Mark Souder: “I think the first fundamental question here is do we have a compelling national interest. When we look at an issue like…”

“I think the first fundamental question here is do we have a compelling national interest. When we look at an issue like this, if we do not have a compelling national interest in Colombia, where would we have a compelling national interest? Clearly, it is in our hemisphere, Colombia; clearly, the drugs on our streets that are resulting in deaths from cocaine and heroin in Fort Wayne, Indiana, in Massachusetts, in Florida, and North Carolina, throughout our Nation, are predominantly coming from Colombia. Clearly we have a threat to the democracy in Colombia. As even the past speaker acknowledged, it is certainly exacerbated by our drugs, and we must accept responsibility. If it were not for our drug habit, quite probably Colombia could handle their problems.”