NARCO-TERROR FUELING FUTURE NUCLEAR TERROR?

Sources Say Drug Profits Used To Finance Building Of Weapons Of Mass
Destruction

(Editor's note: Joseph Farah's G2 Bulletin is an online, subscription
intelligence news service from the creator of WorldNetDaily.com - a
journalist who has been developing sources around the world for the last 25
years.)

Narco-terrorism costs more lives and more money than the Islamo-terror
sponsored by people like Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein, say Western
intelligence and law-enforcement sources.

But it also provides the money for those terrorists and increasingly rogue
regimes like North Korea hell-bent on developing and using weapons of mass
destruction.

While the American public hasn't been paying much attention lately to the
world war against illicit drugs, it is a conflict now decades long. It is
waged in the Third World and even more so in the streets of U.S. cities.

More Americans lose their lives, health or livelihood under attacks of the
drug trade than in the streets of Baghdad or in the Hindu Kush mountains of
Afghanistan. Official figures put the U.S. 2000 death toll due to drug use
at 19,698, an increase from 16,926 in 1999 (16 percent more). Drug-related
emergency episodes monitored between January and June 2002 put the number of
victims involved in drug episodes at 308,558 cases.

Annual damage to the U.S. economy as a result of drug abuses in 2002 was
$169.7 billion. The office of National Drug Control Policy has stated $36
billion was spent on cocaine and $10 billion on heroin alone. These numbers
relate to the import of 260 metric tons of cocaine and 13.3 metric tons of
heroin.

By comparison, U.S. estimates of reconstructing Iraq are at annual cost of
at least $52 billion. It is important to note that those alarming figures do
not have the same psychological impact on the American public as figures
related to terrorism such as the Sept. 11 massacre. Statistics of the
Substance Abuse Mental Health Service Administration for 2001 show 15.9
million drug users during the months of the survey were between 12 and 24
years old.

Not many Americans are aware the State Department and the Department of
Justice currently are trying to bring to justice a number of Mexican drug
barons. The story of the Arellano Felix brothers is just one illustration of
the problem.

The U.S. Attorney General's office is preparing charges of racketeering and
trafficking against the brothers and 11 other individuals from the Tijuana
area. The Arellano Felix organization is allegedly behind more than 100
drug-related murders in Mexico and the U.S. As the governments of the U.S.
and Mexico are cooperating in the Arellano case, the war goes on with little
public coverage.

"The reality is that you learn more on the war against drugs from Hollywood
than from the government or media sources," said a Drug Enforcement
Administration agent talking to G2B.

Observers of U.S. policies, especially those looking at the U.S. from the
outside, wonder why the U.S. is ready to fight to protect the integrity of
Kuwait, to destroy the Taliban or to topple the Saddam tyranny, while at the
same time not having the same zeal to fight a clear and present danger
threatening to maim and ruin more and more Americans.

The overall drug damage is mind-boggling. The facts, many argue, should
alarm American lawmakers no less than the danger of a nuclear North Korea or
the shaky peace process in the Middle East.

Russia, with its own tough guerrilla and anti-terror campaign, especially in
the northern Caucasus, uses the military on a routine basis to fight drug
growing and trade. Reviewing the Russian scene reveals officials call the
threat by its true name - narco-terrorism. Moscow clearly does not separate
between the two, directly connecting, within and around her borders,
narco-terrorism to Islamic militant terrorism.

Analysts believe the drug threat emanating from Central and South America
requires the U.S. to treat the matter with at least the same decisiveness as
that of the Russians. U.N. publications and follow-ups based on the 1961
Vienna Convention on illicit drugs indicate a steady growth in the
production and trafficking of cocaine. The primary market for cocaine and
other drugs is North America. However, U.N. efforts including many Security
Council resolutions on narcotics are regarded as a dismal failure.

Other reports reveal U.S. efforts in the battle to destroy the "narco
flagship" in Colombia do not achieve appropriate results, even when some
experts are claiming a 30 percent decline in export.

For nearly 20 years, the U.S. has been involved with the Colombia Plan,
allocating over $1 billion a year in the last two years alone. These funds
go mainly to strengthen the national police and army of Colombia.

The plan is designated to stop drug growing and trade, not falling, however,
under the policy of war against terrorism. It includes questionable programs
like aerial herbicide spraying with chemicals such as Roundup Ultra,
manufactured by Monsanto of St. Louis, which during the Vietnam War produced
the infamous Agent Orange. The plan included some 70,000 gallons a year of
chemicals sprayed over 53,000 hectares and costing between $35 to $46 per
gallon.

Objection to the aerial herbicide spraying began to come from indigenous
Colombians and environmentalist groups claiming severe health hazards. This
single program was one of the most important weapons in a war crucial to the
future of Americans today and definitely in the coming generations. The
anti-narco-terror campaign is actually only a byproduct of the Colombia
Plan. It is being carried out by Colombian soldiers and policemen assisted
by a handful of American military advisers and less than 400 civilians, most
of whom are contracted pilots and mechanics.

A relative of a captured American contracted anti-drug warrior, who is being
held as a hostage by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, complained
that few in the U.S. realize the complexity of the situation. He told the
media how civilians, at times labeled by Latin American media as "gringo
mercenaries," are actually fighting a war vital to every American.

In addition to FARC, the narco-warriors are also faced with the left-wing
National Liberation Army and the right-wing United Self Defense Forces of
Colombia. These contracted civilians remain in the shadows, away from the
media. When, from time to time, some of them are killed, injured or
captured, there are no yellow ribbons, VIP treatment or a national mourning
when their coffins are brought back home.

In July 2001, five Americans were killed when their intelligence plane
crashed. More Americans were killed, captured and injured since. A former
helicopter pilot with experience in Central America, refusing to reveal his
full name, told G2B: "Flying over Colombia I knew I'm fighting for my
country and when fired upon I asked myself - where is the cavalry?"

Since the beginning of 2003, as the State Department has been planning to
expand the Colombia Plan to other countries, more information has become
available about the dimensions of the narco-terror danger in countries such
as Peru, Bolivia, Brazil and others. These countries are commonly described
by intelligence analysts as "The Coca Club," where the use of coca leaves is
part of the culture. However, the distilled and purified product, destroying
the lives of so many Americans, is meant mainly for export.

Some analysts assess that following the reality of the wars in Afghanistan
and Iraq the administration will invest more time and resources south of the
border rather than in dealings with Iraq, Afghanistan and North Korea.

As the grim picture of drug reality unfolds, Peru, which during the '80s and
'90s carried with U.S. help a successful campaign against narco-terrorism,
is reporting renewed emergence of narco-terror threats. The Sendero Luminoso
(Shining Path), a Maoist group, is resurfacing with narco-terror activities.

According to one report, there are 17 drug areas in Peru alone. It is also
becoming more evident narco-terrorism is spilling over from Colombia to
other neighboring countries such as Venezuela and Brazil. Both countries are
doing their utmost to send more troops to remote border regions where drug
cartels are now shipping tons of cocaine or purified heroin destined to
Mexico or via sea en route to U.S. streets.

Russia and China are busy with their own internal affairs, fighting Islamic
terrorism and Asian narco-terrorism. The Russians encourage their military
to combat narco-terrorism in the Caucasus as part of their main objectives
there.

A recent Russian military paper says 13 Afghani warlords produce no less
than 5,400 tons of ready to use opium per year. This situation is also a
Pakistani problem as drugs grown in Pakistan, or moving through Pakistan to
European destinations, also serve as a source for financing terrorist
activity.

Countries in Africa and the Middle East are also increasing drug production,
sometimes coached not only by organized crime but by terror organizations as
well. This business includes money-laundering schemes and money funneling to
terrorists. Although Islam does not approve the use of narcotics outwardly,
it is an acceptable trade to support the movement's goals.

In the wake of the narco-trade phenomena come the almost weekly executions
in Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Malaysia and other countries. Their judicial
systems are busy delivering capital punishment to drug traders.

Scores of Westerners have been arrested and severely punished, including
life terms in jail with horrible and almost diabolical conditions in
third-world countries.

The recent beheading of four Pakistani and Yemeni drug dealers in Riyadh and
Mecca was linked by a number of intelligence agencies to the attempts of the
Saudi government to stop narco-terrorism. One expert discussing the
situation with G2B said: "Drugs and terror are inseparable, co-joined deadly
twins."

U.S. interests should be more focused on narco-terrorism in the Western
hemisphere. It is difficult, though, to separate between Western
narco-terrorism dangers and those in other parts of the world.

An intelligence expert specializing in narcotics told G2B clearly the
tentacles of the narco-octopus know no boundaries. He used the example of
North Korea, which together with its traditional blackmail diplomacy is
using drug trade to finance plans for weapons of mass destruction. The
Australian law-enforcement establishment has proved this connection by
intercepting and arresting drug dealers importing their deadly goods on
North Korean cargo ships.

The expert also says the U.S. should not spread its global efforts too thin.
According to him and others, the U.S. should encourage regional governments
and powers to cooperate to deliver deadly blows to the drug trade and
narco-terror - from the Golden Triangle to the Andes.

Terror analysts are convinced the term "narco-terrorism" will regain its
infamous prominence, predicting the U.S. will not have a choice but to
redefine President Bush's war on terrorism and to include within this
concept also the war on narcotics.