THE PEACOCK REPORT (TPR)

U.S. Unfolds Corporate Welfare Plan for Oil Industry Project in Colombia

U.S. Unfolds Corporate Welfare Plan for Oil Industry Project in Colombia is Steve Peacock's latest contribution to the Narcosphere. The title says it all. Check it out.

DHS 'Tactical Infrastructure' Border Project Underway

Check out the latest contribution to The Narcosphere from TPR's Steve Peacock, who maintains a Drug-War Reporter's Notebook Follow the Money: Bird's Eye View.

Military Plan to Outsource “Humanitarian” Preparedness in Latin America Has Other Goals In Mind

Steve Peacock's latest contribution to The Narcosphere reveals that SOUTHCOM's humanitarian-support contractors also would be responsible for "deterring would-be aggressors" in "regions of tension."

Chavez Castigates 'False Democracy of the Elites,' Calls Bush 'The Devil'

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez in a speech to the United Nations this week called United States President George Bush "the devil," and urged the world to resist the Bush Administration's purported spread of democracy across the globe. That sort of democracy -- which founders of democracy such as Aristotle would not recognize -- is "the false democracy of the elites," Chavez was quoted saying in the following excerpt:

"The devil is right at home. The devil, the devil himself, is right in the house.

And the devil came here yesterday. Yesterday the devil came here. Right here. [crosses himself]

And it smells of sulfur still today.

Yesterday, ladies and gentlemen, from this rostrum, the president of the United States, the gentleman to whom I refer as the devil, came here, talking as if he owned the world. Truly. As the owner of the world.

I think we could call a psychiatrist to analyze yesterday's statement made by the president of the United States. As the spokesman of imperialism, he came to share his nostrums, to try to preserve the current pattern of domination, exploitation and pillage of the peoples of the world.

An Alfred Hitchcock movie could use it as a scenario. I would even propose a title: "The Devil's Recipe."

As Chomsky says here, clearly and in depth, the American empire is doing all it can to consolidate its system of domination. And we cannot allow them to do that. We cannot allow world dictatorship to be consolidated.

The world parent's statement -- cynical, hypocritical, full of this imperial hypocrisy from the need they have to control everything.

They say they want to impose a democratic model. But that's their democratic model. It's the false democracy of elites, and, I would say, a very original democracy that's imposed by weapons and bombs and firing weapons.

What a strange democracy. Aristotle might not recognize it or others who are at the root of democracy.

What type of democracy do you impose with marines and bombs?"

For the full text of the Chavez speech, visit CommonsDreams.org.

Violence in Colombia = More Sole-Source Contracts For U.S. Weapons Makers

More Submachine Guns, Grenade Launchers En Route to Colombia is Steve Peacock's latest contribution to the Narcosphere. It is the 80th article he has written for his Narcosphere Reporter's Notebook Follow the Money; Bird's Eye View, which he launched in Feb. 2005.

State Dept. Contractor to Train Bolivian Internal Investigators

The U.S. State Dept. is planning to deploy a law enforcement training & development advisor to Bolivia, where the still-unnamed private contractor annually will train about 1,500 officers and agents of the Government of Bolivia (GOB). The contractor will serve as an "expert advisor" to the director of the Narcotics Affairs Section (NAS) as well as to the Bolivian National Police (BNP) and the national counternarcotics police, known as Fuerza Especial de Lucha Contra el Narcotrafico, or FELCN. The advisor will be tasked with providing technical assistance to internal affairs investigators at BNP/FELCN as well as implement a management reform initiative.

To read the article in its entirety, please visit The Narcosphere, where this piece originally appeared.

'Riverine' Advisor Gets Million to Train Colombian Forces

The U.S. Army Contracting Agency (ACA) has awarded a $1 million contract to an Amarillo, Texas man to assist the Colombia Marine Corps in conducting waterway-based counternarcotics missions. Steven Berger, operator of Products & Services of the Americas, will provide strategic- and tactical-operations training to Colombian forces under the contract.

In an apparent move to keep a low-profile on the award, ACA buried the contract notice in the FedBizOpps database-archives on Monday, April 10 -- the same day it had posted the legally required notice for the first time.

To read the remainder of this article and for more background info on this and other "drug war" issues, please visit The Narcosphere.

South American, U.S. Herbicide Contamination to Be Studied Under Legal Pot-Farm Contract

An ongoing assessment of potential contamination caused by U.S.-sponsored herbicide eradication of drug crops in South America and domestically will soon begin, according to a recently obtained National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) planning document. The University of Mississippi (Ole Miss) has received a five-year, $6 million federal contract to carry out this and other cannabis-related tasks at its National Center for Natural Products -- which operates the only legal marijuana farm in the U.S.

In addition to analyzing marijuana seized by the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), the Center will, ironically, grow and harvest up to 1,000 kilos of bulk pot, while separately producing and distributing hundreds of thousands of high, low and zero-potency marijuana cigarettes to be used in clinical research. The Ole Miss facility also must “extract, analyze, store [and] prepare” the cannabis for the sake of determining its potency. According to the project’s "statement of work," one of those tasks includes the extraction and storage of one kilo of pure THC, the active ingredient in marijuana.

Treasury Dept. To Audit Recipients of U.S. Grant Aid Across Hemisphere

The Treasury Dept. is embarking upon a monitoring program to ensure that certain Central and South American nations are using U.S. government grants as intended.

To view the full text of this report, please visit The Narcosphere, where the article originally appeared.

U.S. Intends to Share 'Stewardship' of Amazon Conservation Efforts

The U.S. government wants to heighten its role in coordinating conservation efforts in South America’s Amazon Basin, asserting a shared “responsibility for the stewardship” of this and other critical regions of biodiversity. The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) acknowledged last week that commodity markets are driving much of the overfishing, logging, petroleum and minerals extraction in the basin, leading to deforestation and the construction of poorly planned dams and other infrastructure in the area.

Contributing to the challenges of resource management in this region is coca production and narco-trafficking, USAID claims.

Visit The Narcosphere to read this report in its entirety.