The author argues that the U.S. emphasis on drug control in its support of Plan Colombia is misguided and akin to prescribing an antibiotic regime to combat a disease not caused by bacteria or similar micro-organisms. The illegal drug industry in Colombia is not the cause of that country s fragile socio-political system, but a symptom of and a contributor to the fragility of the Colombian state. Continuing the analogy, Flynn argues that U.S. and Colombian emphasis on combating illicit drug cultivation and trafficking leads to several undesirable side effects.

Outlines a new, more holistic U.S. approach in Colombia that would require a more comprehensive package of military assistance rather than one narrowly focused on narcotics suppression and interdiction.

For more than fifty years, the United States supported the Colombian military in a war that cost over 200,000 lives. During a single period of heightened U.S. assistance known as Plan Colombia, the Colombian military killed more than 5,000 civilians. In Plan Colombia John Lindsay-Poland narrates a 2005 massacre in the San José de Apartadó Peace Community and the subsequent investigation, official cover-up, and response from the international community. He examines how the multibillion-dollar U.S. military aid and official indifference contributed to the Colombian military's atrocities. Drawing on his human rights activism and interviews with military officers, community members, and human rights defenders, Lindsay-Poland describes grassroots initiatives in Colombia and the United States that resisted militarized policy and created alternatives to war. Although they had few resources, these initiatives offered models for constructing just and peaceful relationships between the United States and other nations. Yet, despite the civilian death toll and documented atrocities, Washington, DC, considered Plan Colombia's counterinsurgency campaign to be so successful that it became the dominant blueprint for U.S. military intervention around the world.