first he quotes me:
"state players dont generally need to resort to specific financing programs such as drugs-for-arms (iran-contra notwithstanding) - therefore it seems as though sibel is pointing to non-state terrorist organisations, and presumably they are buying off the grossmans and edelmans and what have you."Then he comments:
"Normally this statment would be correct. However, remember Turkey was in a severe financial crisis during the time period when they were fighting a hot (and expensive) civil war with the Kurds. Notice how Sibel rhetorically asked Scott Horton what percentage of certain Central Asian countries budget comes from narcotics...the implication being that certain countries are almost "narco-states", like Colombia.firstly, i was wrong to say "state players dont generally need to resort to specific financing programs such as drugs-for-arms (iran-contra notwithstanding.)" the point of iran-contra was to hide the program - it's not surprising that other states might be forced/tempted to do the same. further, the turkish 'state' is not monolithic - and it's possible that, for example, the military is involved in this sort of activity, specifically to be able to finance it 'off-book'. (and yep, the turkish economy was crazy at the time)
And Sibel clearly says al-Qaeda is involved in this drug trade. So though the Turks/Central Asian countries and Bin Laden may be totally opposed to each other ideologically speaking, they are both dependent on the Afghan heroin trade. And the US is reluctant to cut off this heroin trade, because it would damage relations with these countries."
as to mike's statement that "Sibel clearly says al-Qaeda is involved in this drug trade." - she may very well have said that, but i don't even really think that 'al-Qaeda' exists - and if it ever did, it effectively doesn't exist any more (or alternatively, it has been swamped by al-Qaeda-ism)
and to mike's final sentence :
"And the US is reluctant to cut off this heroin trade, because it would damage relations with these countries."let's hope this isn't true. the implications are extraordinary, give the WoD et al. (i've recently been considering looking into the lobbyists for the companies who manage prisons - i'm sure they support 'tuff on crime' congresscritters. sad.)
My guess/hope is that mike is wrong - and that the corruption is actually based on personal greed, or even ideological batshittery. I'd prefer that to a USG that is broken to the extent that they literally make the tradeoff between fresh heroin and foreign relations. or at a minimum, lets hope the lines are blurry.
and to the extent that "the Turks/Central Asian countries and Bin Laden... are both dependent on the Afghan heroin trade", then it would be remiss of me not to mention that gwb is a financer of terrorism.
7 comments:
One thing we need to remember is that the war on drugs is not meant to be won, at least within the US. I might add that now the FBI are proving reluctant to be the administration's Gestapo, the DEA and NATF are logical candidates. So expanded drug trade is good for the law enforcement business at home. As long ago as the Nixon administration, Nixon's buddy and kitchen cabinet member BeBe Rebozo owned a Miami bank that was suspected of laundering drug money from Latin America.
What is the motive concerning the nuclear black market?
It might possibly be a general plan to destabilize regions with specific US interests...ie...oil and drug trading. But I would think there are more specific motives. Is someone hoping a nuke is used in a terror attack...not necessarily in the US but anywhere in the world? The US government would take full advantage (martial law, Patriot Act 2,3,4,5...) of such an attack and so would governments around the world.
" What is the motive concerning the nuclear black market?"
I don't know, but my guess would be a mixture of policy and greed motives. Grossman, Perle and Feith may have promised to help Turkey become a nuclear power as a reward for the Ankara Pact and its support for Israel. However, since Turkey would have to be armed using underground/black market intermediaries, it's possible that some of these materials are inadvertantly being sold to "al-Qaeda", or other nonstate actors. Sibel seems to indicate some of the material is being diverted to Pakistan and Saudi Arabia.
I honestly don't think these guys, as evil as they are, are trying to get a nuke to blow up on U.S. soil. I just think their desire to promote their policy objectives and making a huge profit promoting those objectives take priority over the safety of U.S. citizens.
I think the last sentence says it all. If there is a nuclear attack on US soil, we can kiss all our freedoms, including the freedom to express our views on this forum, goodbye. That is the reason I am so interested that this case gets out to the general public. I don't think time is on our side and I am disappointed a lot of the antiwar activists are not spending much time on this issue.
"the war on drugs is not meant to be won
Absolutely correct. The War on Drugs has always been a cover for counterinsurgency warfare in places like Laos and Colombia, and for taking away civil liberties here at home. It is interesting to note however that the Clinton Administration had pressured the Taliban in the late 1990s to crack down on the poppy fields in Afghanistan, and that the effort had succeeded in drastically cutting down on poppy seed production. I've read other sources, though, that have said the Taliban had so much poppy stockpiled that the crackdown was little more than a way to prevent the street value of refined heroin from dropping.
I am just curious if this effort to get the Taliban involved with the West's War on Drugs was a sincere effort to shut down the heroin trade, or if it was a mere cosmetic measure. Maybe Sibel has a point of view on that. It would seem to me if Turkey is so dependent on the heroin trade, and the US were really trying to shut it down, the Turks would not be so happy and might pull out of the Ankara agreement with Israel.
Lukery,
"but i don't even really think that 'al-Qaeda' exists - and if it ever did, it effectively doesn't exist any more (or alternatively, it has been swamped by al-Qaeda-ism)"
The conventional wisdom is that al-Qaeda is now more an "idea" than an organization. It may be more difficult for them to carry out large attacks, but they may now have more adherents to their ideology. As you do, I cast doubt on al-Qaeda's ability to get a nuclear weapon. I think it's highly unlikely. However, if the al Qaeda are still part of the Afghan heroin trade, they must be making a fortune, as gwb has allowed heroin to get out of control in Southwest Asia.
"the war on drugs is not meant to be won"
true. i'm not exactly sure why there is a 'war' though. who benefits? there are some financial beneficiaries (drug traffickers & prisons, and those on their teats) - but i wonder if the WoD isn't also simply a populist campaign platform run amok (Darwin called it 'Irrational Inflation' or some such), where candidates continually try to outdo each other.
"The War on Drugs has always been a cover for counterinsurgency warfare in places like Laos and Colombia, and for taking away civil liberties here at home."
I think we need to remember that the WoD has two elements - purporting to attack both the source and the demand (retail). As best as i can tell, most of the public's awareness of the WoD is on the domestic front - locking up pot-smokers for years (some see this as a good thing, despite the ineffectiveness).
As for using the WoD to attack civil liberties, that may one day have been true - but now the boogeyman is a terrorist, and there's no need for the cover purportedly offered by the WoD. The terrorism card trumps everything.
" What is the motive concerning the nuclear black market?"
i agree - i don't think that anyone wants a nuclear bomb to go off - in america or elsewhere.
mike suggests that it is a mixture of policy and greed - we need to remember that there is a supply and a demand component. i can't imagine that anyone is *supplying* nukes for policy reasons (altho i might be wrong). i think that the supply-side is pure personal greed - probably justified (to themselves) by the logic that if they didn't make the trade, someone else would - ergo, they might as well do it and grab a slice of the action while they can.
and they may very well have been correct. if i remember rightly, AQKhan was selling his blueprints for just a million or two bucks. if we accept that he wasnt selling for ideological reasons, then the reason the price must have been so low is that there must be a market for it.
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