WILL THE WAR ON TERRORISM BRING ANOTHER BOON FOR DRUG TRAFFICKERS?

Since the end of WWII, one of the most consistent and generous benefactors
of international drug traffickers has been the American Central
Intelligence Agency (CIA). Beginning with the defeat of the Nationalist
Chinese by Mao Tse Tung's communists' in 1949, trade in opium and heroin
played a major role in financing the CIA's efforts to fight the menace of
communism.

Nationalist forces driven out of southern China into northern Burma in 1949
sought to regroup and rearm for an invasion of the now communist controlled
China. These nationalist forces were trained, and their subsequent
incursion into communist China was largely planned by the CIA. Nationalist
forces financed the operation almost entirely through the cultivation and
sale of opium that was in turn refined into heroin for sale in the United
States and other western nations.

Nationalist forces invaded China from their Burmese sanctuaries in 1952 and
were defeated and repelled by the communists. In 1961, military operations
by the Burmese army and Chinese communists largely eliminated the
Nationalists forces in northern Burma as a viable fighting force; however,
the opium syndicate established by the nationalist mercenaries remains to
this day. Prior to 1949, northern Burma and Thailand produced very little
opium. Today, thanks in great part to the activities of the CIA, this area
is the largest opium-producing region in the world.

In Burma the CIA was largely guilty of a sin of omission. They simply
turned a blind eye to the activities of their nationalist allies. Later, In
Laos, the CIA participated in the narcotics trade in a more direct and
deliberate fashion. Like Burma, prior to the end of WWII, Laos produced
little opium. Beginning in the 1950s the CIA began to recruit Hmong
tribesman, a Laotian ethnic sub-group, to fight against the communist
Pathet Lao and North Vietnamese. The Hmong had long grown opium for local
drug traffickers and with the CIA's encouragement they began growing it in
ever-larger quantities in order to subsidize an increasingly bloody war
against the communists.

In this case, CIA aircraft actually transported raw opium from rural
mountain areas in northern Laos to heroin labs in Laotian cities. The
resultant heroin found its way onto American streets and to American
servicemen in Vietnam. The CIA was not directly involved in moving the
processed heroin, but they were well aware of where it was going. In fact,
South Vietnamese vice-president Nguyen Cao Ky was personally involved in
importing heroin from Laos to South Vietnam.

These are not the paranoid assertions of a disturbed conspiracy
theorist. Historian Alfred McCoy meticulously documented all of these
facts in his book "The Politics of Heroin in Southeast Asia." A corporate
lawyer at the publishing firm Harper & Row called upon McCoy to justify
every sentence in his book. The CIA actually obtained a copy and tried to
have certain passages expurgated.

In the aftermath of 9/11/01 many have called for an easing of restrictions
on the CIA's conduct in order increase the intelligence agencies'
effectiveness in combating international terrorism. These calls come in
spite of the fact that the CIA in its unrestricted cold war incarnation
played a major role in furthering international drug traffic while largely
failing to stop communism in Southeast Asia. One is led to uneasy
speculation as to what will be the nature of the next plague this
"intelligence" agency will visit upon us during an unrestricted war on
international terrorism.