Friday, January 04, 2013

Fighting Drug Trafficking in Bolivia

Good question, but non-answer about Bolivia at a State Department press briefing:


QUESTION: Bolivia. New reports suggest that Bolivia’s efforts to fight drug trafficking without the assistance of the DEA or other U.S. authorities may be having some bit of an impact, although it is considered controversial. Has the U.S. seen these reports? And what does the U.S. think about the efforts to deal with illegal drug trafficking, coca growing in distribution, outside of a Merida-type relationship?
MS. NULAND: I didn’t get the vector you were coming at from the beginning, Roz, that they are making improvements or that they’re not making --
QUESTION: Apparently they have made some progress --
MS. NULAND: Yeah.
QUESTION: -- in stopping the trafficking, particularly of coca and its byproducts.
MS. NULAND: Let me get you a fuller report on this. You know that we’ve had longstanding concerns about the narcotics situation in Bolivia. That said, I think we do agree that they have made some progress in 2010, 2011, but there is a whole lot more to do. But let me get you a more subtle sense of that directly later today.
QUESTION: Is it a sense of how much they’ve been able to reduce the trafficking? Is it a question of whether they’ve been able to crack down on illegal traffickers? What is the source of the U.S.’s concern here?
MS. NULAND: Well, that the overall picture is still very high on a global scale.


Bolivia does not have the DEA, but it has Brazil, in a plan that even includes drones. And the "overall picture is still very high on a global scale" even in countries the U.S. is sending aid to. But I guess the State Department is not getting the "vector," whatever that means.

I wonder if a more specific answer really will be forthcoming.

3 comments:

Justin Delacour 12:28 PM  

I think it just goes without saying that the U.S. State Department will apply different standards to rival governments than to allied governments on questions of drugs, democracy, etc.

SwampNigger 10:49 PM  

Justin, Justin, Justin...tisk, tisk. (Insert condescending and exasperated facial expression here.)

Your claim that the benevolent, but maligned, US government would play favorites, and play-down the corruption and short-comings of its ideological allies among nations, is typical of the leftist, proto-communist, terroristically-inclined, nay-Sayers--the folks that are simply jealous because we, the US, have more McDonalds and television channels per capita than the perrenial under-achievers in the global community of (wannabe) consumers.

Morales no quieres 'morals'--and his playing the "race-card" to upset the political and economic apple-cart,
Proclaiming "indigenous rights" and predictable socialist tripe, is evidence of his habituated turpitude.

These types even claim that chewing cocaine is not the same as shooting heroin or meth.

We more educated defenders of justice see through these drugs usher strategums and rhetorical ruses.

I am texting your academic superiors and insisted you be anally probed and thoroughly drug-tested.

Maybe Gitmo water-boarding will have you confess your intentions to destroy the youth of our country by having them question our commitment to enforce freedom and purity upon the world (to render US unprepared to reek nuclear annihilation of all humanity when The Lord commands that we begin Operation Rapture).

Nice try you Godless tool of Satan--you pagan, communist druggie stooge.

Justin Delacour 12:04 PM  

I know, I know, I need to get with the program.

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