Back To Business: CIA Airlines Trafficking Heroin to Fund Operations

Ok, its a beleivable premise, and a lot of us think that the CIA is and was involved in smuggling narcotics to fund "black-ops", but I would suggest that some sources and evidence be sited, otherwise this is opinion, not reporting. Its harder to shrug off reporting.

 http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&q=cia+drug+trade&spell=1

Here are Google search results for keywords: "CIA Drug Trade." This includes a reference from the Wall Stret Journal!

I read through several of the gooogle linnks and gave up because I could not find direct evidence. It's easy to repeat something many times and have a percentage of the population beleive you.

when your operations are illegal, and not under any oversight from the legislative branch, how is one to pay for them? how is one to buy airline tickets, dinner, and hotel rooms? just because it's completely illegal and not funded by congress doesn't mean that there isn't any overhead and operation costs to cover.

well, why not sell smack to addicts around the world?

it's totally off the books. it's a cash heavy business model. and there's always a demand... perfect for what the CIA does.


(capitalist business is devoid of morality. it has no inherent moral integrity. it is a means to an end. which is why it's many fans who assign it some kind of god-like, divine respect and worship are essentially worshipping a void, an empty space, a psychopathic existence. sure, the CIA can now pay it's bills. but that is not in itself worthy of respect. that in itself is not the end of the story. that in itself is not justification for furthering heroin addiction, crime, and the abject, complete hypocrisy of the american government. all "business" does is pay bills. capitalism's cheerleaders have a very hard time understanding this. they look at capitalism as a god, but it is a nothingness. in it's heart is a void of values and morality and integrity and respect. pyschopathy personified. this is why the CIA can legitimately pay it's debts by engaging in an illegitimate activity. no, that doesn't sound like morally solid foundation. in fact, it's confused and fucked and broken, actually...)

please people, Alfred McCoy spent thirty years documenting this. Read his various works with the "Politics of Heroin" in the title.

also, please let us look a the historical record, for example:

G. Bush Sr was nominated as candidate for President less then 12 hours after Gen Zia (of Pakistan) died in an airplane explosion. how interesting! Bush and Zia had set up the ISI (Paki Intelligence) at the very same time when Afghan and Paki became the largest sources of world heroin, totally eclipsing the former role held by various players in SE Asia. Why did this happen? Think, please. A strategic realignment away from the Chinese border and into the breach against the Soviet incursion into Afghan.

It was at that moment in history when the Muhajideen resistance against the Soviets was created, with the help of guess who?

of course Zia had to vanish from the action.

just as Noreiga had to be silenced the second Bush Sr. got into office. After all Noreiga had been part of the drug pipeline, on the CIA payroll and had plenty of dirt on Poppy.

As for the entire gang who did this, & Iran Contra, does anyone have their head plunged so firmly into the sand to believe that they are not guilty black-operatives, who have never stopped?

ask the ghosts of Danny Casolaro and Gary Webb. if only people would DEMAND JUSTICE and the ASSETS back, instead of equivocating around, saying that this is just "opinion." Opinion my arse! It is not my "opinion" that Feith, Libby, Abrams, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Cambone, Bolton, Rice, and Monkey-brain are traitors. They are obviously traitors! And will you just kneel there as they lop your head off, asking for more "reporting" to convince you???

Whiteout : the CIA, drugs, and the press
by Alexander Cockburn.
London ; New York : Verso, 1998. viii, p. 408 ; 25 cm.

Powderburns: Cocaine, Contras and the Drug War
by [ex-DEA agent] Celerino Castillo III and Dave Harmon
Oakville, Ontario : Mosaic Press, Sundial, 1994. 240 p. ; 25 cm.

Obscuring Propriety: The CIA and Drugs
by Frederick P. Hitz
[article in] International Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence, 12(4) October 1999 : 448-462 DOI : 10.1080/088506099304990

The Big White Lie : The CIA and the Cocaine/Crack Epidemic
by [ex-DEA agent] Michael Levine.
New York, N.Y. : Thunder's Mouth Press, 1993. 472 p. ; 25 cm.

The Iran-Contra connection : secret teams and covert operations in the Reagan era
by Jonathan Marshall.
Boston, MA : South End Press, c1987. xii, 315 p. ; 23 cm.

The politics of heroin : CIA complicity in the global drug trade
[aka - other edition title: Politics of heroin in Southeast Asia]
by Alfred W. McCoy.
Brooklyn, N.Y. : Lawrence Hill Books, c1991. xx, 634 p. : ill., maps ; 24 cm.

Cocaine politics : drugs, armies, and the CIA in Central America
by Peter Dale Scott.
Berkeley : University of California Press, c1998. xxiii, 279 p. ; 25 cm.

Drugs, Oil, And War : The United States In Afghanistan, Colombia, And Indochina
by Peter Dale Scott.
Lanham, Md. : Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, c2003. xix, 227 p. ; 24 cm.

The war conspiracy : the secret road to the second Indochina war
by Peter Dale Scott.
Indianapolis, Bobbs-Merrill [1972]xxv, 238 p. 22 cm.

Dark alliance : the CIA, the contras, and the crack cocaine explosion
by Gary Webb.
New York : Seven Stories Press, c1998. xxiii, 548 p. : ill. ; 24 cm.

After all, nobody was ever really held accountable for the SE Asian Golden Triangle operations, nor for starting the crack epidemic with the Contras...(let alone for COINTELPRO, killing the Kennedies, MLK, MalcomX, et al, etc. etc.)...so why shouldn't the very same guys do it all over again? They think they've got a free pass.

UNTIL a strong progressive Democratic Party majority takes over Congress and is pressured hard from the grassroots to purge it's own Blue Dog traitors, and to prosecute and severely punish the Republicans for their crimes against humanity, nothing will change, except for the worse.

Meanwhile, mere self-righteous outrage, rhetoric, posturing symbolic gestures of protest and defiance. etc. etc. will get us nowhere, except ignored, or maybe gassed, knocked on the head and thrown in a cage (which the pigs love to do).

You can argue all you want about how bogus and corrupt the elections and the Democrats are, but the fact is there are some more or less progressive Democrats, and the Republlican pigs do not, as yet anyway, have an absolute complete lock on the electoral process. Bates, after all, was elected, and he was no strealth candidate, but billed himself openly as a progressive Democrat, in a fairly conservative southern Oregon district.

The only reason the Republicans are able to get away with finessing last minute election results is that those results are often so close, within a few very slim percentage points...it often only takes a few thousand, or just hundreds of votes, to swing an election.

But that's in an overall context where only half the eligible electorate even bothers to register to vote, and only half of THOSE actually vote, which means the "winner" gets a "democratic mandate" from some 13% or less, of the eligible electorate.

But if (as happened in the late 60's and early 70's) massive numbers of new voters suddenly turn out, the whole intricately balanced system of manipulative dirty tricks tends to get knocked on it's ass. They may be able to suppress, steal, throw away or hide a few hundred, or even a few thousand votes, here and there, but not millions, everywhere.

That's why Jim Crow is dead, women have rights, and we have an EPA, ESA, etc. etc. Protests and demonstrations had a role in that, but it was mainly in mobilizing huge numbers of people to get up off their asses, not just to protest, but also to work at turning out a massive, overwhelming, unrefutable VOTE! The Republicans have been screaming bloody murder ever since, about the fact that their racist, sexist, eco-raping ways are no longer "politically correct", in case you haven't noticed.

You can speculate, theorize and complain all you want about how and why that momentum waned in the 80's and 90's, but the most obvious fact is that the counter-revolutionary pigs mobilized virtually every ounce of their very substantial resources to reverse the trend, by every means available to them.

Allan Bates and other progressive Democrats who are brave enough to stand up and speak out, like he and many others have, deserve our respect and support, and more...a practical commitment to correct the fact that they are now a minority, with no power to actually accomplish what needs to be done...no matter how many risks they take, or how hard they try.

By "practical committment" I mean going down to the local Democratic Party headquarters and signing up to volunteer, to do whatever you can, to make sure that progressive Democrats win majorities in the next local, state and national elections, ONGOING, to off the Republican pigs once and for all, for real.

For those of you who prefer to look forward to revolutionary civil war in the streets, I can assure you that an overwhelming electoral victory for the Democrats is the surest way to precipitate that.

If you are old enough to recall, you will remember that the rightwing militias and aryan nations worms all started crawling out of the woodwork when Carter and Clinton were in office. They are mostly laying low right now, because things are going their way, but they'll be back, as soon as the tide begins turning the other way. If you really want to fight, I'm sure they'll oblige you.

Hard to think that these folks from the best schools, well-spoken, confident and articulate would be perennially wallowing in the nefarious. Well coiffed, tanned, bathed in the mystique and aura of the world of state secrets, possessing 007 licenses to kill--for democracy, of course. Supposedly the sanctions come from the Commander-in-Chief, but the rogue cabal stirs below the surface. After all, these are true adventurers with unflinching loyalty.

As other posters have offered, follow the money. Reagan's DCI, Bill Casey, gloried in the "off the shelf" operation of selling weapons to Iran, producing laundered cash that didn't have to go through the legislative appropriation approval process and thereby available to fund the "containment of Communism" adventures in C. America, against the wishes of the elected congress. In fact that venture was still a little strapped, especially as the Mesopotamian belligerents exausted themselves, and it cast its revenue source into the area of profits from the trade in illegal drugs into the U.S. Think Abramoff, but with very secure communications and probably a lot smarter, with no, or well supressed, motive of greed. There are no/no means which are not justified by their "noble goals."

For these cults of secrecy and clever solutions, it's a matter priorities that favor the established order and its needs and, just incidently, the perpetuation of the institution of "unconventional solutions" itself. They will say that there are "hard choices" to make. But they continually reinforce each other that they are "on the side of the angels"--sounds a little like the Vatican through history, too, come to think of it. There are no bounds of treachery, crime, injustice and immorality for achieving "higher ends." The only constraint is getting caught and not being able to psyops or public affairs it away. This is why security--under the rubric of "national security"--is so paramount in these organizations. They strive to be "non-existent."

Being "Honorable Men" (the title of William Colby's post retirement "confessions", the same Colby who, in country, engineered and executed the "Phoenix Plan" in Viet Nam, a reign of terror, of midnight throat slitting, kidnappings, torture, wholesale disappearances of non-combatants, poisonings...all for the "greater good" in the then hoped for endless war against International Communism.)

The occupants of the feed lot can't get their heads around this state of affairs. Our history books don't prepare the kind of scrutiny and skepticism needed. The enormity of it is more than they can handle, so desirous are they to believe in the goodness of leaders. Under the right circumstances, there is nothing to prevent the ruling class from nuke bombing U.S. citizens in the "homeland," if, for instance, it can be shown to contribute to the "greater protection of the nation as a whole."

Given the budget with no clothes that seems to be parading by, it is quite plausible--certainly far from unthinkable--that the "lads" are "taking care of business" in ways convenient and managable with their internal resources, keeping "the old firm" well endowed.

>For these cults of secrecy and clever solutions, it's a matter priorities that favor the established order and its needs and, just incidently, the perpetuation of the institution of "unconventional solutions" itself. They will say that there are "hard choices" to make. But they continually reinforce each other that they are "on the side of the angels"--sounds a little like the Vatican through history, too, come to think of it. There are no bounds of treachery, crime, injustice and immorality for achieving "higher ends." The only constraint is getting caught and not being able to psyops or public affairs it away. This is why security--under the rubric of "national security"--is so paramount in these organizations. They strive to be "non-existent."<

what is fascinating to me is how these "adventurers", when exposed, will always portray their illegal, harmful activities as being perfectly normal, and even justified and representative of "american values".

in my opinion, this exposes the void and abscence of values and integrity and morality at the heart of american power. they seem not to notice that they are standing on an untenable position, one so wracked with conflict and hypocrisy that it's really quite ridiculous. as they engage in a war on drugs at home and around the globe, they fund non-sanctioned, illegal operations by transporting drugs around the globe. this is completely insane, completely ridiculous. and yet this is the foundation on which their power rests, and the way they pay their bills. how do they sleep at night? how do they reconcile such hypocrisy?

well, they don't. to do so would destroy their morale and their loyalty. so instead, they go about their activities in a completely insane way, burdening themselves with activites that are totally insane and psychologically damaging. how can one to be both sides of two completely opposing positions without being psychologically damaged?

and so this just points out to me the utterly psychopathic nature of elite american power. it has no integral morality, no bedrock principals, no "values", other than achieving goals and gaining more power. it is two-faced, it is mendacious, it is deceitful, it is seductive, it is hypocritical, it kills as it wraps itself in the words of jesus, all of this without any kind conscious or guilt to burden it. it is really an inhuman form of power, perpetrated by "humans"...

The drug war wasn't against drugs. It was against other countries making all the money off of illegal drugs. The CIA waged the war on drugs so it could be the worlds #1 drug lord.