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September 17, 2007


This reminds me of allegations that the various Iran-Contra investigations never looked into, that the Contras were smuggling cocaine with the Reagan adminitstration's blessing. (One California paper--I can't recall if it was the Sacramento Bee or the San Jose Mercury News--did get a story on that, but they were ignored.

If this is true, it would explain why, despite all the noise the last 3 Republican administrations have made about fighting the drug menace, they've put in as little money into treatment programs as they have--it's bad for business if the drug smugglers can't make enough money to bribe their supporters.

That allegation was investigated by Congress and they concluded Gary Webb was absolutely CORRECT. but, it just sort of faded away and the report never hit the newspapers. Surprise surprise. Many years later Gary Webb was destroyed and eventually committed suicide or was murdered.

Sure, ever since Vietnam it's pretty clear the CIA, especially it's airline, has enabled smuggling to improve cash flow and to grease palms.

Besides, it fed the political policy of incarcerating as many Dem-voting blacks and other poor drug users as possible, so they'd lose their voting rights. It's related to vote caging.

Boy, I'm gonna miss Chiquita bananas. I love bananas. Have you ever had a banana pudding on graham cracker crust with vanilla wafer all around and toasted meringue on top? Mmmmm mmmm good!

Doesn't it make you wonder where else in the world American corporations are doing dirty stuff which wouldn't be required if there were actual Democracies in place. Maybe there was a reason all these years that dictators were supported, but not real Democracies.

It makes me wonder if Americans are really fit to govern themselves. When we produce Harding, Nixon, Bush and all the criminal activities -- it's sickening.

That's the kind of thing which pushes me to believe Thomas Jefferson was more right than wrong about preferring a small government -- there's less gov't. power criminals can use to do their evil work. Can I be a Progressive Dem AND a Libertarian at the same time?

Drugs are illegal because the rich and powerful make money on them. It's that simple - talk to any border town deputy.

Let's not forget that the other country where the US is losing a war, Afghanistan, is back in the opium growing business thanks to our little intervention in revenge for 9/11. " ...American officials hope that Afghanistan's drug problem will someday be only as bad as that of Colombia." Seems the CIA had some pretty sleazy friends in that operation.

OT, but I wanted to call your attention to this intriguing bit of muckraking into ol' Haley Barbour and friends by Scott Horton, in case you missed it.

But while studying the Siegelman case, I have been looking over a series of cases in Mississippi which are remarkably similar to the Siegelman case in many ways. At this point I believe based on documents and evidence which have come to me, that the Mississippi prosecutions will also shortly be exposed as being politically motivated and directed. In any event it is clear that they were designed to, and did, have a key role in influencing elections in Mississippi for the benefit of the Republican Party.

Today, I want to look at one of the Mississippi cases, involving Supreme Court Justice Oliver Diaz. Justice Diaz was charged and acquitted twice in federal court. After reviewing the Diaz case in some detail, it is clear that no independent prosecutor would ever have brought these charges, that the prosecution was inspired and driven by political appointees in Washington working together with Diaz’s political opponents in Mississippi, and that the prosecutions served a manifestly partisan, and inherently corrupt, political agenda.

didn't fawn hall develop a cocaine problem after testifying in the Iran - Contra affair ( and hitting the 'big time' when her mug and 'do were splashed all over ? ) LOL

Responding to MarkH above, I share your love of Banana pudding. But try snorting it. whoa. killer. mind you, only seems to work with Chaquita brand. don't know why. Can't get enough of it.

When I saw the incoming link to VQR from The Next Hurrah, I just assumed I had David to thank. Surprise surprise, I don't. :) Thanks, emptywheel -- we're proud of this article (and the entire forthcoming issue), and it's great to see it getting some lovin' from my part of the blogosphere. :)

The hypocrisy of the republican party.

The family values party where homosexual affairs, down under bathroom sex, and child pornography seem to have a comfortable home. Meanwhile a married man and an affair with an intern gets impeachment.

The prolife party has killed over a million in Iraq for the sake of getting an edge in the oil business. But whatever you do, don't pull the plug on grandma unless we say so. And god forbid you prevent the birth of a child that will only end up part of their war machine.

Drugs?? Oh, hell no, we avoid doing them. We put you in jail for doing them. Meanwhile we sip our cognac as we make big business decisions and have our drivers drive us home. But we will deal drugs for profit. Poppies anyone?

guerrilla warfare, terrorism. So wrong!! So bad. Unless of course, you might help us get rich, then we will fund and arm you!!

Let's see if you were a criminal dealing guns, would you be FOR or AGAINST the NRA?? Would you be FOR or AGAINST laws that restrict the use of these guns??

Will the american people EVER get this?? will they ever see the hypocrisy and will it finally stick where it belongs?? Is it too big to be stopped?

dismayed...which is why marijuana will never be legal. There's no money in it if you can grow it in your back yard or basement.

Banana Republicans

I'm slow to catch on, but I'm starting to get it. I'm becoming aware that drug money is near the core of a considerable chunk of American government and corporate activity. I'd need to go out and find reliable numbers on black market economic activity, but if you believe that "follow the money" has any wisdom to it, then the amount of money involved in the drug trade, combined with the fact that drugs only have value because they are prohibited by the state, means that the political class just has to be getting their fair cut of this money too, somehow, somewhere. With marijuana especially, it is the stroke of the legislator's pen that turns an easy-to-grow houseplant into a multi-billion dollar industry with enormous profit margins, conducted entirely in cash, off the books, tax free, unregulated, undisclosed. For the CIA or DIA or Dept of State or LAPD or the local DA to entirely resist these piles of cash is unreasonable to believe. LAPD can demand budget increases to fight drugs on one hand, and get cash under the table for looking the other way on the other. Given that Bernie Kerik was a crook, and Giuliani and Schumer and Clinton all must have known it, and the last three are all still taken seriously, it seems fair to believe that payoffs from those who manage the flow of drugs on the street, to those who control the selective enforcement of drug laws, might well be routine, and Kerik's problem was just that he was unsubtle about it.

Every time I start to think I've got a tinfoil hat on, I come across something else to tell me I'm wrong. Janinsanfran's link to her blog led me to this article about CIA use of the heroin trade in Laos and Pakistan, during the Vietnam war and the First Afghan War. And I'd failed to realize before that BCCI was a CIA asset, whose bust John Kerry presumably carefully stage-managed.

Anyway, it wouldn't shock me if Chiquita made more money on cocaine than bananas. That's probably not literally true, but it wouldn't surprise me if it were so.

texas dem:

Catherine Austin Fitts is a good source to learn about where drug money ends up.


Funny, funny stuff... still debating "drugs for weapons" and using corporations as covers, when are people going to get to NARCOTERRORISM as a State sponsored modality, which OBTW the history of that and the associated money laundering are being taught in University courses worldwide, and even the Naval Postgraduate school here in the US. Taught how it works, why governments do it... and if you are a good boy, how you too can profit from it... and the other secondary crimes that go with the territory: prostitution, gambling, on and on...

There are people who still think Webb's story was bullcrap, just as people believe he committed suicide with two shots to the back of his head... every high school boy outside of America knows elements of the CIA were running drugs almost since its inception - and elements in the FBI were covering (narcoterrorism and the high politics of it is taught in almost every university)... today the CIA - excuse me- the George Bush Center for Intelligence as it has been renamed - is nothing more than the private army for the Fortune 500.

Intriguing though, is that the most politically successful narcoterrorist deal (Iran Contra) has yielded political payday for all those who participated and didn't balk... top level appointments... and if you think they are not in place today to continue the same deal... then you have no idea what the recent Gonzo USA firings were all about... and will never know...

Now one knows about the "K-Team" mess - the Iran Contra slush fund - and "Padre Island dirty land deal" - the FBI agent who investigated that got 60 years behind bars for a trumped up pedophile charge ... nothing repeats itself like history...

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