Pubdate: Thu, 15 Feb 2007
Source: Uptown Magazine (CN MB)
Copyright: 2007 Uptown Magazine
Contact:  http://www.uptownmag.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/4420
Author: Jim Sanders
Note: Jim Sanders is a local documentary filmmaker and co-founder of Dada

DRUGS AND THE DOGS OF WAR

Research Shows Militants Have Long Used the Drug Trade to Finance Their Battles

It has been estimated that drugs are the third biggest global 
commodity after petroleum and weapons. Together, oil, guns and drugs 
are the economic pillars of globalization.

The United Nations estimates that the annual global turnover of 
narcotics is in the range of $500 billion US, much of which is 
laundered through offshore banks and then invested in businesses and 
governments worldwide. It is even said the global economy would 
collapse if the drug trade ceased.

It is within the fortune-making machine of war that the drug trade 
finds common ground with the oil and arms industries. War is a dirty 
business, often driven by covert operations and human-rights abuses. 
In war, criminal networks and drug traffickers and their smuggling 
routes become valuable assets to be managed and utilized for strategic gains.

Not only does the drug trade facilitate intelligence gathering, it is 
also a means for covert operatives and revolutionaries to fund 
themselves beyond the gaze of politicians and the public.

These practices were highlighted for the public in the 1980s by the 
Iran-Contra Affair. In U.S. government hearings, it was discovered 
that in order to circumvent Congress' concerns about human-rights 
abuses, American agencies traded arms with Iran, an avowed enemy.

Similarly, 1998 internal investigations into CIA involvement in 
cocaine trafficking in Central and South America revealed that the 
U.S. agency had turned a blind eye to the fact that drug trafficking 
was being used by Nicaraguan contras to fund the guerrilla war being 
fought against the revolutionary government of the mid-1980s.

The conclusion that can be drawn is that the modern cocaine epidemic 
that continues to ravage many North American cities, including 
Winnipeg, was in part perpetuated by the CIA and the American government.

Things have only gotten worse. The dark alliance of globalization has 
reached new heights in the war-plagued country of Afghanistan, a 
country NATO forces supposedly invaded in order to spread democracy. 
Six years later, the only thing spreading is the Afghan heroin 
industry, which has more than doubled in size since the U.S.-led invasion.

It isn't often that we hear about the history of the heroin trade in 
Afghanistan. That's because it was originally used as a means to 
support Osama bin Laden's guerrilla war against the Soviets. 
University of Ottawa Prof. Michel Chossudovsky, in an essay titled 
The CIA, Heroin, & Who Is Ousmane Bin Laden?, stated "CIA assets 
again controlled this heroin trade," meaning Bin Laden is really a 
former intelligence asset with ties to the drug trade in The Golden Crescent.

It should also be of no surprise that the new president of 
Afghanistan is a former executive of the American oil company Unocal.

What I have touched on here is but the tip of the iceberg. No doubt 
many sordid tales of governments being linked to the drug trade have 
yet to be uncovered.

For instance, why was a Lear jet with 43 pounds of heroin discovered 
at an airport in Florida in 2000 -- an airport that three weeks later 
hosted the flight training of two of the 9/11 hijackers?

In 2006, why was a DC-9 painted to look like a U.S. Homeland Security 
plane discovered in Mexico with 5.5 tons of cocaine on board?

Something tells me we might start looking for answers by asking the 
CIA about these two planes.

Check out these two websites for in-depth research into this subject: 
www.globalresearch.ca and www.madcowprod.com.

Jim Sanders is a local documentary filmmaker and co-founder of Dada 
World Data Productions.
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MAP posted-by: Elaine