How To Foment Anti-Americanism

Via Radley Balko, the latest item on the list of things to keep in mind when considering where anti-American populists like Hugo Chavez and Evo Morales get their electoral support:

The latest affront, they say, is a recommendation this month from the UN’s drug enforcement watchdog, the International Narcotics Control Board (INCB), that Bolivia and Peru criminalize the practice of chewing coca and drinking its tea. The move has provoked widespread anger and street protests in the two countries, especially among the majority indigenous populations. For them, coca has been a cultural cornerstone for 3,000 years, as much a part of daily life as coffee in the U.S. (La Paz is home to perhaps the world’s only coca museum.) From the countryside to swanky urban hotels, it is chewed or brewed to stave off hunger or exhaustion or to ease the often debilitating effects of high-altitude life in the Andes. It is also “used by healers and in ceremonial offerings to the gods,” says Ana Maria Chavez, a coca seller in La Paz, who refers to her product as “the sacred leaf.” Pope John Paul II even drank coca tea on a 1988 visit to Bolivia. It is, says Chavez, “part of who we are.” [...]

Even as the INCB was issuing its report, the Bolivian government was reaffirming its desire to increase Bolivia’s legal coca crop limit from 12,000 hectares (30,000 acres) to 20,000 hectares (49,000 acres). The Bush Administration has warned that the latter move would put Bolivia in violation of its international agreements — it is “not consistent with Bolivia’s obligations,” said the State Department — and risk tens of millions of dollars in U.S. aid.

Obviously, if we get our way on this the whole cocaine problem in the United States is going to go away. Hahaha. In broader strategic terms, it's no coincidence that the regions of the world that have most consistently been subjected to an imperial approach from the United States -- Latin America and the Middle East -- is where you see the most hostility to the United States. Portions of the world that have received more dignified, respectful treatment generally return the favor.

Comments

I thought it was because they hated our freedom.

Posted by Brian | March 23, 2008 4:34 PM

Obviously, if we get our way on this the whole cocaine problem in the United States is going to go away. Hahaha.

I believe you've mistakenly substituted earnest IM laughter for the slow, derisive laughter you were going for: Ha. Ha. Ha.

Posted by southpaw | March 23, 2008 4:37 PM

Re "it's no coincidence that the regions of the world that have most consistently been subjected to an imperial approach from the United States -- Latin America and the Middle East -- is where you see the most hostility to the United States. Portions of the world that have received more dignified, respectful treatment generally return the favor. "
--------------
Aside from Russia --possessor of several thousand nuclear warheads and ICBMs with which to deliver them -- what other "portions of the world have received diginified, respectful treatment" from the US government?

Posted by Don Williams | March 23, 2008 4:48 PM

Aside from Russia --possessor of several thousand nuclear warheads and ICBMs with which to deliver them -- what other "portions of the world have received diginified, respectful treatment" from the US government?

Post-WW2 Europe and Japan? South Korea? China since 1973?

Posted by LaFollette Progressive | March 23, 2008 5:29 PM

The coca subject is very heatedly debated throughout South America. The Washington Office on Latin America (nonprofit advocacy group) had an interesting review of consequences of the U.S.-backed aerial fumigation programs in Colombia.

This policy has not decreased production of coca, nor has it changed that the still government-linked right wing narco-paramilitaries* control perhaps all of Colombia's heroin trade and nearly all of Colombia's cocaine trade.

Intensive aerial herbicide spraying of coca crops in Colombia has backfired badly, contributing to the spread of coca cultivation and cocaine production to new areas of the country and threatening human health and the environment, a report released today by the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA) shows.

Aerial spraying, or fumigation, has been a central part of U.S. drug control policy in Colombia for nearly a decade. The new report, "Chemical Reactions," shows that after fumigation of more than 2 million acres of the Colombian countryside, coca cultivation and cocaine output remain undiminished. The dispersal of coca and cocaine production is exacerbating threats to biological diversity in Colombia, one of the most ecologically rich countries on the planet.

"Fumigation is part of the problem," the report says. "The aerial spray operations tend to reinforce rather than weaken Colombian farmers' reliance on coca growing, prompting more rather than less replanting, thereby contributing to coca's spread into new areas of the country."

U.S. aid to Colombia has totaled more than $5 billion since 2000. As fumigation intensified with an infusion of U.S. funds, officials portrayed the spraying as not merely innocuous to human health and the environment, but as environmentally beneficial because it would inhibit the loss of forests to coca crops. On the contrary, the WOLA report shows that:

Fumigation pushes coca growing into new areas, spreading the ecological destruction that coca growing entails.

The adverse effects on human health and the environment due to exposure to the spray chemicals may be considerably more severe than has been officially acknowledged.

By pushing coca growing into new zones, fumigation also contributes to spreading the violence and corruption associated with drug production to more and more regions of the country. Since 1999, as the spray program escalated, coca cultivation spread from 12 to 23 of Colombia's 34 departments ['states']. Afro-Colombian and indigenous communities have been particularly hard hit by coca's dispersal, the depredations of illegal armed actors involved in the drug trade, and the damage caused by fumigation.

"If you listen to the State Department and the drug czar's office, the problem with fumigation is that we haven't done enough of it. But fumigation is not merely ineffectual, it is counterproductive. Persisting with it will only add to the damage," said WOLA Senior Associate John Walsh, the report's lead author.

Rather than continue on a counterproductive course, the report urges the U.S. and Colombian governments to refocus their drug control efforts on rural development, while targeting enforcement at drug traffickers and criminal organizations, not peasant farmers. Cooperation with affected local communities is crucial to designing viable economic alternatives suited to their cultures and to local ecosystems.

http://www.wola.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=viewp&id=669&Itemid=2

*Link:
http://www.consortiumnews.com/2008/030908a.html

Posted by El Cid | March 23, 2008 7:05 PM

Wait, wait, don't confuse policy towards "coaine" cultivation with "the practice of chewing coca and drinking its tea." The two are nothing close to one another. As the excerpt points out, the freaking POPE had a cup of coca leaf tea. It is really that mild. It's like the Peruvian equivalent of chicken soup or asprin. Starbucks, in all seriousness, is stronger than coca tea (mate de coca). Mild headache? Mate de coca. Joints sore from all day on your feet? Mate de coca will do the trick. Feel a tickle in your throat with the changing weather. Have a nice warm cup of mate de coca. Trying to ban the shit would be like trying to ban coffee here. Or beer, except beer is way stronger. Try that and see how it works.

Posted by Francisco the Man | March 23, 2008 7:23 PM

To be fair, the debate about coca leaves, while important, is really a symptom and symbol of a much deeper debate. The coca leaf was a nice rallying point and a good 'culture war' issue for Morales and Chavez, and the almost-successful Colonel Humala, but the root of their disagreement with the US went much deeper than that. At heart, the radical movements in Bolivia, Peru and Venezuela, whether in power or out of it, are hostile to the ideas of liberalism, capitalism, and to some extent of Western modernity itself. (E.g. Morales promising to 'turn back the clock 500 years' etc.) For me of course that isn't a bad thing. But this underlying opposition would be there with or without the coca leaves.

The division between the South American radical Left and the United States isn't really about coca leaves any more than the debate between Texas and Massachusetts is really about the right to burn the U.S. flag.

Posted by Hector | March 23, 2008 8:09 PM

As coca production is targeted (including both indirectly by targeting non-narcotic uses, and directly by aerial fumigation), the WOLA study above notes the social consequences which arrive, mostly for the poor.

Posted by El Cid | March 23, 2008 8:49 PM

In broader strategic terms, it's no coincidence that the regions of the world that have most consistently been subjected to an imperial approach from the United States -- Latin America and the Middle East -- is where you see the most hostility to the United States.

There you go, blaming America first. Next you'll be telling us 9/11 was chickens coming home to roost.

Posted by brooksfoe | March 23, 2008 8:53 PM

I had coca tea in Peru (and even brought back some coca candy to the US for my co-workers). Honestly, I miss it. It's much milder than coffee. While having the same 'wake up in the morning' effect it doesn't make you as jittery as coffee.

Posted by sky | March 23, 2008 8:55 PM

Noam Chomsky has reported on a Rand Corporation study on how to most effectively diminsih cocaine use in the U.S. Their conclusions, if memory serves me fully:

1. Rehabilitation was most effective.
2. Tougher law enforcement was one seventh as effective as that.
3. Better border control was one eleventh as effective.
4. Funding drug war in Columbia was one twenty-somthingth effective.

What you report is just plain silly. One would think that with a President who used to use cocaine we would know more about the stuff.

Posted by Theo Horesh at ReframeAmerica.com | March 23, 2008 9:08 PM

Noam Chomsky has reported on a Rand Corporation study on how to most effectively diminsih cocaine use in the U.S. Their conclusions, if memory serves me fully:

1. Rehabilitation was most effective.
2. Tougher law enforcement was one seventh as effective as that.
3. Better border control was one eleventh as effective.
4. Funding drug war in Columbia was one twenty-somthingth effective.

What you report is just plain silly. One would think that with a President who used to use cocaine we would know more about the stuff.

Theo Horesh

Posted by ReframeAmerica.com | March 23, 2008 9:09 PM

Noam Chomsky has reported on a Rand Corporation study on how to most effectively diminsih cocaine use in the U.S. Their conclusions, if memory serves me fully:

1. Rehabilitation was most effective.
2. Tougher law enforcement was one seventh as effective as that.
3. Better border control was one eleventh as effective.
4. Funding drug war in Columbia was one twenty-somthingth effective.

What you report is just plain silly. One would think that with a President who used to use cocaine we would know more about the stuff.

Theo Horesh

Posted by ReframeAmerica.com | March 23, 2008 9:11 PM

Sorry all for the above triple post. It was a posting error.

Posted by Theo Horesh | March 23, 2008 9:16 PM

Not suprising, since the United States has made some of its worst foreign policy decisions in regards to Latin America, especially during the 20th century.

Posted by AKBY | March 23, 2008 9:17 PM

In response to my comment "Aside from Russia --possessor of several thousand nuclear warheads and ICBMs with which to deliver them -- what other "portions of the world have received diginified, respectful treatment" from the US government?"

LaFollette Progressive replied:

"Post-WW2 Europe and Japan? South Korea? China since 1973?"

UK and France have Nukes? Check
Japan can make nukes whenever she desires and has already placed satellites in orbit? Check

South Korea? No Nuke -- an anomaly

China: Has at least 15 nuclear-armed ICBMS that can reach the US mainland and has several dozen nuclear warheads? Check

Posted by Don Williams | March 23, 2008 9:44 PM

The much more intelligent response would be to legalize the importation of coca leaf. Its about as strong as tea, there would be a nice market for it, and you need so much leaf for cocaine it would be easy to spot diversions to the cocaine market. the extra income would make it easier to persuade people not to grow coca for cocaine.

of course we would never do something that sane.

Posted by CalDem | March 23, 2008 11:22 PM

South Korea could also have nukes if it wanted to. The regimes we respected the most during the Cold War in Africa and South America - Pinochet's Chile and apartheid South Africa - had nuclear programs of one type or another (we don't talk much about the testing in Chile's deserts in the US for some reason, but it's still a problem there with regard to cancer). Hell, our closest Middle Eastern ally, Israel, is the only one with nukes. Bush has been the closest Republican president to India and that has a lot to do with nukes. If Ghana and Botswana detonated a bomb tomorrow, we would respect them more because we would have to. They have fast-growing economies, vibrant civil societies, democratic processes, etc., but they aren't that powerful nor are they a potential threat, so they get ignored.

Moises Naim had a decent editorial in Foreign Policy not too long ago that danced around this basic idea: since no Latin American country is really a threat to the US, we mostly ignored them (with the exception of railing at Chavez and the Latin left before going back to ignoring them). Plan Colombia should have been a major issue debated in the media, but it got ignored. Our drug policies have fueled violence in Burma, Colombia and Afghanistan, but we only really paid attention to Afghanistan once the Taliban's ally, al-Qaida, showed they could hurt us. We need a media that actually talks about international issues on a regular basis besides the Iraq War and Israel-Palestine instead of having to catch everyone up every time something like the monks' protests in Burma occur.

Posted by Reality Man | March 23, 2008 11:29 PM

"The much more intelligent response would be to legalize the importation of coca leaf. Its about as strong as tea, there would be a nice market for it, and you need so much leaf for cocaine it would be easy to spot diversions to the cocaine market. the extra income would make it easier to persuade people not to grow coca for cocaine."

Very true. Hell, oftentimes a lot of stores won't let you buy more than six to ten pairs of jeans at a time because a lot of jeans get re-sold in department stores in Europe and Asia. Anytime a farmer makes a huge fertilizer purchase, the FBI has to check up on it.

Or we could legalize both coca leaf imports and cocaine and focus on rehabilitation for cokeheads instead of billions spent fighting a losing war on drugs and destroying legitimate Colombian crops. Just a thought.

Posted by Reality Man | March 23, 2008 11:33 PM

There is no more immoral and counterproductive US policy at home and abroad than the ridiculous "Global War on Drugs".

Attempting to shift blame for drug abuse from consumers in rich countries to dirt-poor farmers in the Third World enriches and empowers our worst enemies and undermines our friends abroad, and swells the prison population needlessly at home. The idea that we need a giant, militarized policy to save us from ourselves is Nanny State foolishness at its worst.

Posted by Robert Powell | March 24, 2008 4:29 AM

Reality Man,

Moises Naim is a right-wing propagandist who has never let truth get in the way of a good storyline- I wouldn't give him much credibility. He's also come close to the line of calling for a US invasion of his own country.

The only way to suppress drug consumption here in the US is to pursue a combination of harsh law enforcement (more cops, longer sentences, maybe death penalty for dealers, less mercy towards criminals) which many liberals would not accept, as well as comprehensive anti-poverty and public sector employment programs (which many conservatives would not accept). It's politically easier, all around, for us to blame Bolivian peasants and Venezuelan socialists for why our inner cities are going to pot.

Posted by Hector | March 24, 2008 9:29 AM

Just to add....our 'benign neglect' towards most of Africa is, at the very least, better for them than the outcome of our historical foreign policy in Latin America and Southeast Asia. Probably the best situation for a developing country is when the US barely knows they exist.

Posted by Hector | March 24, 2008 9:33 AM

It's amazing how Robert Powell can be utterly wrong on Iraq and yet utterly right on drug policy.

Must be a pot head on his days off propagandizing.

Or maybe he can only frequent this site because he does LOTS of cocaine.

Hector, of course, is clueless as always.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | March 25, 2008 12:16 AM

Let me get this straight. The State Department of the USA -- which has never respected another nation's sovereignty when it didn't feel like it -- is accusing Bolivia of not honoring international agreements???

Excuse me while I vomit. This is up there with Dick Cheney calling on the Palestinians to renounce violence.

Posted by Eric | March 25, 2008 3:17 AM

"The only way to suppress drug consumption here in the US is to pursue a combination of harsh law enforcement (more cops, longer sentences, maybe death penalty for dealers, less mercy towards criminals) which many liberals would not accept, as well as comprehensive anti-poverty and public sector employment programs (which many conservatives would not accept). It's politically easier, all around, for us to blame Bolivian peasants and Venezuelan socialists for why our inner cities are going to pot.

Posted by Hector | March 24, 2008 9:29 AM"

Death penalty for dealers would just mean that poor kids dealing in Baltimore would get executed while rich kids dealing to their friends in prep school dorm rooms would lose little more than financial aid. Plenty of Asian countries execute drug dealers, yet they still have a whole lot of dealing going on. Thailand's underground is renowned for its drugs, among other things. There is no clear evidence that states that have the death penalty for things like murder and rape, have less violent crime. In fact, the Greater Boston area is the safest metropolitan area in the US, smack dab in a non-DP state that once had Dukakis as governor. All harsher sentences would do here is swell the prison population, which is already too large, around 1% of the adult population. More cops on the streets would probably help, but as the second Giuliani administration shows, that doesn't mean much unless those cops are properly trained and integrated themselves into the local neighborhoods.

The war on drugs is little more than a war on our poorest urban communities. Urban communities are the ones that have to deal with the street violence of the underground drug trade. We ignore that the Forbes and Kennedy families were little more than drug dealers before they became respectable. As Chris Rock once said, "only the white man can profit from pain." It has become little more than a war on poor black and Latino men in poor urban communities.

Besides, we could always treat American adults like adults and let them make their own decisions about what to put in their bodies. We let individuals drink themselves to death, just as we should let them, yet we quiver in fear at the thought of someone smoking home-grown weed or snorting coke. Who knows how much richer South American farmers would be if we just imported coca leaves for tea, never mind if we imported cocaine legally? Maybe then it would be easier to stand up to the likes of the FARC and take the winds out of the sails of the military leftist jokers like Chavez.

Posted by Reality Man | March 25, 2008 4:06 AM

Hector-
You don't really think that this is a legal justice kind of problem, do you? The best drug control is in the collective experience of society, starting with the family, that's also most relevant in terms of unwanted teen pregnancy, chronic unemployment, and degraded public education. Among other things.

Serious drug abuse is a personal matter. This is not some mysterious alien threat. People have used, and in small minorities abused drugs since the last ice age, at least. At the end of the day, it's a self-limiting problem. Some people will ruin their lives with drugs no matter what. Let them. It is unsupportable to insist that we distort and profoundly damage our society and our relationship with other nations in the hubristic and futile attempt to rescue people who aren't asking to be rescued.

Posted by Robert Powell | March 25, 2008 10:01 AM