after 40yrs, washington is quietly giving up on a futile battle that has spread corruption & destroyed thousands of lives from independent: After 40 years of defeat and failure, America's "war on drugs" is being buried in the same fashion as it was born – amid bloodshed, confusion, corruption and scandal. US agents are being pulled from South America; Washington is putting its narcotics policy under review, and a newly confident region is no longer prepared to swallow its fatal Prohibition error. Indeed, after the expenditure of billions of dollars and the violent deaths of tens of thousands of people, a suitable epitaph for America's longest "war" may well be the plan, in Bolivia, for every family to be given the right to grow coca in its own backyard.
The "war", declared unilaterally throughout the world by Richard Nixon in 1969, is expiring as its strategists start discarding plans that have proved futile over four decades: they are preparing to withdraw their agents from narcotics battlefields from Colombia to Afghanistan and beginning to coach them in the art of trumpeting victory and melting away into anonymous defeat. Not surprisingly, the new strategy is being gingerly aired in the media of the US establishment, from The Wall Street Journal to the Miami Herald.
Prospects in the new decade are thus opening up for vast amounts of useless government expenditure being reassigned to the treatment of addicts instead of their capture and imprisonment. And, no less important, the ever-expanding balloon of corruption that the "war" has brought to heads of government, armies and police forces wherever it has been waged may slowly start to deflate.
the use of terms like 'theater' & 'enablers' should really tell you what's going on here... thisisallaboutthedrugs. from time: Afghanistan became President Obama's war on Tuesday [feb17], when he ordered two more U.S. combat brigades into the fight. He will send 17,000 combat troops to join the 36,000-strong U.S. force already in the theater. The fact that the units now ordered to Afghanistan had originally been slated for Iraq underscores the new Administration's shift in priorities. The reinforcements include about 8,000 Marines from Camp Lejeune, N.C., who should be in Afghanistan by late spring, and a 4,000-strong Army brigade from Fort Lewis, Wash., which should arrive in the summer. Those units will be joined by about 5,000 more Army "enablers" to provide logistical support.
two-thirds of afghan police are hooked on drugs from bbc: Sixty per cent of the Afghan police in the country's southern province of Helmand use drugs, it is claimed. The estimate, made by a UK official working in the province, was contained in emails obtained by the BBC. International forces are fighting a fierce counter-insurgency campaign against Taleban militants and other insurgents in Helmand. But British officials are clearly worried about the reliability of the Afghan police. "We are very concerned by the levels of drug abuse among the police," the British Foreign Office said in a statement.
how much of our debt comes from drug money? from business insider: Allen Stanford forfeited $3 million in drug money back in 1999, and it's a sure thing that within his multi-billion empire he had many more drug dollars under his care. This is true not just of Stanford, but of the whole Caribbean offshore banking complex, as drug dealers are obviously interested in the regulation-light, few-questions-asked private banking system. Offshore banks, meanwhile, have grown rapidly as major purchasers of US treasuries over the years. As you can see in the chart below, they really spiked in the 04-05 range, right as Japanese holdings leveled off. According this table, Caribbean banks are now the fourth biggest holders of treasuries, having surpassed Brazil and all the oil states combined in just the last year. So again, how much drug money goes into financing our debt? And if you doubt the premise of our question, here's famed rapper KRS-One making basically the same point...
pakistan &the national reconnaissance office reunite for more blackop terror drills? from arizona daily star: To troops downed in combat, few sights are sweeter than the approach of military rescuers. In a few weeks, Tucson will be at the center of efforts to speed up that lifesaving process. Personnel from around the globe will converge at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base from Dec. 1 to Dec. 12 for the largest rescue exercise of its kind. The effort, dubbed Angel Thunder, will involve the U.S. Army and Air Force, troops from Germany, Chile, Colombia and observers from Canada, Mexico, Brazil and Pakistan. Several non-military U.S. agencies such as the State and Justice departments, the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency and the National Reconnaissance Office, also will take part in the drills, which aim to smooth interaction between military branches, allied nations and civilian agencies. With about 450 personnel involved, Angel Thunder "is the most complex and largest Department of Defense personnel- recovery exercise to date," said a news release from Air Combat Command in Langley, Va. D-M will be at the hub of the effort, but most of the mock rescue action will take place elsewhere in Arizona and in New Mexico.
fed releases crisis preparedness video from rogue government: The Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta this past January released a video on crisis preparedness. The timing of such a video being released is suspicious considering the prospect of bank failures and an inflationary collapse of the U.S. monetary system loom large...download the video here because youtube gave my upload the smackdown...
US launches airstrike in somalia
from ap: The U.S. launched an airstrike Monday on a Somali town held by Islamic extremists to go after a group of terrorist suspects, U.S. defense officials said... "It was a deliberate, precise strike against a known terrorist and his associates," one U.S. military official said in Washington, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to comment on the record.
chavez sends tanks to colombia border in dispute from reuters: Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez moved tanks to the Colombian border and mobilized fighter jets on Sunday, warning Bogota could spark a war after its troops struck inside another of its neighbors, Ecuador. Reacting to Colombia's killing on Saturday of a Colombian rebel over the border in Ecuador, a Venezuelan ally, Chavez also withdrew all of his diplomats from Bogota in the worst dispute between the neighbors since he came to office in 1999.
dod not interested in finding human lab rats used in project shad from deseret news: Congressional researchers said Thursday the Defense Department has not done enough to find and contact people who were likely exposed to old chemical and germ warfare testsoverseen by Utah-based Army scientists. The U.S. General Accountability Office, a research arm of Congress, wrote that until such efforts improve, "Congress, veterans, and the public may continue to question the completeness and accuracy of DOD's (Department of Defense) efforts."
US military to train pak forces from press tv: US military is reviewing a plan to send about 100 American experts to train a Pakistan paramilitary force, the New York Times reports... For many years, small teams of American Special Operations forces have trained their Pakistani counterparts in counterinsurgency tactics.
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from independent: After 40 years of defeat and failure, America's "war on drugs" is being buried in the same fashion as it was born – amid bloodshed, confusion, corruption and scandal. US agents are being pulled from South America; Washington is putting its narcotics policy under review, and a newly confident region is no longer prepared to swallow its fatal Prohibition error. Indeed, after the expenditure of billions of dollars and the violent deaths of tens of thousands of people, a suitable epitaph for America's longest "war" may well be the plan, in Bolivia, for every family to be given the right to grow coca in its own backyard.
