Could US complicity in war crimes in countries like Colombia offer a playbook for domestic repression? After the Cold War, U.S. advisors helped the Colombian military incorporate illegal paramilitaries to assassinate trade unionists, journalists and others.
This story became of the evidence that led the State Department to designate Carlos Castano and his paramilitary group known by its acronym in Spanish as the AUC, as a terrorist organization over a year later, in 2002.
Back in 1989, the CIA built its first counter-narcotics center in the basement of its Directorate of Operations headquarters in Langley, Virginia. Since then, the newly renamed “crime and narcotics center” has increased four-fold, says CIA spokeswoman Anya Guilsher…
