It strips naked the U.S. government's attempt to widen its war in Colombia to include other countries in Latin America.  It will help greatly in drawing the lines between anti-drug and anti-democracy efforts.

Peacock uncovers methods the U.S. government plans to use in Latin America for military intervention.  In the guise of using mercenaries to recover our other mercenaries that have been caught while carrying out the dirty work of the war on the poor, the U.S. government seeks to increase its available tools for repression.  (When these merceneries get captured by armed resistance to foreign military intervention, we have a nice opportunity for another permanently self-rationalizing project.)

Now we have to again show that undermining democracy is the real effect and intent of these alleged anti-drug and anti-terrorism activities (the two rationals now further merged with a new link, anti-kidnapping).

The only country with significant kidnappings that I know of is Colombia, but the first targets of these Combined Country Personnel Recovery Centers (CCPRCs) are Bolivia and Peru.  The goal clearly seems to be to increase U.S. military presence in and control of more countries, even at the cost of creating brutal Colombia-style civil wars.  "Future support" – for "military action, action by non-governmental organizations, other U.S. Government approved action, and diplomatic initiatives" – "may be required in other Central and South American countries and is likely in the countries of Colombia, Panama, Ecuador and Venezuela."

Just based on what Stephen Peacock has revealed from government sources, it seems impossible in practice and logically unlikely that further merceneries will be used solely for personnel recovery, as that act itself would seem to involve direct war with guerillas.  Instead, this seems a way to pay military contractors and maybe paramilitary groups to do the worst acts of violence that the government would like plausible deniability for should they come to light.  These human rights violations, acts of murder and other violence, would (as in the past) be committed against people resisting U.S. government plans, whether they are armed or non-violent.

I hope someone with some knowledge can fill in the details of how this use of hired private soldiers and stated plans for spying and military intervention in multiple countries at a time plays out as the U.S. government tries to implement it.

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A brief note on the U.S. government's claim that few non-coca crops have been harmed in Colombia by the aerial spraying there of some souped up version of Monsanto's glysophate-based broad-leaf herbicide, RoundUp.

As for hitting only the intended target of coca crops in Colombia, I'll let the ongoing lawsuit for agricultural and health damage in Ecuador speak for itself.  

And as for the health effects, repeatedly denied in showcase trials of glysophate-only, here's some real scientific evidence.  Most significant: "Roundup is always more toxic than its active ingredient."

And last I heard we still don't know exactly what's in the toxic brew poured from airplanes, in the program designed and paid for by the U.S. government.  But stopping the program is not considered, instead, the fact that the planes are sometimes shot down and the pilot captured will be the excuse to hire mercenaries all over Latin America.  The cost, in human lives, of maintaining empire-by-proxy, economic exploitation, and imposed trade policy will be a lot more than the cost of mercenaries, jet fuel, and the propaganda to justify it all.