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Colombia Spent U.S. Anti-Drug Aid Hiding Political Ties to Drug Trade

The U.S.-funded counterinsurgency campaign against a Marxist rebel group in Colombia was viewed as so successful that it has become a model for strategy in Afghanistan. But things were not what they seemed: the Washington Post reports that U.S. ally and former president Alvaro Uribe has been implicated in "egregious abuses of power and illegal actions," involving U.S. aid an "possibly U.S. officials" -- all under the cover of fighting drug trafficking. American cash, equipment, and training were sent to Colombia to help break up cocaine-smugglers, but were actually used "to carry out spying operations and smear campaigns against Supreme Court justices, Uribe’s political opponents and civil society groups."

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