General John F. Kelly, USMC. Source: Wikimedia Commons

Even warriors get the blues.

Looking somber, tired and perhaps a bit frustrated, United States Marine Corps General John Francis Kelly recently testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee and gave a frank assessment of the Drug War as it pertains to nations such as Costa Rica, which are located between a rock (the cocaine-producing regions of the Andes) and a hard place (North American demand). General Kelly mentioned the word “hypocrite” when talking about legalization with Latin American leaders.

General Kelly is the Commanding Officer of the U.S. Southern Command (SOUTHCOM). In late February, he had the following exchange with ranking members of the Senate Armed Services Committee while discussing recent events such as the legalization of retail marijuana operations in Colorado:

“We’ve been encouraging these countries to be in the drug fight for 25 years. The levels of violence that our drug problem has caused in many of these countries is just astronomical. And so when we talk about decriminalizing, the example I would give you is the two states that voted to decriminalize marijuana, or legalize marijuana. Most of the countries I deal with were in utter disbelief that we would, in their opinion, be going in that direction, particularly after 25 years of encouraging them to fight our drug problems in their countries and, you know, in their littorals. So that’s kind of where they are on it. They’re very polite to me, but every now and again when they’re not so polite, the term hypocrite gets into the discussion. But frankly, the crime rate is so high in many of these countries and the fact that they see us turning away from the drug fight. They’re starting to chatter a lot about, “Well, why don’t we just step back and let it flow?”

You can read the entire transcript here (PDF).

The Costa Rica Star has previously reported at length on the posture of President Laura Chinchilla over the last four years with regard to the U.S.-lead War on Drugs. She has sided with other Central American leaders in favor of minimizing U.S. intervention in the region and opening up dialogue towards decriminalization to a certain extent. It is important to note that drug interdiction under President Chinchilla and Minister of Security Zamora has been extensive, yet both would welcome some level of decriminalization in Costa Rica.

The statements by General Kelly before the U.S. Senate illustrate the dichotomy of legalization in that North American country while still fighting the bloody War on Drugs, which has wreaked havoc and bred violence in Mexico, Honduras and El Salvador. Security analysts believe that criminality in Costa Rica has risen in tandem with pressure by the U.S. on Mexican drug cartels and regional operations. Drug War protectionism, however, is still very much alive; this was clearly reported by the Costa Rica Star in 2012 when President Chinchilla joined a couple of her Central American counterparts in support of decriminalization of controlled substances for personal use:

U.S. Vice President Joe Biden scrambled to meet Mexican and Central American leaders as soon as meetings about decriminalization were planned earlier this month. The current issue is reminiscent of the situation in 2009, when United Nations and U.S. officials debated the efficacy of the War on Drugs, and immediate damage control took place.

Writing for Forbes magazine (soon to arrive in Costa Rica and Central America) Jacob Sullum clarified General Kelly’s comments:

Contrary to Kelly’s gloss, “the levels of violence” in Latin America are caused not by “our drug problem” but by our insistence that other countries help us solve it by cracking down on suppliers, a strategy that has never succeeded in cutting off the northward flow of drugs but has resulted in many deaths.

[…] recommitting to the never-ending, always-failing “drug fight” is not the only way to avoid charges of hypocrisy. If the experiments in Colorado and Washington lead to a broader re-examination of the war on drugs, I would count that as a benefit, not a cost.

It is not unreasonable to think that General Kelly may have been experiencing battle fatigue when he recently addressed the Senate of the nation he has been proudly serving since 1970. This is a man who served as a Marine enlisted infantryman before leading as an infantry officer and commander. He started leading in combat in the early 1990s during Operation Desert Storm (the “first” Persian Gulf War) and has essentially not stopped since.

Battle fatigue (now known as long-term combat stress reaction) tends to bring out frankness in warriors. One can only hope that General Kelly’s plainspoken assessment (“our drug problem,” “hypocrite,” “utter disbelief”) is taken seriously, and that U.S. policymakers do not fall prey to the merchants of militarization in this regard. It is opportune to remember the introductory monologue of the 2001 film Buffalo Soldiers:

“When there is peace, the warlike man attacks himself” – that’s Nietzsche, and his point is that there really is no peace. There’s always some war, somewhere, with someone. And there are no winners or losers either… just those who are still around to fight another day.