Congressional ‘drug warriors’ and U.S. policy towards Colombia

Abstract

In the late 1990s, the Colombian National Police became the central channel for U.S. material and symbolic support to that country, thanks in large part to the work of a cohort of Republican members of Congress known as the ‘drug warriors.’ In the Congressional sphere, debates over the impact of illicit drug use often began with the abused bodies of American youth, but debates over the appropriate response frequently focused on the bodies of Colombian police and military as the site of suggested state intervention. Drawing on Judith Butler’s analysis of what deaths are grievable in the public sphere, I examine how the Colombian National Police came to be positioned as the central object of policymaker solidarity. Travel played a central role in the construction of distinct sensory, affective and moral geographies: Congressional delegations focused on militarized technology, weaponry and enacted scenarios of counternarcotics operations. These excursions were channeled into larger political fields valorizing militarized expertise and delineating the boundaries of appropriate policy debates. This analysis illuminates the ways in which Congressional debate and practice played a central role in U.S. foreign policy during this period, through an examination of how Congressional expertise was constructed and deployed, which foreign policy actors were selected as the object of U.S. official solidarity, and how the boundaries of policy debate was constructed through a focus on military knowledge.