Pubdate: Wed, 04 Sep 2002
Source: USA Today (US)
Page: 9D
Copyright: 2002 USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Co. Inc
Contact:  http://www.usatoday.com/news/nfront.htm
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/466
Author: Svetlana Kolchik
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?194 (Hutchinson, Asa)

MUSEUM'S 'TARGET AMERICA' SHOWS TIES BETWEEN TERRORISM, DRUG TRADE

"The bearer of this letter, who possesses four kilograms of 'white good,' 
has paid duty at the Shinwar Customs. It is hoped the bearer will not be 
bothered," reads the tax receipt for an Afghan drug courier carrying 8.8 
pounds of heroin for delivery abroad.

Bearing a stamp of a customs office in eastern Afghanistan, the document 
was issued by the Taliban in the spring of 2001, despite its official ban 
on poppy crops, the raw material for heroin. The tax receipt is one of 80 
items that constitute Target America, a 1,500- square-foot exhibit at the 
Drug Enforcement Administration Museum in Arlington, Va., not far from the 
Pentagon. The exhibit opens Tuesday.

Other items on display include a captured handmade Taliban flag; a leather 
briefcase confiscated in New York that once held $1 million in $20 bills; 
and a tablecloth dipped in liquid heroin, a smuggling technique.

Opening the exhibit, which aims to show the link between terrorism and drug 
trafficking, is a chilling 14-foot-high structure of rubble from the World 
Trade Center. But it's not another Sept. 11 memorial, says Sean Fearns, 
museum director. "It uses Sept. 11 as a starting point. We are trying to 
tell a story that most Americans don't know exists."

The exhibit gives an overview of drug production and the trade that 
sponsors terrorism, from the Colombian FARC, the biggest guerrilla group in 
South America, to al-Qaeda, which reports have said is financed by the drug 
trade. The exhibit is the first to show the historic connection between 
terrorism and the drug trade, DEA director Asa Hutchinson says.

During the course of a recent federal drug investigation, investigators 
found that some proceeds of drug sales in the USA were going to terrorist 
organizations in the Middle East, including the militant Islamic group 
Hezbollah, Hutchinson said in an interview with CNN.

However, not everyone accepts the link between drugs and terrorism. Groups 
critical of the nation's drug policy questioned $3.2 million Super Bowl ads 
from the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy that suggested 
the money spent on drugs in America is financing terror groups all over the 
world.

"This connection is blown out of proportion," says Kevin Zeese of Common 
Sense for Drug Policy, a Washington-based non-profit group.

"They are trying to tie the unpopular drug war to the more popular 
terrorism issue."

Target America will run in Arlington through April 1, 2003. The exhibit 
will continue in New York, Chicago, Dallas, Detroit and Los Angeles.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom