Yes, you are right about the cocaine addicts in the U.S.!, but (there is always a but!), It was our government who ask for this agreement based on the speech of joint responsibility; U.S. citizens sniff cocaine, and the cocaine fuel the war here in Colombia, so you U.S. are part of the problem and we need your help, because we are just a small economy fighting a worldwide illegal drug mafia that sometimes have been powerful enough to destabilize our country.
And the problem my friend is, that Colombia does not have the necessary resources and technology to fight and defeat the FARC guerrillas responsible for over 15.000 kidnappings, and hundreds of massacres and all sort of crimes against humanity, and of course: Cocaine trafficking.
Remember what kind of monster are we fighting: Once The FARC guerrilla put a collar charged with explosives to a lady asking for money, they didn't pay and her head exploits, Yes, this lady in the left side.
Another one: they recruit under age kids (even under 14) to fight, and not because these kids like the guerrilla, but because they threaten the families “your kid fight with us or all of you will be killed”.
Want some more?, the FARC have planted thousands and thousands of land mines in the country side of Colombia, there are a lot of unsafe places crowded with landmines, and hundreds of innocents are killed or injured every year because of this.
That is why we need that help, not just now, but back in the time of Pablo Escobar (The CIA provides intelligence to kill that bastard) and recently after a disastrous government of our former president Andres Pastrana when the peace talks failed and we need to force the guerrilla to negotiate by defeating them militarily.
This help has worked very well: all the indicators of terrorist attacks, kidnappings are decreasing dramatically, you can see now that Mexico is becoming the source of problems related to Drugs instead of Colombia, and we felt sorry for Mexico, but better them than us, and yes we kill one of the FARC leaders in Ecuador, but you have absolutely no idea how happy we were in that day when finally we kill that animal (remember Colombia have asked through the appropriate diplomatic channels to Ecuador and Venezuela, to investigates if there are members of the FARC in their territories, they always said no!) and meanwhile those FARC animals kills more and more innocents in my country.
We have hit the guerrilla's top men, and also we have uncovered the strategy of this dumb-ass Hugo Chavez who try to use and support the guerrilla in Colombia to control this country and finally create a block to direct and gain influence in all Latin America.
This dictator called Hugo Chavez had always use great words and had always use the word war, he insults the President of the united states, the king of Spain, and everyone who disagrees with him (you can see the human rights situation in Venezuela checking this www.caracasnine.com, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SxUNCqZoqMA); you have no idea what is being a neighbor of that donkey called Hugo Chavez; He is going to use every weapon in his arsenal (Including economic terrorism, and threat with a war) in order to bring under his command the politics in Colombia, that is one goal he needs to reach to gain the influence and the power that he wants.
And remember that we spent money in military equipment but we bought equipment for the guerrilla war, Chavez has spent over 3.5 billion dollars in airplanes (Sukhoi 27), tanks, submarines among others for a conventional war, and has always threaten Colombia with war, we cannot defend ourselves against that power.
He has trained his military personnel with a war game called “how to invade Colombia and defeat his army!)”, now he must know that if he attack Colombia (and believed me, this is a plausible scenario when the oil price falls he will begin to have troubles just trying to feed the population, and then he will try to mislead the attention from that trouble, creating a war!); now he knows he can face a much greater counter attack than only the Colombian forces, and that should act as a powerful dissuasive; That’s why that Venezuelan ape is so frustrated and threatens with “the winds of war” and is actually cutting the commercial ties with Colombia.
So, due to this constant threat from Venezuela, and due to our needs in terms of real time Intel, it seems sensible for us to ask help from the U.S. Government (First: the one who shares responsibility in the cocaine problem, and second: The one with the means, the money and the disposition to help.)
The president Lula is right about something when he tries to reach a formal document where the U.S. was invited to make explicit the reaches of this agreement (to prevent that U.S. gather information on Brazil or Venezuela or Ecuador), and in this part you are absolutely right: Colombia cannot control what kind of intelligence the U.S. Gather here while their airplanes and ground personnel are in Colombia's soil, and that will be the slap on our face to our sovereignty an the whole south American community.
But as you see, from my personal point of view we still win with this agreement.
