Plan Colombia Is a Warning Sign, Not a Model, for Afghanistan

Ten years ago this month, President Bill Clinton signed into law a package of primarily military and counternarcotics aid to Bogotá known simply as Plan Colombia. With the stroke of a pen, Clinton made Colombia the recipient of more U.S. assistance than any country outside of the Middle East, opening a pipeline of cash that’s proven harder to cap than BP’s oil well in the Gulf of Mexico.

With $7.3 billion in American treasure already out the vault door, U.S. government officials, including members of President Obama's Cabinet and national security team, have been singing the praises of Plan Colombia anew -- and the country’s outgoing scandal-plagued president, Álvaro Uribe -- at every opportunity, lest the American public wakes up to what’s being done in its name, with its tax dollars.

Recently, though, the praise has moved from the mere gushing and effusive to open calls to apply the Plan Colombia model elsewhere, anywhere, wherever. In fact, in a recent visit to the Colombian Naval Academy in Cartagena, the usually circumspect Joint Chiefs Chairman, Adm. Mike Mullen, joined the party, saying “I see the same kinds of challenges in Afghanistan ... there's a great deal to be learned from the success that has been seen here in Colombia.”

The problem -- clearly laid out in a compelling new report by Adam Isacson of the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA) -- is that Plan Colombia is a warning sign, not a model, for U.S. assistance and involvement abroad. Sure, the homicides and kidnappings that for years kept international travelers away from the Andean nation -- inspiring at least two forgettable Hollywood blockbusters along the way -- have declined since the early 2000s. Yet, these improvements in security are, to quote Isacson, “partial, possibly reversible, and weighed down by ‘collateral damage,’” not to mention that Colombia continues to lag behind when it comes to meeting basic human rights standards.

That part about collateral damage, though, is what should really make you pause the next time you here some talking head on television hyping Plan Colombia as some panacea. Three days before Adm. Mullen’s visit to Colombia, he paid a visit to Kabul to assure Afghan President Hamid Karzai that the United States remained committed to recently-relieved Gen. McChrystal’s war strategy, which, among other things, dramatically tightened the rules of engagement in order to reduce civilian casualties attributable to international security forces. How strange it was, then, to hear Adm. Mullen characterize Plan Colombia as a “success” just a few days later. Why? Because Colombian human rights groups estimate that some 14,000 civilians have been killed by conflict-related violence between 2002 and 2008 -- a rate of about 2,300 civilian casualties per year -- and many of those deaths are the result of U.S. funding or, at the very least, a nod from Washington. Those appallingly high figures mirror those seen recently in Afghanistan. In 2009, for instance, the United Nations reports that there were about 2,400 civilian casualties -- this in a country with 10 million fewer people than Colombia -- and, thanks in part to President Obama's influx of troops, Afghanistan is only becoming more violent. So, Plan Colombia is characterized as a “success” despite mass collateral damage, while in Afghanistan skyrocketing civilian deaths were cause to reevaluate and adjust an entire war effort. Hmm.

For the sake of brevity, I’ll only note in passing that having 43 legislators under investigation for corruption and collusion with illegal armed actors, a military with the blood of hundreds (if not thousands) of innocent civilians on its hands, and millions of internally displaced people fleeing their homes -- to offer just a few of the more sobering examples of Plan Colombia’s “success” -- would serve only to further discredit an already credibility-challenged government in Kabul, potentially driving even more Afghans into the hands of the Taliban and ultimately, perhaps, putting America's national security at risk.

Learning from one’s mistakes is said to be a sign of humility and wisdom, but Adm. Mullen and Plan Colombia’s other cheerleaders don't seem to be trying to do that. They’re simply, to recall one of the more memorable kerfuffles from the last presidential campaign, putting lipstick on a pig. It’s good to see people calling them on it.

Photo credit: Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff