De
war on drugs is veel dodelijker dan u zich realiseert, zo luidt de
kop boven een artikel van Brian Saady. Daar moet ik hem toch
corrigeren, die oorlog is veel dodelijker dan gedacht door het publiek dat hier
weinig of geen aandacht voor heeft, immers er wordt behoorlijk bericht over het enorme aantal doden dat
jaarlijks valt in Mexico en in andere Midden- en Zuid-Amerikaanse
landen, plus de VS….* Neem alleen al de massagraven die men in Mexico heeft ontdekt (en nog zal ontdekken…)…..
Voorts komt Saady met beschuldigingen als zou Hezbollah verantwoordelijk zijn voor drugssmokkel, een vaststelling die eerder al onderuit werd gehaald vanwege het ontbreken van enig bewijs……. Hetzelfde geldt voor zijn uitlating t.a.v. de Koerdische PKK……….
Jammer
ook dat Saady volkomen negatief spreekt over de FARC, terwijl deze
organisatie bijzonder veel heeft gedaan bijvoorbeeld t.b.v. de kleine
boeren en een groot aantal van hen heeft bescherming gekregen van de FARC tegen de willekeur
van het leger, de politie, de rechtse doodseskaders (die samen met
politie en leger) alles wat maar links rook, als het even kon (en nog
kan) vermoordde……. Waar de grootgrondbezitters en hun legertjes aan
‘beveiligers’ in Colombia ‘natuurlijk’ hun steentje aan bij hebben gedragen, sterker nog: de doodseskaders werden en worden gesteund door die grootgrondbezitters……
Je zou bijna denken dat vooral links verzet tegen willekeur de grote drugskartels vormen, echter dit is uiteraard grote flauwekul!
Lees
het artikel van Saady over deze zaak:
The
War on Drugs Is Far Deadlier Than You Realize
March
26, 2018 at 12:09 pm
Written
by Anti-Media
News Desk
(FEE) — While
accepting the Nobel Peace Prize in 2016, Colombian President Juan
Manuel Santos said:
“The
manner in which this war against drugs is being waged is equally or
perhaps even more harmful than all the wars the world is fighting
today, combined.”
The
death toll from the drug war is much less than the actual warfare
throughout the world. However, his sentiment is quite appropriate
because a significant percentage of the world’s violence could be
prevented with a flick of a pen by ending the War on Drugs.
Cartels
and Violence
Imagine
if we could essentially eliminate the black market for drug
trafficking in Chicago, which has the highest number of gang members
and homicides. It’s estimated that up to 80
percent of
the city’s murders are gang-related. And one of the main causes of
this violence is connected to controlling turf for drug sales.
Gang
violence isn’t as rampant throughout the U.S., but the National
Gang Center estimated that 13
percent of
the murders in the U.S. are gang-related. That falls in line with a
similar report by Narco
News that
concluded that 1,100 drug war-related murders occur each year in the
U.S. Keep in mind, that figure is fairly conservative due to the lack
of full transparency with crime statistics.
The
U.S. represents the largest market in the world for illegal drugs.
Currently, there is a well-documented opioid crisis but the U.S. also
consumes more cocainethan
all of Europe—and by a wide margin. All told, the U.S. illegal drug
black market represents a $100
billion annual
industry.
Although
there is a serious black market violence problem in the U.S., it
pales in comparison to the countries that are source and
transshipment points of illegal drugs. For example, there were over
29,000 murders in Mexico last year with roughly 33–50
percent being
related to the drug war. That’s not factoring the 30,000 missing
persons who are presumed to be dead.
The
cartels conduct warfare in a brazen manner that is essentially
indistinguishable from terrorist groups. Their conduct is so brutal,
they have been known to hang rival gang members from bridges or
publicly put bounties on corrupt government officials. Narco money
has enabled these organized crime groups to operate with impunity.
The
latest example of this corruption involves the leader of the Los
Rojos cartel financing the
campaigns of 11 mayoral candidates in exchange for political
protection. Bear in mind, this isn’t a matter of simple greed. If
these officials don’t take the bribes, they’ll likely be killed.
After all, over 100
mayors have
been murdered in Mexico since 2006.
All
in all, narco money has corrupted every segment of the government
necessary to protect their organizations. (My free
e-book, America’s
Drug War is Devastating Mexico,
gives much more detail of organized crime’s reign in Mexico.)
As
a matter of fact, Los Zetas have even corrupted the highest levels of
government in neighboring countries. The Ex-Vice President and former
Minister of Interior have each been arrested for allegedly accepting
bribes of $250,000 and $1.5
million,
respectively.
The
Los Zetas cartel is responsible for the worst massacre in Guatemala
since the civil war. In 2011, cartel members beheaded 27
innocent farmworkers in search of a ranch owner who the cartel
suspected of stealing a drug shipment.
Due
largely to the War on Drugs, the four countries immediately south of
Mexico (Belize, Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador) are listed
within the top six highest murder rates in the world. Furthermore,
nine out of the top
ten are
in Latin America or the Caribbean.
Likewise,
43 of the 50 cities with the highest murder
rates are
in Latin America or the Caribbean. Four of the remaining cities are
in the continental U.S., i.e. Baltimore, Detroit, New Orleans, and
St. Louis. Only three cities are not in this hemisphere (South
Africa).
Obviously,
there are a variety of factors that contribute to violence, notably
extreme poverty. One city on the list (San Juan, Puerto Rico) has had
fairly low
crime in
recent years, but Hurricane Maria brought about much instability to
the island.
Otherwise,
it’s clear that the War on Drugs is one of the leading factors to
the high violence. Mexico had 12 cities in the top 50, which was the
second highest number behind Brazil.
It’s
important to note, Brazil isn’t a major source of drug production.
However, it has historically been the second largest consumer market
for cocaine and it is the leading transshipment point
of illegal drugs into Europe, Africa, and Asia. This is evident in
the fact that 17 Brazilian cities are in the top 50 global homicide
rates. Fourteen of those cities are located along the Atlantic Coast,
which is prime real estate for drug trafficking.
This
violence isn’t a result of a “soft on crime” approach; the
Brazilian government takes the term “War on Drugs” literally.
Like Mexico, the military, along with the police, conduct law
enforcement operations and the results are predictable. The Brazilian
police kill an average of six
peopleeach
day. Remarkably, the police are responsible for roughly one out of
five murders in
Rio de Janeiro, with few being held accountable.
The
police, in many cases, are acting in self-defense. However, the
Brazilian government has essentially provided the police with
impunity for extrajudicial murder and they operate in a brazen
manner. In this video, for
example, the police performed a drive-by shooting of two unarmed
teenagers.
It
should also be noted that several of the gangs conduct open warfare
against the police. The most gruesome example occurred in Sao Paulo
in May of 2006. Over the course of a week, more than 150
people were
killed after Brazil’s most powerful gang, PCC, launched a wave of
attacks against multiple police stations. The police responded by
rounding up suspected gang members and executing them in kind.
Narco-Terrorism
As
you read more about the PCC and other criminal organizations, you are
likely to come across the term “narco-terrorism.” This term
was coined in
1982 by the President of Peru, Fernando Belaunde Terry.
Peru was and continues to be one of the top cocaine producers in the
world.
The
Peruvian communist terrorist group, Shining Path, has been largely
funded by “taxing” cocaine traffickers. Those profits have helped
them kill approximately 11,000
civilians.
Fortunately, the Shining Path’s membership numbers have drastically
dwindled and the organization is substantially less active.
Cocaine
money also played a major role in the 52-year Colombian civil war
that resulted in 220,000 deaths and over seven million domestic
refugees. Thankfully, the communist terrorist group, FARC, came
to a peace agreement in 2016. This group was responsible for numerous
bombings, kidnappings, and thousands of murders.
Most
of their members have agreed to lay down their arms. However, an
estimated 1,200
dissidents have
refused to leave the criminal underworld. Likewise, another communist
rebel group and officially designated terrorist group, ELN, has been
in on-and-off peace negotiations. However, their group has walked
away from the table, each time due to the tremendous profits from
cocaine.
Similarly,
Colombia’s former right-wing paramilitary terrorist group, AUC,
officially disbanded in 2006, but the majority of these men simply
splintered into various organized crime groups. The Colombian and
U.S. governments haven’t designated these groups as terrorists
because they seem to be more driven by greed than ideology.
However,
the tactics by Colombia’s crime groups are indisputably
terrorizing. These neo-paramilitary organized crime groups, known as
BACRIMs, exert totalitarian control in their territory. They
indiscriminately murder leftist activists, journalists, and human
rights workers. In some cases, they impose a 9
P.M. curfew and
invisible borders that are enforced with the death penalty. That’s
in addition to their brand of “social
cleansing,”
i.e. murdering homeless, drug addicts, LGTBQ, etc.
This
leads to a concept mentioned in academia, “the crime-terrorism
nexus.” In other words, the line dividing organized crime from
terrorism is increasingly blurry. Also, many terrorist
organizations fund their activities from crime.
Various
nations were listed earlier by the highest homicide rates. However,
those studies don’t include countries at war. With that in mind,
it’s no secret that both sides of the Afghanistan War are funded
with opium profits. The Taliban are grossing an estimated $400
million annually from drugs. For many years, the Taliban simply
“taxed” drug traffickers in their territory, but credible reports
suggest that they’ve expanded into production.
Of
the 64 foreign terrorist organizations designated by the U.S. State
Department, twenty-three profit from illegal drugs to some
degree. Albeit, drug money is generally a small portion of the
budget for most terrorist organizations and it is usually derived
from “taxing” drug traffickers rather than direct participation.
North
Africa has become a major drug transshipment point for South American
cocaine headed to Europe and Asia. Heroin from Asian countries is
also often smuggled through this region. As a result, the
Somali-based, Al Qaeda-linked terrorist group, al Shabaab and the
West-Africa based Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) profit from
this underground
market.
Boko Haram not only taxes traffickers, but the group has expanded
their role in this racket. Furthermore, ISIS has taxed shipments of
Moroccan hashish destined
for Europe by way of Libya.
On
the other hand, there are terror groups, such as the Kurdistan
Workers Party (PKK) and the Islamic
Movement
of Uzbekistan (UMI), that are directly responsible for smuggling
large quantities of illegal drugs, which comprises a large portion of
their funding.
The
U.S. Government’s Role
These
links between terrorism and drug trafficking, ironically, have
boosted the DEA in a self-serving manner. In 2006, Congress amended
the PATRIOT Act with a statute regarding
drug trafficking that directly or indirectly benefits a foreign
terrorist organization. As a result, the DEA’s international
jurisdiction and budget expanded tremendously.
However,
the agency has launched a series of high-profile cases that have
resulted in major headlines, instead of actual narco-terrorists being
captured. Case in point, three West Africans were indicted in 2009
from an undercover sting operation involving DEA informants who posed
as members of the FARC.
The
informants repeatedly told the traffickers that they wanted to do
business with Al Qaeda. Hence, these men simply pretended to
have links with a terrorist group to seal the deal. Nonetheless, this
aspect of the case hasn’t been widely reported and this case was a
major PR win for the DEA.
On
the other hand, the DEA had built a long-running and credible
investigation, Project Cassandra, against Hezbollah. Their group is
widely known as being sponsored by the Iranian government. However,
Hezbollah also has generated millions of dollars by smuggling
several tons of
South American cocaine. The group has business ties with the
Colombian FARC and the Brazilian PCC.
Several
high-level members of Hezbollah were implicated in Project Cassandra.
However, an impressive report by Politico revealed
that the Obama administration suppressed this investigation to help
finalize the nuclear deal with Iran.
One
of the open secrets of the War on Drugs is that the U.S. government,
among other nations, has given support to drug trafficking for
geopolitical purposes. In this case, the U.S. used the drug war as a
bargaining tool with an adversary.
However,
the U.S. government’s complicity with drug trafficking has
generally benefited its allies. That’s the case in the Afghanistan
War and it was certainly the case during the Vietnam War. Likewise,
drug money helped U.S. interests in dirty wars, such as the Contras
in Nicaragua or the Mujahideen in Afghanistan. Furthermore, several
narco-linked, right-wing dictators in Latin America, including Manuel
Noriega, have benefitted from strong U.S. support.
All
in all, there are many forms of violence resulting from the War on
Drugs. Nonetheless, our politicians have been unwilling to address
the root cause. As a result, government bureaucrats have pointed to
this violence to justify larger budgets for the drug war.
However,
with multiple decades of this failed policy behind us, we should
realize that the demand for illegal drugs will never decrease in a
substantial manner. Hence, continuing down this path will
continue to enable the violent tactics of low-level criminals, mafia
organizations, terrorists, dictators, and empire-driven governments.
By Brian
Saady / Creative
Commons / FEE.org / Report
a typo
===========================
* Al bericht men dan wel over de vele doden en bijvoorbeeld gevonden massagraven, de oorzaak wordt niet aangegeven in de reguliere (massa-) media en dat is nu juist de meer dan walgelijke oorlog tegen drugs, waar alleen de georganiseerde misdaad, het militair-industrieel complex en de geheime diensten in de VS het meest van profiteren, zelfs de DEA heeft in het verleden drugstransporten geregeld……… (uiteraard aangevuld met lobbyende politici voor één of meerdere van de hiervoor genoemde 3 partijen) Op die manier zijn ook aandeelhouders van het militair-industrieel complex verantwoordelijk te houden voor het enorme aantal moorden in deze smerige oorlog……….) Het feit dat de meeste drugs (en zelfs softdrugs) verboden zijn zorgt er uiteraard voor dat zoals gezegd de georganiseerde misdaad helemaal binnenloopt met de inkomsten uit die drugshandel. Zo kan je dan ook stellen dat regeringen die hard optreden tegen drugs, daarmee in feite lobbyen voor de drugsmaffia!!
Zie ook: ‘VS buitenlandbeleid sinds WOII: een lange lijst van staatsgrepen en oorlogen……….‘
en: ‘List of wars involving the United States‘
en: ‘VS commando’s vechten o.a. in Midden- en Zuid-Amerika, aldus het VS ministerie van oorlog………‘
en: ‘NAVO gaat VS helpen in Zuid-Amerika terreur uit te oefenen: Colombia lid van de NAVO………‘
