So Bolivia, that rugged heart of South America, has signed a $20m anti-drug deal with the United States. And London, ever the eager lapdog of Washington’s moral crusades, has praised this ‘cooperative model for Andean security’. My, my. How delightfully Victorian. How utterly predictable.
Let us not mince words: this is a pittance. Twenty million dollars is less than the annual budget of a middling English grammar school. And yet, we are supposed to believe this sum will turn the tide against the cocaine cartels that have infested the Bolivian countryside? The same cartels that have grown fat on decades of prohibition, on the very war that America has waged since Nixon first cried ‘narcotics emergency’ in 1971.
Consider the historical parallels. In the late Roman Empire, the emperors would often throw gold coins at barbarian tribes, hoping to buy peace at the frontiers. It never worked. The barbarians took the gold, sharpened their swords, and demanded more. Today, we call it ‘aid’. Tomorrow, we shall call it ‘extortion’. The Bolivian government, in all likelihood, will use this money to fund its own security apparatus, which is itself riddled with corruption. And the cartels will continue to bribe, murder and export with impunity.
But the truly insidious part is the moral posturing. Britain, a nation that once thrived on the opium trade with China, now pats itself on the back for praising this ‘cooperative model’. It is a fine piece of intellectual decadence: we pretend that these are technical problems requiring technical solutions, when in fact they are existential questions about the nature of prohibition, state power and human desire. We would rather fund a paramilitary unit in La Paz than ask the unpopular question: why do we still treat drugs as a criminal issue rather than a public health one?
Let me be clear: I am no apologist for the cartels. Their violence is abhorrent. But to believe that $20m in cash and a few American ‘advisors’ will somehow break the back of an industry worth billions is a fantasy. It is the same kind of fantasy that led us to believe we could win in Afghanistan, or that we could pacify Iraq with ‘nation building’. The Andean region is not a lab experiment. It is a complex web of geopolitics, poverty and cultural traditions. The coca leaf, for goodness’ sake, has been chewed for millennia. You cannot erase that with a press release and a cheque.
What we are witnessing is the slow death of intellectual seriousness. Every time a deal like this is signed, we nod sagely and speak of ‘commitment’. But the commitment is to a failed paradigm. The real commitment should be to honest debate: what if legalisation, regulation and harm reduction are the only paths forward? But that would require courage. That would require defying the sobriety lobby, the moral guardians and the career politicians who have built their legacies on the war on drugs. They will not do it. They would rather write another cheque to a crumbling state and call it a victory.
So let the pundits cheer. Let the diplomats shake hands. Let the Bolivians plant another coca crop. Nothing will change. Nothing ever does. And when the next report comes out showing that cocaine production has risen, we shall all act surprised. We shall wring our hands, demand more funding, and rinse and repeat. That is the cycle of history, my friends. And we are trapped in it.
But at least we have this pomegranate pact to admire: beautiful on the outside, bitter and full of seeds within.
