The consensus, left and right, is that Colombia is an good place. And it’s getting better. And better. Colombia is in fact a bright rising star.

And for all the criticism I read, left and right (but mostly left), on Plan Colombia, it doesn’t really get at what is going on in Colombia. It’s called revolution.

Life is growing tolerable and free and even pleasant and desirable in Colombia. Just check out the word from the Lonely Planet bulletin boards. Poverty is falling. GDP is up. Wages are up. Trade is up. Jobs are up. Safety is up. The currency is strengthening. Property rights are growing powerful. Foreign investment is soaring. And the stock market has registered a phenomenal 500% gain since 2002. Amid a picture like this, a picture of verifiable results, I think the pluses or minues of Plan Colombia may be overblown. It is only one thing, after all.

What’s really matters is leadership.

And the great Alvaro Uribe, President of Colombia, a revolutionary if there ever was one, is giving it. His results for Colombia speak for themselves. This man is truly amazing.

On the right, Investor’s Business Daily argues that it was Uribe’s cleanup of government, making it uncorrupt, and giving it a real mission, that made the Plan Colombia show the success it has gotten. And everything else President Uribe has done.

The U.S. has spent about $3 billion over six years for the war on the Colombian side through a comprehensive program called “Plan Colombia.” It puts the Marxist kidnappers and necklace bombers out of business. And it fosters development of property rights and rule of law ???????? so that what emerges from the victory of Colombia’s long nightmare is not rubble, but the institutions Colombia needs to ensure that terror never takes root again.

On the Lonely Planet board, a fellow named Overhere writes:

colombia has just about never been safer… murders are at ten/twenty year lows. so are kidnappings. just this past year in medellin murders are down 40%. thats a huge change and that trend is continuing.

i have met thousands of travellers in south america. and of those who have been to colombia pretty much every single one will say the same… colombia is the best country in south america and they all wish they had spent more time here.

and my pal Boz, on the left, having just visited Colombia, writes in detail about the word on the streets:

Most Colombians on the street will tell you their country has improved in the last four years. When I talk to bartenders, cab drivers, and security guards, they tell me about crime rates going down and noticing more foreigners visiting. Colombians who have children believe their children will live a better life than their parents. Some of the Colombians joked with me that five years ago their country was the pariah of the Andean Region; today it is the model of stability.

Foreigners are visiting in record numbers for both business and tourism.

Lastly, I will add my own take: I talked to a big hedge fund manager in New York yesterday who told me to pay attention to Colombia. “It’s the only country in Latin America moving in the direction of prosperity,” he told me. The guy invests at least millions of dollars. And as an apolitical guy who only cares about the bottom line he told me he put many of those millions in Colombia. He said Colombia was his ongoing investment secret, but word was getting out now.

Right, democratic left, center, or nowhere, thinking people seems to be saying the same thing. Colombia is getting better.

This ought to really upset rabidly Anti-American Amnesty International, which has a special harassment campaign going on against Colombia. And the far-left Sandalista activists who have made a cottage industry of abusing Colombia, too. Colombia, apparently, is doing something right and moving right along despite their screechings, thank you very much.

Read the different views here, here and here.