Mexico's war is how the future will look - global government by multinational banks

a truly grim but nonetheless brutally accurate vision of capitalism run amok...

from the guardian...

Mexico's carnage is that of the age of effective global government by multinational banks – banks that, according to Antonio Maria Costa, the former head of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, have been for years kept afloat by laundering drug and criminal profits. Cartel bosses and street gangbangers cannot go around in trucks full of cash. They have to bank it – and politicians could throttle this river of money, as they have with actions against terrorist funding. But they choose not to, for obvious reasons: the good burgers of capitalism and their political quislings depend on this money, while bleating about the evils of drugs cooked in the ghetto and snorted up the noses of the rich.

Mexico's war is how the future will look, because it belongs not in the 19th century with wars of empire, or the 20th with wars of ideology, race and religion – but utterly in a present to which the global economy is committed, and to a zeitgeist of frenzied materialism we adamantly refuse to temper: it is the inevitable war of capitalism gone mad. Twelve years ago Cardona and the writer Charles Bowden curated a book called Juarez: The Laboratory of Our Future. They could not have known how prescient their title was. In a recent book, Murder City, Bowden puts it another way: "Juarez is not a breakdown of the social order. Juarez is the new order."

i hadn't framed what was going on in mexico in these terms but, i must admit, they make a tremendous amount of sense, albeit horrifying...

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Ok, Hamid, let's have that little talk about Wali...

you can make of this what you will... for me, it just adds to my deep, dark suspicions that the our esteemed cia has long been heavy into the drug trade and that our dark overlords have managed to maintain their power over us in large part financed by proceeds from that dark business... it would only be to their interest to keep a drug lord on the payroll...

Ahmed Wali Karzai, the brother of the Afghan president and a suspected player in the country’s booming illegal opium trade, gets regular payments from the Central Intelligence Agency, and has for much of the past eight years, according to current and former American officials.

The agency pays Mr. Karzai for a variety of services, including helping to recruit an Afghan paramilitary force that operates at the C.I.A.’s direction in and around the southern city of Kandahar, Mr. Karzai’s home.

gee, what a great morning...! just FULL of all kinds of breaking news...!

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Afghanistan truth-telling: putting opium "in the bank"

f. william engdahl via information clearing house...

The US military is in Afghanistan for two reasons. First to restore and control the world’s largest supply of opium for the world heroin markets and to use the drugs as a geopolitical weapon against opponents, especially Russia. That control of the Afghan drug market is essential for the liquidity of the bankrupt and corrupt Wall Street financial mafia.

According even to an official UN report, opium production in Afghanistan has risen dramatically since the downfall of the Taliban in 2001. UNODC data shows more opium poppy cultivation in each of the past four growing seasons (2004-2007), than in any one year during Taliban rule. More land is now used for opium in Afghanistan, than for coca cultivation in Latin America. In 2007, 93% of the opiates on the world market originated in Afghanistan. This is no accident.

It has been documented that Washington hand-picked the controversial Hamid Karzai, a Pashtun warlord from the Popalzai tribe, long in the CIA’s service, brought him back from exile in the USA, created a Hollywood mythology around his “courageous leadership of his people.” According to Afghan sources, Karzai is the Opium “Godfather” of Afghanistan today. There is apparently no accident that he was and is today still Washington’s preferred man in Kabul. Yet even with massive vote buying and fraud and intimidation, Karzai’s days could be ending as President.

The second reason the US military remains in Afghanistan long after the world has forgotten even who the mysterious Osama bin Laden and his alleged Al Qaeda terrorist organization is or even if they exist, is as a pretext to build a permanent US military strike force with a series of permanent US airbases across Afghanistan. The aim of those bases is not to eradicate any Al Qaeda cells that may have survived in the caves of Tora Bora, or to eradicate a mythical “Taliban” which at this point according to eyewitness reports is made up overwhelmingly of local ordinary Afghans fighting to rid their land once more of occupier armies as they did in the 1980’s against the Russians.

The aim of the US bases in Afghanistan is to target and be able to strike at the two nations which today represent the only combined threat in the world today to an American global imperium, to America’s Full Spectrum Dominance as the Pentagon terms it.

ok... now let's look at the drug story a little more closely...

this story from the bbc a year ago poses a conundrum... 3500 tons of heroin is more than enough to satisfy every heroin user on the planet... but, get this... for the past three years, production in afghanistan has been running at twice the level of global demand...

here's the graph from the united nations office on drugs and crime (UNODC)...



the bbc story poses two theories...

Theory 1: A large and undocumented market has opened up in countries which don't want to admit the problem. Russia has long been in denial over the scale of its heroin problem and the same may be true in emerging drug markets like Iran, Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan.

The Iranians are certainly increasingly anxious about the opium fields on their doorstep. Border guards and police have been involved in deadly shoot-outs with smugglers with experts suggesting that there are now a million heroin users in Iran.

But the over-supply is so great that it is hard to conceive of it all disappearing in to the blood-streams of new addicts in Tehran and Ashgabat.

Theory 2: Vast quantities of heroin and morphine are being stockpiled. Antonio Maria Costa, head of the UNODC is convinced that is the only explanation. In a recent bulletin he issues an urgent order: 'Find the missing opium.' "As a priority, intelligence services need to examine who holds this surplus, where it may go, and for what purpose" he says. "We know little about these stockpiles of drugs, besides that they are not in the hands of farmers."

Further credibility is given to the stockpiling theory in that 'farm-gate' prices for opium remain pretty stable at about $70 per kilo.

interestingly, the "missing opium" story reappeared just last month...

from cnn...

Enough Afghan opium to supply world demand for two years has effectively gone missing, with the Taliban suspected of stockpiling supplies in a bid to corner the market, the United Nations Office for Drugs and Crime (UNODC) has revealed.

[...]

"We figure the world needs around 4,000 tons of opium a year for licit and illicit purposes," Walter Kemp of the UNODC told CNN.

"But this year around 6,900 tons was produced, with 7,700 tons delivered last year and more than 8,500 the year before that. Map showing where Afghan opium is going »

"So if the world only needs around 4,000 tons of opium and a further 1,000 is seized, where is the rest of it going?"

According to Kemp, world demand for opium remains stable yet prices are not crashing, which suggests a large amount of opium is being withheld from the market.

"Our guess is that around 12,000 tons of opium has been stockpiled somewhere -- not all in one place but in and around Afghanistan," he added. "So while production might be coming down -- mostly because of market reasons -- there's still a lot of product around to satisfy demand for about two years."

It is unclear exactly who is responsible for this but there's growing evidence, according to the U.N., that the Taliban are becoming increasingly involved in the industry and could be sitting on huge stockpiles of opium to use as credit for financing their activities.

my take...? the "stockpiling by the taliban" line is disinformation, pure and simple... the damn stuff is being stockpiled by the super-rich elites as a hedge against the ugliness of the world economy that they're principally responsible for creating...

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A military coup in Guinea that exposes the truth and opts for exposing a drug-dealing government...? Wow...!

who woulda thunk it...?

For years, the drug trade was an open secret in Guinea. The inner circle of former dictator Lansana Conte, who ruled Guinea for 24 years until his death, was deeply corrupt, with officials driving opulent SUVs in a capital where most people live without electricity.

Conte died in December. A day later, Capt. Moussa Dadis Camara, a junior army officer, grabbed power in a coup and promised to crack down on corruption, including on the flagrant drug trade. So far, more than a dozen people have been arrested, but Dadis has failed to arrest well-known members of his own military junta who are believed to deal in drugs.

The confessions began two weeks ago on state television in what is now known in Guinea as "The Dadis Show," broadcasts that have caused a spike in TV viewership and are the constant topic at lunch and over coffee.

First up was Ousmane Conte, the feared eldest son of the deceased dictator, who was untouchable under the previous regime. He admitted what everyone in Guinea knew but did not dare say.

"I acknowledge that I was in the drug business — and I regret it," said Conte, whose confession was taped inside his detention cell.

[...]

As the cocaine market in the United States matured, drug traffickers turned to Europe instead, according to a U.N. report released in October. Over the past decade, cocaine use in Spain and the United Kingdom has grown three and four-fold. One kilogram of cocaine in Europe now sells for twice as much as in the United States, according to the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime.

To get the cocaine to Europe, traffickers first smuggle it to Africa's west coast, located directly across the ocean from Colombia, Peru and Bolivia, home to the world's entire crop of coca leaves. They bring it in freighter ships and in small, two-engine planes that land at night on deserted air strips. Once ashore, it is parceled out to hundreds of drug dealers, who smuggle it north on boats, in planes and in their own intestines.

In a report earlier this month, the U.S. State Department said cocaine smuggling through Venezuela alone has shot up fivefold since 2002, from 50 metric tons to an estimated 250 metric tons in 2007. It said a rapidly increasing percentage of the flow has begun to be shipped and flown to West Africa, notably to Guinea and Guinea Bissau, and then on toward Europe.

now, when will the u.s. government's involvement in drug trafficking be similarly exposed...?

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U.S. - they love me, they love me not

why is it that damn near every country the united states cozies up to, goes to war with, takes over, or demonizes either has vast energy and mineral resources, is a narco-state or both...?

love...

afghanistan (drugs)
brazil (energy)
canada (energy, minerals)
chile (minerals)
colombia (drugs)
iraq (energy, drugs)
kosovo (drugs)
kuwait (energy)
pakistan (energy, drugs)
peru (energy, minerals, drugs)
saudi arabia (energy)
tajikistan (energy)
united arab emirates (energy)
uzbekistan (energy)

hate...

bolivia (energy, minerals, drugs)
ecuador (energy, drugs)
iran (energy, minerals, drugs)
mexico (energy, drugs)
syria (energy, drugs)
venezuela (energy)

quite frankly, i don't know where to stick china, israel, north korea, and russia...

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Paco's trail of ruin in Argentina

i've been aware of the paco plague but, fortunately, i haven't seen much of it first-hand... on a couple of occasions, i've encountered young men on the street displaying a visibly hostile air and behaving erratically who i strongly suspect had been smoking paco... they were forcing themselves past people on the sidewalk, trying to catch someone's eye and spouting incoherent taunts as if they were trying to pick a fight... it was clear to me that responding in any way, even with a change of facial expression or body language, could potentially produce a violent confrontation...

from today's nyt...

[T]he irrepressible spread of paco, a highly addictive, smokable cocaine residue that has destroyed thousands of lives in Argentina [has] caused a cycle of drug-induced street violence never seen before in this country.

The scourge underscores a significant shift in both Argentina and its larger neighbor, Brazil, which in just a few years have become sizable cocaine consumers. Brazil now ranks as the second largest consumer of cocaine in the world after the United States, the State Department says.

this is a good article and is worth reading in full... there's also an accompanying video clip which gives a flavor of the villas miserias (shantytowns) that have become a much larger feature of the buenos aires landscape since the economic collapse of 2001, a feature, naturally, that the ever-increasing hordes of gringo turistas never see...

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Dallas Morning News breaks the Sibel story

yes, it's phil giraldi, and yes, it's on the op-ed page, but, hey... at least it's a major u.s. paper...

Philip Giraldi: What FBI whistle-blower Sibel Edmonds found in translation

FBI whistle-blower Sibel Edmonds has spilled her secrets, says PHILIP GIRALDI. Why is her story being covered up?

12:00 AM CST on Sunday, February 17, 2008

Most Americans have never heard of Sibel Edmonds, and if the U.S. government has its way, they never will.

The former FBI translator turned whistle-blower tells a chilling story of corruption at Washington's highest levels – sale of nuclear secrets, shielding of terrorist suspects, illegal arms transfers, narcotics trafficking, money laundering, espionage. She may be a first-rate fabulist, but Ms. Edmonds' account is full of dates, places and names. And if she is to be believed, a treasonous plot to embed moles in American military and nuclear installations and pass sensitive intelligence to Israeli, Pakistani and Turkish sources was facilitated by figures in the upper echelons of the State and Defense Departments. Her charges could be easily confirmed or dismissed if classified government documents were made available to investigators.

But Congress has refused to act, and the Justice Department has shrouded Ms. Edmonds' case in the state-secrets privilege, a rarely used measure so sweeping that it precludes even a closed hearing attended only by officials with top-secret security clearances. According to the Department of Justice, such an investigation "could reasonably be expected to cause serious damage to the foreign policy and national security of the United States."

After five years of thwarted legal challenges and fruitless attempts to launch a congressional investigation, Sibel Edmonds is telling her story, though her defiance could land her in jail. After reading its November piece about Louai al-Sakka, an al-Qaeda terrorist who trained 9/11 hijackers in Turkey, Ms. Edmonds approached the Sunday Times of London. On Jan. 6, the Times, a Rupert Murdoch-owned paper that does not normally encourage exposés damaging to the Bush administration, featured a long article. The news quickly spread around the world – but not in the United States.

why should getting the REALLY important stuff out in the public eye be like trying to shove a camel through the eye of a needle...?

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Drug trafficking, cocaine, and the CIA

i've posted a fair amount on drug trafficking, the cia, and cocaine (here)... here's a youtube video that talks a little more about the gulfstream II jet, formerly registered to the cia, that went down in the yucatan with FOUR TONS of cocaine aboard...

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Hillary, the narcotics trade, high-level bribery, Dennis Hastert, and the Turkish "deep" state

yet more damning info that says hillary should just drop out...

luke ryland at let sibel edmonds speak...

Key Clinton Backer Guilty in Sibel Edmonds Case

The UK's Times has already run three bombshell articles on the nuclear black market element in the case of former FBI translator Sibel Edmonds this year, and we are expecting more fallout in the near future as new evidence and witnesses come forward.

In the meantime, another important angle to Edmonds' case has opened up. Earlier this week, the New York Post ran a Page 6 piece, ODD FILM BY HILLARY BACKER, which highlights the close relationship between Hillary Clinton and Chicago-based Turkish businessman Mehmet Celebi.

Celebi, "one of the national leaders of the Turkish-American community in the US," is a key fundraiser for Clinton, and is one of Clinton's Chicago delegates to the 2008 Democratic National Convention. Celebi was also heavily involved in the controversial 2006 movie "Valley of the Wolves: Iraq" which has been widely regarded as "anti-Semitic, anti-American, conspiratorial agitprop."

Mehmet Celebi is also a key figure in the Sibel Edmonds case - he is heavily involved in the narcotics trade in the US and the corruption and bribery of high-level US officials.

According to Celebi's bio:

He has been serving as the President of the Turkish-American Cultural Alliance (TACA) since 2000, and as Member of the Board/Vice-President of the Assembly of Turkish-American Associations (ATAA), a Washington, D.C. based umbrella organization representing 57 organizations.

The Chicago-based Turkish-American Cultural Alliance (TACA) and the Assembly of Turkish-American Associations (ATAA) both figure prominently in Sibel Edmonds' case. Both are reported to be front groups for criminal activity involving illegal weapons sales, narcotics trafficking, and the bribery and corruption of high level US officials.

[...]

Why is Hillary Clinton involved with such a character? The claims against him are well documented, and extend back to her husband's presidency, including steps in place to appoint a Special Prosecutor to investigate Celebi and the bribery of Hastert's and others.

[...]

Has Hillary forgotten all this? Or is she too for sale to the highest bidder? We are all well aware of George Bush's fund-raising giants, the Rangers and Pioneers, which resulted in many a scandal and prosecution including Ken Lay, Jack Abramoff and Brent Wilkes - yet here is Hillary Clinton engaging in the exact same behaviour, taking large sums of money from corrupt interests, and appointing these people to positions of political power. How can we even hope that a Clinton presidency will be an improvement over the last 8 years?

The right-wing blogs are already beginning to pick up this story of Celebi and Clinton - Debbie Schlussel, National Review Online, Gateway Pundit - focusing solely on Celebi's involvement with the movie "Valley of the Wolves." The Right-Wing-Noise-Machine will no doubt go into overdrive if Hillary wins the nomination to be the next president. This information needs to be made public immediately.

[...]

The FBI's Chicago Field Office has investigative files relating to Mehmet Celebi's involvement in the trafficking of narcotics as well as the corruption of high-level US officials. We need to recruit some prominent 'good government' groups, of any political persuasion, to file a FOIA request with the FBI's Chicago Field Office (CFO) for all information relating to Mehmet Celebi and this criminal activity. I expect that the CFO will deny and stonewall, but as we saw with the recent UK Times article, false denials can lead to other frustrated whistleblowers coming forward with documents and other evidence which can prove the case. Please contact me if you can prepare, file, and follow-up the FOIA request.

keep it comin', luke...

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A tale of two headlines: hard to eradicate Afghan opium economy and need for more drones in Afghanistan

headline one...

Opium economy will take 20 years and £1bn to remove

Europe and other major heroin markets should brace themselves for health consequences of harvest, warns UN

headline two...

Pentagon seeks money for unmanned drones

Pentagon's Increased Reliance on Unmanned Drones Evident in Budget

When a missile fired from a U.S. Predator killed a top al-Qaida leader last week it underscored the warfighting power of unmanned aircraft, which are being considered for even greater use in Afghanistan and would consume at least $3.4 billion in the Pentagon's 2009 proposed budget.

well, gosh and go-l-l-l-leee, sports fans... anybody remember this post i put up on 20 january with an excerpt from a story in the nyt back in june 2001...?

The unexpected success of the Taliban in Afghanistan in eradicating three-quarters of the world's crop of opium poppies in one season is leading experts to ask where production is likely to spring up next.

The director of the United Nations Drug Control Program, Pino Arlacchi, said there was no chance that opium from other sources would compensate this year for the loss of Afghan crops, and the prices of opium and heroin will rise substantially, with opium already worth five to seven times its usual price. His program helped convince the Taliban that opium is a disgrace to Islam.

lemme see if i get this straight... the taliban had ERADICATED THREE-QUARTERS OF THE WORLD'S CROP OF OPIUM POPPIES IN LATE 2001 IN AFGHANISTAN PRIOR TO THE U.S. INVASION... in 2006, largely under u.s. control, afghanistan is BACK TO BEING THE WORLD'S NUMBER ONE PRODUCER...

ya don't think the money from the opium economy that will take 20 years and £1bn to remove could be used to finance those drones, do ya...? nah... i'm just a conspiracy theorist who hasn't had his morning coffee...

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U.S. accuses Venezuela of trying to horn in on the CIA's lucrative drug business

oh, this is just too rich...! after the previous post, two from yesterday (here and here), and several others (here, here, here, and here), reading something like this is positively hysterical...

A top US anti-drugs official has accused Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez of being a "major facilitator" of the trade in cocaine.

The official, John Walters, said Venezuela had become "a haven" for shipments of cocaine manufactured in neighbouring Colombia.

Venezuela rejects the charges, saying it is the victim of traffickers.

But Mr Walters, speaking on a visit to Colombia, said failure to deal with the problem amounted to complicity.

Mr Walters, director of the US Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP), was meeting Colombian President Alvaro Uribe.

US officials say about one third of Colombia's output of 600 tonnes of cocaine a year now passes through Venezuela, most of it going to America and Europe.

once you get an idea of what's REALLY going on, it's incredibly difficult to read this shit without just cracking up...

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The failure of the surge and the "REAL" aims of the U.S. in the region

andrew bacevich lost his son in iraq... whether or not that caused him to re-think his conservative republicanism, i don't know because i am not familiar with his perspective on iraq prior to that... even though he still seems to buy the notion that the u.s. was EVER serious about building a functional government in iraq other than through empty rhetoric designed to deceive and delude, at least he can see through the deeply disingenuous attempts to declare "victory..."

Surge to Nowhere
Don't buy the hawks' hype. The war may be off the front pages, but Iraq is broken beyond repair, and we still own it.

By Andrew J. Bacevich
Sunday, January 20, 2008; Page B01

As the fifth anniversary of Operation Iraqi Freedom nears, the fabulists are again trying to weave their own version of the war. The latest myth is that the "surge" is working.

In President Bush's pithy formulation, the United States is now "kicking ass" in Iraq. The gallant Gen. David Petraeus, having been given the right tools, has performed miracles, redeeming a situation that once appeared hopeless. Sen. John McCain has gone so far as to declare that "we are winning in Iraq." While few others express themselves quite so categorically, McCain's remark captures the essence of the emerging story line: Events have (yet again) reached a turning point. There, at the far end of the tunnel, light flickers. Despite the hand-wringing of the defeatists and naysayers, victory beckons.

[...]

[W]hat exactly has the surge wrought? In substantive terms, the answer is: not much.

[...]

The U.S. dilemma remains unchanged: continue to pour lives and money into Iraq with no end in sight, or cut our losses and deal with the consequences of failure.

In only one respect has the surge achieved undeniable success: It has ensured that U.S. troops won't be coming home anytime soon. This was one of the main points of the exercise in the first place.

Andrew J. Bacevich is a professor of history and international relations at Boston University. His new book, "The Limits of Power," will be published later this year.

the u.s. went in to iraq based on a plan prepared well in advance of 9/11... we went there with the express intention of establishing permanent bases, gaining control of iraq's energy reserves, establishing u.s. hegemony smack in the middle of the largest energy reserves in the world, and extending our control, by force if necessary, up through the 'stans and the caspian basin... and, just like in afghanistan*, which has proudly reclaimed its number one spot as the world's largest opium supplier funneling all that ready cash into the "right" pockets, iraq is also now being converted to a major drug-producing area**... there has never been any serious intent to bring peace to the area, and certainly no real interest in promoting democracy, a concept antithetical to the aims of those who worship the twin deities of money and power...

* Opium production in Afghanistan, which provides more than 90 percent of the world's heroin, broke all records in 2006, reaching a historic high despite ongoing U.S.-sponsored eradication efforts, the Bush administration reported yesterday.

note the disclaimer - "DESPITE" u.s.-sponsored eradication efforts..." HA...!

** The cultivation of opium poppies whose product is turned into heroin is spreading rapidly across Iraq as farmers find they can no longer make a living through growing traditional crops.

Afghans with experience in planting poppies have been helping farmers switch to producing opium in fertile parts of Diyala province, once famous for its oranges and pomegranates, north-east of Baghdad.

does anyone with an interest in pattern recognition see something interesting here...? and, if you add the following piece of history from 2001 to the mix, it becomes much more interesting indeed...

The unexpected success of the Taliban in Afghanistan in eradicating three-quarters of the world's crop of opium poppies in one season is leading experts to ask where production is likely to spring up next.

The director of the United Nations Drug Control Program, Pino Arlacchi, said there was no chance that opium from other sources would compensate this year for the loss of Afghan crops, and the prices of opium and heroin will rise substantially, with opium already worth five to seven times its usual price. His program helped convince the Taliban that opium is a disgrace to Islam.

lemme see if i get this straight... the taliban had ERADICATED THREE-QUARTERS OF THE WORLD'S CROP OF OPIUM POPPIES IN AFGHANISTAN PRIOR TO THE U.S. INVASION IN LATE 2001... in 2006, largely under u.s. control, afghanistan is BACK TO BEING THE WORLD'S NUMBER ONE PRODUCER... now, poppy growers are - pardon the pun - popping up in iraq like mushrooms after a long, soaking rain... gosh... ya THINK...?

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Rep. Barbara Lee: "Let us not become the evil that we deplore" on Michael Ruppert's "From the Wilderness"

an excellent, informative, and comprehensive backgrounder on just exactly how we got to where we are today...



from brasscheck tv...

the Rockefeller family - CFC - Bush - 9/11 - Bin Laden - Carlyle Group - the CIA - investment banks - patriot act - internment camps - financial fraud - iran contra - cocaine - heroin - Wall Street - the drug trade - S & L crisis - the DEA - Iraq - Iran - Pakistan - nuclear weapons - looting social security - smallpox vaccine - Citibank and more

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The CIA drug trade business starts to unravel?

more on the cia drug trade from madcow morning news...

What began as a minor scandal without fanfare in April of 2006 with the bust of an American-registered DC-9 airliner carrying 5.5 tons of cocaine on Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula gathered momentum when a Gulfstream business jet flying out of the same airport was busted in the Yucatan 18 months later carrying 4 tons of cocaine.

The level of citizen outrage increased with the crash-landing of the second American plane. With the news that the number of American planes sold to Mexican drug traffickers was not just one or two planes—but 50—the scandal is now threatening to mushroom into something much larger.

[...]

When a bank robber steals a few thousand dollars before holing up with a hostage, does the FBI take more than eighteen months before divulging the name of the suspect?

Certain cases involving politically-connected Americans suspected of involvement in drug smuggling, through ownership of drug smuggling aircraft, seem to be being treated, not as crimes, but as urgent matters of national security.

< sigh > when the HELL is this house of cards GOING TO FALL THE HELL DOWN...?

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Cocaine, the CIA, and the mysterious "suicide" of 4 investigative journalists

presumably like a few of you, i've been dimly aware for some time of the allegations of cia drug-running, but it has only been since i started following daniel hopsicker's madcow morning news blog last october that i've started paying closer attention (here, here, and here)... now i see that brasscheck tv has some great youtube clips that chronicle some of that history...


2007


1980s

from brasscheck tv...

Pulitzer Prize winner Gary Webb, the journalist who broke the original CIA-Crack story in the 1990s, was rewarded by his employer the San Jose Mercury with a demotion.

He was also hounded out of the journalism profession by a smear campaign whose participants included the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times and the San Francisco Examiner.

In 2004, Webb who remained active as an independent journalist reportedly, committed suicide by shooting himself in the head - twice.

Webb joined three other men - authors Danny Casolaro and J.H. Hatfield and artist Mark Lombardi - who "committed suicide" after getting too close to Bush family secrets.

I asked a mathematician to calculate the numerical odds of four American men who all were interested in this subject committing suicide and this is what he said:

"Examining the male U.S.suicide rate for recent years, we can extrapolate a conservative estimate of 17 male suicides per 100,000 people, or 0.017%. The odds of 4 specific, male biographers committing suicide would be the 4th power of 17/100000, or 8.3521 4.913 x 10^-17...roughly 1 chance 10,000,000,000,000,000. About as good a definition of impossible as you can get.

A person would stand a better chance of playing the Canadian lottery 6/49 exactly twice in one's lifetime and winning the grand jackpot BOTH TIMES! (That is, picking 6 numbers out of 49 possible numbers and matching all 6 numbers out of 6 random draws, on 2 separate occasions, and having only purchased two Canadian lottery tickets ever.)

This calculation should be regarded as a conservative estimate: the actual odds against such a "coincidence" would be much greater. For example, if any of the biographers were female, the odds would be even greater."

to paraphrase atrios, why does our media hate us...?

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Over 48 TONS of cocaine seized in Mexico since April, 33 TONS just last month

i've been half-assedly following (here and here) the madcow morning news coverage of the incredible cocaine bust stories coming out of mexico and the possible links to the cia and a bush ranger... yesterday, madcow's daniel hopsicker put up yet another story even more jaw-dropping than the other two...

check this...

An incredible 33 tons of cocaine were discovered in cargo containers offloaded from the cargo ship Esmeralda which sailed to Mexico’s Pacific Coast port of Manzanillo from Buenaventura in northwestern Colombia.

This came hard on the heels of headlines from Tampico in early October. "Mexican soldiers seize 10 tons of cocaine after shootout."

Altogether so far this year an unprecedented 48 tons of cocaine has now been seized by the Mexican government.

the above follows the earlier stories of two cia-connected airplanes loaded with cocaine being busted in the yucatan...

In April of last year 5.5 tons of cocaine were discovered on a DC9 (N900SA) flight which originated in St. Petersburg, flew to Venezuela, to Colombia, and then on to Mexico, where it was busted by ordinary Mexican foot soldiers at a rural airport in Cuidad del Carmen on the Yucatan peninsula.

Then two months ago well over four tons of cocaine—some knowledgeable estimates went as high as six tons—were discovered on a Gulfstream business jet (N987SA) flight in Mexico.

This flight too originated at the St Petersburg-Clearwater International Airport, flew to Colombia, and then on to Mexico, where it crash-landed in a field 45 kilometers outside of the Yucatan capital of Merida.

but, wait... there's more...

There is a wild card in the story of cartel wars and drug murders involving busted loads on American planes in the Yucatan...

Several figures in the story are implicated in another, and if possible even more serious Mexican scandal underway currently.

Kamel Nacif and Jean Succor, prominent Lebanese businessmen in Cancun, are widely reported to be major figures in the dominant drug cartel in the Yucatan whose cocaine was seized on the two American planes.

The two men are also at the heart of a scandal involving a huge child molestation ring which has been providing children as young as five to a clientele of wealthy Mexican and foreign businessmen.

They have been dubbed Narco-Pederastas in Mexican press coverage of the scandal, which is growing so fast that it may become Mexico’s Watergate.

let's go back to the esmeralda, that cargo ship busted in manzanillo...

But in the voluminous press coverage of the bust in Mexico we were struck by the fact that we could find no picture of the ship itself. Just already-offloaded containers, presumably filled with cocaine, stacked on the dock, watched over by the watchful eyes and automatic weapons of soldiers from the Mexican military.

But no pictures of the Esmeralda.

Maybe its a ghost ship. A Philadelphia Experiment carrying cocaine in and out of the ether. Better than submarine, even.

Apparently Mexican authorities, before alerting the media, allowed the ship, after unloading, to proceed on its merry way.

Consider: if the government of Mexico found 23 tons of cocaine in the trunk of your car on your way back from a margarita-soaked weekend in Tijuana, would they hand back the keys after grabbing the dope?

ok, so who owns it...?

“Big cocaine haul on ship flying HK flag” read the headline from the South China Morning Post

“The identity of the ship, which departed from Buenaventura, Colombia, remains a mystery as the Hong Kong Marine Department said, ‘it did not find its registration.’”

“All Hong Kong ships must register with us. Maybe it was flying the flag to conceal its real identity,” a department spokesman said.’

oic...

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Earth to the NYT: don't pass the Peruvian FTA

the nyt's wrong-headed editorial, endorsing the peruvian free trade agreement...

Pass the Peruvian F.T.A.

The Peruvian deal would help expand trade between Peru and the United States, which today stands at about $9 billion. It would give American businesses greater access to Peru’s markets in everything from grains to tractors and other machinery.

Perhaps more important, the agreement would strengthen an essential ally in the combat against illegal narcotics in the Andes and tighten relations with one of the United States’ few remaining friends in South America — where Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez is gaining allies by spreading oil wealth around. In an open letter, all eight living former secretaries of state urged Congress to approve the Peru deal.

i'm thoroughly sick and tired of these bogus arguments for reducing yet another country to the status of u.s. chattel... american businesses do not need "greater access" to anywhere... they're already heavily exploiting peru, and all the fta will do is to make such exploitation easier... it certainly won't fix la oroya (see here and here)...

and then there's the bogus drug war, simply another way of shackling a country to the united states in the form of mountains of aid that also opens the door to the permanent stationing of u.s. troops as we are seeing in both colombia (here and here) and paraguay (see here)...

finally, could we PLEASE stop making hugo chávez the latest embodiment of the great satan...? why, ferchrissakes, do we ALWAYS have to have a great satan threatening us...? (never mind... i know why...)

let's stop the bullshit... we need to stop kidding ourselves about what these so-called "free" trade agreements are really meant to accomplish...

from my post of october 18...

The Peru Trade Agreement: Exploiting the Rainforest and Workers

Democratic leaders are threatening to try to pass a trade agreement with Peru that would give U.S. oil companies powerful new rights to exploit Peru’s Amazonian rainforest. It would also give Citibank the right to sue Peru if the country reverses the failed privatization of its Social Security system. No U.S. union or environmental, faith or development group supports the agreement. Peruvian indigenous leaders are calling for its rejection.

This agreement was negotiated by the Bush administration on the same principles as NAFTA. Some Democrats claim to have added labor and environmental standards, but these do nothing to fix many of the worst effects of the agreement.

when are we going to learn that the world is not ours to do with as we goddam well please...?

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Republican candidate? Check. Airplane? Check. Wealthy fund-raiser? Check. Cocaine? Check.

i wonder... is THIS...

Republican presidential candidate Fred D. Thompson has been crisscrossing the country since early this summer on a private jet lent to him by a businessman and close adviser who has a criminal record for drug dealing.

[...]

Thompson's frequent flights aboard Martin's twin-engine Cessna 560 Citation have saved him more than $100,000, because until the law changed in September, campaign-finance rules allowed presidential candidates to reimburse private jet owners for just a fraction of the true cost of flights.

Martin entered a plea of guilty to the sale of 11 pounds of marijuana in 1979; the court withheld judgment pending completion of his probation. He was charged in 1983 with violating his probation and with multiple counts of felony bookmaking, cocaine trafficking and conspiracy. He pleaded no contest to the cocaine-trafficking and conspiracy charges, which stemmed from a plan to sell $30,000 worth of the drug, and was continued on probation.

is in any way related to this...?

Recently-released FAA records from the Gulfstream II business jet that went down in Mexico a month ago with four tons of cocaine reveal that before it was “parked” in the name of a New York real estate developer with ties to the Russian Mob, the plane was owned by a secretive Midwestern media baron and Republican fund-raiser, who had a business partner who, incredibly, owned the other American drug plane, the DC9, recently busted in Mexico.

[...]

The links between recent owners of the two drug planes, discovered during an examination of FAA registration records, suggest a continuing criminal conspiracy to engage in massive drug trafficking, involving Republican fund-raisers Adams and Senator Mel Martinez, Saudi arms dealer Khashoggi, prominent oligarchs in the Russian Mob, dirty San Diego defense contractor Titan Corp., as well as elements of American military and civilian intelligence.

let's see... airplanes...? check... drugs - more specifically, cocaine...? check...? republican candidate...? check... wealthy republican fund-raiser...? check... < scratches chin, ponders >

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What do Bush Rangers, the CIA, Senator Mel Martinez, crashed airplanes, Saudi arms dealers and the Titan Corp. all have in common?

COCAINE...!

yep, that's right, and, if this gets investigated in any kind of responsible way (very questionable), and if sibel edmonds spills what she knows (highly doubtful), there won't be enough popcorn to go around for THIS show...

A MadCowMorningNews investigation has uncovered links between the ownership of the drug-running Gulfstream (Cocaine Two) and the other American-registered plane busted carrying a multi-ton load of cocaine in Mexico recently, the DC9 (Cocaine One) airliner caught with 5.5 tons of cocaine in Mexico 18 months ago.

Recently-released FAA records from the Gulfstream II business jet that went down in Mexico a month ago with four tons of cocaine reveal that before it was “parked” in the name of a New York real estate developer with ties to the Russian Mob, the plane was owned by a secretive Midwestern media baron and Republican fund-raiser, who had a business partner who, incredibly, owned the other American drug plane, the DC9, recently busted in Mexico.

Stephen Adams was in business with Miami attorney Michael Farkas, who founded SkyWay Aircraft, which owned the DC9 busted in Mexico 18 months ago with 5.5 tons of cocaine aboard.

Moreover at the same time the Bush Ranger extraordinaire Stephen Adams owned the Gulfstream (N987SA) in 1999 and 2000, he was personally buying over $1 million of billboard ads for George W. Bush for his 2000 Presidential election bid.

According to SEC filings, Stephen Adams and Michael Farkas jointly controlled Holiday RV Superstores, Inc., which was used by arms merchant and CIA-fixer Adnan Khashoggi in a complicated securities fraud which stole as much as $300 million from investors and taxpayers.

Khashoggi, under indictment for felony fraud in the case and currently a fugitive from justice, is himself involved in the DC9 scandal through his lieutenant Ramy El-Batrawi, also a Farkas business partner, and the former owner of one of the two twin DC9's used for god only knows what.

The links between recent owners of the two drug planes, discovered during an examination of FAA registration records, suggest a continuing criminal conspiracy to engage in massive drug trafficking, involving Republican fund-raisers Adams and Senator Mel Martinez, Saudi arms dealer Khashoggi, prominent oligarchs in the Russian Mob, dirty San Diego defense contractor Titan Corp., as well as elements of American military and civilian intelligence.

The politically-explosive implications of the scandal may explain why American officials have been reluctant to move against, or even name, the true owners of the planes and basically "turned a blind eye" to the American involvement exposed by the drug trafficking seizures.

please, please, please, can't we get to the bottom of this and show, once and for all, just what criminals are running our country so we can finally toss them out on their collective asses...?

(thanks to cryptogon...)

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