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| Act One: A Net Across The Caribbean |
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Posted by FoM on August 31, 2001 at 19:16:18 PT Geraldo Rivera - Special Report: Blown Away Source: MSNBC 
Patrol boats criss-cross a tropical sea. Huey helicopters swoop down densely forrested hillsides, while American advisers guide fighter planes overhead. U.S.-trained troops seek out a well-organized insurgency. And some in Congress question whether we are in a fight we can never win. Thirty years after Vietnam, the new enemy’s ideology is a strange mix of capitalism and Marxism — centered around the multi-billion dollar trade in illegal drugs. Can the U.S. and its allies cut supplies off at the source? Geraldo Rivera reports. “Now I can, never be a kid again. And it was just, it’s all a blur,” says Dayna. In the vast business of drug trafficking, Dayna is simply a consumer, the demand. The 16-year-old is spending her summer vacation at Phoenix House. It’s not summer camp. It’s drug rehab. “I was drinking alcohol at 11. From beer, I went to smoking marijuana. I was like 13, I think. I went on to doing ecstasy pills... and that I loved.” “And me and my friend were like, well, I wanna try cocaine,” says Dayna. Cocaine blows into this country and settles like dust in every corner. For Dayna it was as easy as a trip to the mall. “I don’t really know about the War on Drugs, but from what I’ve seen... drugs are just all over the place.” Jesse Galeano, a Colombian coca farmer, doesn’t know much about the war on drugs yet either. He should because he is the next target. Colombia produces 90 percent of the cocaine that reaches the United States, while Colombian poppies produce half our heroin. There’s no money to be made growing food, Galeano says. So instead he plants and harvests the only cash crop available — coca. Two, sometimes three times a year he picks the leaves and mixes the harvest with a kind of cement and ordinary gasoline. Then lets it dry in the jungle sun. The result: coca paste — the base for the cocaine that Dayna Moore found so irresistible. So though they have never met, Dayna and Jesse are linked by the simple relationship of supply and demand. But between them lies perhaps the dirtiest, most dangerous and complex production and distribution system in the history of black-market commerce — the web of traffickers who bring the stuff north. “Sometimes it can be like looking for a needle in a haystack out here. And other times they fall in your lap,” says Rick Pineiro, the Coast Guard’s chief law enforcement officer in the eastern Caribbean. The front lines in the war to keep Colombian cocaine out of the United States are in the waters around Puerto Rico. “Over the last 18 months we’ve seized multi-hundred kilos of cocaine,” says Pineiro. About half the cocaine destined for the multi-billion dollar American market passes through the Caribbean. For the Coast Guard and the other law enforcement agencies involved, it is a high-tech, high-stakes game of hide and seek. “The Go Fast cases are probably the most challenging out here,” Pineiro says. Commander Pineiro hunts drug smugglers as they carry cocaine from Colombia through the Caribbean towards Puerto Rico — often in boats called “Go Fasts.” And they can be a drug trafficker’s best weapon. A Go Fast can carry millions of dollars of coke from Colombia to Puerto Rico in two days or less. In one hunt, a U.S. customs plane on patrol zeroes in on a Go Fast’s distinctive wake, sounding the alarm that cocaine is on the move. The smugglers don’t know they are being watched. But they’re moving fast, so Pineiro and his team have to scramble. “We brought in a Customs Black Hawk helicopter, the Coast Guard Cutter Cushing, and various police boats,” says Pineiro. Twenty-four miles off the coast of Puerto Rico, the smugglers stop, waiting for the cover of darkness to come ashore. Puerto Rico is a magnet for Colombian traffickers. It is U.S. territory, so shipments from the island to the U.S. mainland don’t pass through customs. “As far as customs laws are concerned, here we say if you are in Puerto Rico, you’re in Iowa,” Pineiro says. But do the bad guys know that? “Absolutely,” says Pineiro. “The bad guys know most of our tricks and most of the rules of the game.” Twelve hours after they sight the Go-Fast, Custom’s helicopter descends. The Coast Guard and police boats rush in for the takedown — they arrest three and seize 1,300 pounds of cocaine worth an estimated $8 million. “They almost made it. We really pulled it off,” says Pineiro. The traffickers have a grab bag of tactics that make Pineiro’s job frustrating. “During the day, they’ll pull a dark blue tarp completely over the boat and they’ll drift. Makes’em almost invisible to airplanes or even a ship only a few hundred yards away. And when it’s dark they’ll remove the tarp and continue their voyage.” Pineiro says that it’s rare for a Go Fast to be caught without a chase lasting hours, even days. When they’re running, traffickers often dump cargo, not just to get rid of the evidence, but in the hope that fishing contraband out of the water will slow their pursuers down. Even warning shots are ignored. These boats keep going until their engines are hit. “It’s like the wild, wild West as far as we’re concerned. The drug smugglers use whatever works and unfortunately a lot of it works well for them,” says Pineiro. Last year the Coast Guard seized nearly 60 tons of Colombian cocaine. That’s the good news. But an estimated 10 times that amount, about 600 tons, got through. And that eats at Pineiro, who has seen the harmful effects of drugs ever since he was a young boy growing up in a tough Detroit neighborhood. “You would see the addicts and abusers out on the street,” he says. “When you are in that kind of life long enough, it will catch up to you one way or another, either by law enforcement or the very people you associate with. And he was killed in 1982... it was related to the drug industry,” says Pineiro. That loss has made his fight stronger to stop this scourge. “Over a period of years after my brother was killed I developed a passion for this kind of work,” he says. Now Pineiro coordinates a drug-fighting team that incorporates the FBI, the DEA, Customs and law enforcement agencies from more than a dozen countries in the Caribbean. But what effect is this having? Estimates are anywhere from 25 percent down to five or six percent of the total amount being smuggled into the United States is actually seized. “It’s very hard to measure not only seizure rates but the effectiveness of what we’re doing. That doesn’t matter to us here. We are defending our borders and we’re going to continue to try to do the best job we can with what we have,” says Pineiro. His frustration is shared by policy makers in Washington. Since 1982 the federal government has spent $25 billion on interdiction. Last year, President Clinton and Congress committed the United States to a new front called “Plan Colombia,” a massive $1.3-billion program. The goal is deceptively simple: interrupt the supply of cocaine at its source — Colombia. Colombian President Andres Pastrana sold us the deal. “We produce the drug in Colombia,” he said. “But the United States is consuming. It’s the largest consuming country. So instead of pointing out it’s your problem or my problem, why don’t we unite our efforts?” Over the years we have spent hundreds of millions in Colombia and other nations fighting drugs. But rampant corruption in Colombia’s military, its courts and previously even the office of the president subverted most efforts. Pastrana offered new hope. Untainted by drug money, Washington finally had a leader it could trust. “We’re saying to the international community this is the problem of the world, not the problem only of Colombia, help us,” says Pastrana. He has promised to reform Colombia’s courts and clean up its military — with American dollars spent to kill the roots of the drug trade. Peasant farmers growing coca are being offered a deal — cash to sign an agreement to switch from coca and poppies to legal crops. But if they refuse to switch, they’ll have to fight. A massive fumigation effort was begun using spy planes and satellites to search and destroy drug crops. To back it up, we’re giving the Colombian army 18 state-of-the-art Blackhawk helicopters, another 20 Vietnam-era Huey helicopters and a fleet of crop dusters — military style. We also paid for three brand new anti-narcotics battalions of the Colombian army — all U.S. trained and equipped. Their graduation attracted top Pentagon brass and the American ambassador. But there is a pall over these festivities. They come just a month after another celebrated U.S. funded anti-narcotics program results in tragedy. It’s future and the future of America’s drug war hangs in the balance. Note: Despite almost three decades of American aid, amounting to hundreds of millions of your tax dollars and despite a steady stream of human drug misery, Colombia remains the world's principal source of cocaine and the principal source of heroin being sold on the streets of the United States. NBC News special correspondent Geraldo Rivera goes deep inside the war with this report — "Blown Away: Inside the drug war." 1. ACT 1: The front lines 2. ACT 2: A deadly mistake 3. ACT 3: Safe haven for terror 4. ACT 4: U.S. weapons cover-up 5. ACT 5: Winning the war Source: MSNBC (US Web) CannabisNews Articles - Colombia Home Comment Email Register Recent Comments Help |
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| Comment #13 posted by Rambler on September 03, 2001 at 00:21:21 PT |
| Dayna is a fictional character fabricated by the ONDCP.We assume such portrayals on TV are actual,but who knows?How could anyone find out? [ Post Comment ] |
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Comment #12 posted by Dan B on September 03, 2001 at 00:03:36 PT:
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| Coming from someone like one, who consistently provides lucid reasoning and solid commentary, I take such a compliment as high praise. Thanks. Dan B [ Post Comment ] |
| Comment #11 posted by aocp on September 02, 2001 at 00:42:35 PT |
| What subverts success in the unwinnable drug war is the demand. There will always be a supply as long as the profit is jacked up by prohibition. It is prohibition that subverts success. When it is finally lifted, if ever, safe drugs will be available in settings that promote harm reduction and offer at least a chance at employability, and to break the cycle of poverty, crime and addiction. Bingo-bango, doc. Antis cannot visualize the very Going on the offensive with the benefits of legalization aocp out. [ Post Comment ] |
| Comment #10 posted by Patrick on September 01, 2001 at 09:33:29 PT |
| Well said Dan! "Next time a prohibitionist says that he or she is working to create a drug-free world, ask that person if ridding the world of all drugs will end all the world's suffering." I came up with new slogan for another T-shirt to wear when I am out and about. [ Post Comment ] |
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Comment #9 posted by Dan B on September 01, 2001 at 08:24:10 PT:
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| “I was drinking alcohol at 11. From beer, I went to smoking marijuana. I was like 13, I think. I went on to doing ecstasy pills... and that I loved.” At age 15 it was time to move on. “And me and my friend were like, well, I wanna try cocaine,” says Dayna When a prohibitionist looks at this scenario, he or she screams, "See! The gateway theory at work in our chil-drun!" When a sane person looks at this, the most obvious questions come to mind: "What was going on in this girl's life that made her want to drink alcohol at age 11? What made her want to escape in this way? Or what made her so desperate for attention that she followed her friends who were already drinking at age 11?" It is easy to say "alcohol is the gateway" or "marijuana is the gateway." It is much more difficult to be honest and say that there are things worse than alcohol and marijuana. Yes, there are emotional reasons--fear, loneliness, depression, anger, sorrow. Still, we must dig deeper. What causes an eleven-year-old to feel these emotions so strongly that she resorts to ingesting the most dangerous drug on the planet (alcohol)? How did her parents or siblings treat her? How was she treated at school? What did she learn about drugs from her parents and her school? We don't know how she was treated by her family, her teachers or her schoolmates. But we do have a pretty good idea of what she was taught about drugs in school. We know that she was likely given some very confusing (and inaccurate) information about drugs. She may have been told that alcohol and tobacco are legal because they do not cause as much damage to society as other drugs, but she could easily look around her and see that these two drugs cause more health problems than all the other drugs combined. She most certainly was told to stay away from marijuana because it would cause all kinds of terrible health consequences, only to find out that most of that information was a lie. And once she realized that she was lied to about alcohol and marijuana--well, it doesn't take a neurologist to figure out that she'll assume the rest of what she was taught was also a pack of lies. So much for those cautionary statements about cocaine. Her situation is classic. Society sends kids so many mixed messages--lies mixed with a bit of truth--that kids have no idea what to believe anymore. So, fueled by the curiosity bred by cops coming to their classrooms and showing them exactly what all these powerful substances look like, they decide to find out for themselves. That is when they get in over their heads. Unfortunately, as long as this country continues to declare war on inanimate substances, the problems underlying the abuse of those substances will never be addressed. We need to stop using health classes to indoctrinate kids into the drug warriors' religion and start using those classes to talk about real human issues--how does it feel to be bullied by the big kids? What can you do about it? What should you say when someone tries to touch you inappropriately? Who can you turn to when Dad is beating up Mom (or vice versa, or you)? These are real social issues, real crimes. And the most egregious crime of all is that we spend so much time warning our kids about drugs that we neglect to talk to them about the harmful things that may well be happening to them right now--the things that may lead to their need to escape in the future. Our society uses drugs as a crutch, but not in the way you might think. We use the "drug issue" as the scapegoat for all of our other problems--that boogerman that causes all the evil in the world. When will the prohibitionists wake up and realize that the pain and suffering they are inflicting in the name of the infinitely elusive "drug-free world" is not only not stopping the drug problem, but is in fact making it worse. Next time a prohibitionist says that he or she is working to create a drug-free world, ask that person if ridding the world of all drugs will end all the world's suffering. Dan B [ Post Comment ] |
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Comment #8 posted by Ethan Russo, MD on September 01, 2001 at 05:55:19 PT:
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| "rampant corruption in Colombia’s military, its courts and previously even the office of the president subverted most efforts" This is nonsense and totally misses the important point. What subverts success in the unwinnable drug war is the demand. There will always be a supply as long as the profit is jacked up by prohibition. It is prohibition that subverts success. When it is finally lifted, if ever, safe drugs will be available in settings that promote harm reduction and offer at least a chance at employability, and to break the cycle of poverty, crime and addiction. [ Post Comment ] |
| Comment #7 posted by Charlie on September 01, 2001 at 05:38:41 PT |
| No mention of how their dirty, little war on some drugs effects the children of Colombia, those having to hide from the poison raining down and drinking the tainted water... [ Post Comment ] |
| Comment #6 posted by kerouacko on September 01, 2001 at 01:08:24 PT |
| --Last year the Coast Guard seized nearly 60 tons of Colombian cocaine. That’s the good news. But an estimated 10 times that amount, about 600 tons, got through. And that eats at Pineiro, who has seen the harmful effects of drugs ever since he was a young boy growing up in a tough Detroit neighborhood.-- It sure must feel good doing a job everyday where no matter how hard you work, you're still nothing but a ten percenter.
Hey, retard, the drug industry killed your brother. If coke had been legal in '82, would he still have become an addict? Probably. Would he still be dead? No. [ Post Comment ] |
| Comment #5 posted by dddd on August 31, 2001 at 23:16:02 PT |
| Geraldo is kinda like a Ted Springer/Jerry Koppel thing......
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| Comment #4 posted by FoM on August 31, 2001 at 23:11:33 PT |
| Hi Again dddd, I have a tough time listenng to Geraldo. He just likes to do sensational shows but with very little substance. What was the purpose of showing a young girl that is going to Phoenix House? That is the "for the children thing" and we can't help it if some kids get in over their heads. I sure don't want kids doing drugs but we center everything around them and that's what I object too. What about the adults rights? We grew up. We don't count anymore. The drug war doesn't help kids stay off drugs. I hope it sinks in their heads soon. The money I see in the war in Colombia is what is keeping it going. That's the scary part. [ Post Comment ] |
| Comment #3 posted by dddd on August 31, 2001 at 22:57:22 PT |
| ,,,at the very end,Geraldo sorta does this sortof summary that seems to obviously appease the party line/network overlord requirements ,,and makes it seem as if the way things are now,is good,or OK, almost as if to say that the drug war must be continued. The show was given very little network promo prior to airing.I'll bet
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| Comment #2 posted by FoM on August 31, 2001 at 22:05:25 PT |
| I'm watching it now. I missed it when it first came on. It is really something to see Vietnam all over again in my mind. [ Post Comment ] |
| Comment #1 posted by dddd on August 31, 2001 at 22:01:31 PT |
| just caught the last 15 minutes or so of this Geraldo thing.This is a first thing like this that the major media has done.Not a bad report..actually,,kinda good from what I saw.....dddd [ Post Comment ] |
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