From The Ramparts

Iraq Joins The Drug Network

Iraq Joins The Drug Network

“CAIRO — In a scenario similar to what happened in post-Taliban Afghanistan, opium fields are spreading in south Iraq shriving on chaos and uncontrolled violence, The Independent revealed on Wednesday, May 23. Red-colored opium poppies found a fertile ground at the southern city of Diwaniyah and surrounding cities, Iraqi sources familiar with the area told the British daily. Noting that the area is too dangerous for foreign journalists to access, the paper insisted the start of opium cultivation has been confirmed by multiple sources. The Iraqi sources said the farmers are financed by powerful gangs who are ‘well-equipped with good vehicles and weapons and are well-organized.’ The British daily said that though the cultivation of opium poppies is still in its early stages there is little the government can do amid the uncontrolled chaos miring the little-noticed south. Drug smugglers have for long used Iraq as a transit point for heroin, largely produced from Afghanistan. However, opium poppies, the raw ingredient of heroin, have hitherto not been grown in the oil-rich country. The shift of southern areas, long-famous with rice fields, to the poppy cultivation is therefore raising fears that Iraq could become a new major heroin supplier.” After Afghanistan, Opium Invades Iraq Wednesday , 23 May 2007 http://www.turkishweekly.net/news.php?id=45210

People, groups, tribes and nations are creatures of habit. If you watch closely you can discern the behavior and the underlying psychological patterns of people and groups. Once you do that, you can with great accuracy predict their current and future behavior. For example drug addiction is a habit driven by particular psychological issues, emotional underdevelopment and deficiencies. All to often suppliers of illicit as well as “legitimate” drugs have exploited the physical discomfort or the psychological weaknesses of the populous. They cunningly manipulate and corrupt the government so they make money and minimize resistance to their operations. Ideally from the standpoint of major drug dealers/cartels when they are able to control the government they make even more money and exert even more control over the people, product and politics. Drugs are big business and there are major corporations, cartels and organizations that manufacture, grow, traffic and deal in both illicit and “legitimate” drugs on a global level.
It has been alleged that the Bu$h family under the leadership of George H.W. Bu$h is a major player in illegal South American if not global drug trafficking. “San Jose Mercury News investigative reporter Gary Webb has meticulously documented how the LA street gangs were intimately tied in with Contra liaisons in the U.S. George Bush, Oliver North’s boss, was essentially running the Contra show, or at least the drug angle. As DeCamp writes: ‘So, was Larry King’s buddy George Bush the country’s ‘drug kingpin’ in the 1980s? I don’t know. But what I do know, is that if Bush were running the Contra affair, and drugs were a big part of it, that would certainly jibe 100% with everything known or rumored about Bush, Larry King, and the Franklin Credit Union....’[69] As Lieutenant Colonel Bo Gritz, the most highly decorated Special Forces officer of the Vietnam War and later head of Special Forces in Central America, adds in his book, Called To Serve: ‘George Bush was head of the CIA in 1975-76, appointed by President Gerald Ford; as Vice President under Ronald Reagan, he was our top drug cop for eight years; one of his chief aides, Donald Gregg, was a direct contact in the Contra line of communication to the White House. Ollie North’s personal diary has more than 550 entries citing drug money being used to support contra operations. If George Bush didn’t know about the drug smuggling, he wasn’t doing his job. If he did know about it, then he is clearly culpable. Either way, it doesn’t stand as a credit for a man who would represent the best interests of the United States.’[70]
“Like Richard Nixon, Bush publicly claimed to be a strong anti-drug president, escalating the so-called ‘war on drugs’ begun by his mentor Richard Nixon. Nixon had first brought Bush into his ‘war on drugs’ in 1971-77 when Nixon appointed him to the White House Cabinet Committee on International Narcotics Control. In his first formally scheduled prime time television address to the nation as President in September of 1989, Bush again reiterated his plan to rid the nation of its devastating drug scourge. Bush held up a bag of crack cocaine for the camera and announced with mock incredulity that it had been purchased right across the street from the White House, in Lafayette Park. In fact, the drug bust of the dealer had been a set-up.” George Bush: World Class Monster http://www.voxfux.com/features/bush_world_class_criminal.html
The elites cover their schemes and crimes with noble sounding words and phrases like, halting the spread of communism, “War on Drugs” or “Global War on Terrorism”. But under all that righteous sounding rhetoric percolates the cold hard reality of crass criminality. For example drugs were a major component of US involvement in their wars in Southeast Asia although the stated reason was stopping the spread of communism. “The United States policy in Laos was two pronged: Bill Lair and his CIA colleagues armed and trained the Meo hill tribes and USAID provided agricultural training, built schools and provided simple medical care. Although some of the players in this low key conflict became famous later in other arenas, most of them are forgotten outside of the CIA archives and the pages of Back Fire. On the USAID side, the characters included Edgar Buell, a retired Indiana farmer who had never traveled outside the United States until he accepted a USAID job in Laos, and a married couple, Charles Weldon and Patricia McCreedy, who were both MDs. Drs. Weldon and McCreedy had served as public health officers in American Samoa and were looking for a new post. Making use of political connections to get a USAID post, they ended up in Laos, a country they had not heard of before. The armament provided to the hill tribes in the early 1960s was World War II vintage. The USAID assistance was equally small scale. As the war in Vietnam grew and the U.S. presence increased, Laos moved from being a backwater to war supplied by Bill Lair's ‘country store’ to a ‘supermarket’ that supplied B-52 air strikes in the late 1960s.
“The Laotian hill tribes have been growing opium for centuries. Laos borders Burma and Thailand, which have long involvement in the opium and heroin trade. As U.S. involvement in Vietnam grew and as the U.S. military cracked down on marijuana use, the U.S. troops became a huge market for heroin. Many of the Lao and Thai generals were involved in the opium and heroin trade. The CIA, which did business with some of these generals, has been accused by some writers of being involved in the drug trade and some have suggested that money from the drug trade was used to finance covert operations. The CIA did have ties to major players in the Asian drug trade and in some cases seems to have used the same financial institutions. In the book The Crimes of Patriots by Jonathan Kwitny, which documents the fall of the Australian bank, Nugan Hand Ltd., Kwitny claims that Nugan Hand handled accounts for both the CIA and people involved in the Asian drug trade (of course this could be equally true of the British banking institution Barclays Bank as well). Direct CIA involvement in the drug trade may be unlikely during the Vietnam era, when the CIA literally had more money than it knew what to do with. However, CIA and the American government may have looked the other way in return for cooperation.” http://www.bearcave.com/bookrev/backfire.htm
Now we learn that opiumis eing grown inIraq for the first time in recent history. (Opium growth has been documented as far back as 3,400 B.C.) Documenting this modern pattern, is it far fetched to conclude the recent Iraqi venture into opium growth is not connected to the US CIA or the Bu$h crime family since both have an extensive track record of such dealings? Notice the piece I quoted at the top of this commentary stated how well armed and financed the Southern Iraqi operations are. Poverty stricken Iraqis don’t have that kind of start up capital, resources or connections. Do some research and look into the Bu$h family’s and major bank relationships to global drug smuggling and money laundering. For example look at Senator John Kerry’s findings in his investigation of the Iran Contra scandal vis a vis drug dealing and money laundering. Keep in mind George H.W. Bu$h was an intimate part of the whole Iran Contra operation. We can now make the logical connection between the resurgence of opium growth in Afghanistan and its spread into Iraq during the administration of George W Bu$h both under the umbrella of his bogus War on Terrorism. If I were a betting person I would bet big money we will see the same results from the War on Terror that we saw/see from the War on Drugs, we the people lost!
Why should Black people care about any of this? Because opium in the form of heron will eventually find its way into our communities. This rash of Iraq opium/heron will further devastate and decimate our people. It is part of an overarching goal of the ruling elites to not only make mad money off of our weaknesses but to keep our people so zonked out that political awareness/activism or revolt are impossible. If revolt and activism become impossible the elites win and we lose.

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posted by Junious Ricardo Stanton @ 6:29 AM