John1234

Yes there are a couple other threads.
If others are like me, they probably do not know enough about this to post.

All i know is that our Cocaine comes from Columbia, or used to.
Beyond that i am clueless on this topic and have no idea who is right or wrong.

galenrox

I just did a research paper on Colombia and the FARC, so I have some of this fresh on my mind.

Colombia has a screwed up past. After gaining independence from Spain there was a period called conservative hegemony, where there was a left wing movement that was just far less popular than the right wing movement. During the early 1900s the liberals (left wingers) picked up speed, but there was a split (which is a persistent aspect of Colombian left wing politics) between land-reform touting communists and more moderate liberals (like an extreme version of the similar American divide between liberal Democrats and actual American Marxists). There were a few liberal governments, but it went back and forth. Then a very charismatic and broadly supportive communist was assassinated, sparking a decades long civil war called "La Violencia". In the end a conservative-liberal coalition government formed, leaving the militant Marxists out. These various Marxist bands eventually got together to form the FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia). In response the Colombian government also propped up right wing paramilitary groups to fight against them, formed from right wing peasants who fought against the Marxist peasants during La Violencia.
FARC in I think the early 80's demilitarized and ran candidates in some elections, holding a fair amount of seats in the parliament. This didn't last long, and FARC resumed it's militaristic tendencies, and was eventually ceded over half of the Colombian territory (all the ****ty lowlands, the only areas of value are still under government control - on the mountains with rich volcanic soil).
The Colombian government has been accommodating in the American war on drugs, while it only bears to reason that the FARC is not, and although they were initially suspicious of cocaine as being created by America to destroy their communist cause, their reservations were quickly gotten past, and both the FARC and the right wing paramilitaries (to a much lesser extent) tax and produce most of the cocaine, to the point that in 2000 the FARC had a larger tax base than the Colombian government.

The FARC mainly focuses on kidnappings and other acts of terrorism, as their current aim is to overthrow the government and replace it with a Marxist government. The current president, Uribe, is much less tolerant of them than previous presidents, and has gone after them aggressively.
Obviously, as Uribe is very accommodative to the US government, and as the FARC is Marxist, the various socialistic leaders in Latin America, now clearly led by Hugo Chavez, are very sympathetic to the FARC cause, and share the aim of the overthrow of the Colombian government to be replaced by a Marxist government.

What's happened here is that the FARC has taken to fleeing into sympathetic states when pursued, specifically Ecuador, but it's going to be Venezuela soon (as Chavez has seen to it). The Colombian government pursued the FARC into these countries, and Chavez is claiming this to be an act of war (while ignoring that harboring these terrorists is the actual act of war, and Colombia was in fact being accommodative to these states in only going after the FARC, and not the governments attempting to help grant them a safe haven along the Colombian border.
Chavez has said that there will be war once Colombia goes after the FARC in Venezuela, and as clearly the Colombian government can't afford to not go into Venezuela if that's where the forces aimed at overthrowing the government are situated (which Chavez obviously knows), we can see that Chavez's motives are clearly to the purpose of instigating a war so he can overthrow the Colombian government and install a Marxist puppet government, creating a Marxist block between the US and South American economic powers which are on the fence between economic liberalization and Marxism (Chile, Brazil, Argentina). It's the modern form of empire, nothing more.

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John1234

So does this mean if there is war that America will end up attacking Columbia's enemies?

Not even considering whether or not we should do this, i do not think we can afford to do this.
Not only due to our debt but also because the entire world is already viewing us as an aggressive power.
Things are heating up with Israel again.
I just do not see how we can afford to get involved in this.

galenrox

We could afford to do it, but I agree that we shouldn't get involved militarily. It's essential that the presence of capitalist economies not be seen as being imposed on South America by the US, as were it not for this perception (and to some extent this truth) Chavez would be some fat colonel rotting away in prison for his repeated coup attempts before rising to power.
I think we can motivate Brazil or Chile to step in in Colombia's defense. Both are moderately successful states with economies developing in a way that were South America to stabilize they would each profit immensely, and no one could construe either as being proxies for the United States, this could actually prove to be a catalyst moving South America in a much better, more sustainable direction than either the socialist nonsense or the perception of US imperialism through our various military interventions, but more notably through the IMF (which is a nonsense argument which for some reason is widely accepted throughout latin america). If we do nothing, it's unreasonable to expect Colombia to fare well, considering that it's almost completely surrounded by Chavez and his lackeys in Ecuador, Bolivia, and Nicaragua. They could win a war of attrition, but it's unrealistic to think that their government is strong enough to survive even if they win a war of attrition, as it would leave most of the region economically destitute.