it's a fucking kleptocracy

here's some more commentary promoted from the comments in case you find it interesting. riffing of this post, mike posted this:

"Are you suggesting the US government is basically a criminal organization? Thus, if you happen to be a VIP you can do whatever you want as your activities will be protected "in the interests of national security." To fool the public there are puppet trials (Plame) and examples are made of non-VIPS (people like Hannsen).

Drug dealing, terrorism, weapon proliferation...merely opportunities to make money and create problems for thugs like Bush to solve, which in turn makes money for the military industrial complex."

to which i replied:

""Are you suggesting the US government is basically a criminal organization?"

sort of.

perhaps if we take a step back and widen the lens a little. i will say that a) the military industrial entertainment complex is systemically 'corrupt' (aka broken) to the extent that we don't even necessarily need individual acts of corruption. the institutional forces are sufficient to lead to 'corrupt' outcomes. you know the old saying "If the only tool you have is a hammer, you will see every problem as a nail" - well, when arms manufacturers own most of the TV networks, you can see how the coverage of any international problem might lean (at the margin) toward a military solution. we know that war was good for business even when media was independently owned (eg hearst) - the incentive to 'create' a war must be orders of magnitude greater when the owner also makes bombs and missiles.

separately, i will say that b) there are lots of criminals at the top of the USG (which is different from saying that the USG is itself a criminal enterprise).

at some point, the two issues will touch upon each other and/or actually merge - leading to some pretty nasty outcomes.

in terms of illegal drug and weapons networks, the frame of reference that i'm leaning towards is that it is something like a meta-version of abramoff's gig - where he would rally up an anti-gambling movement and then charge the casinos millions for blocking the purported change in legislation, and vice versa. abramoff's problem was that he was too greedy and wanted 100% of his main gig, and 50% of the other side of the equation as well. if he had simply background-supported some legitimate churches who have legitimate anti-gambling concerns, rather than Ralph Reed, he would probably still be in business today.

i imagine that the War On Drugs is probably similar somehow, where the criminal politicians use their resources to a) drive up prices and/or b) disrupt supply from competitors. As you noted, Mullah Omar did exactly this - he stockpiled 300 tons of heroin, then knocked out 90% of supply leading to a 1000% price increase. easy-peasy.

AFAIK, there aren't any logical reasons why alcohol is legal while marijuana is illegal. similarly, there's no reason why heroin isnt administered to junkies by governments. so why are these situations persistent? follow the money. eventually of course we get a bunch of invested interests that become institutionalized - i've mentioned before that i wouldnt be surprised if the prison lobby was the driving force behind the absurd prison sentences given to drug consumers and low level dealers.

there's lots of money to be made in drugs/arms trafficking (not least because of the legislative framework) which means there's lots of money to bribe officials. we take it as given that this sort of corruption exists in 3rd world countries everywhere - should we be surprised to see it in america? methinx not."

keep in mind though, that i'm really just testing a hypothesis and trying to push it to the limit so that we can fully explore the issue. in other words, sibel is pointing to feith and perle and grossman, and i'm simply trying to find a framework where things might start to make sense.

i didn't really answer mike's specific question about VIPs being protected and whatnot - partly cos i don't know the answer. i fear that we might learn the answer from analyzing Judge Reggie Walton's rulings in the libby case - particularly the interim 'procedural' decisions which will direct the subsequent case. i fear for the worst.

and to mike's main question about whether i think this gang is a criminal enterprise, my answer is 'yep - an outlaw criminal regime' - and yes, i do mean that literally, even though the details and logistics are still somewhat unclear. and when i call them an outlaw criminal regime i don't mean that they are taking a cut on the side in the normal course of govt business, but rather that they have actually stopped bothering even to try to govern - the pretense of governing is merely a figleaf. see this story about the latest shenanigans in the oil industry ($700m bilking), or this one about the $22 billion giveaway to the insurance industry. the latter case literally has a thousand-to-one return on lobbying expenditure. or there's this case where $300k turned into $160m (or more).

oh - by the way - those three cases are just three of the latest - all of which got exposed this week. THIS WEEK! due to scandal fatigue, we can hardly remember what happened last week - but i'm sure there are a similar set of examples that i could dig up from the previous week.

it's a fucking kleptocracy. i'm surprised that the traffic lights still work. heck, with these guys in charge, i'm surprised that the sun turns up every morning - it probably won't be long till the sun just phones it in.