CIA/Drug trafficking
| File:CIA Drug trafficking lego.jpg | |
| Date | 1946 - Present |
|---|---|
| Interests | Drug epidemic |
| Description | Drug trafficking by the CIA makes up a large contribution to its black budget |
Drug trafficking by the CIA makes a major contribution to its black budget.[1] Joël van der Reijden names this area as one of the most important covered up conspiracies of all time. After the CIA took over the heroin trade from the SDECE they upscaled it during the Vietnam War. This formula has been repeated in South America with cocaine, a process well documented and placed on the internet in the 1990s by Gary Webb. Post 9-11, the CIA has managed the drug trafficking out of Afghanistan. Drug trafficking is closely integrated with official US/Foreign Policy, although the official narrative remains that the CIA doesn't engage in drug trafficking as a matter of policy.
Official narrative
In December 1989, 25,00 US troops invaded the small, Central American republic of Panama. But this was not a war against some communist regime or terrorist group – this was a drugs bust, aimed at arresting Manuel Noriega, the dictator of Panama, who was wanted on trafficking charges in Miami. Awkwardly for the US, Noriega had been a major CIA asset for decades – even as they knew he was becoming massively embedded with the cartels flooding the streets of the US with coke.
This is how US intelligence shielded Noriega, even as he trafficked cocaine and laundered cartel millions – and also how the War on Drugs came to replace the Cold War as the central feature of US foreign policy.Wikipedia has a page entitled "Allegations of CIA drug trafficking", as if there were any doubt as to the matter. As of 2018, there was also a page on "CIA involvement in Contra cocaine trafficking",[2] a limited hangout, the lead paragraph of which concludes that "The subject remains controversial." The official line still promoted as of 2017 by corporate media such as the BBC denies that the CIA has been systematically trafficking in drugs for decades.[3] This is a highly selective interpretation of the available evidence, which Eric Umansky summarised in a 1998 Mother Jones article under the headline: "The CIA has a long and sordid history with drug traffickers. And it’s all in the Congressional Record."[4]
Origins
CIA spooks have been connected to drug traffickers even before the agency was formally set up,[5] In 1955 Colonel Edward Lansdale demanded the French Intelligence and the Corsican Mafia give up their control of the heroin trade from the Golden Triangle. They refused and a battle ensued in which the CIA had emerged victorious by 1956.[6] The Vietnam War was by many accounts a tremendous boost to its scaling up of operations[7] prolonged by what contemporary military commanders see as ineffective war strategy's[8] and bombing campaigns that dropped more ammunition than was used in WW2,[9][10] which however did not change the situation towards a victory for the US.[11]
Exposure
- Full article: CIA/Drug trafficking/Exposure
- Full article: CIA/Drug trafficking/Exposure
One of the first systematic treatments of CIA drug dealing was Alfred W. McCoy's 1972 book, The Politics of Heroin in Southeast Asia, which the agency tried but failed to suppress.[12]
1990s
In the 1990s Gary Webb brought the topic of CIA Drug trafficking to the attention of the US public by publishing exhaustive evidence in 1996 on the WWW, naming those involved and sharing his the documents he had used. The commercially-controlled media and the establishment in general showed little interest, (even when he published the material in 1998 as Dark Alliance). On November 15, 1996, Mike Ruppert dramatically confronted CIA Director John Deutch and testified that he has personally witnessed CIA complicity in drug trafficking.[13][14] After a moment of confusion, Deutch asked for Ruppert to submit evidence, and promised to follow up - Ruppert submitted evidence, which was again ignored. Innumerable independent efforts on the internet have probably done more to expose the CIA's drug dealing than any reporting in the commercially-controlled media.
Vietnam War
In 1993, Harry Miller, a Vietnam veteran, sued Larry Silverstein, together with Richard Nixon, Bill Clinton, Ross Perot and Colin Powell, alleging that they had perpetrated acts including serial murder for 25 years, since the Vietnam War, as part of a conspiracy to distribute heroin. In January 1994, a New York court threw out the suit; an appeal by Miller was later rejected. The suit was not reported by the commercially-controlled media at the time.[15]
Internet
The public record of CIA drug trafficking has greatly expanded though the internet following Webb's groundbreaking Dark Alliance website. GNN published a short interview with Gary Webb in the 2000s.
Premature deaths
- Full article: CIA/Drug trafficking/Premature deaths
- Full article: CIA/Drug trafficking/Premature deaths
Dozens (at least) of people connected to the CIA drug trafficking have suffered premature deaths of one sort or another. Prominent among these is Gary Webb, the journalist who broke the story with his 1996 Dark Alliance expose. Officially, depression lead him to shoot himself twice in the head. Various CIA pilots have suffered sudden death, sometimes just before or after testifying. A leading CIA pilot, Barry Seal, was assassinated when confined due to his bail conditions. Edward Cutolo died a supposedly accidental death after having signed an affidavit that helped expose Operation Watchtower. Bo Abbott, who also testified, appears to have disappeared.
Drug routes
Cocaine
Gary Webb detailed various different import routes and strategies to smuggle cocaine from South America to USA, increasing in volume over time as the CIA refined their methods, from suitcases to cars to plane loads (such as Cocaine 1 and Cocaine 2). The main hub of CIA cocaine delivery in USA in the 1980s was Mena, Arkansas.
Opium
The USA's invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 saw a huge rise in the cultivation of opium. Sibel Edmonds stated that most of the opium exported from Afghanistan is shipped in military planes via Turkey.[16]
Synthetic drugs
Trafficking in totally synthetic drugs is less predictable, since they can be made almost anywhere, and so circumstances depend less on geography and more on the regulatory climate and relative power of deep state factions. In 1984, Oswald LeWinter was sentenced to 6 years after being found guilty of involvement in a scheme to smuggle methamphetamine precursors into the United States.[17]
Methods
Operation Watchtower
- Full article: Operation Watchtower
- Full article: Operation Watchtower
Operation Watchtower used beacons to facilitate the use of military planes for smuggling purposes. It was exposed by Bo Gritz and Edward Cutolo.
Extraordinary rendition
Planes used for "extraordinary rendition" have also been used to traffic drugs (see for example Cocaine 1 or Cocaine 2), suggesting the possibility that they are used for both purposes simultaneously, that extradition routes might therefore yield insight into smuggling routes.
Money laundering
Drug trafficking operations tend to require money laundering of some kind. One CIA connected plane that might provide insight into this process is Western Global Airlines N545JN which landed in Harare with a dead body and 67 tonnes of fresh banknotes. As with the 2006 Mexico DC-9 drug bust, no legal proceedings ensued and the plane was allowed to proceed unhindered.
Street distribution
Richard J. Brenneke in a 1991 Senate deposition stated that the Mafia and John Gotti took care of the further distribution cocaine from Mena during Iran-Contra.[18]
External links
- Washington Post - 14 July 1971 - Facts Surface on the Heroin War, by Flora Lewis
- New York Times reporting:
- 3 December 1993 - The CIA Drug Connection Is as Old as the Agency, by Larry Collins
- 30 January 1998 - C.I.A. Report Concludes Agency Knew Nothing of Drug Dealers' Ties to Rebels, by Tim Weiner
- 17 July 1998 - C.I.A. Says It Used Nicaraguan Rebels Accused of Drug Tie, by James Risen
- House of Representatives - 17 July 1998 - CIA admits ties to Contra drug dealers
- Los Angeles Times - 18 July 1998 - CIA Admits to Using Nicaraguan Rebels With Drug Ties
- CNN - 3 November 1998 - CIA admits it overlooked Contras' links to drugs
References
- ↑ Peter Dale Scott is a good source on this
- ↑ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CIA_involvement_in_Contra_cocaine_trafficking
- ↑ http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-42314701
- ↑ https://www.motherjones.com/politics/1998/06/history-101-cia-drugs/
- ↑ https://isgp-studies.com/cia-heroin-and-cocaine-drug-trafficking
- ↑ Guns And Butter 2018-05-23
- ↑ Air America
- ↑ http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/176378/tomgram:_danny_sjursen,_wrong_on_nam,_wrong_on_terror/
- ↑ https://medium.com/@ennyman/how-many-tons-of-bombs-were-dropped-on-vietnam-41f71d433272
- ↑ http://legaciesofwar.org/resources/books-documents/land-of-a-million-bombs/
- ↑ http://archive.today/2020.02.01-194547/https://www.quora.com/How-efficient-was-the-bombing-of-the-Ho-Chi-Minh-Trail-by-the-US-Air-Force-during-the-Vietnam-War/answer/Gearld-Cline
- ↑ http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/176321/tomgram%3A_alfred_mccoy%2C_the_cia_and_me
- ↑ http://unwelcomeguests.net/23
- ↑ http://www.unwelcomeguests.net/162
- ↑ http://www.haaretz.com/up-in-smoke-1.75334
- ↑ http://www.unwelcomeguests.net/691
- ↑ http://jclass.umd.edu/archive/newshoax/casestudies/idfraud/IDPoet.html
- ↑ https://whatreallyhappened.com/RANCHO/POLITICS/MENA/the_oral_deposition_of_richard_j._brenneke_6-21-91.html