GEORGE W. BUSH: OBJECTIVELY PRO-MASS MURDER, POLITICAL ASSASSINATION, AND DRUG DEALING

From The New York Times:

President Alvaro Uribe, who enjoys strong public support for vowing to bring order to Colombia, is proposing a law that would effectively grant impunity to right-wing death squads that lay down their arms.

...The proposed law would allow militiamen from the Self-Defense Forces of Colombia to avoid jail for widespread human rights abuses that include the mass killings of thousands of villagers and the assassination of two presidential candidates. The group's leaders, several already convicted in absentia for murder, would instead be compelled to admit their crimes and make symbolic acts of contrition, compensating victims by providing community services, turning in their land and paying fines.

In exchange, the militia — a private, antiguerrilla army financed through cocaine trafficking and donations from wealthy Colombians — would make peace....

The proposed law also appears to contradict American policy in Colombia — the State Department lists the Self-Defense Forces as a terrorist group, and a federal court in Washington last year indicted three leaders for trafficking cocaine.

Western diplomats here and American officials who work on Colombia policy, though, say the United States has not only offered support for Mr. Uribe but also has been consulted as his administration drafted the legislation.

(Emphasis mine.)

Oh, and I love this statement:

"Everybody here understands that you're not going to do a peace process unless you have some sort of arrangement," a Bush administration official who has helped shape policy toward Colombia said by telephone from Washington....

"Arrangement" -- it sounds like something out of Chinatown or L.A. Confidential or some other deeply cynical movie about thugs and corrupt cops: "Well, y'know, we have a sort of...arrangement."

Disgusting.