Political Quotes

“I yield the gentleman an additional 30 seconds. Mr. McGOVERN. The administration or Congress must prohibit any further funding for the DAS, including aid in the pipeline, until the Attorney General has completed all investigations and prosecutions, finds out who ordered these illegal activities, and President Santos has completely dismantled the current agency. I ask the committee chairman and ranking member to guarantee the Members of this House that no further aid will be provided to the DAS, and if that prohibition is not explicitly in this bill, that they will work with the Senate to include it in the final conference report. [From the Los Angeles Times, Sept. 2, 2011.] Colombia's Spreading Scandal The U.S. provided nearly $6 billion as part of Plan Colombia, an anti-narcotics and counterinsurgency program. But did the money also pay for human rights abuses? The United States has long considered Colombia its strongest ally in Latin America. Over the last eight years it has provided the Colombian government with nearly $6 billion as part of Plan Colombia, an ambitious anti-narcotics and counterinsurgency program that has often been held up as a model of cooperation. But recent reports in the Washington Post suggest that U.S. assistance intended to combat drugs and terrorism was diverted to Colombian intelligence officials, who used it instead to spy on judges, journalists, politicians and union leaders.…”