vgabndo
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Independent geopolitical assessment of Mexican drug trade
MEXICO: THE STRUGGLE FOR BALANCE
By Scott Stewart
This week's Geopolitical Intelligence Report provided a high-level
assessment of the economic forces that affect how the Mexican people and
the Mexican government view the flow of narcotics through that country.
Certainly at that macro level, there is a lot of money flowing into
Mexico and a lot of people, from bankers and businessmen to political
parties and politicians, are benefiting from the massive influx of cash.
The lure of this lucre shapes how many Mexicans (particularly many of
the Mexican elite) view narcotics trafficking. It is, frankly, a good
time to be a banker, a real estate developer or a Rolex dealer in
Mexico.
However, at the tactical level, there are a number of issues also
shaping the opinions of many Mexicans regarding narcotics trafficking,
including violence, corruption and rapidly rising domestic narcotics
consumption. At this level, people are being terrorized by running
gunbattles, mass beheadings and rampant kidnappings -- the types of
events that STRATFOR covers in our Mexico Security Memos.
Mexican elites have the money to buy armored cars and hire private
security guards. But rampant corruption in the security forces means the
common people seemingly have nowhere to turn for help at the local level
(not an uncommon occurrence in the developing world). The violence is
also having a heavy impact on Mexico's tourist sector and on the
willingness of foreign companies to invest in Mexico's manufacturing
sector. Many smaller business owners are being hit from two sides --
they receive extortion demands from criminals while facing a decrease in
revenue due to a drop in tourism because of the crime and violence.
These citizens and businessmen are demanding help from Mexico City.
These two opposing forces -- the inexorable flow of huge quantities of
cash and the pervasive violence, corruption and fear -- are placing a
tremendous amount of pressure on the Calderon administration. And this
pressure will only increase as Mexico moves closer to the 2012
presidential elections (President Felipe Calderon was the law-and-order
candidate and was elected in 2006 in large part due to his pledge to end
cartel violence). Faced by these forces, Calderon needs to find a way to
strike a delicate balance, one that will reassert Mexican government
authority, quell the violence and mollify the public while also allowing
the river of illicit cash to continue flowing into Mexico.
An examination of the historical dynamics of the narcotics trade in
Mexico reveals that in order for the violence to stop, there needs to be
a balance among the various drug-trafficking organizations involved in
the trade. New dynamics have begun to shape the narcotics business in
Mexico, and they are causing that balance to be very elusive. For the
Calderon administration, desperate times may have called for desperate
measures.
The Balance
The laws of economics dictate that narcotics will continue to flow into
the United States. The mission of the Mexican drug-trafficking
organizations and the larger cartels they form is to attempt to control
as much of that flow as they can. The people who run the Mexican
drug-trafficking organizations are businessmen. Historically, their
primary objective is to move their product (narcotics) without being
caught and to make a lot of money in the process. The Mexican drug lords
have traditionally attempted to conduct this business quietly,
efficiently and with the least amount of friction.
When there is a kind of competitive business balance among these various
organizations, a sort of detente prevails and there is relative peace.
We say relative, because there has always been a level of tension and
some level of violence among these organizations, but during times of
balance the violence is kept in check for business reasons.
During times of balance, the territorial boundaries are
well-established, the smuggling corridors are secure, the drugs flow and
the people make money. When that balance is lost and an organization is
weakened -- especially an organization that controls one or more
valuable smuggling corridors -- a vicious fight can develop as other
organizations move in and try to exert control over the territory and as
the incumbent organization attempts to fight them off and retain control
of its turf. Smuggling corridors are geographically significant places
along the narcotics supply chain where the product is channeled --
places such as ports, airstrips, significant highways and border
crossings. Control of these significant channels (often referred to as
"plazas" by the drug-trafficking
organizations) is very important to an organization's ability to move
contraband. If it doesn't control a corridor it wants to use, it must
pay the organization that does control it.
(click here to enlarge image)
In past decades, this turbulence was normally short lived. When there
was a fight between the organizations or cartels, there would be a
period of intense violence and then the balance between them would
either be restored to the status quo ante or a new balance between the
organizations would be reached. For example, when the Guadalajara cartel
dissolved following the 1989 arrest of Miguel Angel Felix Gallardo, and
the Arellano Felix Organization (AFO) and the Sinaloa cartel emerged
from the Guadalajara cartel to fill the power vacuum, there was a brief
period of tension, but once balance was achieved, the violence ebbed --
and business returned to normal. However, the old model of cartel
conflicts has changed. The current round of inter- and intra-cartel
violence has raged for nearly a decade and has intensified rather than
abated; there appears to be no end in sight. In fact, death tolls are
far higher today than they were five years ago.
This inability of the cartels to reach a state of balance is due to
several factors. First is the change of products. Mexican drug cartels
have long moved marijuana into the United States, but the increase in
the amount of cocaine being moved through Mexico in the 1980s and 1990s
changed the dynamic -- cocaine is far more compact and far more
lucrative than marijuana. Cocaine is also a "strategic narcotic," one
that has a transnational supply chain far longer than drugs like
marijuana or methamphetamine, and that long supply chain is difficult to
guard. Because of this, organizations involved in the cocaine trade tend
to be more aggressive and violent than those that smuggle drugs with a
shorter supply chain like marijuana and Mexican opium.
At first, Mexican cartels like the Guadalajara cartel only smuggled
cocaine through their smuggling routes into the United States on behalf
of the more powerful Colombian cartels, which were seeking alternate
routes to replace the Caribbean smuggling routes that had been largely
shut down by American air and sea interdiction efforts. Over time,
however, these Mexican cartels grew richer and more powerful from the
proceeds of the cocaine trade, and they began to take on an expanded
role in cocaine trafficking. The efforts of the Colombian government to
dismantle the large (and violent) organizations like the Medellin and
Cali cartels also allowed the Mexicans to assume more control over the
cocaine supply line. Today, Mexican cartels control much of the cocaine
supply chain, with their influence reaching down into South America and
up into the United States. This expanded control of the supply chain
brought with it a larger slice of the profits for the Mexican cartels,
so they have become even more rich and powerful.
Of course, this large quantity of illicit income also brings risk with
it. The massive profits that can be made by controlling a smuggling
corridor into the United States are a tempting lure to competitors
(internal and external). This means that the cartels require enforcers
to protect their personnel and operations. These enforcers and the
escalation of violence they brought with them are a second factor that
has hampered the ability of the cartels to reach a balance.
Initially, some of the cartel bosses served as their own muscle, but as
time went by and the business need for violence increased, the cartels
brought in hired help to carry out the enforcement function. The first
cartel to do this on a large scale was the AFO (a very aggressive
organization), which used active and current police officers and youth
gangs (some of them actually from the U.S. side of the border) as
enforcers. To counter the AFO's innovation and strength, rival cartels
soon hired their own muscle. The Juarez cartel created its own band of
police called La Linea and the Gulf cartel took things yet another step
and hired Los Zetas, a group of elite anti-drug paratroopers who
deserted their federal Special Air Mobile Force Group in the late 1990s.
The Gulf cartel's private special operations unit raised the bar yet
another notch, and the Sinaloa cartel formed its own paramilitary unit
called Los Negros to counter the strength of Los Zetas. With
paramilitary forces comes military armament, and cartel enforcers
graduated from using pistols and submachine guns to regularly employing
fully automatic assault rifles, rocket-propelled grenades and hand
grenades. As we have previously noted, thugs with such weapons do pose a
threat, but when those weapons are in the hands of highly-trained gunmen
with the ability to operate as an integrated unit, the threat is far
greater.
The life of a cartel enforcer can be brutish and short. In order to find
additional personnel to beef up their ranks, the various cartel enforcer
units formed outside alliances. Los Zetas worked with former Guatemalan
special forces commandos called Kaibiles and with the Mara Salvatrucha
street gang (MS-13). La Linea formed a close alliance with the American
Barrio Azteca street gang and with Los Aztecas, the gang's Mexican
branch. Cartels also recruit heavily, and it is now common to see them
place "help wanted" signs in which they offer soldiers and police
officers big money if they will quit their jobs and join a cartel
enforcer unit.
In times of intense combat, the warriors in a criminal organization can
begin to eclipse the group's businessmen in terms of importance, and
over the past decade the enforcers within groups like the Gulf and
Sinaloa cartels have become very powerful. In fact, groups like Los
Zetas and Los Negros have become powerful enough to split from their
parent organizations and, essentially, form their own independent
drug-trafficking organizations. This inter-cartel struggle has proved
quite deadly as seen in the struggle between AFO factions in Tijuana
over the past year and in the more recent eruption of violence between
the Gulf cartel and Los Zetas in northeastern Mexico.
This weakening of the traditional cartels was part of the Calderon
administration's publicized plan to reduce the power of the drug
traffickers and to deny any one organization or cartel the ability to
become more powerful than the state. The plan appears to have worked to
some extent, and the powerful Gulf and Sinaloa cartels have splintered,
as has the AFO. The fruit of this policy, however, has been incredible
spikes in violence and the proliferation of aggressive new
drug-trafficking organizations that have made it very difficult for any
type of equilibrium to be reached. So the Mexican government's policies
have also been a factor in destabilizing the balance.
Finding a Fulcrum
The current round of cartel fighting began when the balance of cartel
power was thrown off by the death of Amado Carrillo Fuentes in 1997,
which resulted in the weakening of the once powerful Juarez cartel.
Shortly after the head of the Sinaloa cartel, Joaquin Guzman Loera, aka
El Chapo, escaped from prison in 2001, he began a push to move in on the
weakened Juarez cartel. Guzman initially succeeded and the Juarez cartel
became part of the Sinaloa Federation until the two cartels had a
falling out in 2004.
Then when the chief enforcer of the AFO, Ramon Arellano Felix, was
killed in 2002, both the Sinaloa and the Gulf cartels attempted to wrest
control of Tijuana from the AFO. Finally, when Gulf cartel kingpin Osiel
Card##as Guillen was captured in March 2003, the Sinaloa cartel sent Los
Negros to attempt to take control of the Gulf cartel's territory, and
this sparked a series of violent clashes in Nuevo Leon and Tamaulipas.
The BLO's top enforcer, Edgar Valdez Villarreal (La Barbie), led Los
Negros into Nuevo Laredo.
These same basic turf wars are still active, meaning that there is still
ongoing violence in Reynosa, Nuevo Laredo, Ciudad Juarez and Tijuana,
but as noted above, the actors are changing, with organizations like Los
Zetas breaking out of the Gulf cartel and the Beltran Leyva Organization
(BLO) parting ways with the Sinaloa cartel. Indeed, the Gulf and Sinaloa
cartels have joined forces with La Familia Michoacana (LFM) to form a
new super cartel called the New Federation and are now allies in the
struggle against Los Zetas and the BLO, which have teamed up with the
Juarez cartel to fight against the New Federation. One constant in the
violence of the past decade has been the aggressiveness of the Sinaloa
cartel as it has sought to take territory from other cartels and
organizations.
In the midst of the current cartel landscape, which has radically
shifted over the past year, it is difficult for any type of balance to
be found. There are also very few levers with which the Calderon
government can apply pressure to help force the shifting pieces into
alignment. In the near term, perhaps the only hope for striking a
balance and reducing the violence is that the New Federation is strong
enough to kill off organizations like Los Zetas, the BLO and the Juarez
cartel and assert calm through sheer force. However, while the massed
forces of the New Federation initially made some significant headway
against Los Zetas, the former special operations personnel appear to
have rallied, and Los Zetas' tactical skills and arms make them
unlikely to be defeated easily.
There have been many rumors that the New Federation, in its fight
against Los Zetas, was being helped by the Mexican government. (Some of
those rumors have come from the New Federation itself.) During the New
Federation's offensive against Los Zetas, federation enforcers have been
seen driving around Reynosa and Nuevo Laredo in vehicles openly marked
with signs indicating they belonged to the New Federation. While far
from conclusive proof of government assistance, the well-marked vehicles
certainly do seem to support the cartel's assertion that, at the very
least, the government did not want to interfere with the federation's
operation to destroy Los Zetas.
When pieced together with other observations gathered during the cartel
wars, this also suggests that the Sinaloa cartel may have consistently
benefited from the government's actions. These actions would include
taking out the BLO leadership after the Beltran Leyva brothers turned
against Sinaloa and the government's success against La Linea and Los
Aztecas in Juarez. There are also occasional contraindications, such as
the recent large-scale attacks against military bases in the northeast
that appear to have been conducted by the New Federation.
Despite these contraindications, the cartels fighting the New Federation
believe the government favors the group, and there have long been rumors
that Calderon was somehow tied to El Chapo. The Juarez cartel may have
recently taken some desperate steps to counter what it perceives to be a
dire threat of government and New Federation cooperation. A local Juarez
newspaper, El Diario, recently published an article discussing a Los
Aztecas member who had been detained and interrogated by the Mexican
military and federal police in connection with the murders of three U.S.
Consulate employees in Juarez in March. During the interrogation,
according to El Diario, the Los Aztecas member divulged that a decision
was made by leaders in the Barrio Azteca gang and Juarez cartel to
engage U.S. citizens in the Juarez area in an effort to force the U.S.
government to intervene in Mexico and therefore act as a "neutral
referee," thereby helping to counter the Mexican government's favoritism
toward the New Federation.
Of course, it is highly possible that the Sinaloa cartel is just a
superior cartel and is better at using the authorities as a weapon
against its adversaries. On the other hand, perhaps the increasingly
desperate government has decided to use Sinaloa and the New Federation
as a fulcrum to restore balance to the narcotics trade and reduce the
violence across Mexico.
In any case, we will be closely watching the activities of the New
Federation and the Mexican government over the next several months to
see if this hypothesis is correct. Much hangs in the balance for
Calderon, the Mexican people and their American neighbors.
This report may be forwarded or republished on your website with
attribution to www.stratfor.com.
Copyright 2010 Stratfor.
Undoubtedly, there are people who cannot afford to give the anchor of sanity even the slightest tug. Sam Harris
"The situation is far too dire for pessimism."
Bill Kauth
Carl Sagan said, "We are a way for the cosmos to know itself."
PEACE, LOVE AND FISH TACOS
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Mexicorn
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Good article nice read.
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JESSE
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Wasn't that a Friedman article and already published here?
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gnukid
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http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article18973.html
Is the CIA behind Mexico's Bloody Drug War?
Politics / Mexico Apr 27, 2010
By: Mike Whitney
On Friday, two patrol cars were ambushed by armed gunman in downtown Ciudad Juarez. In the ensuing firefight, seven policemen were killed as well as a
17-year old boy who was caught in the crossfire. All of the assailants escaped uninjured fleeing the crime-scene in three SUVs. The bold attack was
executed in broad daylight in one of the busiest areas of the city. According to the Associated Press:
"Hours after the attack, a painted message directed to top federal police commanders and claiming responsibility for the attack appeared on a wall in
downtown Ciudad Juarez. It was apparently signed by La Linea gang, the enforcement arm of the Juarez drug cartel. The Juarez cartel has been locked in
a bloody turf battle with the Sinaloa cartel, led by Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman.
"This will happen to you ... for being with El Chapo Guzman and to all the dirtbags who support him. Sincerely, La Linea," the message read." ("7
Mexican police officers killed in Ciudad Juarez", Olivia Torres, AP)
The massacre in downtown Juarez is just the latest incident in Mexico's bloody drug war. Between 5 to 6 more people will be killed on Saturday, and on
every day thereafter with no end in sight. It's a war that cannot be won, but that hasn't stopped the Mexican government from sticking to its basic
game-plan.
The experts and politicians disagree about the origins of the violence in Juarez, but no one disputes that 23,000 people have been killed since 2006
in a largely futile military operation initiated by Mexican president Felipe Calderon. Whether the killing is the result of the ongoing turf-war
between the rival drug cartels or not, is irrelevant. The present policy is failing and needs to be changed. The militarization of the war on drugs
has been a colossal disaster which has accelerated the pace of social disintegration. Mexico is quickly becoming a failed state, and Washington's
deeply-flawed Merida Initiative, which provides $1.4 billion in aid to the Calderon administration to intensify military operations, is largely to
blame.
The surge in narcotics trafficking and drug addiction go hand-in-hand with destructive free trade policies which have fueled their growth. NAFTA, in
particular, has triggered a massive migration of people who have been pushed off the land because they couldn't compete with heavily-subsidized
agricultural products from the US. Many of these people drifted north to towns like Juarez which became a manufacturing hub in the 1990s. But Juarez's
fortunes took a turn for the worse a few years later when competition from the Far East grew fiercer. Now most of the plants and factories have been
boarded up and the work has been outsourced to China where subsistence wages are the norm. Naturally, young men have turned to the cartels as the only
visible means of employment and upward mobility. That means that free trade has not only had a ruinous effect on the economy, but has also created an
inexhaustible pool of recruits for the drug trade.
Washington's Merida Initiative--which provides $1.4 billion in aid to the Calderon administration to intensify military operations--has only made
matters worse. The public's demand for jobs, security and social programs, has been answered with check-points, crackdowns and state repression. The
response from Washington hasn't been much better. Obama hasn't veered from the policies of the prior administration. He is as committed to a military
solution as his predecessor, George W. Bush.
But the need for change is urgent. Mexico is unraveling and, as the oil wells run dry, the prospect of a failed state run by drug kingpins and
paramilitaries on US's southern border becomes more and more probable. The drug war is merely a symptom of deeper social problems; widespread
political corruption, grinding poverty, soaring unemployment, and the erosion of confidence in public institutions. But these issues are brushed
aside, so the government can pursue its one-size-fits-all military strategy without second-guessing or remorse. Meanwhile, the country continues to
fall apart.
THE CLASHING CARTELS
The big cartels are engaged in a ferocious battle for the drug corridors around Juarez. The Sinaloa, Gulf and La Familia cartels have formed an
alliance against the upstart Los Zetas gang. Critics allege that the Calderon administration has close ties with the Sinaloa cartel and refuses to
arrest its members. Here's an excerpt from an Al Jazeera video which points to collusion between Sinaloa and the government.
"The US Treasury identifies at least 20 front companies that are laundering drug money for the Sinaloa cartel...There are allegations that the
Mexican government is "favoring" the cartel. According to Diego Enrique Osorno, investigative journalist and author of the "The Sinaloa Cartel":
"There are no important detentions of Sinaloa cartel members. But the government is hunting down adversary groups, new players in the world of drug
trafficking."
International Security Expert, Edgardo Buscaglia, says that "of over 50,000 drug related arrests, only a very small percentage have been Sinaloa
cartel members, and no cartel leaders. Dating back to 2003, law enforcement data shows objectively that the government has been hitting the weakest
organized crime groups in Mexico, but they have not been hitting the main crime group, the Sinaloa Federation, that's responsible for 45% of the drug
trade in this country." (Al Jazeera)
There's no way to verify whether the Calderon administration is in bed with the Sinaloa cartel, but Al Jazeera's report is pretty damning. A similar
report appeared in the Los Angeles Times which revealed that the government had diverted funds that were earmarked for struggling farmers (who'd been
hurt by NAFTA) "to the families of notorious drug traffickers and several senior government officials, including the agriculture minister." Here's an
excerpt from the Los Angeles Times:
"According to several academic studies, as much as 80% of the money went to just 20% of the registered farmers...Among the most eyebrow-raising
recipients were three siblings of billionaire drug lord Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, head of the powerful Sinaloa cartel, and the brother of Guzman's
onetime partner, Arturo Beltran Leyva". ("Mexico farm subsidies are going astray", Tracy Wilkinson, Los Angeles Times)
There's no doubt that if the LA Times knows about the circular flow of state money to drug traffickers, than the Obama administration knows too. So
why does the administration persist with the same policy and continue to support the people they pretend to be fighting?
In forty years, US drug policy has never changed. The same "hunt them down, bust them, and lock them up" philosophy continues to this day. That's why
many critics believe that the drug war is really about control, not eradication. It's a matter of who's in line to rake in the profits; small-time
pushers who run their own operations or politically-connected kingfish who have agents in the banks, the intelligence agencies, the military and the
government. Currently, in Juarez, the small fries' are getting wiped out while the big-players are getting stronger. In a year or so, the Sinaloa
cartel will control the streets, the drug corridors, and the border. The violence will die down and the government will proclaim "victory", but the
flow of drugs into the US will increase while the situation for ordinary Mexicans will continue to deteriorate.
Here's a clip from an article in the Independent by veteran journalist Hugh O'Shaughnessy:
"The outlawing and criminalizing of drugs and consequent surge in prices has produced a bonanza for producers everywhere, from Kabul to Bogota, but,
at the Mexican border, where an estimated $39,000m in narcotics enter the rich US market every year, a veritable tsunami of cash has been created. The
narcotraficantes, or drug dealers, can buy the murder of many, and the loyalty of nearly everyone. They can acquire whatever weapons they need from
the free market in firearms north of the border and bring them into Mexico with appropriate payment to any official who holds his hand out." ("The
US-Mexico border: where the drugs war has soaked the ground blood red", Hugh O'Shaughnessy The Independent)
It's no coincidence that Kabul and Bogota are the the de facto capitals of the drug universe. US political support is strong in both places, as is
the involvement of US intelligence agencies. But does that suggest that the CIA is at work in Mexico, too? Or, to put it differently: Why is the US
supporting a client that appears to be allied to the most powerful drug cartel in Mexico? That's the question.
THE CHECKERED HISTORY OF THE CIA
In August 1996, investigative journalist Gary Webb released the first installment of Dark Alliance in the San Jose Mercury exposing the CIA's
involvement in the drug trade. The article blew the lid off the murky dealings of the agency's covert operations. Webb's words are as riveting today
as they were when they first appeared 14 years ago:
"FOR THE BETTER PART of a decade, a San Francisco Bay Area drug ring sold tons of cocaine to the Crips and Bloods street gangs of Los Angeles and
funneled millions in drug profits to a Latin American guerrilla army run by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, a Mercury News investigation has
found.
This drug network opened the first pipeline between Colombia's cocaine cartels and the black neighborhoods of Los Angeles, a city now known as the
"crack'' capital of the world. The cocaine that flooded in helped spark a crack explosion in urban America and provided the cash and connections
needed for L.A.'s gangs to buy automatic weapons.
It is one of the most bizarre alliances in modern history: the union of a U.S.-backed army attempting to overthrow a revolutionary socialist
government and the Uzi-toting "gangstas'' of Compton and South-Central Los Angeles."
("America's 'crack' plague has roots in Nicaragua war", Gary Webb, San Jose Mercury News)
Counterpunch editor Alexander c-ckburn has also done extensive research on the CIA/drug connection. Here's an excerpt from an article titled "The
Government's Dirty Little Secrets", which ran in the Los Angeles Times.
"CIA Inspector General Frederick Hitz finally conceded to a U.S. congressional committee that the agency had worked with drug traffickers and had
obtained a waiver from the Justice Department in 1982 (the beginning of the Contra funding crisis) allowing it not to report drug trafficking by
agency contractors. Was the lethal arsenal deployed at Roodeplaat assembled with the advice from the CIA and other U.S. agencies? There were certainly
close contacts over the years. It was a CIA tip that led the South African secret police to arrest Nelson Mandela." (The Government's Dirty Little
Secrets, Los Angeles Times, commentary, 1998)
And then there's this from independent journalist Zafar Bangash:
"The CIA, as c-ckburn and (Jeffrey) St Clair reveal, had been in this business right from the beginning. In fact, even before it came into existence,
its predecessors, the OSS and the Office of Naval Intelligence, were involved with criminals. One such criminal was Lucky Luciano, the most notorious
gangster and drug trafficker in America in the forties."
The CIA's involvement in drug trafficking closely dovetails America's adventures overseas - from Indo-China in the sixties to Afghanistan in the
eighties....As Alfred McCoy states in his book: Politics of Heroin: CIA complicity in the Global Drug Trade, beginning with CIA raids from Burma into
China in the early fifties, the agency found that 'ruthless drug lords made effective anti-communists." ("CIA peddles drugs while US Media act as
cheerleaders", Zafar Bangash, Muslimedia, January 16-31, 1999)
And, this from author William Blum:
"ClA-supported Mujahedeen rebels ... engaged heavily in drug trafficking while fighting against the Soviet-supported government," writes historian
William Blum. "The Agency's principal client was Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, one of the leading druglords and a leading heroin refiner. CIA-supplied trucks
and mules, which had carried arms into Afghanistan, were used to transport opium to laboratories along the Afghan/Pakistan border. The output provided
up to one half of the heroin used annually in the United States and three-quarters of that used in Western Europe...."
And, this from Portland Independent Media:
"Before 1980, Afghanistan produced 0% of the world's opium. But then the CIA moved in, and by 1986 they were producing 40% of the world's heroin
supply. By 1999, they were churning out 3,200 TONS of heroin a year--nearly 80% of the total market supply. But then something unexpected happened.
The Taliban rose to power, and by 2000 they had destroyed nearly all of the opium fields. Production dropped from 3,000+ tons to only 185 tons, a 94%
reduction! This drop in revenue hurt not only the CIA's Black Budget projects, but also the free-flow of laundered money in and out of the
Controller's banks." (Portland Independent Media)
The evidence of CIA involvement in the drug trade is vast, documented and compelling. Still, does that explain why the Obama administration has cast a
blind-eye on the Sinaloa/Calderon connection?
It's impossible to know for sure. But whenever government policy seems particularly counterproductive, there's always the temptation to think that
nefarious masterminds are skillfully moving the levers from behind the curtain. But that's not always the case. Sometimes policies persist merely
because of institutional resistance to change or bureaucratic logjams or lack of imagination. So, while the Sinaloa/Calderon connection is worth
keeping an eye on, there's nothing to suggest that the CIA is controlling events from the shadows. More likely, the present policy simply reflects the
fact that Washington has been so thoroughly marinated in a culture of militarism, that other remedies are no longer given serious consideration. As
the saying goes, "When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail." And that's what's happening here.
It has become impossible for policymakers to bust out of their ideological cage, because the noxious ethos of militarism pervades all political
decision-making. American foreign policy is now reducible to one word: "War". And that's why the pointless slaughter in Juarez will continue for the
foreseeable future. "It's the policy, stupid!"
By Mike Whitney
Email: fergiewhitney@msn.com
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gnukid
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http://www.fas.org/irp/congress/1998_cr/980507-l.htm
A Tangled Web: A History of CIA Complicity in Drug International Trafficking
Institute for Policy Studies
WORLD WAR II
The Office of Strategic Services (OSS) and the Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI), the CIA's parent and sister organizations, cultivate relations with
the leaders of the Italian Mafia, recruiting heavily from the New York and Chicago underworlds, whose members, including Charles `Lucky' Luciano,
Meyer Lansky, Joe Adonis, and Frank Costello, help the agencies keep in touch with Sicilian Mafia leaders exiled by Italian dictator Benito Mussolini.
Domestically, the aim is to prevent sabotage on East Coast ports, while in Italy the goal is to gain intelligence on Sicily prior to the allied
invasions and to suppress the burgeoning Italian Communist Party. Imprisoned in New York, Luciano earns a pardon for his wartime service and is
deported to Italy, where he proceeds to build his heroin empire, first by diverting supplies from the legal market, before developing connections in
Lebanon and Turkey that supply morphine base to labs in Sicily. The OSS and ONI also work closely with Chinese gangsters who control vast supplies of
opium, morphine and heroin, helping to establish the third pillar of the post-world War II heroin trade in the Golden Triangle, the border region of
Thailand, Burma, Laos and China's Yunnan Province.
1947
In its first year of existence, the CIA continues U.S. intelligence community's anti-communist drive. Agency operatives help the Mafia seize total
power in Sicily and it sends money to heroin-smuggling Corsican mobsters in Marseille to assist in their battle with Communist unions for control of
the city's docks. By 1951, Luciano and the Corsicans have pooled their resources, giving rise to the notorious `French Connection' which would
dominate the world heroin trade until the early 1970s. The CIA also recruits members of organized crime gangs in Japan to help ensure that the country
stays in the non-communist world. Several years later, the Japanese Yakuza emerges as a major source of methamphetamine in Hawaii.
1949
Chinese Communist revolution causes collapse of drug empire allied with U.S. intelligence community, but a new one quickly emerges under the command
of Nationalist (KMT) General Li Mi, who flees Yunnan into eastern Burma. Seeking to rekindle anticommunist resistance in China, the CIA provides arms,
ammunition and other supplies to the KMT. After being repelled from China with heavy losses, the KMT settles down with local population and organizes
and expands the opium trade from Burma and Northern Thailand. By 1972, the KMT controls 80 percent of the Golden Triangle's opium trade.
1950
The CIA launches Project Bluebird to determine whether certain drugs might improve its interrogation methods. This eventually leads CIA head Allen
Dulles, in April 1953, to institute a program for `covert use of biological and chemical materials' as part of the agency's continuing efforts to
control behavior. With benign names such as Project Artichoke and Project Chatter, these projects continue through the 1960s, with hundreds of
unwitting test subjects given various drugs, including LSD.
1960
In support of the U.S. war in Vietnam, the CIA renews old and cultivates new relations with Laotian, Burmese and Thai drug merchants, as well as
corrupt military and political leaders in Southeast Asia. Despite the dramatic rise of heroin production, the agency's relations with these figures
attracts little attention until the early 1970s.
1967
Manuel Antonio Noriega goes on the CIA payroll. First recruited by the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency in 1959, Noriega becomes an invaluable asset
for the CIA when he takes charge of Panama's intelligence service after the 1968 military coup, providing services for U.S. covert operations and
facilitating the use of Panama as the center of U.S. intelligence gathering in Latin America. In 1976, CIA Director George Bush pays Noriega $110,000
for his services, even though as early as 1971 U.S. officials agents had evidence that he was deeply involved in drug trafficking. Although the Carter
administration suspends payments to Noriega, he returns to the U.S. payroll when President Reagan takes office in 1981. The general is rewarded
handsomely for his services in support of Contras forces in Nicaragua during the 1980s, collecting $200,000 from the CIA in 1986 alone.
MAY 1970
A Christian Science Monitor correspondent reports that the CIA `is cognizant of, if not party to, the extensive movement of opium out of Laos,'
quoting one charter pilot who claims that `opium shipments get special CIA clearance and monitoring on their flights southward out of the country.' At
the time, some 30,000 U.S. service men in Vietnam are addicted to heroin.
1972
The full story of how Cold War politics and U.S. covert operations fueled a heroin boom in the Golden Triangle breaks when Yale University doctoral
student Alfred McCoy publishes his ground-breaking study, The Politics of Heroin in Southeast Asia. The CIA attempts to quash the book.
1973
Thai national Puttapron Khramkhruan is arrested in connection with the seizure of 59 pounds of opium in Chicago. A CIA informant on narcotics
trafficking in northern Thailand, he claims that agency had full knowledge
of his actions. According to the U.S. Justice Department, the CIA quashed the case because it may `prove embarrassing because of Mr. Khramkhruans's
involvement with CIA activities in Thailand, Burma, and elsewhere.'
JUNE 1975
Mexican police, assisted by U.S. drug agents, arrest Alberto Sicilia Falcon, whose Tijuana-based operation was reportedly generating $3.6 million a
week from the sale of cocaine and marijuana in the United States. The Cuban exile claims he was a CIA protege, trained as part of the agency's
anti-Castro efforts, and in exchange for his help in moving weapons to certain groups in Central America, the CIA facilitated his movement of drugs.
In 1974, Sicilia's top aide, Jose Egozi, a CIA-trained intelligence officer and Bay of Pigs veteran, reportedly lined up agency support for a
right-wing plot to overthrow the Portuguese government. Among the top Mexican politicians, law enforcement and intelligence officials from whom
Sicilia enjoyed support was Miguel Nazar Haro, head of the Direccion Federal de Seguridad (DFS), who the CIA admits was its `most important source in
Mexico and Central America.' When Nazar was linked to a multi-million-dollar stolen car ring several years later, the CIA intervenes to prevent his
indictment in the United States.
APRIL 1978
Soviet-backed coup in Afghanistan sets stage for explosive growth in Southwest Asian heroin trade. New Marxist regime undertakes vigorous
anti-narcotics campaign aimed at suppressing poppy production, triggering a revolt by semi-autonomous tribal groups that traditionally raised opium
for export. The CIA-supported rebel Mujahedeen begins expanding production to finance their insurgency. Between 1982 and 1989, during which time the
CIA ships billions of dollars in weapons and other aid to guerrilla forces, annual opium production in Afghanistan increases to about 800 tons from
250 tons. By 1986, the State Department admits that Afghanistan is `probably the world's largest producer of opium for export' and `the poppy source
for a majority of the Southwest Asian heroin found in the United States.' U.S. officials, however, fail to take action to curb production. Their
silence not only serves to maintain public support for the Mujahedeen, it also smooths relations with Pakistan, whose leaders, deeply implicated in
the heroin trade, help channel CIA support to the Afghan rebels.
[Page: H2956]
JUNE 1980
Despite advance knowledge, the CIA fails to halt members of the Bolivian militaries, aide by the Argentine counterparts, from staging the so-called
`Cocaine Coup,' according to former DEA agent Michael Levine. In fact, the 25-year DEA veteran maintains the agency actively abetted cocaine
trafficking in Bolivia, where government official who sought to combat traffickers faced `torture and death at the hands of CIA-sponsored paramilitary
terrorists under the command of fugitive N-zi war criminal (also protected by the CIA) Klaus Barbie.
FEBRUARY 1985
DEA agent Enrique `Kiki' Camerena is kidnapped and murder in Mexico. DEA, FBI and U.S. Customs Service investigators accuse the CIA of stonewalling
during their investigation. U.S. authorities claim the CIA is more interested in protecting its assets, including top drug trafficker and kidnapping
principal Miguel Angel Felix Gallardo. (In 1982, the DEA learned that Felix Gallardo was moving $20 million a month through a single Bank of America
account, but it could not get the CIA to cooperate with its investigation.) Felix Gallardo's main partner is Honduran drug lord Juan Ramon Matta
Ballesteros, who began amassing his $2-billion fortune as a cocaine supplier to Alberto Sicilia Falcon. (see June 1985) Matta's air transport firm,
SETCO, receives $186,000 from the U.S. State Department to fly `humanitarian supplies' to the Nicaraguan Contras from 1983 to 1985. Accusations that
the CIA protected some of Mexico's leading drug traffickers in exchange for their financial support of the Contras are leveled by government witnesses
at the trials of Camarena's accused killers.
JANUARY 1988
Deciding that he has outlived his usefulness to the Contra cause, the Reagan Administration approves an indictment of Noriega on drug charges. By this
time, U.S. Senate investigators had found that `the United States had received substantial information about criminal involvement of top Panamanian
officials for nearly twenty years and done little to respond.'
APRIL 1989
The Senate Subcommittee on Terrorism, Narcotics and International Communications, headed by Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts, issues its 1,166-page
report on drug corruption in Central America and the Caribbean. The subcommittee found that `there was substantial evidence of drug smuggling through
the war zone on the part of individuals Contras, Contra suppliers, Contra pilots, mercenaries who worked with the Contras supporters throughout the
region.' U.S. officials, the subcommittee said, `failed to address the drug issue for fear of jeopardizing the war efforts against Nicaragua.' The
investigation also reveals that some `senior policy makers' believed that the use of drug money was `a perfect solution to the Contras' funding
problems.'
JANUARY 1993
Honduran businessman Eugenio Molina Osorio is arrested in Lubbock Texas for supplying $90,000 worth of cocaine to DEA agents. Molina told judge he is
working for CIA to whom he provides political intelligence. Shortly after, a letter from CIA headquarters is sent to the judge, and the case is
dismissed. `I guess we're all aware that they [the CIA] do business in a different way than everybody else,' the judge notes. Molina later admits his
drug involvement was not a CIA operation, explaining that the agency protected him because of his value as a source for political intelligence in
Honduras.
NOVEMBER 1996
Former head of the Venezuelan National Guard and CIA operative Gen. Ramon Gullien Davila is indicted in Miami on charges of smuggling as much as 22
tons of cocaine into the United States. More than a ton of cocaine was shipped into the country with the CIA's approval as part of an undercover
program aimed at catching drug smugglers, an operation kept secret from other U.S. agencies.
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gnukid
Ultra Nomad
Posts: 4411
Registered: 7-2-2006
Member Is Offline
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http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5j6QonBKKMo2gw1e3ql-xUcQE...
Mexico drug plane used for US 'rendition' flights: report
(AFP) – Sep 4, 2008
MEXICO CITY (AFP) — A private jet that crash-landed almost one year ago in eastern Mexico carrying 3.3 tons of cocaine had previously been used for
CIA "rendition" flights, a newspaper report said here Thursday, citing documents from the United States and the European Parliament.
The plane was carrying Colombian drugs for the fugitive leader of Mexico's Sinaloa cartel, Joaquin "Chapo" Guzman, when it crash-landed in the Yucatan
peninsula on September 24, El Universal reported.
The daily said it had obtained documents from the United States and the European Parliament which "show that that plane flew several times to
Guantanamo, Cuba, presumably to transfer terrorism suspects."
It said the European Parliament was investigating the private Grumman Gulfstream II, registered by the European Organization for the Safety of Air
Navigation, for suspected use in CIA "rendition" flights in which prisoners are covertly transferred to a third country or US-run detention centers.
It also said the US Federal Aviation Administration's (FAA) logbook registered that the plane had traveled between US territory and the US military
base in Guantanamo.
It said the FAA registered its last owner as Clyde O'Connor in Pompano Beach, Florida.
Extraordinary rendition has been harshly criticized since it began in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 attacks in the United States.
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gnukid
Ultra Nomad
Posts: 4411
Registered: 7-2-2006
Member Is Offline
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http://www.lagunajournal.com/four_more_american_drug_planes_...
Four More American Drug Planes Seized
Four more American-registered drug planes have been seized from the 50-plane fleet of drug running aircraft amassed by Mexico's Sinaloa Cartel,
according to documents filed in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida.
Figures of interest in the transactions, the MadCowMorningNews has learned, include financial backers of two of this year's Republican candidates for
President, as well as, unsurprisingly, an aviation company in St. Petersburg, FL. which can justifiably be called "one of the usual suspects."
Coincidentally or not, the American owners of the four planes (like the two busted earlier) were largely people and companies with 'special
relationships' with U.S. political movers and shakers, including the CIA and the U.S. Dept. of Homeland Security.
Yet, despite this inconvenient fact, the FBI persists in referring to the aircraft's American owners as "legitimate aircraft brokers" and "unwitting
sellers".
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Bajafun777
Super Nomad
Posts: 1103
Registered: 9-13-2006
Location: Rosarito & California
Member Is Offline
Mood: Enjoying Life with Wife In Mexico, Easy on The Easy
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Along with all this great wealth of information and mislead directions to stop drugs entering the USA, is the prospect that PRI will probably take
control of the President's office this next election. Fact or fiction on drug issues the people of Mexico are tired of this open conflict and open
wound to which many think PRI's old ways of doing business dealt with it better. Mexico is not going to keep dancing to USA terms when USA makes it so
easy to let people make excuses here in using these drugs. California is looking to legalize pot and even if you disagree with this does not matter,
it is what it is. PRI will call the cartels in one at a time and then all together and play "lets make a deal." Wrong or Right the open violence is
something no Country or its citizens would keep wanting and who would expect no changes with so many killings. This is not a Drug War it is a lot of
misdirections which are confusing not only the local police but the military too on both sides of the border. Hope for the best and wait to see what
the election in 2012 actually bring, just look what HOPE has done for the USA, LOL. Killings and loss of tourist business just can not keep going like
it is in Mexico right now. I could be totally wrong but this is just one opinion and I know many more are out there,LOL.
Later amigos y amigas hope today is safe and good for all. bajafun777
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