|
 Dr.
Russell Crandall
By Henry Bostic
The success of a U.S. policy to help Columbia
successfully fight back against narco guerilla groups on
the left and right who filled the void after the success
of another U.S. campaign to decapitate the Columbian
narco kingpins is now showing up in the drug violence to
Mexico, which threatens the very stability our neighbor
to the south, a Davidson College political science
professor told Charlotte Rotarians on Tuesday.
Dr. Russell Crandall, who in April will start a leave
from Davidson to serve as the primary director for the
Western Hemisphere at the Department of Defense, said
the fight for control of the huge middle man profits of
the drug trade have been "exported to Mexico. I can say
this today, but not after I go to Washington in April.
In fact, I might lose my job if they hear about what
I've said here today."
The success of U.S.-led efforts to stamp out the drug
kingpins then the narco guerilla groups in Colombia
means that "we've transferred the violence to Mexico."
Mexico has assumed the "value-added" role in cocaine.
"Mexican drug lords are now getting the windfall profits
and that has led to the explosion of violence in Mexico,
especially in the states in Northern Mexico along the
2,000-mile border with the U.S."
The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Assistant
Professor of Political Science explained it as the
balloon theory. Push a balloon in one place and it will
pop out in another. "That's what's happening in Mexico
today. The narcos have declared war on the state."
The U.S. military regularly prepares doomsday,
worst-case scenarios of threats to the country, the
author of three books on U.S. and Latin American
relations said. Ten years ago the greatest threat was
Colombia. Most recently the two top scenarios are the
Taliban taking over Pakistan and second the narcos
overthrowing the Mexican government.
Where do the Mexican narco kingpins get their guns?
"Right across the border in the U.S.," said the graduate
of Bowdoin College and Johns Hopkins University. "They
pay in cash (through intermediaries) with no questions
asked. And in some areas it's already spilling over the
boarder into U.S. cities, much like the gunfight at the
O.K. Coral, only more sophisticated."
Unfortunately, he noted, some efforts by the U.S. seem
to be backfiring. The U.S. is spending a lot in Mexico
to train crack troops. "We are doing a good job. Then
the drug guys are outbidding the Mexican government to
hire them to do the dirty work," said Randall, who was
an advisor to President Obama's campaign. In 2004-05,
through a Council on Foreign Relations Fellowship, he
served as the director for the Western Hemisphere at the
National Security Council and as special assistant to
the deputy director for counter-terrorism at the Joint
Chiefs of Staff.
"It's a huge problem that is all interconnected," said
Randall. During the Cold War our overarching fear and
focus was expansion of communism by Moscow through its
proxies such as Havana. Now we face severe threats in
Mexico and we're the external proxy through our drug
consumption."
Randall, who took a group of 12 students to Colombia in
December, began his talk with the question: Why does
Colombia matter to us? By the time he was finished, he
had everyone's attention.
Back at the beginning of the Cold War, the winner of
Davidson's ODK and Student Government Association
teaching award said, Colombia was the United State's
"staunchest ally in South America, known as the Israel
of South America." Its troops were the only Latin
Americans to fight in Korea.
Randall described Colombia as a reliable model Cold War
partner in South America. They got more American
dollars, more Peace Corps volunteers than any country.
It was stable and pro-American, and anti-communist at a
time when Moscow, through its new proxy Cuba was
exporting Marxism around the world.
In 1959 Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC)
got started, about the time Castro was successful in
coming to power in Cuba. The guerillas were "quaint," he
said. "Not many Colombians joined them but believed that
they 'had a beef.'" They were not a serious threat to
come to power.
Then we experienced the rise of the insatiable demand
for cocaine in the U.S. In the 70s and 80s, the windfall
profits went to the narco kingpins. "They became
fabulously wealthy and powerful and declared war on
civil society. They corrupted a state that was already
weak," said the father of twins with another child on
the way.
In the late 80s and 90s the U.S. launched the bipartisan
War on Drugs. "Cooperation meant doing what we say on
drugs - and that was the kingpin strategy. The U.S.
narcotized our relations with Colombia." It was to go
after the kingpins at the source.
"Amazingly it worked," he said. We effectively
decapitated the kingpins, but it left a vacuum which was
filled with paramilitary on the right and the FARC on
the left, fighting for control of the drug profits.
"They were no longer quaint," Randall said. Their war
chests were constantly being refilled by the demand for
drugs in the US and Western Europe. The FARC went on a
rampage. Colombia was on the verge of becoming a failed
state - a narco gun state.
The US again intervened with a bipartisan plan to save
the country. Plan Colombia with massive aid to
professionalize the Colombian military, which for a long
time had taken the attitude, "this is not my fight."
"It was a stunning victory to stabilize the country and
to rest control from the illegal narco groups on the
left and right," said Randall, who Leland Park described
as "one of the new breed who is carrying high the torch
of learning" at Davidson. The military and a renewed
Colombian government filled the vacuum left by the
paramilitaries and reduced violence.
"It was a tremendous success, so look what has
happened?" he asked.
Head Table:
Bob Freeman, Tom Cottingham, Mac McCarley, Leland Park,
Bruce Darden, Andy Zoutewelle;
Invocation:
Bill Loftin;
Visitors & Guests: Don Carmichael; Health &
Happiness: Trent Merchant; Song: Shay Merritt; Piano:
Thomas Moore; Photos: Bert Voswinkel |
