Clearing Up the Facts: The New York Times on Military Aid to Bolivia

I have been talking on-line today with Adam Isacson of the Center for International Policy, a Washington DC-based group that tracks US military spending in Latin America. Adam was one of the people interviewed for and quoted in yesterday’s New York Times article on the Bush administration’s plans to cut military aid to Bolivia, which I wrote abut yesterday here on the Blog.

Adam is not especially happy with the Times piece and thinks it leaves readers with some very serious misimpressions. Adam writes on his organization’s Blog today:

Yesterday’s New York Times article on Bolivia ("Bush Budget Would Cut Military Aid to Bolivia by 96 Percent") creates a few impressions about U.S. military aid trends in Bolivia that need further clarification. Since I'm cited in the article, I've received a number of e-mails indicating a need to clear up these impressions.

According to Adam, some of the key facts one would not know to be true reading the Times article include:

1. All military and police aid to Bolivia is not going down by 96 percent in 2007. In particular, counter-drug aid is being cut much less drastically.

2. Bolivia is one of twelve Western Hemisphere countries in the same situation, along with Barbados, Brazil, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Mexico, Paraguay, Peru, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Trinidad and Tobago, Uruguay and Venezuela.

3. Bolivia will continue to send students to the former School of the Americas.

Readers interested in the detail on this should look at Adam’s full posting here.