I’ve seen some pretty hair-raising things in Israel. I used to work for an Israeli company and was lucky to get to spend some time there.

I’ll be in Bogota March 14-23, I’ll shoot you a line with more details.

Saludos,

Tony Z.

If you have never read the history of the Geneva Accords and the whys and wherefores of what we now refer to as the laws of war it is an illuminating investment of time. Possession of the framework of how we got here from there will not win you many brownie points with a lot of different groups of people. Interesting regardless. Puts some context around what you read about Escobar.

Mike

There’s a really good TV special on History Channel called “Killing Pablo,” which is based on the book of the same name. It’s the story of how Pablo Escobar was pursued by the U.S. and Colombian government/military. The takeaway for me was that they didn’t start to make real progress until they decided to beat Escobar at his own game.

They started hunting down and basically exterminating anyone associated with Escobar, even holding his family hostage. This “no holds barred” tactic weakened his support structure considerably and led to his eventual demise.

It’s really difficult to defeat someone that doesn’t play by other people’s rules. Look at Kaiser Soze in “The Usual Suspects.” He was such a badass; he killed his own family so no one would be able to hold them as leverage over him.

Same thing with Heath Ledger’s Joker in “The Dark Knight.” Bruce Wayne tried to find out what the Joker’s motivation was (money, power, etc.), but Alfred pointed out that the Joker’s M.O. was “to see the world burn,” — period.

I’m not saying that violence is always the answer (ex: Gandhi, MLK), but sometimes you need to use force. Even when I started studying martial arts years ago one of the first things we learned was to use our brains first. Fighting was always seen as something you do when you’ve exhausted all your options.

I guess that’s what’s happened in Colombia.

@DennisDemori