Political Quotes

“If the Senator will yield, to underscore his point, we can look at the extraordinary success of Plan Colombia. Outside of Central America--if you go a little further south, you are on the continent of South America. And lo and behold, 15, 20 years ago, a large part of Colombia was controlled by elements that were controlled by the drug lords. With the assistance of the United States and extraordinary heroism on the part of the Government of Colombia, we have seen the Government of Colombia take back control of most of its country. Even though cocaine is still grown there and the FARC is still operating, their criminal element is a diminished insurrection of what it used to be. If you visited a place like Bogota, the capital city, it was not safe to go out alone and walk on the streets. Now you can easily walk on the streets. The situation there has changed. We are seeing the same replicated now in Central America where the drug lords have basically taken over by buying off people with considerable money, and therefore it makes it very difficult to have the rule of law in those struggling governments, as it is for the President of Honduras, who is trying so hard to bring back his country.”