I Am Not Vacationing in Colombia Any Time Soon

The ESPN documentary The Two Escobars traces the rise and fall of the Colombian national soccer team and drug king-pin Pablo Escobar; it is easy to see how both Escobars come to be venerated in a country without rule of law or government service, the poor will take money from anyone who will provide it, and soccer is their diversion; for an update on this country and what America is doing there, read Robert Kaplan's Imperial Grunts: The American Military on the Ground; it is typical Kaplan, he gets down and dirty in places few journalists dare to travel, and he has the connections to meet the most important (if not the most highly ranked) people and the interviewing skills to get them to talk: in Colombia, he's embedded with the U.S. Army Special forces that are training President Uribe's Colombian Army to combat FARC, narco-terrorists, kidnappers, and the jungle cocaine lords that have replaced Pablo Escobar, and it is a frustrating job because their ROE (Rules of Engagement) prohibit taking initiative . . . they can only fight if someone attacks them, but these salty Green Berets are ready and willing to sustain casualties in order to lead by example; fortunately or unfortunately, our government isn't as ready or willing as they are, and so the hyper-competent American forces have to watch the not so competent Colombian forces they have trained try to accomplish the impossible: bring order to a fragmented, bosky, mountainous and inordinately poor and corrupt land.