Most analysts of US post-cold war policy in Colombia argue that the US has switched from targeting Communist guerrillas to a war on drugs and a new war on terror. Contrary to these claims this article shows that the US continues to back Colombian counter-insurgency efforts which essentially amount to a strategy of state terrorism under a democratic façade (terrorocracy). Moreover, this policy continues to be pursued because the US has long employed counter-insurgency warfare to stabilise social formations conducive to US political and economic interests. In short, counter-insurgency warfare is the military strategy par excellence for the policing and reproduction of global capitalism via localised proxy forces throughout the third world. In Colombia this strategy continues to have profound consequences for human rights, social justice and democracy.
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