Narco-terrorists and the international criminal organizations that thrive on the illegal drug trade now threaten the national security of many nations. The nexus between transnational criminal organizations and terrorist groups does not end with illegal drug trafficking. Their partnerships are complex, linking illegal drugs, money, geography and politics. Yet, U.S. and international law-enforcement agencies overlook the connections between them, thereby unwittingly abetting the escalation in terrorism.
Terrorists' and criminals' mutually beneficial activities include: illegal arms trafficking, extortion and protection rackets; kidnapping; prostitution rings and human trafficking; credit card, social security and immigration fraud and identity theft; tax fraud; counterfeiting currencies, pharmaceuticals, cigarettes, alcohol, etc.; pirating videos, compact discs, tapes, and software; and illegal oil trade. The hundreds of billions of dollars in revenues fill the war chests of terrorists and criminals alike. Some of that money is used to undermine the political systems where these groups operate or target.
The March 2009 U.S. Department of State's International Narcotics Control Strategy Report documents "a direct connection between traditional Colombian drug trafficking and money laundering organizations and Middle Eastern money launderers tied to Hezbollah."
Back in 1987, Rep. Charles Rangel (D-NY), then Chairman of the Select Committee on Narcotics Abuse and Control, warned: "If we are to wage an effective war on drugs, we must have a successful campaign in Mexico." Judging by the expansion of heroin and cocaine production and trafficking from Latin America, and the escalating violence in Mexico that now spills over to the United States and Canada, we are not winning.
And the threat is not limited to Mexican drug cartels; many criminal and drug trafficking organizations in the Western Hemisphere collaborate with Muslim terrorist groups like al- Qaeda, Hamas, and Hezbollah. The Tri-Border Area (TBA -- Argentina, Brazil, and Paraguay), for example, is a known center of their operations.
These anti-American narco-terrorist groups found a good ally in Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez, who stopped cooperating with the U.S. drug eradication efforts in 2005. Chavez provides these groups with a safe haven from which to transfer money, arms and operatives to and from Syria, Southern Lebanon and Iran.
Meeting in Vienna on March 11, the 52nd session of the U.N. Commission on Narcotic Drugs (CND), acknowledged that heroin and cocaine consumption had increased globally, while enforcement failed. Yet, the meeting did not offer better policies to reduce illegal drug production and consumption, which would lead to less crime and funding for terrorists.
Instead, it called to treat the problem "less like a war, and more like an effort to cure a social illness." Moreover, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay, sees the users as victims, and therefore the "war" on drugs" as a human rights violation. "All too often, drug users suffer discrimination, [they] are forced to accept treatment," she said.
Incredibly, Bolivian Foreign Minister David Choquehuanca argued: "We can't go against a culture, and that's what the international community has to understand." Similarly, the Economist's cover story argued for drug legalization since "prohibition seems even more harmful, especially for the poor and weak of the world" -- implying that drug addiction afflicts only the poor.
However, at the same time, the U.N. study on Organized Crime and Its Threat to Security, warns that: "Because drug trafficking enriches criminals, destroys communities and even threatens nations, it has to be dealt with urgently and forcefully." Indeed, the report goes on to say that uncontrollable drug trade "even" causes terrorism.
The estimated $518 million that the Taliban collected from the heroin trade in 2007, according to the International Narcotics Control Board, facilitated their resurgence, growing influence and violence and forced the U.S. to deploy 17,000 additional troops to Afghanistan -- in addition to the 38,000 already there.
On March 9, the Chief of U.S. National Guard Bureau Gen. Craig McKinley warned of the growing threat to U.S. national security through "the linkages between drug cartels through organized crime back to terrorist organizations [which] cannot be disputed."
Despite these recent acknowledgments, the U.S. seems reluctant to use the solution for this festering problem. Mycoherbicides, "fungus naturally existing in the soil," could safely control the opium poppy, coca plant, and cannabis, rendering them worthless. Section 1111 of Public Law 109-469, which was signed into law on December 29, 2006, required that the Drug Czar's office submit a plan within 90 days for an expedited scientific study of "the use of mycoherbicide as a means of illicit drug crop elimination...[it] shall include an evaluation of all likely human health and environmental impacts of mycoherbicides derived from the fungus naturally existing in the soil."
Twenty-six months later, this provision in the bill, which passed the House by a vote of 300-5 and unanimously in the Senate, has gone nowhere. Yet, the use of mycoherbicides in South America and Afghanistan will mitigate the production of heroin and cocaine and cut off the narco-terrorists' major money supply. This would free up billions of dollars used to fight the opium and coca trafficking and addiction and make those monies available to help fight terrorism directly. It would also free up funds for an array of social and governmental reforms in affected countries, and reduce the threat to our national security.
President Obama should immediately authorize the study as ordered in Section 1111 of Public Law 109-469. The completion of the study could help the U.S. to win the battle against terrorism, drug trafficking, and international crime.
Dr. Rachel Ehrenfeld, author of Funding Evil: How Terrorism is Financed - and How to Stop It, is director of American Center for Democracy.
I suppose Agent Orange wasn't enough...let's export some more environmental misery.....
The only other doctor to testify was Dr. James C. Munch. His sole claim to fame was that he had injected some extract of marijuana directly into the brains of 300 dogs, and two of them died. When they asked him what he conclude from this, he said he didn’t know. Dr. Munch also testified in court, under oath, that marijuana could make your fangs grow six inches long and drip with blood. He also said that, when he tried it, it turned him into a bat.
Dr. Munch served as US Official Expert on marijuana for 25 years.
That is just one example of the lunacy. There is far more than that in the history of these laws. Anyone who currently supports these laws simply hasn’t read the most basic research on the subject.
First, the short history of the marijuana laws at http://druglibrary.org/schaffer/History/whiteb1.htm This is funny and fascinating.
Licit and Illicit Drugs at http://druglibrary.org/schaffer/Library/studies/cu/cumenu.htm The best overall review of the subject ever written. If you haven’t read this book, then you simply don’t know the subject.
The Drug Hang-Up at http://druglibrary.org/special/king/dhu/dhumenu.htm This is another excellent history of the subject.
Major Studies of Drugs and Drug Policy at http://druglibrary.org/schaffer This is a collection of the full text of every major government commission report on the drug laws from around the world over the last 100 years. They all reached similar conclusions.
The drug laws were the product of ignorance and nonsense. In the US – which has driven worldwide drug prohibition for more than fifty years – the laws were the result of racism and lunacy so stupid that it makes people laugh today.
Marijuana was originally outlawed for two major reasons. The first was because “All Mexicans are crazy and marijuana is what makes them crazy.” The second was the fear that heroin addiction would lead to the use of marijuana – exactly the opposite of the modern “gateway” idea.
One, no testing has been done to determine whether mycoherbicides have human health effects.
Two, there is a question as to whether their use violates anti-bio warfare treaties.
http://209.85.173.132/search?q=cache:k6WlQaeBz_AJ:www.sunshine-project.org/agentgreen/qanda.html+mycoherbicides+health+effects&cd=5&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us
Three, people of one nation do not take kindly to folks of another nation dropping chemicals on them. It doesn't matter what the purpose of said dropping is. Look at the controversy kicked up in California about malathion, for example. So you expect the poor framers of Peru and Colombia to just go "alrighty then" when we engage in compulsory spraying on their crops as a foreign nation? Are you serious?
Ultimately, the best course is legalization of pot and a phase in of legalization of other substances while we also put in place an infrastructure for dealing with the health and social consequences of addiction. People are already getting addicted on the down low and law enforcement penalties and cost make them hesitant to seek help.
There also has to be vast reforms of Latin American economies so that the wealth gets more evenly distributed so that folks feel that they have a stake in the system rather than feeling like the system is there to grind them into the dust by exploiting them. Yet, nobody in drug policy talks about that kind of holistic approach. Try again, Dr.
"Dr" Ehrenfeld:: Here it's another fact by Colombian vice-president at a Law Enforcement conference in London last year:
COCAINE USERS ARE DESTROYING THE RAINFOREST - 4 SQ METER A GRAM (Yet no accountability or responsibility is assumed by Americans)
"Francisco Santos Calderón, the vice-president of Colombia, appealed to British drug users to consider the impact on the environment. Santos said 300,000 hectares of rainforest were destroyed each year in Colombia to clear land for coca plant cultivation, predominantly controlled by illegal groups such as RIGHT and LEFT-WING armed militias."
The LatAm Commission on Drugs and Democracy ( http://drugsanddemocracy.org/blog/archives/category/highlights ) chaired by Colombian, Mexican and Brazilian ex-presidents recently RELEASED a new APPROACH to stem drug violence in the hemisphere:
http://drugsanddemocracy.org/files/2009/03/livro_ingles_02.pdf
As a Colombian-American, I see Americans still don't get it. The so-called 'Drug War' has FAILED:
1) America's voracious appetite for drugs will always find a willing supplier (cartel) who will reap the incredibly amount of profit drugs make. US must LEGALIZE and CONTROL drug flow.
2) American corporations just make way too much money selling weapon and processing chemicals to drug gangs.
3) LatAm realizes that US-funded programs against drugs are just ways to set up military posts and intervene in the region.
4) Unless the US engage willing LatAm countries on an EQUAL STANDING PARTNERSHIP, the problem will not be contained.
The unifying quantity is Racism against Latino people.
On the contrary, her book, Funding Evil, was well sourced. She was sued in a British court for libel in a court system that is stacked against journalists. She defended herself in a New York court case in defense of First Amendment rights. New York state has passed "Rachel's law" to protect Americans who write uncomfortable truths from libel tourists in Britain. The federal government may also pass such a law.
Whatever issues people may have with her analysis specifically or the war on drugs in general, resort to gross distortions of her character and motivations are uncalled for.
WE demand all of the drugs imported into our borders.
WE impose our policy on nations far and wide, often using militaristic methods that are a boon to scurrilous arms dealers.
WE imprison our own at frightening rates unseen anywhere else in the world because the State doesn't condone their personal choices.
And yes, WE have multinationals corporatioons that launder the money to fatten their bottom line...
http://www.rense.com/general28/money.htm
If you want to fight narco-terrorism, Dr Rachel...start right here......
You cannot be serious, just as the US isn't serious when it says it's fighting a war on drugs. The heroin trade in Afghanistan is at record levels and has INCREASED since the US occupation - I strongly suspect that an increase in forces will have absolutely no effect on this due to the increased demand coming from places like the US and Europe. So, just like every patronising condescending conqueror your screed reeks of the denial that is evident when you consider that the REAL problem exists where the demand is, not the supply.
Poisoning the soil of people in far off places will do nothing to quell the insatiable appetite we here in the west have for drugs; please don't export our problems and pin them on the rest of the world, that is morally reprehensible and hypocritical to say the least, and we grown folk are wise to it, you don't represent us.
Enough. Let's clear up our problem here, at the source.
Legalize, contain and tax. Treat drug addiction as a medical problem not a legal one.
Basically, Dr Rachel you are talking the same old bollocks that Reagan did 30 years ago whilst he was hypocritically cutting deals with the Contras and the Iranians.
Prohibiton has never worked, haven't you learned anything from history?
Lets start by spraying mycoherbicides in your back yard, Dr. Ehrenfeld. U.S.A. first, including Hawaii. Let us devour our own 'natural and organic' mycoherbicides before we poison the rest of the world with invasive myco-species.
Your a DOCTOR?! 'The Solution' (why does that sound so bloody familiar?)
You are the BEAST!!!
Prohibition is jihad.
http://www.debka.com/article.php?aid=106
For every intractible social problem, there's always a solution that involves military action that attracts the militaristic to itself. The natural plants the author wishes to poison out of existence are, well, natural, as is, evidently the appetite to consume them. That's why 40 years after the Sixties, billions upon billions of dollars gone, hundreds of thousands of flesh-and-blood men and women languishing in jails, tens of thousands of extra policemen hired, I can still walk out my apartment and in ten minutes tops find a guy selling something or other on the corner that lots of other guys risk everything to get. I don't promote this fact, I merely report it. And no, I don't think the solution is bigger jails and fungus.
The problem with drugs now is their very illegality, which makes them untaxed, too expensive and a fine way for criminals to become rich, who being criminals, are happy to run a gun or two or an underage prostitute in same shipment the drugs come in.
The Dutch use less cannabis and much less "hard drugs" than Americans.
http://www.drugwarfacts.org/cms/?q=node/67
I suspect the Dutch also use less mind-altering prescription pharmaceuticals.
"Horrible unimaginable traffic deaths on the European highways."
Do you have any evidence that drug tourism is causing carnage on European highways?
Again, when illicit drug use goes up, alcohol use goes down, resulting in less drug-related traffic accidents.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Substitution_effect#Substitution_effect
This is major problem with drug policy. Most people are unfamiliar with the literature on the subject, and those who do understand addiction, medicine, criminology or pharmacology often fail to understand economics and history.
___
According to the law of supply and demand, the more scarce the product, the more it is worth, explaining the "balloon effect" we have seen for several decades. When eradication efforts actually succeed in one area, the crops spring up in another area.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balloon_effect
For example, paraquat made Mexican cannabis scarce, so Americans started to import it from Colombia, which opened up the cocaine trade in the 1980s, Miami Vice, etc. and caused Americans
to start growing their own. Cracking down on cocaine led to the meth "epidemic" of the 1990s.
Further, cannabis, alcohol and other psychoactive substances are economic substitutes with cross-prices elasticities, meaning, when cannabis use goes down, alcohol and other drug use goes up, increasing addiction, crime, violence, accidents, unplanned pregnancies, rapes, fetal alcohol syndrome, etc. So even if we had a magic wand that made cannabis plants disappear, it would be a *very* bad idea from a public health perspective to use it.
Given that tobacco use has been declining for decades, and that teens report that cannabis is
easier to obtain than alcohol, the solution is to legalize and regulate drugs.
In the BBC series TRAFFIC which was the basis of the movie TRAFFIC, the international trafficking of narcotic drugs was delineated well. __
It is a hell realm.
_______
This quote is perfect as a foundation with which to attack the concept that TRADITION is holy, sacred, not to be touched - like a rare species ": "We can't go against a culture, and that's what the international community has to understand."_____
We do have to go against culture and stupidity and degradation and wanting to wallow in the mud at the lowest common denominator. ___
The US is the moral authority and should rail against anything that pollutes its morality.
_____
That the Southern hemisphere is drug oriented I am afraid speaks more about the absence of a moral compass than a weapon against the US. I see Mexico and all of Central and South America as driven by desire not a focus to advance intellectually.
____
Brazil and most other countries of Central and South America have no value of life. In Brazil the police shoot children dead, the children women have abandoned because they have no one to give their child to for adoption.
_____
Columbia, Bolivia, Mexico = ruin
I would love to work for the author. Thank you for the information.
The US' moral authority, by the way, was beaten to death in Abu Ghraib.
These wars on drugs throughout the world, have been mostly a war on peasants by paramilitary right-wing and US -trained military forces, which is why the Bolivians got tired of it. And the Venezuelans. And the Afghans. And...