The VonFrederick 

Tempus             

May 2008  Volume 6 Issue 5

  Feature Article:

Why pushing for Colombia! 

The US government and its strange bonds with a really unstable country.

Eric Chevreuil, Retired Captain, French Military, The VonFrederick Group

For almost three decades, the US government has been involved in an anti narcotic war in Colombia. 

Officially the main goal was to help the local government put an end to the culture, refinery and export to America of the cocaine from that poor country. There, peasants had to resort to the illegal culture for lack of alternate crop and source of income. 

The Colombian elite was made of drug lords and Pablo Escobar was the top dog, the one and only – and also one of the richest men of the world- until his violent death in 1993. For the poor, he was a sort of Robin Hood, providing them with a source of income, lodging, schools, and health facilities in exchange for a total loyalty. For the Pro US government and anti-drug forces, he was a merciless killer heading the Cartel of Medellin, the man that got thousands of people executed, from government officials to cops and lawyers. 

His death eventually created a vacuum that was immediately filled by the Cartel of Cali (his top contender) and many smaller and rival organizations. Despite millions of dollars, years of  “deforestation”, electronic warfare and active military actions against all the smuggling means the drug lords have used (airplanes, submarines…) the production did not stop at all, and the production of cocaine even increased, unbridled and uncontrollable. 

Today, drug lords, guerillas and Colombian paramilitary forces supposed to fight them are cashing in 
with the white powdered gold. Did the US lose….or not?

Colombia is also a country that has been plagued by a civil war for half a century. Pablo Escobar did try to get rid of the communist guerilla movements that competed with him for the drug money, but he did not succeed and eventually sided with them so everybody got a cut of the drug deals. If you cannot beat them, join them! These guerillas owned the jungle and the FARC group is actually the real American target today (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia). 

Considered as a terrorist group by almost everybody but Castro and Chavez, the group was born in the forties and controls about 20% of the country. Composed of about 15 to 20 thousand fighters, armed and equipped like a regular army, they are led by the septuagenarian Manual Marulanda. The group eventually lost its communist affiliation when it started dealing drugs in the eighties. 

The FARCs are still making the news today and you might have heard of the most recent events linked to them. To better finance their struggle they have also resorted to revolutionary taxes, gold digging and hostage taking. One of these hostages is the famous Ingrid de Bettencourt, a dual citizen of Colombia and France, and a former presidential candidate. She has been held since 2002 and her failing health came fore recently when rumors of her imminent death made the news. Furthermore, in 
March 2008, the Colombian army raided a FARC camp in Ecuador and killed their second in Command and spokesman, Paul Reyes. Tensions arose between the two countries and Hugo Chavez even started to mobilize its military forces in Venezuela.

Drugs coming to America, Marxist guerillas, and corrupted governments…the US had many reasons to get involved and to stay. That is why the “Plan Colombia”, “a Marshall plan for Colombia” came up! 

Brewed in 1999 by Bill Clinton and the Colombian president of the time, Pastrana, and signed in August of 2000, it aimed at pacifying Colombia and generating prosperity. 

One of the goals was to promote substitution crops in Colombia and lower US import taxes so these crops would have a market. 

Suddenly, the culture of coca would be replaced by flowers or other textile related greens and America would be buying it all. It made sense but not to the republican lead congress that vetoed it (and today Bush is pushing it and the Democrat lead congress might reject it! Go figure!). 

In order to achieve that objective, the Colombian administration directly dealt with the FARC and granted them part of the country as a free roaming demilitarized zone in exchange of the dropping of the drug trafficking. The Colombian military leadership reacted strongly, supported by the US congress, and they strong-armed Pastrana into ending his dialogue with the rebels. The only deal left for the Clinton administration was the more traditional one: the arming and training of the Colombian forces to get rid of drug dealers and guerillas. $7 billion of US help over a couple of years were allocated, translated in top notch military hardware and US advisers. Satellite systems were designed and implemented to detect the fields of coca, and chemicals used to destroy them (Roundup from Monsanto!). On the paper, the combination of the two seemed unbeatable but nobody was wise enough to foresee the real results of these massive destructions;

- Growers –poor peasants- lost the coca but also their small gardens as a collateral damages. All means of surviving gone, they eventually joined the FARC seen as the good guys.

- As far as the jungle goes, it was an environmental disaster

- For the coca, it is easy to grow and the fields were moved deeper under the cover of the jungle and the output actually increased

- Small spraying airplanes were destroyed because of their vulnerabilities

All in all, it was a mistake, an expensive failure….but…

War, total war became the new adopted solution by the Generals in Colombia who wanted a share of the $7 billion budget, and by the American government that saw war as a way to invest that same money into the national economy. The satellite system and its maintenance and operation, secured communication, latest US helicopters (18 Blackhawk for $237 million + $120 million for additional heliborne support if necessary), Monsanto chemicals sprayed by Dyncorp airplanes and crews (some pilots were even caught using and dealing the cocaine they were supposed to destroy)…

The Bush administration continued the policy in 2001, despite its failure to achieve the official goals or eradicating coca. President Bush even got more money for the plan and the full support of the new Colombian president.

Alvaro Uribe was elected in 2002 on one platform: the end of the guerillas, the end of the FARC that have killed his father and tried to kill him a dozen times. He was highly motivated to side with the US government and suddenly, Colombia became one of the three countries the most heavily subsidized by America, with Israel and Egypt. The war switched from drugs to anti-guerilla and with presidents Uribe and Bush, the use of the American equipment and personnel for the destruction of the FARC became the official policy. Colombia was put under the total control by the army and the police tasked to crack on the rebels. This state of emergency and virtual dictatorship of Uribe (that granted himself the power to bypass its congress), led to the creation of an illegal and bloody right wing paramilitary groups tasked to do the dirty job, groups quickly matched by the FARC that created the “Bolivarian militias” of urban combat, bringing the civil war to the streets of Bogota. Despite the fact that this paramilitary force under Carlos Castana became even worse than the FARC (human rights violations, rapes, illegal taxes for “protection”, torture, violence, drug trafficking…), and despite the fact that they were eventually added to the US terrorist list, their “good” results against the FARC granted them immunity, as long as they recovered land from the rebels…and secured oil supplies.

Yes….you read it right! OIL with a big “O”…again!

Colombia accounts for close to 1 million barrels a year (up from 100.000 in the eighties) and the US relies more and more on South American oil to keep its gas guzzlers on the road and limit its dependency on the Persian Gulf. Knowing that the FARC have been pretty good in the past at disrupting the Colombian oil production (in retaliation to the American push to destroy them) and because many US companies have been granted exploration and exploitation rights on the yet undiscovered and untapped reserves that sit in FARC held territories, you understand now why the war on the drug lords and their revolutionary accomplices has totally switched to today’s open war on the FARC. For ever, the US administrations, from Clinton to Bush, have tried to secure and develop a new source of oil in Latin America, and the war on Drugs was just a lame excuse, a minimal part of a bigger and longer well orchestrated plan! 

Key words: Plan Colombia, Pablo Escobar, Farc, Colombian oil….

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plan_Colombia
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/15/AR2007031501555.html
http://www.alternet.org/story/9111/
http://www.colombiajournal.org/colombia198.htm
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-8209584922518474909

Back to Top

Dissecting An Early Theory On Female Criminality

Dr. Lionel C.M. von Frederick Rawlins, President & CEO, The VonFrederick Group

Cesare Lombroso published the first edition of The Female Offender in 1895, the first time in Western history that a work of serious scholarship had been entirely devoted to the examination of crimes committed by women. Lombroso’s efforts represented a substantial advance over those of earlier criminologists in that they directed attention to the empirical reality of the existence of criminals rather than dabbling in theoretical and ethical analyses that were unconnected to the actual state of the human condition.

Unfortunately, his field studies utilized unrepresentative samples of incarcerated offenders who had often suffered long periods of confinement under terrible conditions and who therefore showed signs of physical deterioration that were partially the result of criminal justice system “treatment” rather than the cause of the criminality. Lombroso also focused too much on exceptionally severe cases, again generalizing inappropriately to criminals on a whole. These errors were compounded when he applied the techniques that had made his studies of male criminals world famous to his subsequent analysis of female criminals, for he also accepted the current sexist stereotypes of womanhood as true and interpreted female criminality in that light.

For Lombroso, serious criminals were atavists, biological throwbacks to an earlier state of human development. This emphasis on the importance of biology in criminality continued for women long after it had been largely abandoned in explanation of male crime. He applied a Freudian interpretation to female behavior, suggesting that women instigate male crimes and mask their own criminality because they learn to conceal their feelings in sexual intercourse. These and other misleading beliefs about female crime have been convincingly rejected by feminist theorists, but not by all criminologists. Ponder this question: Does the merging of sex roles in general mean that women will shortly be committing as many violent crimes as men?

Back to Top

The heart of preparation for prevention or consequence management to deal with terrorist use of a weapon of mass destruction is getting into place the committed human and physical resources, skills, and advance training, plans, and legal authority that we would want if and when a threat or actual use took place. The rational calculation is straight forward even if difficult. To lst those resources and capacities we must imagine a variety of terrorist scenarios and the needs of different stages of each. 

To determine how much attention we would give to each different scenario and every stage of each, we have to guess at probabilities and try to develop information to enlighten the guesses. To decide what total cost and inconvenience should be borne to get all the needed capacities in place, we must use the estimates of the likelihood that they would eventually be needed and the amount by which their availability could reduce the resulting damage.

But more than an extremely difficult investment calculation is involved. Political leaders are not particularly good at encouraging present expenditures for remote and somewhat unlikely contingencies; nor are they good at insisting that constituents think about ugly matters that they would rather not think about. Not just foresight but also remarkable leadership will be required to 
incur expenses now for stockpiling the human skills, the organizational capacities and arrangements, and the scarce physical resources we would need in the unlikely event of a terrorist attack with nuclear or biological weapons. Also, providing the legal authority we would want on that occasion poses threats to civil liabilities that no one wants to assume needlessly. 

These political problems lie at the core of the issue of preparing for terrorists use of weapons of mass destruction. A large part of the answer lies in a wise use of political and psychological realities. All this is the work of the future. It is obviously beginning already with vast expenditures of federal funds. Much of the task of common sense in battling the terrorist threats of the twenty-first century will remain as I have stated in the previous newsletter. But some of the task is to discover sensible ways of investing and preparing now to be ready to address unlikely threats of immense harms by nuclear or biological weapons of the future.

Back to Top

On Sunday, May 4th, B. Hussein Obama was to “softball” questions lobbed by Tim Russert on 
Meet the Press. To any one who is intellectually honest his performance demonstrated there is not 
much difference between Obama and Hillary. Both are extremely naïve and pose a severe threat to 
our national security

Russert provided Obama the opportunity to illustrate his naivety in regards to protecting America 
against the continuing terrorist onslaught. His plans surely delight the Hate America First liberals and 
their terrorist allies. He announced that he would withdraw from Iraq (essentially a flat desert where 
terrorist travel to fight) and send the troops to Afghanistan (a mountainous terrain where it is difficult 
to prosecute a war). Brilliant! His plans for Iraq and the Middle East after withdrawing are just as idiotic. 

Obama said he will prevent Iran from gaining nuclear weapons by talking directly with Iran. His diplomacy and withdraw from Iraq will show Iran a “change” from Bush’s “cowboy” diplomacy. He would go to the UN and use the pressure of the international community to encourage Iran to “stand down” on its nuclear quest. Proving once again liberals never learn and are “useful idiots”!

The delusional elitist thinks he is going to initiate talks with tyrants. Apparently he was not listening when on Jan. 2, 2007, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad scorned the U.N Security Council for sanctions imposed against Iran and said that Iran had humiliated the U.S. in the past and would do so again. During a meeting with Syria on Jan. 23, 2007, Ahmadineja assured them that “the U.S. and Israel will soon come to the end of their lives… and will be destroyed”. 

In Feb. 2007, Ahmadinejad announced that 3,000 centrifuges were installed at Natanz and enabled Iran to assemble equipment at the nuclear plant. On Apr. 27, 2008, the IAEA briefed member states on information contained on a laptop obtained in Iran by an intelligence operation in 2004. Contents described timing of firing devices leading to an explosion at an altitude of about 600 meters and other aspects of what could be nuclear weapons development. All of this contradicts Tehran had halted its nuclear weapons program in the fall of 2003. 

On May 4, 2008, Ahmadinejad said Iran will not bend to international pressure and give up its nuclear program. Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said Iran will continue its nuclear program despite Western efforts to thwart it with sanctions. Now just what is B. Hussein Obama going to say to these terrorist that will make them see him as anything other than a “Useful Idiot”?Maybe Obama should re-evaluate “Cowboy Diplomacy”, it works. In March 2007, Iran illegally captured a British naval inspection team to demonstrate its ability to confront the U.S. and test Western resolve. In response the Brits refused to apologize and Bush sent the USS Nimitz to join the carrier groups USS Dwight D. Eisenhower and the USS John C. Stennis in the Persian Gulf. Khamenei met with top advisers in an emergency session and fearing that a U.S. military invasion was imminent he ordered the release of the hostages as a gesture to defuse the tension in the region.And of course the Israelis understand the severity of the conflict, the nature of the enemy and what is necessary to defend its citizens. On Feb 5, 2007, Iranian nuclear scientist Ardeshire Hassanpour died mysteriously by poison. Intelligence sources suggested that he had been assassinated by Mossad, who have repeatedly threatened to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear bomb. A more successful strategy than talking! 

Back to Top

Tempus Virtuous

(good), adj., morally excellent, kind, beneficent, honorable or worthy

Good Grief. My dear friend Mary reminded me one day “no one ever said we are going to leave this earth alive!” Her remark reflected the needed humor of watching her husband of 50 + years degenerating from Alzheimer’s disease. How a loved one dies may determine the acuity of grief. The murder/death of a child must be an insurmountably horrifying sorrow. I am inspired by the Amish community in Nickel Mine, Pennsylvania, when last year five Amish girls were lined up in their one-room school building and gunned down by a mentally ill non-Amish neighbor. He then turned the gun on himself. The Amish immediately knew good grieving was the path toward healing. Within days of the tragedy, a spokesperson for the Amish community announced their forgiveness for the killer as well as sending prayers to the killer’s wife, that she too may begin the process of healing. Good grief, how does one do it?

The late Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, psychiatrist and authority on death, remarked in her book Death The Final Stage of Growth, “the problem of death is a universal question. But the answer to that question differs among cultures.” In chapter 3, “Death Through Some Other Windows” focuses on good grieving by offering examples of how the Alaska Indians, Jews, Hindus, et al, mourn purposefully, reaffirm life, and grow. Kubler-Ross further comments growth can come in some unexpected moments, “in death and in grief,” she says, “we do not need as much protection from painful experiences as we need the boldness to face them.” (1)

There is a trauma clinic in Al Taquaddam, Iraq, serving U.S. Marines in shock, where there are clinics for Iraqi children. A U.S. Naval chaplain, sharing some of his reflections with his father via e-mail wrote about a particularly moving moment when an Iraqi father handing over his wounded son to the Marines. “Here, in the midst of a war-torn country…I am learning as a Christian chaplain from an Islamic father that faith means letting go at the absolute worst and traumatic time of your life. I am learning that faith is risking every emotion to save someone you love…” (2)

Letting go… facing painful experiences with boldness…having faith…accepting plans and dreams of what could have been have now changed. There will be a return to wholeness, or at the very least, “growing” from good grieving. 

Letting go, finding the path of good grieving can be an emotionally and physically straining obstacle course. Not one “step” (stage, phase) of grieving is of greater importance than another—nor is there an order in which the “steps” will occur save for the first step and that is “shock.” Looking back, after the sudden death of my spouse I was in shock, numbed for three to four months. For over a year I was unfocused and absentminded; I could not finish a novel for the life of me, a favorite pastime. I longed for his companionship, expecting any moment he would walk through the door. My anger was brief, and did not occur until two years into grieving while preparing to move, gathering and boxing some of his mementos. Loneliness was a horrific step, and it still comes in fits and starts as my journey of good grieving continues into its third year. My guilt was but an instant, as I comprehended the nature of why he died. My sadness comes and goes when I realize he will never see his daughter finish university, marry and begin her family. I believe I am three-quarters to being whole for I have faced my pain and accepted my life has changed, and now I am making new plans and dreams.

(1) Kubler-Ross, Elizabeth, Death The Final Stage of Growth, Prentice-Hall, New Jersey
(2) The Lutheran, January 2006, www.thelutheran.org

For your consideration: goodgriefcenter.com 
For children loosing a pet:
The Tenth Good Thing About Barney by Judith Vorst, Macmillan Publishing Co., New York, NY;
For 30-minute read: Good Grief by Granger E Westberg, Fortress Press, Minn., MN
For an agnostic griever: Death Be Not Proud by John Gunther, Harper & Row, New York

Back to Top

Did You Know? Michelle Glisan Blevins  

• That Equatorial Guinea is one of the smallest countries in Africa and consists of a mainland and five small islands

• That it is believed the first inhabitants of Equatorial Guinea were Pygmies (people whose average adult height is less than 59 inches)

• That even though the government has had a large increase in revenue due to relatively recent off-shore oil and gas discoveries, the general population’s living conditions have improved very little

• That the first Europeans to discover the island of Bioko were the Portuguese in 1471

The Equatoguinean flag has three equal bands of horizontal color: top, green; middle, white; and bottom, red; with a light blue isosceles triangle on the hoist side. Centered on the white band of color are six yellow six-pointed stars (representing the mainland and five offshore islands) above a gray shield bearing a silk-cotton tree and below which is a scroll with the motto UNIDAD, PAZ, JUSTICIA (Unity, Peace, Justice)

WILLIAM HARRISON

William Henry Harrison

1773 - 1841

William Henry Harrison was a United States soldier, statesman and the 9th President of the United States. He was the first presidential candidate to have a campaign slogan, “Tippecanoe and Tyler, Too.” Harrison is known for having given the longest inaugural speech of any U.S. president to date. The 68-year-old spoke for one hour and forty-five minutes outside during a heavy snow. After having given his inaugural speech in such cold weather Harrison contracted pneumonia leading to his death just 31 days later. This made Harrison the first president to die in office and also the one with the shortest term of office

Back to Top

How To Stop A Runaway Horse

1. Hold on tight to the saddle with your hands and thighs. 
   Most injuries occur when the rider is thrown, falls, or jumps of the horse and hits the ground or some immovable object, such as a tree or fence post.

2. Grip the saddle horn or the front of the saddle with one hand and the reins with the other. 
   If you have lost hold of he reins, hold on to the saddle horn or the horse’s mane and wait for the horse to slow or stop. 

3. Sit up in the saddle as much as you can.
   Fight the instinct to lean forward (it will be especially strong if you are in a wooded area with many trees and branches), since this is not the standard position for a rider when the horse is asked to stop (whoa!), and the horse can feel the difference. Keep a deep seat, with your feet pushed a little forward in the stirrups. 

4. Alternately tug and release the reins with a medium pressure
   Never jerk or pull too hard on the reins of a horse running at full speed—you could pull the horse off-balance, and it may stumble or fall. There is a very high risk of serious injury or death if the horse falls while running a full speed (25 to 30 mph).

5. When the horse slows down to a slow lope or a trot, pull one rein to the side with steady pressure so that the horse’s head moves to the side, toward your foot in the stirrup.
   This maneuver will cause the horse to walk in a circle. The horse will become bored, sense that you are in control again, and slow to a near stop. 
   

6. When the horse is at a walk, pull back with slow, steady pressure on both reins until the horse stops. 

7. Dismount the horse immediately, before it has a chance to bolt again. 
   Hold the reins as you get down to keep the horse from moving. 

BE AWARE

• Long reins dangling in front of a horse may cause it to trip. Inexperienced riders should tie the ends of the reins together so that they cannot fall past the horse’s neck and pose added danger. 

• Horse bolt when they are frightened or extremely irritated. The key response is to remain in control of the situation without causing the horse greater anxiety. Talk to it reassuringly and rub its neck with one hand. Yelling, screaming, and kicking the horse will only make it more agitated. 

(Piven and Borgenicht)

Back to Top

Back to Top

The VonFrederick Group

Phone: (877) 207-1300
Fax:     (916) 488-7531
Email:

Dr. Lionel C.M. VonFrederick Rawlins
Lionel@VonFrederick.com

George A. Torres, MBA
George@VonFrederick.com

Eric Chevreuil
Eric@VonFrederick.com

Pat McLane
Pat@VonFrederick.com

Albert Globus, MD
Al@VonFrederick.com

General Clifford L. Stanely, Ph.D.
Cliff@VonFrederick.com

Check out our Information
Page for Recommended 
reading at VonFrederick.com

TEMPUS FUGITS

Back to Top