Word: farces
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
TIME.com: Secretary of State Colin Powell arrives in Colombia today amid signs of strain both in U.S. policy towards that country and in President Andres Pastrana's own plan to make peace with leftist guerrillas of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). What's the current outlook...
...like many Colombian military officers, has no enthusiasm for the continued existence of "FARClandia," the Switzerland-sized chunk of territory the government turned over to the guerillas two-and-a-half years ago which the Colombian army is forbidden to enter. Many Colombians, especially urban Colombians, see that the FARC got something for free, because it hasn't let up on its insurgency despite being given this chunk of territory. President Pastrana has to decide in the next month whether to reauthorize the existence of this zone, and he's under a lot of pressure at home. Many military commanders...
...recent Rand Corporation study commissioned by the U.S. Air Force recommends that the U.S. abandon attempts to distinguish between anti-drug efforts and counterinsurgency, and simply set out to help the government defeat the FARC...
...wealthiest guerrilla army in history, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia which is believed to rake in hundreds of millions of dollars every year from "taxing" the narcotics industry. They're well-fed, well-armed, and are even reported to take seaside vacations in Panama. Life in the FARC can be dangerous, of course - it is, after all, an army at war. But not necessarily more dangerous than peasant life in the war zone, and at least in the FARC you're armed. It's hardly surprising, then, that despite the government's multibillion-dollar U.S.-backed counterinsurgency efforts...
Other countries in the region have reservations of their own. They fret that FARC, ELN and the paramilitaries will begin looking for safe havens outside Colombia. Two weekends ago, at the Summit of the Americas in Quebec City, the Presidents of the nations surrounding Colombia told President Bush that they are worried Plan Colombia will simply push drugs and violence into their yards. In response, the Bush Administration has been fine-tuning a wider Andes plan, which would expand U.S. operations into all five countries. The plan would be more than double the size of Plan Colombia and would represent...