his examination of politics, looking at Sinn Fein's role in the aftermath of the War of 1919-21 and of secondary order of importance and significance. . Fr could not remove British control of the Southern economy and could not THe COre threaten indirect British political control.
The nationalism of the republican movement was challenged and superseded by the nationalism of the Irish capitalist class once the latter had its own state to advance its interests. These interests included defending its economic privileges and wealth from the demands of Irish workers.
Republicanism from the wing IRA members objected to the "communist banners" on display.
While this is now of purely historical interest, the editorial in the 23 June edition of the newspaper Republican Congress is of far more signifIt stated: "Sectarianism dies out slowly when the fight against it is one of words. Sectarianism burns out quickly where there is teamwork in common struggle
Those who see in Partition just a reflex of sectarian strife see no way forward except foolish talk about toleration,