US Labels Cartel 'Terrorist' While Funding State Terrorists
The Biden administration has formally labeled Colombia's Clan del Golfo cartel a terrorist organization, citing its 9,000 fighters and drug trafficking. (Because, you know, trafficking is the real issue here, not the destabilization of sovereign nations.) This comes decades after the U.S. funded death squads and paramilitary groups in the region, including the Contras, whose own drug trafficking
operations were extensively documented by Gary Webb in the '90s. Funny how 'terrorist' labels often apply to those *not* on the payroll. One might wonder if the U.S. has a secret scorecard where 'armed group causing civilian deaths' only gets a 'terrorist' designation if they aren't, say, an ally with a multi-billion dollar arms deal. The State Department's moral calculus appears flexible: a
cartel selling drugs is terrifying, but a state bombing hospitals and schools with US-made weapons is just... 'complex.' It seems the term 'terrorist' is reserved for those who aren't strategically useful, or to justify another proxy intervention. Or perhaps, simply, those who haven't yet received their annual AIPAC donation.