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Title: Bad Neighbor Policy: Washington's Futile War on Drugs in Latin America by Ted Galen Carpenter ISBN: 1-4039-6137-9 Publisher: Palgrave MacMillan Pub. Date: 01 January, 2003 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 5 (2 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: An Indespensible, Up-to-Date Examination
Comment: "Ted Galen Carpenter's new book is an indispensable, up-to-date examination of 'Washington's futile war on drugs in Latin America,' as its subtitle states the topic. The author, a vice president at the Cato Institute, surveys the history of this policy, dissects the 'ugly American' tactics used to carry it out, and concludes with 'a blueprint for peace.'
"The title Bad Neighbor Policy cuts to the quick by twisting Roosevelt's 'Good Neighbor' phrase of the 1930s to fit the current reality of destructive buck passing that characterizes the U.S. drug war in Latin America today. Most Americans, including drug policy analysts, seldom take this international aspect seriously. Although U.S. policymakers since the Cold War have trumpeted U.S. support for legal, democratic, and market reforms in the region, the 'prohibitionist [drug] strategy works at cross purposes to all of these objectives' (p. 167). Indeed as Venezuelan American journalist Carlos Ball remarks, 'The war on drugs has done more harm to democratic institutions in Latin America than all the communist guerrillas of the last four decades of the twentieth century combined' (personal correspondence, Ball to William Ratliff, June 24, 2003)....
"Public and government 'hysteria' in America reached 'record levels' in 1986 after the death of basketball star Len Bias from an overdose of cocaine. This hysteria provoked passage of the Anti-Drug Abuse Act and the declaration that drug trafficking is a national-security issue that requires significant involvement by U.S. military and intelligence forces. The invasion of Panama to seize Manuel Noriega in 1989 was the most overt U.S. military intervention to date....
"The core of recent drug policy is the Plan Colombia, originally an integrated $7.5 billion project that was born dead during Clinton's last years. Little beyond the antidrug military component (about a quarter of the total) was delivered (by the United States), while the economic and other development aid depended in large part on nonexistent Colombian and seldom forthcoming European funds. Neighboring countries have become unwilling hosts to drug producers and traffickers driven out of southern Colombia by expanded eradication campaigns -- the inevitable 'push-down, pop-up' phenomenon.... Arrogant policies -- such as the potential annual 'decertification' of Latin American governments that are determined not to have 'cooperated' enough with the United States -- have weakened fledgling institutions, angered the public (who think the United States should be decertified), and driven peasants into the arms of narcoguerrillas. 'The bottom line,' Carpenter notes, 'is that, no matter what the specific configuration of tactics, the supply-side campaign against illicit drugs is doomed to fail. As long as there is a substantial global demand for those drugs, the supply will continue to flow' (p. 121). In the end, as The Economist has stated, 'by any reasonable measure, America's "war on drugs" is a disaster' (May 3, 2001, qtd. from the on-line edition).
"In his final chapter, Carpenter concludes that the only way out is drug legalization -- that is, 'treating currently illicit drugs as alcohol and tobacco are now treated' (p. 232). The book's strength, however, is its detailed dissection of U.S. drug policies in Latin America, not its summary statements (however much we may agree with them) on other matters that must be examined in detail when changing a complex, fundamentally flawed, decades-old policy with vast international repercussions. The monster the U.S. government has nurtured in Latin America and beyond is now on its own seeking whom it may devour....
" ...Rather than dodging this dilemma, we need to highlight it, pointing constantly to the baleful international consequences of the prohibitionist drug strategy and to the extremely difficult options it throws in the laps of American policymakers, who of course made the bad policies in the first place and are in a position to change them. Most Americans are moralistic about foreign policy, so one important tack would be to emphasize the moral abomination of this policy, abroad as well as at home.
"Some other recent studies touching on Latin America offer valuable supporting or contrasting perspectives. Ivelaw Griffith's edited volume The Political Economy of Drugs in the Caribbean (New York: St. Martin's, 2000) and Robert MacDoun's and Peter Reuter's coedited book Cross-National Drug Policy (London: Sage, 2002) touch on many of the broad issues. The latter includes a thoughtful essay by Francisco Thoumi. Robin Kirk's More Terrible Than Death (New York: Public Affairs, 2003) relates many examples of the horrors in Colombia and places great responsibility on the United States, but for the most part it targets users, not government policy. Russell Crandall's Driven by Drugs (Boulder, Colo.: Lynne Rienner, 2002) provides considerable detail on how drugs drive U.S. policy toward Colombia. My essay co-authored with Edgardo Buscaglia, War and Lack of Governance in Colombia: Narcos, Guerrillas, and U.S. Policy (Stanford, Calif.: Hoover Institution Press, 2001), focuses on domestic as well as international factors affecting drugs and chaos in Colombia. Articles by Pamela Falk and Kenneth Sharpe in Stephen Thompson's edited volume The War on Drugs: Opposing Viewpoints (San Diego: Greenhaven, 1998) are useful, but their brevity illustrates how even books that bring together drug war specialists seldom look seriously at the problem's international aspects. Finally, a different twist in several ways is Walton Cook's Buzzword (Boalsburg, Pa.: Public Policy, 2001), a novel that discusses the possible control of narcotics-producing plants by the use of natural or enhanced organisms."
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Excerpted from a review by William Ratliff in "The Independent Review," Winter 2004.
Rating: 5
Summary: A Special Book: Engaging & Enlightening
Comment: "Bad Neighbor Policy: Washington's Futile War on Drugs in Latin America," by Ted Galen Carpenter is arguably the best book ever written on the American war on drugs in Latin America. This book is engaging and enlightening. Moreover, it is one of the most thoughtful and perceptive analyses we've ever had on Washington's campaign against drug production in Latin America.
This book is truly special. The "Introduction" exposes thirty years of American failure. From there the author explains policy from Presidents' Nixon, to Reagan, to Bush and to Clinton. He then goes on to focus on the dangerous implications of Plan Colombia and of many other flawed strategies that create an "ugly American" image. Finally, the author's narrative arrives at Mexico and the potential for disaster.
In conclusion, author Ted Galen Carpenter bravely outlines a blueprint for peace and for ending the war on drugs. This man has unique vision and this is a very worthy book. Hats off to a tier-one scholar! Highly recommended.
Bert Ruiz
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Title: Driven by Drugs: U.S. Policy Toward Colombia by Russell Crandall ISBN: 1588260895 Publisher: Lynne Riener Publishers Pub. Date: 01 April, 2002 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
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Title: More Terrible than Death: Massacres, Drugs, and America's War in Colombia by Robin Kirk ISBN: 1586481045 Publisher: PublicAffairs Pub. Date: 07 January, 2003 List Price(USD): $27.50 |
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Title: Killing Peace: Colombia's Conflict and the Failure of U.S. Intervention by Garry M. Leech ISBN: 097203840X Publisher: Information Network of Americas (Inota) Pub. Date: April, 2002 List Price(USD): $10.00 |
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Title: Talons of the Eagle: Dynamics of U.S.-Latin American Relations by Peter H. Smith ISBN: 0195129989 Publisher: Oxford University Press Pub. Date: 01 November, 1999 List Price(USD): $29.95 |
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Title: Latin America in a Changing Global Environment by Riordan Roett, Guadalupe Paz ISBN: 1588261913 Publisher: Lynne Rienner Publishers Pub. Date: 01 April, 2003 List Price(USD): $48.00 |
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