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The red corner
Thursday, September 15 2011 - 03:35 AM Yours in revolution.. Proviso (added 09.15.11): The following type of comment posts directed to this thread will be deleted: those containing childish or otherwise offensive material; those which are off-topic; those which contain cut-and-pasted material that exceeds fifty-percent of the total content; and those containing video clips regardless of whether or not they might be accompanied by any amount of original writings (the embedding of URLs or “hotlinks” within comment posts which serve to lead readers to video clips will be accepted as long as all such posts also contain original writings of no fewer than fifty words. (Note: This proviso appeared – nearly verbatim – at the bottom of the majority of my New Blogs until approximately six 6 months ago (a time in which I had thought that all of this forum’s participants understood these stipulations. But I was in error.)
The US government and illicit drugs
(Note: Given the peculiar and frenetic Hwy138’s tendency to delete his New Blogs shortly after their having been posted, I have elected to create and post this New Blog in response to the intimation that the US government carries out illicit drug activities toward the creation of “the New World Order.”)
*
As someone who organized quite heavily during the mid-to-late-1980s around the issue of the US government’s involvement in the importation and sale of heroin and cocaine (having worked with the former Christic Institute, and having personally brought journalist Michael Benner and Col. James “Bo” Gritz to the AV to address audiences at the Lancaster City Library and AVHS, respectively, I too deem said involvement to be abundantly obvious. In fact, in my opinion, we needn’t look any further than the fact that, by his own admission, Col. Oliver North’s personal notes, which he maintained in his capacity as Ronald Reagan’s liaison to the then Nicaraguan “Contras” or “Somocistas,” contained more than four-hundred pages having to do with the purchase, importation and sale of hundreds of tons of cocaine. These were personal notes which pointed to North’s direct involvement in the trafficking of cocaine and notes which were a part of those that came to be so famously shredded by North’s secretary, Fawn Hall.
Looking further, simply for good measure, we find that, although he was granted a presidential pardon by President George H.W. Bush in 1992, the government of Costa Rica has permanently barred Oliver North from reentering Costa Rica due to North and his then associates having used that country as a transfer point for both illicit drugs and weaponry; weaponry which was destined to the aforementioned Somocistas in support of their war of terror against the people of Nicaragua and their then Sandinista government. (As an aside, it was also the case that, many of the weapons that Oliver North supplied to the Somocistas were purchased with monies obtained from the Israeli government which, at the behest of the US government, sold weaponry to the Iranian government in an effort to achieve the release of six Americans who were being held in Lebanon by pro-Iranian Lebanese terrorists. This served as the basis for what later became known as the Iran-Contra Affair.)
Not only did then (1989) Costa Rican President Oscar Arias declare Oliver North to be persona non grata due to the findings of a Costa Rican congressional subcommittee on illicit drug trafficking within Costa Rica, he also banned the following five individuals: 1) Then CIA Chief of Station in Costa Rica Joseph Fernandez; 2) American-born Costa Rican rancher John Hull (an Indiana native and longtime friend of former Vice-President Dan Quayle and family. Hull fled Costa Rica upon his having been indicted by the Costa Rican government); 3) Oliver North’s then closest assistant Robert “Rob” Owen (also indicted by the Costa Rican government and also another native of Indiana and friend of Dan Quayle); 4) Ronald Reagan’s National Security Adviser John Poindexter (convicted of numerous felonies having to do with the Iran-Contra Affair) and; 5) General Richard Secord (also convicted of numerous Iran-Contra-Affair-related felonies which were later vacated by the US Supreme Court).
The aforementioned Costa Rican congressional subcommittee also found that Oliver North was directly accountable for Panama’s now US-imprisoned General Manuel Noriega’s role within the somocista-cocaine supply network. Moreover, Costa Rican authorities cited Oliver North as having been responsible for the drug smuggling activities of at least eight pilots who were then employed by the Central Intelligence Agency’s “Air America,” including Eugene Hassenfus whose C-123 cargo plane was, as alluded to by Sovereignty Soldier within another thread, shot down by the Nicaraguan military. (It should be noted, however, that, although the downing of Hassenfus’ C-123 was a pivotal event [in that it served to expose the Iran-Contra Affair], the aircraft was, at the time and contrary to Sovereignty Soldier’s statement, carrying munitions intended for use by Somocistas rather than cocaine to be used by Americans. Relative to the Iran-Contra Affair, Panama was the only country in Central America to which South American-produced cocaine was flown. It – Panamanian territory – served as a “hub” or “transfer point” for the munitions that were purchased with the proceeds from the sale of cocaine and weapons that were sold to Iran by the Israeli government. These munitions were then flown from Panama directly to Nicaragua or, in many cases, to Honduras and then smuggled into Nicaragua for use by the Somocistas in direct violation of not only the US Constitution but also the US Boland Amendment. The cocaine in question was either transported directly from South America (predominately, Colombia) to the United States, or flown to Panama whereupon it was transferred to US entry points within Mexico and the Caribbean by way of “Air America.”
In closing and in reality, it is much more than abundantly obvious that elements within the United States government have been involved in not only the trafficking of South American cocaine but also Southeast Asian and Middle Eastern heroin. The little known fact that it was the Panamanian government and NGOs, such as the Christic Institute, rather than the US government and its corporate media that exposed the majority of the particulars surrounding Iran-Contra is simply a fact. The fact that a majority of Americans remain ignorant to a sizable portion of the events and personalities having to do with the Iran-Contra Affair changes nothing.
With all of that having been said, there is, to me, no amount of evidence which would support the intimation that certain people within the United States government have trafficked in illicit drugs for purposes related to the bringing about of a “New World Order.” The CIA’s heroin dealings in Southeast Asia began with the agency’s “need” to support its secret and thus highly unconstitutional wars in Laos and Burma during the 1960s and 1970s and have simply continued on in support of still other covert activities, not to mention the simple greed of individuals the likes of Richard Armetagee, Tomas Klines, and Theodoor “Ted” Shaklee.*
But none of this is carried out towards the establishment of this right-wing fable known as the “New World Order.” It has only to do with meeting the needs of the “Present World Order” – aka capitalism.
Yes, the capitalist system of production is now in its global stage (its final stage), and so one may well refer to it as the “New” World Order, but it is really nothing more than the same old thing – capitalism. And that same old thing may be likened to, while returning to a familiar theme, a heroin addict. Only this addict’s drug of necessity is something known as growth. In brief, capitalism must grow or, much like a heroin addict without heroin, it will die.
Therefore, capitalism’s benefactors and their hangers-on will do anything that they have to do in order to supply their system with new marketplaces and sources of raw materials – with growth. What that translates into are such things as the Somocistas’ war against the people of Nicaragua.
It was a war that elements of the US government lent material support to simply because the Nicaraguan people had the “audacity” to overthrow a brutal US-installed and supported dictator that helped to facilitate the flow of the drug known as growth to the US capitalist class.
Was and is Nicaragua a small and rather insignificant country vis-a-vis the interests of the US capitalist class? Yes of course.
Nonetheless, like Vietnam, Iran, Argentina, Guatemala, Chile, Brazil, the Dominican Republic and others before it, Nicaragua was setting a “bad” example that, if followed by other nation states, could have eventually spelled disaster for our addict – the capitalism system (aka the “Same Old World Order”).
* The spelling of these names have been altered. Too, the US government’s trading in illicit drugs predates the CIA’s involvement; having its roots in China decades earlier.
Guy R. Marsh
93536
Member-at-large (since 1990):
Socialist Labor Party of America (est. 1890)
Therefore, I have reinstated said proviso going forward and retroactively as it relates to this thread. All comment posts which stood in violation of this proviso have been removed.
Thank you.)
avbornbred says...
I don’t get it. The left supports tame narcotics laws, look at Prop 36. The left supports the view that we need to smoke dope for our comfort.
“Drugs are just recreational and don’t harm anyone” is what the left has been saying for decades.
So what is the big fuss if the government deals in drugs?
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Cybertariat says...
Sovereignty Soldier (SS): “…nice to see that you [Cybertariat] can [recognize] corruption, although somehow I am sure that it is all due to capitalism.”
Well, yes, Mike, as expressed through my statement that “…capitalism’s benefactors and their hangers-on will do anything that they have to do in order to supply their system with new marketplaces and sources of raw materials…” I do indeed lay it all at the feet of this now incredibly antisocial economic system. For what else could it be that lies as the roots of cowardly wars of terrorism such as the one that was waged against the people of Nicaragua in the wake of their ousting the US-supported and hereditary dictatorship of the Somozas and the subsequent empowerment of the Sandinistas?
What was it that compels the American political state to violently overthrow democratically elected and extremely popular governments in places such as Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Guatemala, the Dominican Republic, Iran, etc.? Hell, what was it that compelled the American political state toward the “peaceful” overthrow of Australia’s Prime Minister Gough Whitlam in 1975?
The answer to these questions is, of course, money. And what is the name of the economic system that produces virtually all of the world’s money (by way of workers)? Capitalism.
Ergo, and while it is true that many members of the world’s capitalist class are also members of organizations the likes of the Freemasons and the Trilateral Commission just as they tend to belong to the same golfing clubs and resorts (what of it?), it is capitalism that creates nearly all of the world’s sociopolitical ills through extreme concentrations of economic wealth which shape the world to the liking of capitalists. And whether we wish to refer to them as capitalists, “elitists” or what have you, it is capitalism that gives them the power – the concentrated power – to screw the 99% of us who are not capitalists (e.g., you and I, Mike).
Lastly, no matter what we do (whether we elect this person or that person; whether we begin this political movement or that political movement, or whether we kill the “devil”), short of our putting an end to capitalism and, thus, the power of the few to rule the many, nothing is ever going to change for the better, at least not for we workers.
SS: "…I would not trust Bo Gritz. Many in the “exposing” game are still assets of the alphabet intelligence community. They keep an eye on activists."
Thank you. But I doubt quite seriously that Bo Gritz is in the habit of monitoring those who he is at least seemingly aligned with. Judging by the few times in which I have met with him, and despite our obvious political differences, I find him to be a very honorable individual who would never do such a thing as that. In fact, upon my ex-wife and I having spent nearly the entire day of June 27, 1989 in his and his ex-wife – Claudia’s – immediate presence, I can honestly say that I like the man. I found him to be affable, very down-to-earth, very intelligent, very well-read and very comfortable with my being a Marxist. The two of us even discussed Marxism and, during that time, he was surprisingly inquisitive and a very good listener, which is much more than what I am able to say about a lot other people of his political persuasion. Quite engaging, really.
Now could he have been “spying on me”? Yes. Yes of course. But would I have cared? No. Not at all. After all, my political activities have always been public affairs. So, the more people that know of my activities … the more that people become exposed to what it is that I espouse, which is what it is all about in the first place. Besides, I believe that the US government now deems we Marxists to be all but completely irrelevant because, well, because we simply are irrelevant.
On a slightly more serious note, yes, Mike, they do watch. For the one time that I saw it in a “current state,” which was 1995 (the last time that cared about such things), my FBI file amounted to some thirty-three pages.* It contained materials relevant to my activities as an especially active anti-nuclear activist (the Southern California Alliance for Survival), particularly that having to do with my active opposition to the “start-up” of the Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant.
It contained information having to do with my membership in and my active participation with C.I.S.P.E.S. (the Committee in Support of the People of El Salvador).
It also held my “subscriptions history” to the following monthly magazines and quarterly publications (to the best of my memory and in no particular order); The Nation magazine, the Progressive magazine; Mother Jones magazine; The Utne Reader magazine; In These Times magazine; The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientist (a then quarterly publication); Covert Action Quarterly; and (the “kicker”) Mother Earth News magazine.
It also contained copies of a number of my printed letters to the AV Press, and the LA Times.
It is all a little unnerving yet, at the same time, pretty humorous, too.
What I found to be the most interesting as well as the only useful aspect of my file was that which tracked my employment history. Every employer that I had ever worked for, save for my father and his brother, were listed by name, chronologically and complete with “starting” and “ending” dates. Pretty darn thoughtful of those guys at the FBI, eh? I mean, who the hell can ever remember all of that sort of thing while writing a resume or filing out a job application?
So you see, Mike, the FBI is our friend. :-)
But then again, anymore, I couldn’t possibly care any less about what sort of information that the FBI gathers on me, if any, which leads me to my final point:
As of 1995, my FBI file served to reveal absolutely nothing about my being a Marxist and, by that time, I had been a member of the Socialist Labor Party for more than five years, and I had communicated with the party – by mail – on a fairly regular basis for roughly one year prior to becoming a member.
That may have had something to do with the fact that never has the SLP advocated the violent overthrow of the US government nor violence in general. But I think that it has more to do with the fact that they simply don’t care about us anymore just as I no longer care about them. It is all so cold. Where is the love?
* By way of comparison and as but two other examples, Abbie Hoffman’s file is rumored to have contained somewhat more than 4,500 hundred pages of information while John Lennon’s was to have contained no fewer than 10,000 pages.
So not only can my 33-page file (as of 1995) be considered trivial it also, I believe, shows that the FBI maintains files on practically all of us.
Consider the aforementioned “kicker” – my having subscribed to Mother Earth magazine. Mother Earth Magazine? Really!
Well, once you think about it for a while, I mean once you really think about it, it all runs clear (a Buddhist riff for your inner ear). No, no, seriously. Once you give it some thought, you soon realize that the FBI considers Mother Earth News magazine to be threatening because the entire capitalist system is threatened by that which the likes of Mother Earth News advocates: independent living; “off the grid” sort of stuff. Think about it.
I’ll bet that Mike will appreciate that.
Oh and, thanks for the post that lead to all of this, Mike. It’s been fun.
*
Concerning avbornbred’s question: “So what is the big fuss if the government deals drugs?” I will say that, to me, it has little to nothing to do with the selling of drugs in and of itself while it has everything to do with what it is that the proceeds from those sales are used for (namely, the overthrowing of democratically elected governments, the waging of covert wars and all that is associated with those two things, such as the wholesale slaughter of civilians).
But let us not lose sight of the fact that it is not the US government that traffics in illegal drugs, nor of the fact that never have I made such an accusation. Rather and as I have stated within this thread and others, it has traditionally been certain elements within the US government that have purchased and sold drugs in the furtherance of various forms of covert action. (Emphasis not in original.)
And that “covert action” is the key-phrase in all of this. For covert actions are just that, actions (largely military in nature) that are carried out by so-called rogue elements of the US government without the knowledge or the consent of the US congress.
Additionally, as someone who advocates the complete decriminalization of all illicit drugs (“Danish-style,” that is), it is my belief that, by removing the profit factor from the production and sale of drugs that are currently illegal and, accordingly, by removing their criminal element, there would no longer be an incentive for such things as “CIA-Contra-cocaine.” Decriminalization would also, I believe, serve to eliminate, among other things, the incentive to destroy extremely sensitive woodlands and water aquifers currently associated with the cultivation of extremely profitable marijuana plants. (This is not to suggest that clandestine marijuana farmers set out to purposely destroy woodlands and water aquifers, only that that is often a “side effect” of clandestine marijuana farming.)
Good evening..
Persevere..
Guy..
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avbornbred says...
Get a Republican in office who understands how the economic engine of our country works, and BOOYAAA, things will change. Tax breaks for big corporations, the rich, take away the EPA’s power, and let our county do what it does best, use energy. When the USA is using energy, the country thrives. People will have jobs, unions will be strong, the entitlement class will still be on welfare and no one will care.
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Cybertariat says...
Actually, even if nuclear energy were so much as reasonably safe and thus insurable which it is neither, and even if it were not a cost prohibitive and highly inappropriate technology which it is, it would require at least another twenty-five years to bring the number of plants online that would be needed to make a difference with respect to America’s ever-growing electricity deficit.
Therefore, it is my belief that the only way in which to avoid severe shortages with respect to not only electricity but also oil, is to reduce the demand for both electricity and oil.
Concerning oil, the rate of extraction, globally, is already some ten million barrels per day less than the global demand for oil. In other words, the well has begun to run dry much sooner than what most had expected. Real oil shortages (rather than those of the contrived variety of the 1970s) are on the not-so-distant horizon as are huge electrical blackouts, and we simply do not have the luxury of waiting for technology to save us. We simply must reduce demand as we begin to transition to a non-carbon-based economy.
Good evening..
Persevere..
Guy..
( send private message )
avbornbred says...
At least nuclear power works. Our country runs on oil, coal, nuclear, and American muscle. Wind and solar are OK for the homeowner and small businesses to save on cost.
The public untility companies really don’t want the private home owner and businesses to have wind and solar. It cuts into their monthly revenue.
I do like the AVUHSD using solar as well as AVC. That is a real cost saver for the cites. I don’t think the average Joe will see any of those saving though.
CYBERGUY: You should invest in some of these alternative energy systems. You will probably make a lot of money on your investments.
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marino says...
Nuke plants are most definately relatively safe. Do the F’ing research. We Are fools not to be building more plants and drilling for all our available oil. Arabic countries are doing it, selling petrol to their citizens for much less than $1 and selling oil for too much to us.
Guy Marsh,
List all other governments that are involved in drug dealing.
Thanks much.
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roxi says...
Nuke plants are “relatively safe”, IF they’re maintained, upgraded and eliminated if they’re too old. Most of the Nuke plants we have in this country are over 30 yrs old, are in drastic need of upgrading or elimination – or built on active fault lines both in VA & CA.
Since nobody’s figured out what to do with the waste they produce, safely – why build more? Why not replace them with alternative energy technology – like CHINA is, instead of going backwards in technology and pandering to the flat-earthers & NRC idiots?
And those who pander to the Koch Bros. (Coal), and the Oil Companies: those who honestly believe the fairy-tale they’re being told that if all the PRIVATE corporations were granted to drill the entire earth to swiss cheese, that they’d sell oil to Americans for cheap ??!! When pigs fly.
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Cybertariat says...
marino: “List all other governments that are involved in drug dealing.”
Given the furtive nature of the world’s estimated $450-billion per year illicit drug trade, there is no way of knowing the exact number of governments that are involved in drug dealing nor of knowing the exact level of drug-related corruption within those governments. So I am unable to compile such a list.
It is safe to assume, however, that the governments of the seven or so nations in which drug cartels wield enormous influence (Afghanistan, the Bahamas, Bolivia, Burma/“Myanmar,” Colombia, Peru…) are all but replete with cartel-aligned politicians and appointees, including judges. Even within the relatively tame Bahama Islands and as many as twenty-five years ago, the former Bahamian Prime Minister Sir Lynden Pindling is strongly rumored to have taken some sixty-million dollars from Colombia’s Medellin cartel in return for his turning a blind eye to the fact that the Bahama Islands, particularly Norman’s Cay, were being used as transfer-points for enormous amounts of cocaine that was being smuggled into North America.
As for the current level of drug-related governmental corruption within the Bahamas, I simply have idea. One can well imagine, though, that, since cocaine and marijuana are still very much illegal, the Bahamian government is still beset by some degree of drug-related corruption.
We can also safely assume that the governments within drug-and-violence-laden societies such as Colombia and Mexico are nearly saturated with cartel-connected officials of all types. But it may also be argued that, not only do America’s irrelevant and wholly illogical drug laws serve to fuel much of this governmental corruption they – America’s drug laws – also spawn much of the violence that plague these societies which produce illicit drugs precisely because of America’s ridiculously impractical drug laws in the first place.
Is there a demand here in the US for marijuana, cocaine and heroin? Yes. But such a demand also exists within Denmark. Yet few if any Danes are being shot to death or otherwise killed because of that demand.
In short, there exists virtually no amount of drug-related violence in Denmark simply because the Danish people are not hampered by irrational “zero-tolerance” drug laws which, to bring us full circle, create artificially high prices for drugs, the violent cartels that produce and sell them, as well as the drug-related governmental corruption that stems from it all.
So why is it that the US government does not adopt the Danish government’s very sensible approach to marijuana, cocaine and heroin? Because, in my opinion and amongst many other reasons, the United States government is not truly interested in stamping out illicit drugs and their use due to two main reason: 1) domestically, the “war on drugs” is a mere pretext for diminishing the working-class’ constitutionally guaranteed rights (rights that are incompatible with the capitalist system of production); and 2) internationally, the nominal war on drugs is used toward the advancement of the US government’s historical pattern of using subterfuge to build military bases in foreign countries thereby expanding the American empire. This is especially true nowadays with respect to Central and South America as well the Caribbean where the US has doubled its construction of military bases just since 2008. This despite the fact that the once much vaunted “‘communist’ threat” no longer exists, and despite the fact that Central America, South America and the Caribbean are free of Wahhabi terrorism. Ergo, the US government’s need to perpetuate the alleged war on drugs no matter what. For example:
In 2009, a Colombian court ruling overturned a previous agreement between the Colombian and US governments to build four additional US military bases within Colombia. But, while ignoring the court’s ruling, the US broke ground on all four bases in 2010. Therefore, it might be asked: Where is the incentive for Colombian government officials to stay within the law? After all, many US government officials are seemingly unable to do so.
(note: The number of US military bases maintained throughout the world is now approaching eight-hundred.)
For its part, and while anticipating the motivation behind marino’s question, it is my belief that, although the governments of many other nations continue to traffic in illicit drugs, the US’s drug dealing is especially hideous given its self-promoted image of being the world’s beacon for moral purity and democratic principles. But the US is neither of those two things.
It is also interesting to consider that unlike, say, certain Colombian government officials who engage in drug trafficking simply for their personal aggrandizement, American officials who have trafficked in drugs have done so largely for ideological reasons. With few exceptions (most notably the previously mentioned “Armetagee, Klines, and Shaklee), US government drug dealers have executed their crimes solely in the name of anti-”communism." But, given that “anti-‘communism’” is nothing more than coded language which translates into “anti-self-determination” toward those societies which have attempted to develop their land, resources and labor for their benefit rather than that of multinationals, the “cause” of the likes of Oliver North (i.e., “Contra-Cocaine”) is anything other than noble. It is simply another case of the strong forcing their will upon the weak and all for the economic benefit of an infinitesimal and parasitic slice of humanity known as the capitalist class. It is cowardice.
Good evening..
Persevere..
Guy..
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Sovereignty Soldier says...
Like the blog but I would not trust Bo Gritz. Many in the “exposing” game are still assets of the alphabet intelligence community. They keep an eye on activists. Anyway, nice to see you can admit corruption although I am sure somehow it is all due to capitalism. As if communists/socialist dictators never do any wrong, injustices, or have any connections to the underworld.
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