cannabisnews.com: Drug-Terror Connection Disputed





Drug-Terror Connection Disputed
Posted by CN Staff on August 12, 2006 at 06:00:02 PT
By Kari Lydersen, Washington Post Staff Writer
Source: Washington Post
Washington, DC -- A photograph of President Bush waving a flag after the Sept. 11 attacks is juxtaposed against a black-and-white image of an African American mother smoking crack cocaine in bed next to her baby. Larger-than-life portraits of Osama bin Laden and Pablo Escobar line the walls. The central message of a traveling Drug Enforcement Administration exhibit unveiled at Chicago's Museum of Science and Industry yesterday is that terrorism and drugs are inextricably linked.
But advocates of legalization who are leafleting outside the exhibit say the DEA is leaving out an important part of the story. Critics agree that drug trafficking provides a potentially lucrative revenue stream for terrorist organizations. But they say the profit is actually fueled by the government's war on drugs, which creates a situation akin to prohibition of alcohol."If we taxed and regulated drugs, terrorists wouldn't have drugs as a source of profit," said Tom Angell of the nonprofit Students for Sensible Drug Policy, which focuses on restoring financial aid for college students with drug convictions."With the connection to Prohibition in Chicago we should know better," said Pete Guither, a professor of theater management at Illinois State University and founder of the blog -- http://www.DrugWarRant.com/DEA spokesman Steve Robertson responded: "We're a law enforcement agency -- we enforce the laws as they are written. Congress makes the laws. People say if we didn't have [drug] laws there wouldn't be a problem, but there was a problem before and that's why laws were established."Jeanne Barr, a history teacher at a private Chicago high school, plans to distribute fliers and bring her students to study the exhibit, titled "Target America: Opening Eyes to the Damage Drugs Cause.""We'll look for possible omissions and oversimplifications," she said. "They don't pin any blame on the prohibition of drugs. But from my understanding of history, the major source of the black market is prohibition. I don't think there's any difference between alcohol prohibition and what we're looking at today."Critics of the DEA exhibit also question its linking of drugs to al-Qaeda. Another Web site with which Guither is affiliated -- http://www.deatargetsamerica.com/ -- quotes the Sept. 11 commission report as finding that "there is no reliable evidence that Bin Ladin was involved in or made his money through drug trafficking."The 2001 attacks are clearly the centerpiece of the exhibit, with a display of rubble and artifacts from Ground Zero under a banner reading "Traffickers, Terrorists and You.""For al-Qaeda it's hard" to prove a link, said DEA public affairs chief Garrison Courtney. "I don't think we're saying 9/11 was caused by drug financing. But we're saying there is a link between drugs and terror, and September 11 is a poignant example of terrorism. Terrorists don't hold bake sales to raise money."The exhibit includes a list of organizations designated as terrorist by the State Department, with the explanation that "nearly 50 percent" of them get funds through drug trafficking. There is a replica of a heroin-processing lab in Afghanistan and references to heroin production funding the Taliban.But it does not mention that the Taliban publicly opposed heroin production, though federal prosecutors allege that Baz Mohammed, a recently convicted Afghan drug kingpin, had ties to al-Qaeda; that the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime reported in 2003 that production of opium poppies in Afghanistan rose dramatically after the Taliban was overthrown; or that a top U.S. anti-drug official recently acknowledged allies' doubts about the effectiveness of poppy eradication in Afghanistan, where poor farmers have few options on crops."The Taliban said they had a moratorium on the production of opium poppies, but they were taxing the farmers who were doing it anyway," said DEA agent David Lorino, who was in Afghanistan.The exhibit says the 2004 Madrid train bombing involved a hashish-for-explosives swap, and that in 2002 federal agents foiled two plans to trade heroin and hashish for Stinger antiaircraft missiles that suspects planned to sell to al-Qaeda and a Colombian paramilitary organization. The exhibit features Colombian and Peruvian guerrilla forces financed by cocaine.The exhibit opened in Dallas on Sept. 11, 2003, and has been shown in New York, Omaha and Detroit. It was brought to Chicago at the request of Mayor Richard M. Daley (D), who blamed drugs for "80 percent of the crime factor in our city" in his remarks when the exhibit opened.The Chicago component of the exhibit highlights terror caused by local gangs involved with drugs. DEA spokesman Robertson also took a broader view of terrorism and drugs."Terrorists' goal is to tear down current societies and governments and offer something else," he said. "Drug abuse degrades societies from within because of the effect on society, on users and on health services. Drug trafficking is a way to degrade societies, which helps terrorists in their goal."Note: DEA Defends Traveling Exhibit as Critics Draw Parallels to Prohibition Era.Newshawk: WhigSource: Washington Post (DC)Author:  Kari Lydersen, Washington Post Staff WriterPublished: Saturday, August 12, 2006; A03Copyright: 2006 Washington Post Contact: letterstoed washpost.comWebsite: http://www.washingtonpost.com/ Related Articles & Web Site:DEA Museumhttp://www.deamuseum.org/ Exhibit Links Terror, Drug Traffichttp://cannabisnews.com/news/thread19484.shtmlExhibit Shows Ties Between Terrorism, Drugs http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread13971.shtmlDEA Exhibit: Illicit Drug Sales Support Terrorism http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread13970.shtml
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Comment #29 posted by whig on August 13, 2006 at 12:09:44 PT
afterburner
Music has been well and truly infiltrated, by both sides however. If you listen only to commercial radio you can even so hear us speaking through the noise. That is because the record labels are about making money and they don't care what your politics are if they are well enough disguised.There is a lot of hate music out there, and fuck music, and that is really sad. Excuse the language, but this was a case where the word needed to be used exactly as it is.But there is also love, and there is also peace, and if that is what we listen for we can find it.
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Comment #28 posted by afterburner on August 13, 2006 at 11:55:29 PT
Wayne #24
"Then they'll try to infiltrate music or something." Then? It seems to me that most of the music aimed at the new generation of teens is already Prozac-lite. Even Madonna has no fire in her latest music.
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Comment #27 posted by Wayne on August 12, 2006 at 22:18:50 PT
whig
And why not?? After all, the Bush clan and Big Pharma and all the other neo-cons just see prisoners as a different species of lab rats anyway. We can't seem to rehabilitate them in prison, they think they're useless, let's just put them to some 'other' use.On the other hand, frankly if I were rotting away in prison, I would volunteer just to get my hands on the drugs!
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Comment #26 posted by whig on August 12, 2006 at 22:04:43 PT
Panel Suggests Using Inmates in Drug Trials
New York Times article: http://tinyurl.com/lm7lsPHILADELPHIA, Aug. 7 — An influential federal panel of medical advisers has recommended that the government loosen regulations that severely limit the testing of pharmaceuticals on prison inmates, a practice that was all but stopped three decades ago after revelations of abuse.
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Comment #25 posted by FoM on August 12, 2006 at 21:20:57 PT
Wayne
I have tuned out to the tv news. I barely watch it anymore. The spin is so thick it makes me dizzy. Life is too short to let my mind be manipulated by them anymore. I have a powerful self preservation ability of totally tuning out. When I hit that point my mind is set and nothing will change how I feel. I am ending the day watching John Lennon videos.http://www.johnlennon.com/site.html
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Comment #24 posted by Wayne on August 12, 2006 at 21:10:07 PT
re: lombar #22
The whole 'continual stream of fear' is getting really bad. How bad? I went to a movie last weekend. It had 6 previews... and ALL 6 previews were movies about fearing something, like big-brother or war or guns or something. They've caught on that a lot of people are tuning out the news these days, so they're trying to get to them in the movie theaters.And since all the movies suck this year, people will stop going to the movies. Then they'll try to infiltrate music or something. These fearmongers in the media, they're behaving like viruses, mutating. It makes me sick, the whole thing is just sick.
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Comment #23 posted by whig on August 12, 2006 at 14:51:43 PT
lombar
War on Drugs is War on the Sixties. It really is. Hippies are the target. Peace and love are the enemy.War on Terror is War forever.War justifies lies, and terror, and death. War is lies.No more lies, no more death, no more terror, no more war.Peace.
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Comment #22 posted by lombar on August 12, 2006 at 12:48:47 PT
War on
You cannot war upon drugs or terror. War itself is terror, how can good proceed from evil? An offensive proactive war against 'ideas' cannot be anything but bad. It is ancient wisdom that evil cannot be overcome by evil. The war on drugs has been a euphemism for a war on personal choice, counterculture, and freedom. The war on terror is a euphemism for a war on those who resist big brother. Using 'shock and awe' against people who had little or nothing to do with 9-11-2001 was in effect terrorism.Terror
"4 : violent or destructive acts (as bombing) committed by groups in order to intimidate a population or government into granting their demands "http://m-w.com/dictionary/terrorand Terrorismthe systematic use of terror especially as a means of coercion The war on drugs is a tainted tree that bears vile fruit. The war on terror is the same but the fruit is even more bitter, an endless cycle of violence. Perhaps the prohibians in their terror of a free world/country cooked up the war on terror to set the clock back 30 years on all the progressive changes that have occurred. The war on drugs had lost its steam so they needed another perpetual war because the fear levels were too low. Huge amounts of money must have been made after the big stock crash just after 911. The DJI plumeted and then climbed to the hyperinflated levels it is at now.I briefly turned on CNN and all I could think is how the mass media has been co-opted into pouring out a continual stream of fear based manipulation designed to continually deflect attention from the cold harsh economic realities of North America, the USA shipped its jobs to its ideological enemies, Red China who grasped affluenza as swiftly as the NA has been adopting communist-like repression, secret detentions, trials, and arrests. Anyone remember 'engagement through trade'? Well it sure worked great for Nanjing.The first step to liberation is breaking the hypnotic effect the mass media has upon people. The trouble is that many people have let the TV do their thinking for them for so long they have forgotten how to (or lost the will to )do it themselves. Not only that but the inevitable conclusion that the state has created the atmosphere where the people are afraid of it and thus enthralled. Sloth of the body is condemned yet mental laziness is promoted. Just go along to get along...Please do not take this as 'anti-americanism' because I do not see 'america'(or Canada under the current bunch of chickenhawks) anymore. At least when the Cold War was going, there was a contrast between the ideologies and the USA had to 'defend freedom against the scourge of communism' but now they are just enraging people against them. Everywhere. This cannot be good... for anyone. When freedom is restored, the wars are ended, and the government of the USA adheres to its own laws then perhaps America will rise from the ashes it is feeding its own people... 
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Comment #21 posted by FoM on August 12, 2006 at 11:29:41 PT
Whig
Clap! Clap! Clap! 
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Comment #20 posted by whig on August 12, 2006 at 11:17:29 PT
War on Terror
When the history books are written and we look back on this era, the children will scoff at the idea that people could have believed in a War on Terror. Nobody ever really believed in the War on Drugs except the police themselves. But the War on Terror? It's just accepted by most people. Even those who question the War in Iraq (the invasion and occupation as I prefer to call it) don't question the War on Terror. No matter what we've got to expose the basis for this. If we want history books to be written.It is a War on the Middle East. It is a War on Islam. It is a War on behalf of Israel and in behalf of Oil and ultimate Israeli control of the same. Because they will fight and die for the interests of the oil executives in the United States. You can't hire people better than religious zealots. They just commit to the cause without any compensation. And to the right wing fundamentalists it's even a bonus if Israel gets wiped out in the process of trying to achieve the outcome, because then they think Jesus will come. This is a Crusade.
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Comment #19 posted by FoM on August 12, 2006 at 11:08:51 PT
Whig
No More Warand NO MORE LIES!
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Comment #18 posted by whig on August 12, 2006 at 11:04:17 PT
The Choice
Is between War and Peace.Fear and Love.No more War.
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Comment #17 posted by lombar on August 12, 2006 at 11:03:46 PT
Whig
Amen to that!
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Comment #16 posted by lombar on August 12, 2006 at 11:03:45 PT
Whig
Amen to that!
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Comment #15 posted by whig on August 12, 2006 at 11:02:08 PT
War on Terror
Equals War on War.War against War.Forever.
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Comment #14 posted by whig on August 12, 2006 at 11:01:15 PT
9/11
Is the basis for believing that we are in a War on Terror. In the absence of that event, that single thing, all the other terror in the world would be perceived rightly as a policing metter. But the neocons believed we were already at war, on behalf of our interests in the Middle East, and therefore a cassius belli needed to exist -- a New Pearl Harbor -- to put the people of the United States on a war footing too. To convince the public that we were and are in a War on Terror -- as if it is a concept that even makes sense. War is Terror. Terror is War. They are the same f***ing thing.
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Comment #13 posted by Hope on August 12, 2006 at 11:00:49 PT
A 03
That's good! Very good!
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Comment #12 posted by Hope on August 12, 2006 at 10:59:16 PT
"a rustler"
is a stock theif. A thief.
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Comment #11 posted by whig on August 12, 2006 at 10:57:31 PT
The United States
Is a country on a permanent war footing. This needs to stop.No more war.
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Comment #10 posted by whig on August 12, 2006 at 10:56:12 PT
mayan
It occurs to me that the best term to describe George W. Bush and his friends is a rustler. The whole project is to scare the herd and drive them into the pen. They are using fear to gain submission, and that fear is based on lies. They even declared war, because in war you can justify telling lies. If you can kill you can lie and war is authorization to both. So long as they can keep the country believing it is at war, they can do what they are doing.No more war.
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Comment #9 posted by lombar on August 12, 2006 at 10:11:54 PT
Sure, there was a problem..
DEA spokesman Steve Robertson responded: "We're a law enforcement agency -- we enforce the laws as they are written. Congress makes the laws. People say if we didn't have [drug] laws there wouldn't be a problem, but there was a problem before and that's why laws were established."
Yes, there was a problem... non-white people were associated with the currently illegal drugs cannabis, cocaine, and heroin( or morphine). The problem was racist politicians. Now the problem is politicians, police and bureaucrats who wax fat off the misery of drug users that THEY CREATE. DEA agents are an embarrasment to the human species. 
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Comment #8 posted by FoM on August 12, 2006 at 10:10:12 PT
Hope
Just like whig said. The front page. There is a battle going on. It's the waking up of America. It's been a long time coming. 
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Comment #7 posted by whig on August 12, 2006 at 10:06:08 PT
Hope
Page A03.
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Comment #6 posted by Hope on August 12, 2006 at 09:27:19 PT
Tom Angell, too!
Thanks!I'm so grateful for the Students for Sensible Drug Policy.
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Comment #5 posted by Hope on August 12, 2006 at 09:26:16 PT
This is real journalism...
in a mainstream paper.Almost makes me tremble.What's the world coming to?
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Comment #4 posted by Hope on August 12, 2006 at 09:06:16 PT
FoM
Can you tell what page of the hardcopy paper this is in?(Thank you, Pete and DrugWarRanters!)
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Comment #3 posted by mayan on August 12, 2006 at 07:58:00 PT
Boycott Chicago MSI!
Target America: Opening Eyes to the Damage Drugs Cause: http://www.msichicago.org/temp_exhibit/target_america/index.htmlHow about if we bombard the Chicago MSI with e-mails,phone calls and letters. Let's let them know that we are boycotting the MSI because we know the war on drugs is a failure and a fraud and that 9/11 was an inside job!Contact MSI Chicago: http://msichicago.org/contact_us/index.html 
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Comment #2 posted by mayan on August 12, 2006 at 06:46:27 PT
Drug Financing Link To 9/11?
"For al-Qaeda it's hard" to prove a link, said DEA public affairs chief Garrison Courtney. "I don't think we're saying 9/11 was caused by drug financing. But we're saying there is a link between drugs and terror, and September 11 is a poignant example of terrorism. Terrorists don't hold bake sales to raise money."They are most certainly implying that 9/11 was caused by drug financing! I guess there is truth to that as the Bushistas are arguably the biggest illicit drug dealers on the planet. And terrorists don't need to hold bake sales. They raise most of their money by taxing the citizenry. 'COCAINE ONE' BUST LIFTS VEIL ON GLOBAL NARCOTICS CARTEL:
http://www.madcowprod.com/THE BUSH-CHENEY DRUG EMPIRE:
http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ciadrugs/bush-cheney-drugs.html9/11 WAS AN INSIDE JOB - OUR NATION IS IN PERIL:
http://www.911sharethetruth.com/Yes, I guess there is a link!
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Comment #1 posted by billos on August 12, 2006 at 06:29:40 PT
           The U.S. Government
supplies the most money to "terrorist" 
nations by buying oil from Middle East states.
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