BUSH RENAMES, EXPANDS PLAN COLOMBIA -
ADDS $550 MILLION IN PREP FOR WAR

EQUADOR MOVES 10,000 TROOPS TO COLOMBIAN BORDER

LINKAGE BETWEEN DRUG WAR AND WALL STREET HEALTH BECOMING TRANSPARENT

FTW, March 15, 2001 - Less than a week after diplomats from 25 Latin American and European countries, as well as Japan, defied US interests by meeting jointly with representatives of rebel groups at the invitation of the Colombian government, and just days after two sharp losses caused the Dow to plunge more than 700 points, President Bush added $550 million to Plan Colombia and acknowledged its regional dimensions by re-christening it "The Andean Initiative." Signaling the opening moves in a regional war, Equador has simultaneously moved 10,000 troops to the Colombian border in anticipation of increased hostilities as US military personnel increase air operations from the US base in the coastal city of Manta. All of these events, occurring in close proximity, add further credibility to FTW's long held position that a Vietnam-style conflict in Colombia was essential to prevent the total collapse of the American stock market.

FTW has previously documented how an estimated $250 billion in illegal drug money is laundered through the US economy annually and how a 1999 "solicitation" by NYSE Chairman Richard Grasso for the FARC guerillas to invest their drug profits in Wall Street was summarily rejected. The leftist rebels chose instead to keep their money in Colombia. Also irritating for the American economy and markets is the fact that Colombian rebels, who now control the southern third of Colombia, occupy lands estimated to hold billions of barrels of high grade crude oil sought after by, among others, Occidental Petroleum.

A total US market collapse, if unchecked, would also threaten to destabilize the US dollar which is the dominant reserve currency around the world. That could have the effect of setting off a worldwide depression similar to that of 1929-38. As a rapidly coalescing European Union attempts to find economic strength by distancing itself from US influence (and instability) the US has countered with increasing disregard for near unanimous global opposition to its plans for war. That war will inevitably involve US military personnel in combat operations.

The strongest confirmation that we have seen of the inevitability of war is a report today on www.narconews.com citing Village Voice media critic Cynthia Cotts who noted on March 2 that "The New York Times plans to move its Buenos Aires bureau to Bogota or Caracas sometime soon. Other papers are following suit. The Los Angeles Times plans to open a Bogota Bureau next week and the Washington Post is moving its Caracas bureau chief there as well... Even the Wall Street Journal recently established an Andean Bureau in Caracas [Venezuela]."

The timeline of recent events tells the story better than any long narrative. There can be no doubt that major American media, which also trade their stocks on Wall Street and has suffered serious losses, was aware of these developments and has deliberately hidden them from the American people.

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March 7 - While participating in an International Financial Congress in Moscow focusing on the US economic crisis, FTW Editor Mike Ruppert offered his opinion that the US markets would crash, especially if the EU and the world community found the common voice to oppose American plans for war in Colombia. Referring to a unanimous (with one abstention) vote by the EU in February to oppose the $1.3 billion military aid package, Ruppert suggested that the way to promote the Euro dollar and insulate fragile economies like those in Russia and Eastern Europe was to provide Colombia and South America with the support necessary to oppose US war plans.

March 8 - As reported by Reuters on March 9, diplomats from 25 countries from Europe and South America, as well as Japan traveled to rebel held territory in Colombia at the request of the Colombian government to engage in dialogue supporting an end to hostilities. Such a peace initiative, jointly sponsored by Colombian President Andres Pastrana and the leftist rebels, indicated a split with US backed moves to train and deploy Colombian combat troops for an all out offensive against rebel positions. This followed months of increasing hostilities, aerial spraying of herbicides on civilian food crops and firefights that have seen US civilian contractors engaged in combat with rebel troops.

Plans for the meeting were unknown to FTW while in Moscow but they confirmed that European and Asian intelligence services and foreign ministries were equally aware of economic vulnerability in the US and opportunities for European growth and stability if war was successfully avoided.

March 12 - The Dow Jones Industrial Average drops 436 points, the fifth largest one day drop in history.

March 14 - As reported by Agence France Press (AFP), Equador announces that it has moved 10,000 combat troops to the Colombian border.

March 14 - The Dow drops another 317 points.

March 14 - The AP reports on expanding US military operations at the air base at Manta, Equador where American airmen "armed with M-16 assault rifles" guard US Navy spy planes as dozens of new bars, motels and restaurants open up around the $62 million expansion of runway and maintenance facilities at the base. This in anticipation of the arrival of many more American servicemen.

March 15 - Veteran journalist Al Giordano at www.narconews.com catches a story, again by AFP, that has gone completely unreported by the major US media in spite of being front page news all over Latin America. The State Department on March 12 held a briefing and issued a statement from Secretary of State Colin Powell indicating that the Bush Administration was adding $550 million to the Colombian military aid package, renamed as The Andean Initiative, and intentionally widening the effort which he now officially acknowledged as being a "conflict." AFP quoted Powell as saying, "The new administration will try to regionalize the Colombian conflict, so that the countries in the area recognize that this is their problem as much as it is Colombia's."

This announcement, kept a secret from the American people by our own press, brings the nations of Peru, Bolivia, Brazil, Venezuela and Panama deliberately - and as we have been consistently predicting - directly into the military operations zone.

We have been here before.

It was called Vietnam.