May 13, 2007   The Editors of ECrisis commend the comments from a reader of the Wall Street Journal for summarizing what so many already acknowledge: Alvaro Uribe of Colombia is doing a terrific job as president. It is no longer helpful to be envious of Colombians for their recent success stories as so many Ecuadoreans normally perform when faced with the positive outcomes of other's real time work. Ecuadoreans, most of whom admire Uribe and can no longer ignore Colombia's success story, as their own deteriorates below the pale, can themselves not only stand up to applaud Uribe but can insist that Ecuador replicate in full Uribe's principled leadership. We believe that this would be a step in the right direction.  In fact, Ecuador would do well to stand on principle even as Colombia has done. Indeed...Ecuador is rapidly becoming as disgusting as Colombia was in the 1980s and 1990s where functional quality of life was practically non-existent.
 
The vision and the legal intent of the original U.S. gift to the Andean nations was based on President Bush I's position that jobs- not state welfare- would lift poverty in the Andes. "Trade not AID" remains a wholesome application of what the USA can support in the Andes. Initially deemed as a small step- a baby step- for the post-dictator region, the USA's gift  called the ATPDA was always a baby step to assist Latin nations toward reform and free trade. It always carried a sunset and a requirement to stem the corrupt drug culture. The ATPDA was a small step, like  a grade school primer, for young nations to mature in to responsible nations.

To enable Ecuador and Bolivia with retreat from responsible nation building by ignoring the facts about the installation in Ecuador and Bolivia as narco-zones is more than passive-aggressive complicity by U.S. decision makers. It becomes aiding and abetting not only the retention of adolescent behaviors by not insisting on normative adult-like governmental behaviors but will indeed mask  the very crimes in the Andes which the USA is supposed to abhor. For Rafael Correa's economy is already collapsing. His policies, in a dizzying speed, has so repulsed any free nation that no one- no one at all- seeks to play in his very corrupt endeavors, unless of course one is Ahmadinejad of Iran, Hugo Chavez of Venezuela and the minions from the FARC decamping to Quito for fun and sun. To reward such adolescent demands by Correa while not delivering adult supervision to his criminal enterprises is to tamper with the basics of free markets by sheltering crime and neo communism is fully objectionable. We urge the USA to strip the long overdue end to the ATPDA, insist that Correa grow up and join the league of states already participating in appropriate, mature trade practices (Mexico, Canada, Chile, Panama, CAFTA nations, Peru and Colombia come to mind) and rejecting Correa's unprincipled tirades and teen age demands of something for nothing. Something for nothing is not what the framers of the ATPDA had in mind and there is no excuse for the USA to aid and abet criminal regimes by covering over their criminality. To reward Ecuador's soaring drugs trans shipment activities, its money laundering for the FARC and global criminals, its theft of U.S. corporate assets, its termination of all democratic principles and its stubborn state kleptocracy is to further abet the very crimes underway. We say: let the chips fall where they may but the USA must never aid and abet the end of due diligence and fact based reporting on Rafael Correa's criminal intentions, which is today the case at hand. Peru, Panama, Chile, Mexico and Colombia have moved ahead from aberrant dysfunctional adolescent behaviors. To enable Ecuadoreans to stay mired in their own dysfunctional failed state is to abet their demise and helps none, no matter how happy some may be to appear to chirpily tell us that dysfunctional democracy led by criminals is fabulous. It is not. Failed entities are still failures no matter how much the U.S. Department of State and the Correa propaganda machine pretends to gloss over the facts.
 
If the first world leaders sincerely intend to encourage growth in third world nations, they must start by insisting that the third worlders end their addiction to their own self destruction and grow up as responsible global actors. By seeking to enable Ecuador's criminal regime under Correa and while making a false appearance of building the coalition of democracies in Latin America, the USA appears to be aiding and abetting Correa's rampant criminal regime. Friends- real friends- do not enable crime and self-destruction. When we do, we get a Hugo Chavez and a Rafael Correa...and their pals from the FARC, Fidel Castro and Mahmoud Ahmadinajad. Correa has functionally entered a dysfunctional marriage with Iran, Cuba and Venezuela. We not reward these outrageous, criminal governments with ATPDA. Why should we reward the undeserving and corrupt Correa undemocratic regime with a U.S. taxpayer gift too? An ATPDA extension for Correa only hides synthetically what the financial world already knows: Correa's marriage of convenience, like all marriages of convenience, with Iran, Cuba and Chavez will never lead to anything functional and is disgustingly dysfunctional. Correa's Ecuador must reform and Ecuadoreans must terminate Correa's love affair with his marriage of convenience with some of the globe's worst actors or see the failures of his policies. To hide or mask these failures only prolongs the agony of these criminal actors. A write-in campaign to elect Uribe as Ecuador's next leader is not a bad idea.
 
- The Editors, ECrisis

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May 12, 2007
 
Colombia's Media Scorn Gore's Ridiculous Actions
The Wall Street Journal
May 12, 2007; Page A9
In regard to Mary Anastasia O'Grady's April 30 America's column "One Righteous Gringo1":

I was in Bogotá recently, where there were numerous articles in the newspapers and magazines decrying the ridiculous actions by former Vice President Al Gore. The conclusion reached by the Colombian media is that Mr. Gore is more concerned about his run for the presidency or a possible Nobel peace prize than he is about truly helping the environment and supporting the president of Colombia, who has done more for democracy in South America, and more for the environment via the fight against narco criminals than any other person. How sad that a former vice president would choose to turn his back on a leader who has transformed a country that a little over five years ago was so dangerous that one could not leave the capital without fear of kidnapping or death into a vibrant, thriving democracy.

I am deeply saddened when I know that someone supposedly as smart as Mr. Gore is not wise enough to see through the typical South American politics at play here. As a gringo myself, I believe in the future of Colombia, and I know that while we in the U.S. may have the luxury of choosing whether or not to help fight the war on drugs, the people of Colombia have no choice -- they have to fight, or they will be doomed to a life of misery and death as was seen in the pre-Uribe years. We have an obligation to support this country with a strong free- trade agreement, because after all it's the gringos in this country with insatiable appetites for drugs who have caused so much misery for this people.

Lewis R. Fisher
Irvine, Calif.