Summary of Colombia's drug war

This is a well-done, in-depth article tracing the course of Colombia's drug war over the 2000s. It is overly credulous of Uribe, doesn't mention the numerous human rights violations he's been indirectly linked to, and even mistakenly claims that his phone was illegally wire-tapped by the DAS security agency. The article is also overly equivocal when it compares the FARC's atrocities (modus operandi taxing narcotics and kidnapping the wealthy and police) to those of the paramilitaries (modus operandi trafficking narcotics and massacring entire villages). It also doesn't entirely follow up on its title; I'd have liked a more detailed discussion of how cracking down on the Colombian theater of the drug trade led in large part to the explosion of trafficking and violence in Mesoamerica, just as cracking down in Peru and Bolivia in the 80s and 90s led to Colombia's rise to prominence. But at any rate, it's a good primer on many aspects of the Colombian conflict.