posted 11-24-2001 01:12 PM            

The function of the Drug War is to create the Drug Crisis. The Drug Crisis involves billions of dollars of hidden cash flow. Addicted to this flow of money are law enforcement agencies, drug producers and distributors, covert agencies who use it as a source of black funding, and politicians and bankers who are hired to protect the drug revenues. Addiction to drug revenues requires that the drug war be fought so as to be lost. Failure thus becomes the criterion of success.

Many state agencies, and federal agencies such as US Customs, the Drug Enforcement Administration, the Department of Justice, and the U.S. Treasury, reward themselves for fighting the Drug War by claiming a portion of the loot seized—helping themselves to cash, bank deposits, securities, boats, automobiles, houses, land, on-going businesses, as well as the readily-marketable drugs themselves. The Drug Warriors' financial focus ("follow the money") requires them to devote their energy in the direction it will be most rewarded—to look for juicy targets flush with success. Such juicy targets consist of those who have created flourishing drug enterprises in the midst of the Drug War. These successful drug enterprises make up the necessary list of worthwhile targets leading to successful busts. Big drug busts involving heretofore lucrative drug businesses are announced in a blaze of publicity—emphasizing the amount of money and drugs seized, and people arrested. Only the failure of the Drug War and the continuing success of drug enterprises can sustain the continuing stream of assets ripe for seizure (off-budget funding) and the beneficial media publicity, such as lurid TV footage of stacks of plastic-wrapped money and cocaine. Thus the failure of the Drug War becomes the measure of the Drug Warriors' success, and the ineffectiveness of the Drug Warriors becomes the continuing justification for their existence. The Drug Warriors are ever justified by the continuing Drug Crisis and the richness of the Drug Warriors' targets. Hence the Drug Warriors must fight the Drug War ever harder in order to ensure that it will be successfully lost.

Producers and distributors of illegal drugs require the Drug War in order to eliminate competition and maintain profit margins. Without the Drug War, a slew of small farmers would take over the growth of marijuana crops and would eventually drive pot prices down to the marginal cost of production. The giant methamphetamine kitchens in Mexico require the Drug-War-inspired monitoring of chemicals to prevent competition from the once pervasive amateur labs in American homes. Cocaine producers and distributors require enforcer watchdogs such as the Drug Enforcement Administration to keep out new lower- cost entrants to the market. General Manuel Noriega received an award from the DEA for his cooperation in the Drug War. Noriega served the Medellin cartel and kept out Cali competitors by turning them in to the DEA. The DEA was happy, Noriega was happy, and the Medellin cartel was happy. By cooperatively fighting the Drug War, the Drug Warriors and Drug Suppliers ensured the continuing flow of money and drugs through Panama. But whenever competition increases, the Drug War must be fought ever more vigilantly to ensure the continuing success of its failure. Only if competition is controlled can the market price of illicit drugs be kept well above their marginal cost of production, thus ensuring the massive profits upon which Drug Suppliers and Drug Warriors depend.

Covert agencies are increasingly tasked with supplying intelligence on the illegal drug trade, such as in the US where drugs have been designated a national security problem. The best vantage point from which to gather intelligence on the illegal drug market is to be in the illegal drug business. Thus covert agencies must deal drugs in order to assist the War on Drugs. Moreover, being covert requires covert monies for financing, and the most obvious source of "black market" funding is drug money. Drug money is obtained by supplying services to the drug trade. Here in Costa Rica the CIA provides air transport to "the brothers" who run a lucrative trade in illicit substances. In other locations other agencies are similarly involved. The NSA, through the NPO (National Programs Office), provided secure storage for cocaine in its network of secure warehouses across the US. In another country, the DIA operates a drug manufacturing facility. Similar statements can be made about the British, French, and Israeli intelligence services. The Drug War provides black market funding for the covert agencies, and justifies the need for them to provide intelligence to fight the Drug War. The Drug War must be fought harder to ensure the requisite funds and intelligence to fight the Drug War.

posted 12-05-2001 06:03 PM            

http://www.defraudingamerica.com/

The question of Who Profits from putting America's men and women in prison would be synonymous with who will oppose any changes in the system that pits those in key government positions against "outsiders"--the American public. This is a partial list of these people:

* Government informants who justify their government compensation on naming people allegedly involved in unlawful activities (which are often fabricated by the informants); who receive part of the assets that are seized from people, some of whom are never charged, some of whom are found innocent, and the values which are often far beyond the severity of the offenses.

* Prosecutors, who benefit through bonuses or reputation from the number of convictions. It is common practice to fabricate or exaggerate charges, to provide compensation to informants to provide known perjured testimony.

* Lawyers and law firms who receive money for appearing on behalf of defendants. This "representation" frequently includes sabotaging their client to placate the prosecutors and judges comprising the system while simultaneously pocketing their client's money. The case of Claude Duboc is a classic example and is found in Defrauding America and Drugging America.

* Construction companies who profit from the building of prisons.

* Employees and labor unions that staff these prisons.

* Companies that furnish supplies and equipment to the prisons.

* Telephone companies that install and operate the telephones in prison, and the prison that gets as much as 50 percent of the high-charges collect-charges and other fees arising from the heavy telephone usage.

* Prison industries, which generate profits from the use of prison labor, which cost as little as $.13 per hour. (While the U.S. complains about slave labor in other countries.)

* Companies that run many of the prisons, some of which have CIA connections, such as Wackenhut.

* Thousands of parole officers, psychiatrists, and others involved in pretrial reports, prison reports, probation handling.

* Communities that profit from having a prison nearby.

None of these people, groups, or companies want any change from placing America's men and women in prison. With the current stage of apathy among the America public, there is no incentive to change. Once a person is charged, or convicted, it is too late to change the system.

posted 12-10-2001 03:47 PM            

Diana Reynolds, program director of the Edward R. Murrow Center, summed up the danger of FEMA today and the public reaction to Martial Law in a drug crisis:

"It was James Madison’s worst nightmare that a righteous faction would someday be strong enough to sweep away the Constitutional restraints designed by the framers to prevent the tyranny of centralized power, excessive privilege, an arbitrary governmental authority over the individual.

posted 01-01-2002 01:33 AM            

quote:

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On the morning of January 22, 1991, neurologist Dr. David Sabow received a telephone call while he was at work in his office. The call was one that would change his life forever, and change his outlook on the integrity of parts of this country's military and political systems. It was from a Marine Corps chaplain, informing him that his older brother, Colonel James E. Sabow, had just committed suicide. At first, Dr. Sabow could not process the information. His thoughts were continually interrupted by snapshots of his brother Jimmy's life. And there was also this: David knew his brother so very well, and suicide was completely out of character for the man. Jimmy Sabow was a well-respected, highly intelligent, and extremely talented Marine officer, a man who had the ability to work as hard as he played and who demonstrated a strong devotion to his family. David recalls, "He was, without exaggeration, one of the best balanced individuals I've met in my life. So, I was immediately taken aback by the designation of suicide, simply because I knew my brother inside and out."

As it turned out, there were logical holes in the official account of Colonel Sabow's so-called suicide. These, combined with the discrepancy between what Dr. Sabow knew his brother to be and the idea of the man committing suicide, led Dr. Sabow into an investigation of his brother's death. He knew in his heart he could do no less.

Colonel Sabow's "suicide" and its aftermath have turned up far-ranging ramifications. As this special in-depth investigation will show, an unreported secret network of CIA agents was involved in illicit drug traffic from Mena, Arkansas, and dozens of other small airports around the country, the illegal sale of C-130 aircraft from the Forest Service, and the untimely deaths of investigative reporters and pilots. These agents were also involved with one of the largest drug trafficking operations coming into the country and illegal arms going out of the country.

Other Casualties of the Sabow Affair

The following additional individuals connected to the Sabow affair have met with strange misfortunes. Evidently, they knew too much.

Randy Robinson, the MP who witnessed evidence tampering at the death scene, was arrested two months after the murder, and charged with rape. The charge was then changed to the lesser one of adultery, for which he has served a six-month sentence. Captain Verducci, who acted in Robinson's defense, felt that the whole affair was bizarre, because the alleged victims did not file a complaint and refused to testify in court.

Archibald Scott, a highly decorated colonel who heard Colonel Sabow exclaim to Underwood that "Quitters never win and winners never quit," was accused of impersonating an officer. Scott took the case to court, and the decision has been reversed in his favor.

Captain Leslie Williams worked for Colonel Sabow and thought highly of him. She openly protested derogatory remarks against him. Despite a highly rated performance and recommendations for promotion by Colonel Sabow, Williams was "passed over" by the military and had to "get out."

Provost Marshall Goodrow and deputy, Forquer, were the first on the scene when Sabow died. Both were given new assignments in the summer of 1991. One was sent to Okinawa and the other to Twenty-Nine Palms. They were "short-termed."

Jack Chisom, the co-owner of T&G Aviation, who supplied C-130 and DC-7 operations in the Persian Gulf, was found dead in the Arizona desert as the result of a hit-and-run accident.

"Kevin," a marine who retired in the summer of 1994, was at the home of some friends when ®MDBR¯Eye-to-Eye With Connie Chung®MDNM¯ appeared on television. The program contained a segment on the death of Colonel Sabow and included a reference to large quantities of drugs being delivered to military bases, and an interview with a pilot who was involved in these flights. The group of people watching the program were astounded. "Kevin" assured them that everything they saw was true. He himself had been ordered to load vast quantities of drugs onto airplanes with the idea that drugs would be used for sting operations. He was not supposed to discuss the matter with anyone. Later, David Sabow learned of him and tried to reach "Kevin" for an interview. Five days later, a secret source told him "Kevin's" place of work and his unlisted phone number, but "Kevin" was dead. He was found hanging from the rafters of his parents' barn.

Tom Wade was a computer specialist who accessed confidential records for the Inspector General during his bogus investigation in January 1991. He found that the MWR files had been purged, including contracts with proprietary airlines, which are suspected of being involved in illegal C-130 acquisitions and illicit drug traffic. Wade's brutal death remains a mystery. He was shot in the head early on Christmas Day, 1994, as he was returning from Midnight Mass. As Wade's colleague at El Toro, computer installation chief Felix Segovia, explains, Wade was a single parent living in an apartment complex. "He had a small daughter. He was going home Christmas Eve from services. He was on his way home to pick up some gifts to take back to the church...to give out to the kids, and he was accosted by a couple of individuals in the parking lot of his complex, and shot in the back of the head, execution-style. Nothing was taken from his car. His daughter was left in the car crying. And no one saw anything. And until 6 in the morning when finally someone heard his daughter crying, it was never reported to the police."

Sergeant Felix Segovia is awaiting court-martial. He was a close friend of Tom Wade's, and had filed a "wholesale theft of computer equipment" report after having found that hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of computers, hardware, and software were missing from the El Toro base.

Colonel Jerry Agenbroad was found hanged in the BOQ in El Toro, on Feb. 24, 1994, five days after a 60 Minutes segment on illegal acquisitions and use of C-130s. He was in charge of MWR and at one time had been the head of the Air Museum at El Toro.

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posted 01-27-2002 11:42 AM            

From the San Antonio Business Journal;

quote:

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Torpedoed G-man Unit Rising like Phoenix from its Ashes

Bill Conroy

A former Internal Affairs agent for the U.S. Customs Service has come forward to shine a light on a sordid tale of alleged law-enforcement corruption, cover-ups, drug trafficking and suspected murder.

The former agent, Steven Shelly, is going public with his story because, he claims, no one in a position of power within law enforcement is listening.

Shelly's story sounds like a bad rerun of history -- a repeat of the rampant police corruption that wracked gangland Chicago during the height of Prohibition. In fact, Shelly traces his troubles to his involvement in a corruption-busting task force whose members were dubbed by its founder as modern-day "Untouchables."

In Shelly's version of the story, though, it is the G-men, not the crooks, who take it on the chin.

The Customs Internal Affairs Special Agent in Charge (SAC) who spearheaded the formation of the task force, John William Juhasz, claims that it was shut down abruptly because it got too close to the truth. The task force, called Firestorm, included members of the U.S. Customs Service, the Department of Justice's Office of Inspector General, the IRS, the FBI and the U.S. Attorney's Office.

Firestorm, prior to being dismantled, was actively investigating some 19 cases of alleged law-enforcement corruption in Arizona, according to public records obtained by the Business Journal.

Juhasz asserts in a statement made under oath during a legal proceeding that all of the key players in the torpedoed Firestorm task force were subsequently targeted by the government for retaliation and had their careers ruined -- including Shelly.

Shelly's story begins in early 1990 in Arizona, with the inception of the Firestorm task force. Although rooted in history, the tale has an edge to it that cuts a direct path into the present. Shelly claims that the corruption uncovered by the Tucson, Ariz.-based task force, which he asserts has been left unaddressed for years, now poses a real threat to our national security in the wake of the 9/11 terror attacks.

Shelly alleges that a former Customs Internal Affairs supervisor committed perjury as part of the effort to silence him in the wake of Firestorm's demise in late 1990. Shelly was forced to resign involuntarily in 1994, he contends, and has been seeking ever since to reclaim his job and to spur the government to clean up the corruption.

However, Customs argues that Shelly resigned from his job due to personal factors and that there is no evidence that he was subjected to reprisal by supervisors for whistleblowing activity. The judge hearing a legal challenge Shelly brought against Customs agreed.

Shelly maintains that justice has not been served in his case or in the case of the task force, which has led him to step forward as a whistleblower.

Documents provided to the Business Journal by Shelly show that the Firestorm task force had unearthed evidence linking two Customs inspectors working along the Arizona border to drug traffickers. The documents also allege that a supervisor with the Department of Justice's Office of Inspector General (OIG) -- who was suspected of having ties to drug traffickers -- worked to derail the investigation into the inspectors' activities.

Both the Customs inspectors and the OIG supervisor still work for the government, according to Shelly and other sources.

Also outlined in the documents obtained by the Business Journal are the details of the task force's investigation into the mysterious death of a former Customs supervisor in Douglas, Ariz., who Juhasz suspected might have been "involved in a circle of corruption in Douglas. ... ," according to an affidavit Juhasz submitted to the Department of Treasury's OIG.

The documents obtained by the Business Journal include testimony, notes and records provided to the House Commerce, Consumer and Monetary Affairs Subcommittee in 1992.

Other documents include workers' compensation hearing testimony, Merit Systems Protection Board depositions, internal reports of investigation, various legal affidavits, statements and Customs Service memorandums.

The story that follows is based on those documents, which total hundreds of pages, as well as interviews with numerous former and current Customs agents.
http://sanantonio.bcentral.com/sanantonio/stories/2001/12/17/story1.html

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posted 02-24-2002 12:29 AM            

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http://www.guerrillanews.com/crack/c_castillo.html

So, in fact, are the leaders of these countries - are they totally involved?

Absolutely, they are totally involved. And nothing moves without the Central Intelligence Agency's approval. We saw it in Mexico when we had Carlos Salinas and all the Salinas brothers who were heavily involved in drug trafficking with the U.S. government. You gotta remember that George Bush - the father - was an associate of Carlos Salinas in an oil company called Zapato Oil. And they were both Yale graduates and they were friends after they left the presidency. And we had Salinas where they seized $250 million in a CitiBank in New York City - so we knew from the get-go that those governments were heavily, heavily involved in drug trafficking. Never in the history of our time did we have more cocaine on our streets. Because the floodgates opened and those rivers were full of cocaine and they just segregated the whole country - from L.A. to South Texas to Little Rock, Arkansas. It was just everywhere.

So do you see this as a strategic policy that emanates from Intelligence – of bringing drugs into the country, making money from them for covert ops while at the same time, creating division within the country they are trying to control? Or is it just a money thing…

To me it was money thing. You gotta go back to the history of the Central Intelligence Agency - how they have been involved in drug trafficking. We gotta go back to the Vietnam era when they were smuggling heroin in body bags back to the U.S. and using the U.S. soldiers that were back here as soldiers to distribute the heroin that was coming in. And you gotta remember that at that time period, we had those same individuals who operate as the apparatus outside the Central Intelligence Agency, that don’t have to report to anybody - that’s why there is no paper trail to find.

We had Felix Rodriguez - former CIA operative, Oliver North… we had John Secord. All of those individuals who were in Vietnam working those covert operations were the same individuals working in El Salvador at Ilopango Airport where they were running the Iran-Contra operations. There was a civil war going on in Nicaragua and basically what happened was we were supporting the Contras – ‘contra’ means against - which means that we were supporting the rebels in Nicaragua that were fighting against socialism in Nicaragua. The United States government didn’t want to have Communism in the background so we needed to put a stop to it. So, we ended up supporting the Contras by letting them go ahead and sleep with the cartels and get them involved in drug trafficking in the name of democracy.

And, of course, the United States government knew and didn’t care how they made money for covert operations. It’s a history that goes back to where you get involved with drug trafficking and you use that money for covert operations and for lining their own pockets - which they did. Iran Contra was a smokescreen - the diversion was not from the sales of the US government selling missiles to Iran, but the diversion was actually from the Contras to Swiss bank accounts where they ended up finding millions of dollars in the name of Oliver North and General Secord and Project Democracy - a company they had opened up to launder all that money.

So it seems like everyone who is above a certain level is compromised. Once they're into it, they are compromised and they can't get out of it. Is that then case?

Absolutely. It goes to the highest level. I'm talking about the National Security Agency, the National Security Council, we had Oliver North who was heavily involved and in his own diaries he had documented the drug trafficking stuff that was occurring. January 14, 1986, when I was in Guatemala City, I had a chance to talk to then Vice President George Bush and he came up to me and he asked me what my job description was and I told him I was conducting international drug trafficking investigations. And I also told him that I was the agent who actually was investigating the Contras in El Salvador and he just smiled at me shook my hand and walked away. So I knew then and there that he knew that the Contras were heavily involved in drug trafficking. Number two, that same afternoon, he went up there and met with Oliver North, Collero (who was head of the Contras) and a whole bunch of military officials on the third floor of the U.S. embassy to discuss the Contra operation.

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posted 02-24-2002 12:52 AM            

quote:

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Kind of reminds you of Hamburger Hill in Vietnam, where we had to take that hill. It took us days to take that hill and then once we took it, after we lost hundreds of soldiers, we took it and then we gave it back the following week. It didn’t make sense but that’s exactly what's going to happen in Colombia. They're gonna use all that military not against drug traffickers or anything else - they're gonna use it against the guerrillas, the subversives down there, which they did in Mexico with those helicopters that Clinton shipped down to Mexico. They were supposed to be used on the War On Drugs. In reality they started using them against the Zapatistas in Chiapas. Salvador, the same thing. There's no such thing as the War On Drugs. There never has been because we don’t even make a dent. We have more drugs today than we ever did thirty years ago. Or twenty years ago.

So it’s more like the War For Drugs.

The War For Drugs - exactly. Because if you have - and none of this thing about legalizing marijuana - that will never happen. Not because of the moral issue but because there's too much money to be made on it. Look at the money that’s been laundered - some of it - a very small percentage being seized OK? It’s being seized in the U.S. - very small numbers. We got more banks in South Texas than we do 7-11s or Circle Ks. There’s just so much money to be made on this.

So if people were to question the government about what they are doing in Colombia, what would the government say they are really doing?

Well, they say that they're fighting the so-called War on Drugs because the numbers are there. Our elementary schools are infested with cocaine. They're starting to use heroin now. It used to be the middle class people, or the lower income people that were doing coke and now we got like in Plano, Texas, where the rich kids are, they are using heroin and we got a lot of people doing heroin. We got so many drugs and they're using those numbers to justify the War On Drugs when in reality they’re going down there and getting involved in drug trafficking. Let the people - they're blaming the guerrillas for being involved in drug trafficking when all these years we’ve known that the government has been involved in drug trafficking. It's very well documented, very well established that those governments or these third world countries down there are known as cocaine democracies.

Talk about Clinton and how he fits into the equation.

Well Clinton, as far as I'm concerned, was involved with the Mena operation when the CIA was involved in training the Contras in Mena, Arkansas. And there was the allegation of cocaine coming in to Mena, Arkansas and so forth. Now this is my understanding… the fact is that it's not a two Party thing - remember, the Republicans were accused during the Iran-Contra thing of being involved in drug trafficking and so forth. They had investigations. The House Select Committee on Intelligence did an investigation on the CIA and so forth.

You’ve got to remember he was Governor of Arkansas when this whole Contra operation with the CIA started so he was part of the problem to the extent that he didn’t want to admit to the fact that Mena, Arkansas was being used by the CIA to train the Contras.

When you first discovered the CIA drug operation at Ilopango you were warned to leave it alone. Describe the climate of fear you endured as a DEA agent knowing that if you did your job, you would face some form of retaliation.

Well, when I started - one of the things as you grow up - as you grow up in the world… you know, your parents taught you what was right and wrong. And my father always said, "You're gonna come to that Y in the road. You can go to the right - the right means doing the right thing. You go to the left, and it means you ain't gonna make any waves. You go with the flow, and you do what you gotta do. But there are consequences you will pay if you go to the right and tell the truth." And what happened to me was when I started to see all of this, I started documenting and writing reports and I was forewarned by my supervisor that if I kept it up, I was going to get kicked out of the country and sent back because I was making waves against the country.

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posted 02-28-2002 03:46 PM            

quote:

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The Militarization of 'Mayberry'

Exploding Number of S.W.A.T. Teams Set Off Alarms

Critics See Growing Role of Heavily Armed Police Units as 'Militarization' of Law Enforcement

[Washington Post - 6/17/97] FRESNO, Calif.
-- Sgt. Wade Engelson is preparing his new recruits for war.

Dressed in fatigues, sporting buzz hair cuts, the new men are being trained in the use of submachine guns, explosives and chemical weapons. They have at their disposal a helicopter and, soon, an armored personnel carrier.

Engelson's men are not Navy Seals or Army Rangers. They are members of the Fresno Police Department, whose enemy will not be found in faraway lands but in the neighborhoods where the police routinely patrol -- fully armed and in urban camouflage.

In their expanding strength and mission, the SWAT team in Fresno mirrors a growing trend in U.S. law enforcement -- the rise in the number of police paramilitary units across the country and a rapid expansion of their activities, a controversial trend that police scholars refer to as "the militarization" of civilian police.

The explosive growth and expanding mission of SWAT teams has, in turn, led to complaints that an occupying army is marching through America's streets -- that they are too aggressive, too heavily armed, too scary -- and that they erode the public's perception of police as public servants.

"It's a very dangerous thing, when you're telling cops they're soldiers and there's an enemy out there," said Joseph McNamara, former chief of police in San Jose and Kansas City who is now at the Hoover Institute at Stanford University. "I don't like it at all."

In a new study, police researcher Peter Kraska and his colleagues have documented the explosive growth of SWAT, which stands for Special Weapons and Tactics. In a nationwide survey of 690 law enforcement agencies serving cities with populations with 50,000 or more, the researchers found that 90 percent now have active SWAT teams, compared with 60 percent in the early 1980s.

Even in rural communities and smaller cities, the researchers have found that two of every three departments now boast a SWAT team -- a phenomenon Kraska compares to "militarizing Mayberry," he said referring to the fictional small town in the Andy Griffith television show.

Yet more important than the raw numbers, Kraska says, the SWAT mission has expanded. Once limited to highly specialized actions, such as dealing with barricaded gunmen or hostage-takers, the SWAT teams are now increasingly engaged in more standard police work. There is a boom in "high risk warrant work," including "no-knock entries." The work is mostly related to the war on drugs, and by extension, "gang suppression."

"Where the SWAT teams were once deployed a few times a year, they are now used for all kinds of police work -- dozens of calls, hundreds of calls a year," said Kraska, a professor of police studies at Western Kentucky University. "In SWAT units formed since 1980, their use has increased by 538 percent." And some units, like those in Fresno, are being deployed full time as roaming patrols.

The 30 members of Fresno's Violent Crime Suppression Unit now patrol crime-ridden neighborhoods day and night, serving warrants at homes of suspected drug dealers and criminals, stopping vehicles, interrogating gang members, showing a presence.

As they move through the city of 400,000 people, they wear subdued gray-and-black urban camouflage and body armor, and have at the ready, ballistic shields and helmets, M17 gas masks and rappelling gear. More equipment is carried in a mobile command SWAT bus that roves the city. The deparment is purchasing an armored personnel carrier.

The tactical police here also carry an assortment of weaponry denied the normal beat cop -- battering rams, diversionary devices known as "flashbangs," chemical agents, such as pepper spray and tear gas, and specialized guns, including assault rifles and, most famously, the Heckler and Koch MP5, the short, highly accurate 9mm, fully automatic submachine gun used by the Navy Seals.

...

"Despite the conventional wisdom that community policing is sweeping the nation, the exact opposite is happening," said McNamara. "The police and their communities ought to think seriously about this. Is there a need for SWAT teams? Yes, for highly specialized functions. But the police love these units, and this is a disastrous image to project."

McNamara and other police scholars say that the positive impact of the SWAT teams on reducing crime is most likely short-lived -- and that the pressure must be maintained. They also fear that heavily armed, commando-style police -- if they remain in a neighborhood for long -- will eventually be seen as an occupying army.

Kraska said his research shows that the rise in SWAT activities has closely followed the increased resources applied to fight illegal drug use.

"The drug war created the atmosphere for this kind of pro-active policing," Kraska said. "We have never seen this kind of policing, where SWAT teams routinely break through a door, subdue all the occupants and search the premises for drugs, cash and weapons."

Between 1980 and 1995, for example, Kraska found that SWAT units were employed in their traditional roles only for a minority of call-outs. Some 1.3 percent of their work was to quell civil disturbances; 3.6 percent for hostage situations; 13.4 percent for barricaded individuals. But 75 percent of their mission is now devoted to serve high-risk warrants, mostly drug raids.

...

Kraska's survey of police departments finds many SWAT teams are instructed by active and retired U.S. military experts in special operations. The SWAT teams also receive training not only from the FBI, the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center and National Tactical Officers Association, but in classes organized by private companies.

One of the most popular courses is offered by Heckler and Koch, which trains hundreds of SWAT officers a year. The company also offers the units discounts on its popular weapons, such as the MP5. Kraska points to the private companies role in the encouragement of SWAT response as part of a new "crime control industry."

Larry Glick, executive director of the National Tactical Officers Association, said that some of the private training seminars are taught by "retired military personnel who don't know what they're doing." The training offered by Heckler and Koch is "very successful and credible, among the best," he said. "Their ultimate goal is to sell their guns."

Kraska and other police scholars said that even with the most community-sensitive training, the new weaponry and paramilitary-style tactics of the SWAT units attract a different kind of officer -- less the cop as social worker and more the cop as an elite special 'ops' soldier. And most SWAT officers are paid a premium for the work.

"The SWAT teams love this stuff," Kraska said. "It's fun to fire these weapons. It's exciting to train. They use 'simmunition' -- like the paint balls and play warrior games. This stuff is a rush."

[posted June 22, 1997]

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posted 03-08-2002 01:54 PM            

This is something else I found related to the phony 'drug war', written in 1996;

quote:

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You have permission to forward the following if and only if you include the copyright notice and this sentence at the top.
The Scoop is archived by Patrick Combs at www.dnai.com/g-think. Go see. _______________________
THE SCOOP for October 9, 1996

The CIA and Drugs
Just Say No

(C)1996 Bob Harris
TheScoop@earthlink.net

Could the CIA have been involved in the crack epidemic of the 1980s?

Recent San Jose Mercury News reports implicate a couple of Contras as major players in L.A.'s Reagan-era cocaine boom. The op-ed puppies are all ablither, claiming that either the reports are all wrong, or the CIA just employed a few bad apples.

Hey, anybody could overlook a few tons of crack.

The CIA promises an internal investigation. You bet -- just as soon as they're done releasing their JFK files.

Whenever the CIA gets busted, their three responses are, in order:

a) It didn't happen,
b) We didn't do it, and
c) We'll never do it again.

The real story is d) none of the above.

Even before the CIA was born in 1947, the spooks used narcotics as a tool of foreign policy.

At the close of World War II, Naval Intelligence sprang Lucky Luciano from a New York pen and shipped him home to Italy. Why? Mafia goons were handy in breaking up socialist activities in European labor unions, and the Sicilian heroin trade helped stabilize the region's postwar economy. The CIA/mob alliance was born.

A few years later and one island over, the Guarini brothers of Corsica ran smack to the U.S. through Cuba. The CIA winked, set up the Castle Bank in the Bahamas to launder the profits, and skimmed some of the loot to maintain the cash crop exports of death-squad dictators in Honduras, Nicaragua, and much of the rest of Latin America.

In 1960, when the CIA's Havana puppet, Batista, was overthrown by Castro, the Agency put an actual mafia contract on Fidel's head. Before long, a whole army of Cuban exiles was set up in Florida with black market money.

After Kennedy yanked the air cover on the Bay of Pigs invasion, promised Khruschev never to invade Cuba, and broke up the training camps in the Keys, do you think these guys just gave up and got jobs at K-Mart?

Laundering cash and evading radar are marketable skills.

Ten years later, in one of the largest drug busts in history, some genuine narcs brought down a ring responsible for half the shit in the Sunshine State. Guess what? Two-thirds of the suspects were Bay of Pigs vets with get-out-of-jail-free cards.

A lot of these same Cuban exiles and some CIA-trained Argentinian thugs overthrew Bolivia in the "cocaine coup" of 1980, installing Luis Garcia Meza to brighten our nasal cavities.

These are the folks that trained and financed the Contras.

Dozens of major Contra figures -- Jose Bueso Rosa, Rafael Quintero, Manuel Noriega, etc. -- were coke bottlers. Ollie North's "humanitarian aid" providers -- DIACSA, SETCO, Frigorificos de Puntarenas, etc. -- were repeatedly investigated for smuggling dope. They still received State Department approval, at the very moment casual marijuana smokers Ron and Nancy Reagan were preaching zero tolerance.

The deals weren't all in Latin America. In the '50s, the CIA supported the heroin-rich Kuomintang in China. In the '60s, the CIA turned 35,000 Hmong opium growers into a secret army to fight the commies in Laos. In the '80s, it was the Afghan Mujaheddin importing our guns and exporting drugs.

Same as it ever was.

Anybody out there honestly think $200 billion of dope reaches our inner cities in Freeway Ricky's Astrovan? You think that all cash gets laundered through Bimini by Crack Alley kids who can't read a paper?

Who has the planes, people? Who has the training? Who has airstrips hidden in the hills of Texas, Arkansas, and Arizona (several of which I've seen with my own eyes)?

It's not paranoia. It's not a conspiracy theory. It did happen, CIA people did it, and they will do it again. _______________________
Bob Harris is a political humorist who has lectured at over 250 colleges nationwide.

Original file name: The CIA and Drugs

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posted 03-09-2002 11:36 PM            

Of course, no education on the War on Drugs is complete without a lengthy visit to Michael Ruppert's

www.copvcia.com

Ruppert is a favorite guest on Rense. His website has many articles on this and related topics.

posted 03-10-2002 12:05 AM            

Involved a main character who somehow got access to these eyeglasses that allowed the wearer to see aliens who are disguised as humans, interacting with us without our knowledge. With the glasses you could also see subliminal mesgs in places you wouldn't suspect, all over the place in our society and everyday lives.

As I recall, part of the plot dealt with a secret (para-police-military) war against the poor and street people, (not hard to imagine when you know the truth about the 'war on drugs'... more like a war against American people depending on your point of view). There was an underground revolutionary movement, etc... Can't recall the whole thing though.

Yeah, that link is a good one. I've stumbled on it before, but it's hard to access sometimes (like some of the best ones are?). You know like how some of the really good ones (websites) suddenly disappear?

I had to reach it via a search engine, maybe it's my ISP?

I did reach it though and found this;

(warning to readers; don't go to this link if you're uncomfortable about the CIA, because it goes diretly to their website... like I said, CIA is compartmentalized, it's just made up of people, good and bad IMO...I know that many of them want us to know the truth too. Decisions, good and bad are made somewhere at the top of the pyramid. It's pretty anesthetic/nuts & bolts, if that's the word/phrase?... like bureaucratic institutions and investigations usually are to some of us TV/entertainment-oriented folks. If it bothers you, don't bother to check it out, there's enough proof without it.)

quote:

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If you don't think that the C.I.A. is involved in Drugs, please read their own report;

http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/cocaine/index.html

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You know this is old news to many of us, but millions of Americans still don't even know about it or believe it, because they haven't seen it on TV!!!

posted 03-10-2002 12:14 PM            

John Carpenter summed up the reluctance of people to accept the truth in a powerful fight scene from his so-called science fiction movie called "They Live."

quote:

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"This fist fight took place between two friends as one man tried to force his buddy to put on a specially-made pair of sunglasses. When these special sunglasses are worn anyone can see the world as it really is, rather than as it appears to be. So great was this one man’s resistance to the truth, that he fought with every ounce of strength to keep from putting the sunglasses on. So, too, it is with the American public today. The ostriches prefer their heads buried in the sand, and will fight kick, bite, scratch, and maybe even kill, to keep from knowing the truth. Slaves grow accustomed to their chains. They don’t want to see or know what is really going on. The 4th of July means firecrackers and an extra day off, not freedom (The Power of Total Perspective, R.E. McMaster, Jr., p. 12-13).

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