In Its... War on Cocaine, the US Has Destroyed the Lives of... Farmers in Colombia

[Crankinit]

http://www.alternet.org/story/15623..._of_millions_of_innocent_farmers_in_colombia_

In Its Mad and Hopeless War on Cocaine, the US Has Destroyed the Lives of Millions of Innocent Farmers in Colombia

What the U.S. government is doing in Colombia has not slowed drug trafficking, but rather, created millions more victims through fumigation and displacement.

Imagine for a moment that China, in an effort to reduce cigarette smoking and associated health costs among its population, declared war on U.S. tobacco production. Imagine Chinese planes flying over American tobacco fields, spraying crop-killing poison that destroys not just tobacco, but all vegetation, wiping out farmers’ livelihoods, displacing millions of families, and contaminating the environment. Such an act of hostility and disregard for national sovereignty would provoke, at the very least, military aggression from the United States. Yet, unbeknownst to most Americans, for the past 20 years the U.S. has conducted just such a campaign against Colombian coca farmers.

 

[Captain.Heroin]

If China did do this, it would only negatively effect the huge corporations which have been buying out small farmers for decades now.

Because of this, it isn't really possible for China to do this theoretical attack.

Even if the entire United States stopped producing tobacco, tobacco production around the world wouldn't stop.

Do I agree with what the United States has done? Of course not, and I hope that it ends before the ecosystem is destroyed.

 

[Newbierock]

That's just not cool, at all. I Can understand and tolerate the teams they send out on foot that destroy the labs and whatnot. but basically dropping poison from the sky? Unacceptable.

 

[trees_please]

This is not an isolated incident. It is and has been US foreign policy to eradicate and destroy the agricultural climate of farmers and innocent families worldwide, for decades! Hmm, operation blast furnace? Iran-Contra ring a bell? Why do you think were bombing the shit out of our (hate to say it..) homegrown Taliban warlords in Afghanistan? Most of Latin America is paradoxically supported and threatened by our trillion dollar war on plants. Each day, the pendulum swings closer and closer to threatened. Massacring the freedom and lives of millions of people, all in the name of greed. and insanity.