Death Squads and the War on Terror: U. S. Imperialism and Class Struggle in Colombia

摘要

Villar and Cottle's book dismisses the idea that the United States is waging a war against drugs in Colombia and instead proposes that 'the [US-led] war on drugs and terror [in Colombia] is part of a counterrevolutionary strategy designed to maintain rather than eliminate the economic conditions that allow the drug trade to thrive'. Moreover, the authors argue that the United States has economic and political interests in Colombia and the region that have remained the same since the Cold War. More specifically, they argue that the United States seeks to eliminate any form of competition, particularly leftist subversives in the region and Colombia's Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, FARC) guerrillas, which threaten the United States' fierce capitalistic goals and domination in the region. Maintaining the status quo, Villar and Cotde argue, enables the United States to channel most commodities' profits (including those from illegal drugs) to its banks and private corporations.