Submitted by John House, Mar 11, 2008 23:30

While Venezuelan troops were being mobilized, Venezuelan students were packing up and heading to the border for protests. Venezuelan businesspersons fretted about the loss of trade and employees from Colombia. And everyone gave reporters in the region an earful about the increase of crime and kidnapping on Venezuela's border with Colombia, hallmark tactics of the FARC and their narco-business allies. So, we can thank freedom to engage in legitimate business and political speech for calming influences.

The camp that the Colombians raided is one of many. They are not make-shift temporary camps. They have semi-permanent buildings and have existed for years. There seems to be a tacit understanding that Ecuador cannot or will not throw the FARC out, and Ecuador may have a fear of what this vicious and unpopular movement can do to their own society.

For its own part, the United States can do its part by eliminating the drug market. Anything our government could do is a pale shadow of the good we can effect by eliminating the demand for illicit drug traffic. We must explain the relationship between these substances and the human suffering that enforces this market. I don't think printing posters illustrating children with fresh wounds from FARC mines and offering them to patrons of clubs, bars and attendees at parties would be out of line at all.

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