SOUTHCOM Commander Outlines Plan To Expand U.S. Military Aid To Colombia

DefenseNews.com | March 5, 2002 | Emily Woodward

[Stand Watch Listen]

WASHINGTON — The administration of President George W. Bush wants to expand the scope of U.S. military aid to Colombia in 2003 beyond counterdrug assistance to help the Colombian military safeguard the nation's infrastructure and stabilize its struggling democratic government, Army Maj. Gen. Gary Speer, acting commander of the U.S. Southern Command (SOUTHCOM), told lawmakers March 5.

Of the $373 million in military aid for Colombia contained in Bush's $26 billion State Department budget request for 2003, $98 million would go to train and equip indigenous military units to protect the nation's Cano Limon-Covenas oil pipeline, "one of the most vulnerable elements of their economic infrastructure," Speer said in testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee March 5. While limited in scope, this aid would represent a departure from previous U.S. military support for Colombia, which has exclusively focused on the prevention of drug trafficking, he said.

Speer noted this proposed change in U.S. defense posture is the result of the growing professionalism of the Colombian military, "which has emerged as one of respected organizations in the Colombian society," in its opposition to indigenous paramilitary groups, such as the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia and the United Self Defense Group of Colombia, as well as other regional and transnational security threats.

Colombia, Speer said, is the second oldest democracy in the Western Hemisphere and the "linchpin in the Andean region" of South America, which also includes Venezuela, Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia. The United States, he continued, must bolster its efforts to rebuild democracy and re-establish security in Colombia to counter the rising wave of economic and political instability sweeping South America, which has become an increasingly attractive safe haven not only for drug traffickers, but also international terrorist organizations, including the Palestinian militant sect Hamas and the Iranian-backed Hizballah group.

Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., concurred the United States must boost military aid to Colombia in general and provide increased security assistance in particular to Colombian President Andres Pastrana, who, according to Sessions, "will ultimately have to be [Colombia's] Abraham Lincoln, and take back control of his country by force."

[Texaggie79]

[CodeToad]

We’ve got to stop spending taxpayer monies on other nations. If the Columbians want to protect their pipeline they’ll pay for it. Why am I paying for it??