DRUGS AND THE DOGS OF WAR

Research Shows Militants Have Long Used the Drug Trade to Finance Their Battles

It has been estimated that drugs are the third biggest global
commodity after petroleum and weapons. Together, oil, guns and drugs
are the economic pillars of globalization.

The United Nations estimates that the annual global turnover of
narcotics is in the range of $500 billion US, much of which is
laundered through offshore banks and then invested in businesses and
governments worldwide. It is even said the global economy would
collapse if the drug trade ceased.

It is within the fortune-making machine of war that the drug trade
finds common ground with the oil and arms industries. War is a dirty
business, often driven by covert operations and human-rights abuses.
In war, criminal networks and drug traffickers and their smuggling
routes become valuable assets to be managed and utilized for strategic gains.

Not only does the drug trade facilitate intelligence gathering, it is
also a means for covert operatives and revolutionaries to fund
themselves beyond the gaze of politicians and the public.

These practices were highlighted for the public in the 1980s by the
Iran-Contra Affair. In U.S. government hearings, it was discovered
that in order to circumvent Congress' concerns about human-rights
abuses, American agencies traded arms with Iran, an avowed enemy.

Similarly, 1998 internal investigations into CIA involvement in
cocaine trafficking in Central and South America revealed that the
U.S. agency had turned a blind eye to the fact that drug trafficking
was being used by Nicaraguan contras to fund the guerrilla war being
fought against the revolutionary government of the mid-1980s.

The conclusion that can be drawn is that the modern cocaine epidemic
that continues to ravage many North American cities, including
Winnipeg, was in part perpetuated by the CIA and the American government.

Things have only gotten worse. The dark alliance of globalization has
reached new heights in the war-plagued country of Afghanistan, a
country NATO forces supposedly invaded in order to spread democracy.
Six years later, the only thing spreading is the Afghan heroin
industry, which has more than doubled in size since the U.S.-led invasion.

It isn't often that we hear about the history of the heroin trade in
Afghanistan. That's because it was originally used as a means to
support Osama bin Laden's guerrilla war against the Soviets.
University of Ottawa Prof. Michel Chossudovsky, in an essay titled
The CIA, Heroin, & Who Is Ousmane Bin Laden?, stated "CIA assets
again controlled this heroin trade," meaning Bin Laden is really a
former intelligence asset with ties to the drug trade in The Golden Crescent.

It should also be of no surprise that the new president of
Afghanistan is a former executive of the American oil company Unocal.

What I have touched on here is but the tip of the iceberg. No doubt
many sordid tales of governments being linked to the drug trade have
yet to be uncovered.

For instance, why was a Lear jet with 43 pounds of heroin discovered
at an airport in Florida in 2000 -- an airport that three weeks later
hosted the flight training of two of the 9/11 hijackers?

In 2006, why was a DC-9 painted to look like a U.S. Homeland Security
plane discovered in Mexico with 5.5 tons of cocaine on board?

Something tells me we might start looking for answers by asking the
CIA about these two planes.

Check out these two websites for in-depth research into this subject:
www.globalresearch.ca and www.madcowprod.com.

Jim Sanders is a local documentary filmmaker and co-founder of Dada
World Data Productions.