Plan Colombia

During a lot of these instances, they kind of had the same enemy, which is making sure that they get their fair share of what they feel they're owed, and the U.S. does it.

So in terms of paramilitary groups and Plan Colombia, which happened in the late 80s, early 90s, both paramilitary groups and cartel groups worked against that because a huge attempt was to kill off any areas that could be used for growing coca.

And so obviously that was in their interest to make sure that doesn't go well.

Yeah, that was the U.S. campaign to work with the Colombian military to do that.

He proposes equitable health care.

He proposes land reforms.

He proposes a different type of reintegration with FARC and ELN, he proposes also not being so connected and dependent on the United States, right? Which is a pretty big break from policy when you consider that we were living at the time with the remnants of Plan Colombia, which was enacted in 1990 under Bill Clinton.

And this called attention to a lot of people, but I think a lot of it is because he campaigned, he ran a very reminiscent, I feel like I can say this as a U.S. historian, a reminiscent campaign to like JFK, right? He went everywhere.

And then in late 25, we had this military buildup and this idea that somehow drugs were coming from Venezuela, United States.

And part of my bio, I ran Plan Colombia for three years.

I ran Canada Narcotics in Colombia for 2010 to 13, into the Western Hemisphere for 13 to 15.

And I said at the time, with what we had in the Caribbean, it was like cooking an egg with a blowtorch.

I wrote a piece for MSNOW, The Drone Wars Come to America, where we took out Nino Guerrero, the head of Trenadagua.

I'm like, guys, this is unprecedented.

And not only that, we're now talking about using the shield of the Americas to action targets together with countries inside, like the dairy farm we blew up in Ecuador, for instance, right? And unprecedented, when I was running Plan Colombia, we did advise and assist the Colombians' action targets.

We advised and assisted.

Que en realidad es una revelación sobre su estrategia de guerra.

Ahí se habla de un Plan Colombia II, con Estados Unidos, Israel, del que poco sabemos, de permitir el porte legal de armas para el ciudadano decente.

Favor definirme que es decente para este gobierno.

y de crear unas nuevas convivir con veteranos y reservistas que me imagino también deben ser decentes.

But the biggest story is that Bogota is also looking towards Washington.

The Colombian government has asked the United States for greater military cooperation, and U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has said Colombia has authorized joint operations targeting such, quote, "'narco-terrorist' and criminal networks in the country." This would mark a significant departure from the previous government position, which was much more negotiated focus, and potentially bring Colombia back towards something resembling a new Plan Colombia.

We're already seeing action.

Colombian forces announced the killing of a senior FARC dissident, Commander Nozar Felipe Arcadio.

The US just announced a billion dollars in funding for the new Colombian government.

It's already being called Plan Colombia 2.0.

Except like with all good sequels and reboots, they've punched up the stakes.

This time, lethal American military action is directly authorized.

People, like you say, have short memories.

Plan Colombia, which actually was initiated under Clinton, but then run all the way up till 2015.

And there's reasons it ended then.

It had nothing to do with politics or whether it was a Republican or Democrat in office.

We'll still wait to see whether that becomes more aid.

Plan Colombia.

Let's be frank about this.

I don't see the name Plan Colombia is going to be anywhere.

If there is a name, it's going to be different.

Maybe plan milagro, miracle plan.