Filed under: chavez, CIA, cocaine, colombia, Colonialism, Communism, corruption, Coup, Dictatorship, drug smuggling, drug trafficking, ELN, Empire, FARC, guerilla war, guerilla warfare, Hugo Chavez, impirialism, latin america, marxism, meddling, Military, military base, Military Industrial Complex, nation building, obama deception, obamas war, occupation, Oil, proxy war, resource war, secret war, socialism, Uribe, Venezuela, war on drugs, War On Terror | Tags: Alvaro Uribe, Gustavo Marquez, National Liberation Army, Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia
War threat between Venezuela and Colombia increases
UK Telegraph
November 15, 2009
Tensions between the countries reached a new high after the Colombian military arrested four Venezuelan soldiers, just days after Mr Chavez told his army to “prepare for war” with Colombia.
The Venezuelan ambassador to Bogota, Gustavo Marquez, said that the seriousness of the situation could not be overstated and that “there is a pre-war situation in the entire region”.
Diplomatic relations between the South American neighbours are frozen and on Saturday President Chavez escalated the war of words with President Alvaro Uribe of Colombia by saying there was no chance of dialogue.
“Uribe is not a politician, he comes from the world of paramilitaries, of drug trafficking, of shady business deals, and he is capable of anything,” the Venezuelan leader said.
“He is a very dangerous man as he has no principles or ethics,” Mr Chavez added.
The broadside came after Colombia detained four members of the Venezuelan National Guard in a boat allegedly on Colombian territory in the remote border province of Vichada. Colombia said yesterday that it would deport the men back to Venezuela.
Tensions between Presidents Uribe and Chavez have escalated in recent months as the two leaders have become increasingly suspicious of each other.
Colombia’s Marxist rebels, the Guerrillas of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and the smaller National Liberation Army (ELN), are known to have bases within Venezuela from where they plan and launch attacks on Colombia’s US-backed army.
Mr Chavez hotly denies any links with the rebels, even though there have been seizures of Venezuelan arms and munitions in FARC camps.
Venezuela’s president is angry at an agreement signed earlier this month between Bogota and Washington under which Colombia allows the US military to use seven bases across the country, turning the Andean nation into America’s regional military hub.
Mr Chavez, who accused Washington of being behind a 2002 coup attempt, insists that the US is planning to attack Venezuela to secure control of massive oil reserves. The Venezuela leader believes that Colombia will now be the launch pad for any US attack.
President Uribe is trying to diffuse tensions since Mr Chavez began blocking the entry of Colombian goods, something which is costing the fragile economy hundreds of millions of pounds.
He stated that the captured Venezuelan soldiers would be returned as quickly as possible and “carry with them the message that here their affection for our Venezuelan brothers and that this affection is unquenchable”.
Mr Chavez has ordered another 15,000 soldiers to take up positions along the 1300-mile frontier, while Colombia has created a new division of its army to guard a strategic stretch of the border.
Analysts worry that Marxist rebel groups could manipulate the troop build-up by starting a firefight, sparking a war between the two countries.
Chávez tells Venezuela to get ready for war with Colombia
Colombian president Uribe meets with U.S. president Obama
Irish Times
November 10, 2009
VENEZUELAN PRESIDENT Hugo Chávez has told his country to prepare for a possible war with Colombia, as diplomatic and border tensions between the ideologically opposed Andean nations deteriorate to their lowest level in more than a year.
Mr Chávez used his weekly television show, Aló Presidente , to denounce an agreement between Colombia and the US that allows the US military to use seven bases in Colombia. Mr Chávez warned these could be used for an attack on Venezuela.
Ordering troops to the frontier, he said the army could not afford to waste a day and that “we must prepare ourselves for war and help the people prepare for war, because this is the responsibility of all”.
The Colombian and US governments insist the bases are only for use against drug traffickers within Colombia. But Mr Chávez has denounced the pact as part of a US plan to try to dominate a region that in recent years has moved out of its traditional Washington orbit under a new generation of left-wing leaders, of whom Mr Chávez is the most radical.
Supporting their claims about the bases agreement, the Venezuelans have cited a US air force document presented to the US Congress in May. It says one of the bases provides a “unique opportunity” for “conducting full-spectrum operations throughout South America”, which it describes as a “critical region” under constant threat from “anti-US governments”.
On his television programme, Mr Chávez said that “the government of Colombia is not in Bogotá, now it is in Washington”, and warned US president Barack Obama that any US intervention launched from Colombia would spark a “100 years’ war”.
Colombia said it would raise Mr Chávez’s comments with the UN Security Council and the Organisation of American States.
Last year Mr Chávez ordered troops to the frontier live on Aló Presidente following Colombia’s bombing of a rebel guerrilla base hidden on the Ecuador side of the two countries’ border.
This latest round of tensions started with the signing of the bases agreement at the end of last month, and deteriorated last week when Venezuela said Colombian right-wing paramilitaries were responsible for killing two Venezuelan soldiers on its territory.
Colombian rebels and paramilitaries operate right along the border with Venezuela. Leading political allies of Colombian president Álvaro Uribe face investigations into their alleged links with the country’s paramilitaries.
Colombia, meanwhile, accuses Mr Chávez of providing covert support to the Farc guerrilla group.
In recent years Venezuela has embarked on an arms buying spree which it says is necessary to offset strategically the US-bankrolled military in Colombia.
Colombia is the fifth-biggest recipient of US military aid after Iraq, Afghanistan, Israel and Egypt.
Colombia’s army is double the size of Venezuela’s and battle-hardened after decades fighting left-wing guerrillas in the continent’s most protracted insurgency.
Economic mismanagement means that Venezuela is heavily dependent on Colombian food imports despite its own vast tracts of rich tropical farmland.
Despite a decade of increasingly hostile relations, Venezuelan imports of Colombian foodstuffs have ballooned, accounting for most of the $7.2 billion (€4.8 billion) in bilateral trade between the two countries last year.
Filed under: 2-party system, 9/11 Truth, Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, black operations, blackops, central america, Chile, CIA, cocaine, Colin Powell, colombia, Colonialism, Communism, Congress, corporatism, Costa Rica, Coup, Detainee, Dick Cheney, Dictatorship, El Salvador, Empire, eric holder, Fascism, George Bush, global police force, Guantanamo, haiti, Henry Kissinger, Hillary Clinton, Honduras, Hugo Chavez, imf, Iran Contra, John Bolton, John Negroponte, kidnapping, left right paradigm, lobbyists, manuel zelaya, Military, military base, Nazi, Nicaragua, obama, PNAC, privatization, project for the new american century, roman empire, slavery, socialism, sovereignty, staged coup, Torture, Troops, truth movement, u.s air base, u.s. military, UN, war on drugs, War On Terror, war on terrorism, world police force | Tags: corporatocracy, Council for National Policy, honduran coup, Jacobo Arbenz, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, Lanny Davis
Chavez Says The U.S. Toppled The Honduran President, Taking Him To A U.S. Air Base
Hugo Chavez
aangrifan
August 20, 2009
It looks like it was the CIA that toppled Manuel Zelaya, the president of Honduras, on 28 June 2009.
Diana Barahona, at Global Research, 18 August 2009, tells us that Zelaya was taken to a U.S. air base during the kidnapping.
Venezuela’s President Hugo Chavez has revealed that Honduran President Manuel Zelaya told him that the military who kidnapped him transferred him by plane to a U.S. military base, in Honduran territory.
According to Chavez: “They put Zelaya in the plane and landed at Palmerola with the president a prisoner and the Yankee officials appeared and knew that the president was there, they had a discussion with the Honduran officials.
“Then the Yankee military took the decision there to send him to Costa Rica.
“That is a very serious matter, the the president of Honduras was in a Yankee military base…
“The Yankees overthrew Zelaya…
“From the Yankee base, which is at a place called Palmerola, they carried out all of the operations and the dirty war and the terrorism against Sandinista Nicaragua, against El Salvador.
“It wasn’t long ago that the Yankees turned Honduras into a platform to attack its neighbors.”
“What we are asking is that he (Obama) withdraw the Palmerola base, that he withdraw the Guantanamo base where they torture…”
Chavez also said that Venezuela rejects Obama’s policy of setting up U.S. military bases in Colombia.
Honduras: Military Coup Engineered By Two US Companies?
John Perkins
Information Clearing House
I recently visited Central America. Everyone I talked with there was convinced that the military coup that had overthrown the democratically-elected president of Honduras, Manuel Zelaya, had been engineered by two US companies, with CIA support. And that the US and its new president were not standing up for democracy.
Earlier in the year Chiquita Brands International Inc. (formerly United Fruit) and Dole Food Co had severely criticized Zelaya for advocating an increase of 60% in Honduras’s minimum wage, claiming that the policy would cut into corporate profits. They were joined by a coalition of textile manufacturers and exporters, companies that rely on cheap labor to work in their sweatshops.
Democracy Now! covers the Honduran coup.
Memories are short in the US, but not in Central America. I kept hearing people who claimed that it was a matter of record that Chiquita (United Fruit) and the CIA had toppled Guatemala’s democratically-elected president Jacobo Arbenz in 1954 and that International Telephone & Telegraph (ITT), Henry Kissinger, and the CIA had brought down Chile’s Salvador Allende in 1973. These people were certain that Haiti’s president Jean-Bertrand Aristide had been ousted by the CIA in 2004 because he proposed a minimum wage increase, like Zelaya’s.
I was told by a Panamanian bank vice president, “Every multinational knows that if Honduras raises its hourly rate, the rest of Latin America and the Caribbean will have to follow. Haiti and Honduras have always set the bottom line for minimum wages. The big companies are determined to stop what they call a ‘leftist revolt’ in this hemisphere. In throwing out Zelaya they are sending frightening messages to all the other presidents who are trying to raise the living standards of their people.”
It did not take much imagination to envision the turmoil sweeping through every Latin American capital. There had been a collective sign of relief at Barack Obama’s election in the U.S., a sense of hope that the empire in the North would finally exhibit compassion toward its southern neighbors, that the unfair trade agreements, privatizations, draconian IMF Structural Adjustment Programs, and threats of military intervention would slow down and perhaps even fade away. Now, that optimism was turning sour.
The cozy relationship between Honduras’s military coup leaders and the corporatocracy were confirmed a couple of days after my arrival in Panama. England’s The Guardian ran an article announcing that “two of the Honduran coup government’s top advisers have close ties to the US secretary of state. One is Lanny Davis, an influential lobbyist who was a personal lawyer for President Bill Clinton and also campaigned for Hillary. . . The other hired gun for the coup government that has deep Clinton ties is (lobbyist) Bennett Ratcliff.” (1)
DemocracyNow! broke the news that Chiquita was represented by a powerful Washington law firm, Covington & Burling LLP, and its consultant, McLarty Associates (2). President Obama’s Attorney General Eric Holder had been a Covington partner and a defender of Chiquita when the company was accused of hiring “assassination squads” in Colombia (Chiquita was found guilty, admitting that it had paid organizations listed by the US government as terrorist groups “for protection” and agreeing in 2004 to a $25 million fine). (3) George W. Bush’s UN Ambassador, John Bolton, a former Covington lawyer, had fiercely opposed Latin American leaders who fought for their peoples’ rights to larger shares of the profits derived from their resources; after leaving the government in 2006, Bolton became involved with the Project for the New American Century, the Council for National Policy, and a number of other programs that promote corporate hegemony in Honduras and elsewhere.
McLarty Vice Chairman John Negroponte was U.S. Ambassador to Honduras from 1981-1985, former Deputy Secretary of State, Director of National Intelligence, and U.S. Representative to the United Nations; he played a major role in the U.S.-backed Contra’s secret war against Nicaragua’s Sandinista government and has consistently opposed the policies of the democratically-elected pro-reform Latin American presidents. (4) These three men symbolize the insidious power of the corporatocracy, its bipartisan composition, and the fact that the Obama Administration has been sucked in.
The Los Angeles Times went to the heart of this matter when it concluded:
What happened in Honduras is a classic Latin American coup in another sense: Gen. Romeo Vasquez, who led it, is an alumnus of the United States’ School of the Americas (renamed the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation). The school is best known for producing Latin American officers who have committed major human rights abuses, including military coups. (5)
All of this leads us once again to the inevitable conclusion: you and I must change the system. The president – whether Democrat or Republican – needs us to speak out.
Chiquita, Dole and all your representatives need to hear from you. Zelaya must be reinstated.
Filed under: cocaine, crack, nanny state, Oppression, police brutality, police crimes, Police State, war on drugs | Tags: Donald May, Florida Department of Law Enforcement, Kissimmee Police Department, stupid cops, traffic stop
POLICE STATE: Mints Believed To Be Crack Land Man In Jail For Three Months
WFTV
August 19, 2009
A man is suing the Kissimmee Police Department for an arrest over mints. When officers pulled Donald May over for an expired tag, they thought the mints he was chewing were crack and arrested him.
May told Eyewitness News they wouldn’t let him out of jail for three months until tests proved the so-called drugs were candy…
May was pulled over for an expired tag on his car. When the officer walked up to him, he noticed something white in May’s mouth. May said it was breath mints, but the officer thought it was crack cocaine.
“He took them out of my mouth and put them in a baggy and locked me up [for] possession of cocaine and tampering with evidence,” May explained.The officer claimed he field-tested the evidence and it tested positive for drugs.
The officer said he saw May buying drugs while he was stopped at an intersection. He also stated in his report May waived his Miranda rights and voluntarily admitted to buying drugs.
May said that never happened.”My client never admitted he purchased crack cocaine. Why would he say that?” attorney Adam Sudbury said.
May was thrown in jail and was unable to bond out for three months. He didn’t get out until he received a letter from the Florida Department of Law Enforcement and the State Attorney’s Office that test results showed no drugs were found.
“While I was sitting in jail I lost my apartment. I lost everything,” he said.
While May was behind bars, the Kissimmee Police Department towed his car and auctioned it off. He lost his job and was evicted. Now May is suing the city for false arrest and false imprisonment. He wants to be compensated for the loss of his car and job.
May’s attorney and the city of Kissimmee discussed a possible settlement last year, but failed to reach an agreement.
Filed under: 1984, Big Brother, civil liberties, civil rights, cocaine, drug smuggling, drug trafficking, George Bush, Mexico, Military, Oppression, police brutality, Police State, Surveillance, Torture, Troops, Uncategorized, war on drugs, waterboarding | Tags: james anders, leon GTO, policia, tortura, torture techniques, william cosby
AP
July 2, 2008
Videos showing Leon police practicing torture techniques on a fellow officer and dragging another through vomit at the instruction of a U.S. adviser created an uproar Tuesday in Mexico, which has struggled to eliminate torture in law enforcement.
Two of the videos — broadcast by national television networks and displayed on newspaper Internet sites — showed what Leon city Police Chief Carlos Tornero described as training for an elite unit that must face “real-life, high-stress situations,” such as kidnapping and torture by organized crime groups.
But many Mexicans saw a sinister side, especially at a moment when police and soldiers across the country are struggling with scandals over alleged abuses.
“They are teaching police … to torture!” read the headline in the Mexico City newspaper Reforma.
Human rights investigators in Guanajuato state, where Leon is located, are looking into the tapes, and the National Human Rights Commission also expressed concern.
“It’s very worrisome that there may be training courses that teach people to torture,” said Raul Plascencia, one of the commission’s top inspectors.
One of the videos, first obtained by the newspaper El Heraldo de Leon, shows police appearing to squirt water up a man’s nose — a technique once notorious among Mexican police. Then they dunk his head in a hole said to be full of excrement and rats. The man gasps for air and moans repeatedly.
In another video, an unidentified English-speaking trainer has an exhausted agent roll into his own vomit. Other officers then drag him through the mess.
“These are no more than training exercises for certain situations, but I want to stress that we are not showing people how to use these methods,” Tornero said.
He said the English-speaking man was part of a private U.S. security company helping to train the agents, but he refused to give details.
A third video transmitted by the Televisa network showed officers jumping on the ribs of a suspect curled into a fetal position in the bed of a pickup truck. Tornero said that the case, which occurred several months earlier, was under investigation and that the officers involved had disappeared.
Mexican police often find themselves in the midst of brutal battles between drug gangs. Officials say that 450 police, soldiers and prosecutors have lost their lives in the fight against organized crime since December 2006.
At the same time, several recent high-profile scandals over alleged thuggery and ineptness have reignited criticisms of police conduct. In Mexico City last month, 12 people died in a botched police raid on a disco.
The National Human Rights Commission has documented 634 cases of military abuse since President Felipe Calderon sent more than 20,000 soldiers across the nation to battle drug gangs.
And $400 million in drug-war aid for Mexico that was just signed into law by President Bush doesn’t require the U.S. to independently verify that the military has cleaned up its fight, as many American lawmakers and Mexican human rights groups had insisted.
The videos may seem shocking, but training police to withstand being captured is not unusual, said Robert McCue, the director of the private, U.S. firm IES Interactive Training, which provides computer-based training systems in Mexico.
“With the attacks on police and security forces in Mexico that have increased due to the drug cartel wars, I’m not surprised to see this specialized kind of training in resisting and surviving captivity and torture,” he said.
Video shows cop choking marijuana suspect
Groups Sue U.S. for Data On Tracking By Cellphone
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-..008/07/01/AR2008070102884_pf.html
Police Want Snitch Text Messages To Fight Crime
http://apnews.myway.com/..0702/D91LRUL04.html
Filed under: amnesty, Arizona, army, Atzlan, Border Patrol, cocaine, Credit Crisis, death squads, DEBT, DHS, Dollar, drug smuggling, drug trafficking, Economic Collapse, economic depression, Economy, George Bush, Great Depression, Greenback, heroin, Homeland Security, housing market, Illegal Immigration, Immigration, Inflation, los zetas, marine, mexican army, Mexico, Military, national guard, neocons, real estate, Texas, Troops, US Economy, war on drugs | Tags: tijuana
Mexican Army Carrying Out Assassinations In U.S.?
KFYI
June 26, 2008
The suspects may have been hired by drug cartels to perform home invasions and assassinations in the U.S.
Police reports show that three men arrested in a Phoenix home invasion and homicide Monday may have been active members of the Mexican Army.
While on the J.D. Hayworth show, Phoenix Law Enforcement Association President Mark Spencer said that the men involved were hired by drug cartels to perform home invasions and assassinations.
The Monday morning incident at 8329 W. Cypress St. resulted in the death of the homeowner. Between 50 and 100 rounds were fired at the house.
Spencer said a police officer told him that one of the men captured said they were completely prepared to ambush Phoenix police, but ran out of ammunition.
He added that all were all dressed in military tactical gear and were armed with AR-15 assault rifles. Three other men involved in the invasion escaped.
National Guard on U.S-Mexico border will end mid-July
LA Times
June 23, 2008
An upcoming deadline of July 15, when the remaining National Guard personnel on the U.S- Mexico border are due to be withdrawn, has raised fears that without them the increased drug violence in the border area could spill into the United States.
“When the Guard was posted along the frontier in 2006 to help the strapped Border Patrol, critics warned that sending soldiers would be an insult to Mexico and that innocents could get shot by troops trained for combat, not law enforcement.”
“Now those worries have given way to fears that without the Guard’s help, a bloody drug cartel war on the Mexican side will spill into the U.S. and overwhelm the Border Patrol.” Dallas Morning News
Meanwhile, conflict between Mexico’s drug cartels and law enforcement agencies continues. The Associated Press is reporting that Mexican soldiers captured at least 10 suspected members of a Tijuana-based drug cartel in a raid on a child’s baptism party in the border city.
Texas Real Estate Slump Lets Mexicans Take It Back
Bloomberg
June 25, 2008
A rising peso and an economy growing faster than the U.S. have given some Mexicans the buying power to take advantage of the housing slump in Texas, which became part of the U.S. under an 1848 treaty that ended a three-year war between the two countries.
The peso has gained 3.2 percent against the dollar since the beginning of the year. The economy, which rose 2.6 percent in the first quarter from a year ago, is expected to grow 2.6 percent this year, according to a central bank survey of 31 economists in May. The U.S. economy is forecast to grow 1.4 percent in 2008, according to a Bloomberg survey of 57 economists.
Marco Ramirez of McAllen, Texas, is among those trying to sell foreclosed Texas homes to Mexicans. Ramirez’s company, called Now! Co., has bought 32 Texas properties and has options on 88 more. His best prospects are Mexican buyers, especially in Monterrey, 150 miles from the Texas border, he said.
`Great Time to Buy’
“Many of these people have children who are studying in the U.S.,’’ Ramirez said. “They’ve been renting or leasing and now it’s a great time to buy.’’
Mexico is better known for providing the U.S. with cheap labor than investment. The U.S. is home to an estimated 12 million Mexican-born residents, about half of them living there illegally, according to the Pew Hispanic Center in Washington.
Sales of existing U.S. homes in April fell 18 percent to an annual pace of 4.89 million from 5.93 million a year ago as banks shied away from making new loans, according to the National Association of Realtors in Washington.
http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewF..0806/INT20080625c.html
Bush Signs Citizenship Bill For Soldiers
http://www.baltimoresun.com/new..7jun27,0,3711849,print.story
Filed under: 2008 Election, Barack Obama, Bloggers, cocaine, crack, DNC, global elite, homosexual prostitution, House, jeff rense, Larry Craig, male escort, minnesota, Neolibs, obama, Senate, Sex Scandal, war on drugs, Washington D.C., webster tarpley, White House
Man Claims Drug Use & Oral Sex With Obama
World Net Daily
February 17, 2008
Editor’s note: The accompanying YouTube video contains sexual language that some will consider offensive. The article itself contains material that is inappropriate for children.
Larry Sinclair accuses Barack Obama of homosexual acts and drug use in video posted on YouTube
WASHINGTON – The electrifying presidential campaign of Barack Obama faces a new challenge – a Minnesota man who claims he took cocaine in 1999 with the then-Illinois legislator and participated in homosexual acts with him.
When his story was ignored by the news media, Larry Sinclair made his case last month in a YouTube video, which has now been viewed more than a quarter-million times. And when it was still ignored by the media, Sinclair filed a suit in Minnesota District Court, alleging threats and intimidation by Obama’s staff.
Sinclair, who says he is willing to submit to a polygraph test to validate his claims, will now get his chance – thanks to a website offering $10,000 for the right to record it and $100,000 to Sinclair if he passes.
“My motivation for making this public is my desire for a presidential candidate to be honest,” Sinclair told WND by telephone. “I didn’t want the sex thing to come out. But I think it is important for the candidate to be honest about his drug use as late as 1999.”
Sinclair, who lives in Duluth and describes himself as “gay,” claims he “personally engaged in sexual activity and personally used illegal drugs in November 1999” with the man who is now the leading Democratic presidential candidate. He claims the activity took place in the back of Sinclair’s limousine and occurred again, later, in his hotel. Sinclair also says he personally no longer uses drugs.
In his lawsuit, filed last week, he charges his civil rights have been violated by Obama and the Democratic Party. Named as defendants in the case are the presidential candidate, David Axelrod of AKP Message and Media in Chicago and the Democratic National Committee.
Sinclair charges Obama smoked crack cocaine in the limo while Sinclair snorted powdered cocaine provided by the legislator. He says the two met in an upscale Chicago lounge before leaving in Sinclair’s limousine where the drug use and sex took place for the first time.
Sinclair says he is a registered Democrat but has never voted for any candidate. He is 46 and claims to be physically disabled.
He says he was not physically impaired in 1999 when the alleged incidents with Obama took place.
Calls placed to the Obama campaign were not returned.
See Larry Sinclair’s allegations:
Webster Tarpley Reports on Larry Sinclair
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0608/11164.html
Larry Sinclair Gets Arrested
http://www.roguegovernment.com/news.php?id=10094
Pro Obama Bloggers Get Sinclair Arrested
http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/06/a-campaign-firs.html
Larry Sinclair, Obama’s Accuser, Tries To ’Produce Evidence’ At National Press Club
http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/256352
Filed under: CIA, CIA leak, CNN, cocaine, DEBT, George Bush, Impeach, Iraq, Karl Rove, katrina, Media, Military Industrial Complex, MSNBC, nation building, occupation, Propaganda, Psyops, scandal, scooter libby, scott mcCellen, Valerie Plame, War Crimes, War On Terror, White House, WMD
McCellan: Bush Admits He Authorized Plame Leak
Mike Sheehan
Raw Story
May 28, 2008
Update: Bush ’didn’t remember’ whether he’d tried cocaine, McClellan writes
In a new tell-all memoir on sale next week, former White House press secretary Scott McClellan writes that President Bush depended on propaganda to sell the Iraq war to the American public, The Politico reports.
According to the Atlanta Journal Constitution, McClellan also reveals new details about allegations regarding Bush’s former drug use that shadowed his 2000 campaign.
McClellan tracks Bush’s penchant for self-deception back to an overheard incident on the campaign trail in 1999 when the then-governor was dogged by reports of possible cocaine use in his younger days.
The book recounts an evening in a hotel suite “somewhere in the Midwest.” Bush was on the phone with a supporter and motioned for McClellan to have a seat.
“’The media won’t let go of these ridiculous cocaine rumors,’ I heard Bush say. ’You know, the truth is I honestly don’t remember whether I tried it or not. We had some pretty wild parties back in the day, and I just don’t remember.’”
“I remember thinking to myself, How can that be?” McClellan wrote. “How can someone simply not remember whether or not they used an illegal substance like cocaine? It didn’t make a lot of sense.”
Bush, according to McClellan, “isn’t the kind of person to flat-out lie.”
“So I think he meant what he said in that conversation about cocaine. It’s the first time when I felt I was witnessing Bush convincing himself to believe something that probably was not true, and that, deep down, he knew was not true,” McClellan wrote. “And his reason for doing so is fairly obvious — political convenience.”
In the years that followed, McClellan “would come to believe that sometimes he convinces himself to believe what suits his needs at the moment.” McClellan likened it to a witness who resorts to “I do not recall.”
McClellan’s “surprisingly scathing” and “often harsh” What Happened: Inside the Bush White House… also contains, as Mike Allen writes for Politico, other standout revelations such as:
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Bush and his aides “confused the propaganda campaign with the high level of candor and honesty so fundamentally needed to build and then sustain public support during a time of war”;
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Some of McClellan’s assertions before the White House press corps were, in retrospect, “badly misguided”;
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Karl Rove and Lewis “Scooter” Libby “had at best misled” McClellan about their roles in the notorious CIA leak case, even as McClellan publicly defended them;
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The White House was in a “state of denial” during the first week after the Hurricane Katrina disaster;
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Bush was “steamed” about his top economic adviser telling The Wall Street Journal that a possible Iraq war could cost as much as $200 billion. “He shouldn’t be talking about that,” said Bush, according to McClellan;
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The press was “probably too deferential to the White House” when it came to public discourse over the choice to go to invade Iraq. McClellan also says the “White House press corps went too easy on the administration,” reports Allen.
Despite the book’s criticisms of the administration he once worked for, McClellan writes, “I still like and admire President Bush,” reserving most of his rancor for Bush’s top advisers, especially Karl Rove.
MSNBC: White House Officals Are ‘Flat Out Angry,’ Calling McClellan ‘Traitor,’ ‘Benedict’
http://thinkprogress.org/2008/05/28/mcclellan-traitor/
McClellan: Plame leak the ’turning point’ in his disillusionment
http://rawstory.com/news/2008/McClellan_I_have_higher_loyalty_to_0529.html
CNN’s Yellin: Network execs killed critical White House stories
http://www.politico.com/blogs/mich.._killed_critical_White_House_stories_.html
Bill O’Reilly on “Judas” Scott McClellan
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HXjP72T0HKI
Filed under: Alex Jones, CIA, cocaine, DEA, Detainees, drug smuggling, drug trafficking, Extraordinary Rendition, FBI, florida, Guantanamo, IDF, Mexico, Police State, scandal, Torture, war on drugs | Tags: john Ajello, Walter Golembiowski
Cops & Customs Agents Caught Drug Smuggling
New cases follow September 2007 crash of CIA plane containing 4 tonnes of cocaine
Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet
May 29, 2008
Following last September’s crash of a Gulfstream jet used by the CIA for torture flights that contained 4 tonnes of cocaine, more customs officials and cops have been caught in drug smuggling and drug dealing rackets.
Customs supervisor Walter Golembiowski and officer John Ajello face narcotics, bribery and conspiracy charges after they were arrested for helping smuggle drugs and contraband through New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport.
“The investigation has led to the indictment and prosecution of more than 20 people — “from distributors to overseas sources of supply” — and the seizure of more than 600 pounds of imported hashish and other drugs from the United States and France,” according to a CNN report.
Meanwhile in Texas, Cameron County Constable Saul Ochoa was arrested by the FBI yesterday morning for possession and distribution of marijuana.
Ochoa’s brother is Justice of the Peace Benny Ochoa III of Port Isabel and his cousin is Port Isabel Police Chief Joel Ochoa.
“The grand jury charged Ochoa with possessing five to 10 pounds of marijuana on four different days in May with the intent to distribute. Each of the four counts carries a maximum five years in prison and $250,000 fine,” according to a Brownsville Herald report.
While reports of customs agents and cops dealing drugs are almost routine, the real head of the hydra has always been CIA involvement in smuggling drugs that end up on America’s streets, a symbiotic process that also helps finance wars and terrorist groups to do the bidding of the U.S. government around the world.
The corporate media will report on lesser drug smuggling scandals involving cops and customs agents, but when it comes to the gargantuan sprawling CIA drug smuggling racket, the silence is deafening.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oszATUJ4IRE
In September 2007, a Florida based Gulfstream II jet aircraft N987SA was forced to crash land in Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula after it ran out of fuel.
After accident investigators arrived on the scene they discovered a cargo of nearly 4 tonnes of cocaine.
Journalists discovered that the same Gulstream jet had been used in at least three CIA “rendition” trips to Guantanamo Bay between 2003 and 2005.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JR8s-mIj9BM
Kevin Booth’s underground hit documentary American Drug War features footage of former DEA head Robert Bonner admitting that the CIA was involved in cocaine smuggling operations.
Former DEA agent Cele Castillo, who has appeared on The Alex Jones Show many times, personally witnessed CIA drug smuggling operations funneled through terrorists that were also involved in kidnappings and the training of death squads on behalf of the U.S. government.
Investigative reporter Gary Webb was instrumental in exposing CIA cocaine trafficking operations before his alleged suicide in 2004. In the You Tube clip below, Webb traces the history of Agency involvement in drug smuggling and its links to financing wars in central America.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d6dHqP9wc3k
http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/april2008/180408_b_webb.htm
$70 Billion A Year To Fight Drug War
http://www.salem-news.com/articles/may242008/pot_culture_5-24-08.php
IDF Choppers In Service Of Drug Cartels
http://www.ynetnews.com/Ext/Comp/ArticleLa..2CL-3166377%2C00.html
Robert Steele CIA: High-Ranking Official Slams the Drug War
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RkTmbi2LGTg
Filed under: 4th amendment, cocaine, George Bush, neocons, Patriot Act, US Constitution, war on drugs, War On Terror
Patriot Act Used In Drug Case
The Wichita Eagle
March 27, 2008
The lawyer for a man accused of being a major cocaine supplier for the Wichita Crips gang contends that a secret search of the man’s house under the Patriot Act was illegal.
In a recent motion to suppress any evidence from the search, defense lawyer Charles O’Hara argued that the Patriot Act was meant for “serious matters involving national security,” not drug cases like the one involving his client, Tyrone Andrews.
“I thought that this Patriot Act was something passed to protect us all from these terrorist acts, and it would be used very judiciously,” O’Hara said Monday. “This doesn’t seem to be one where these secret searches would be used.”
Jim Cross, a spokesman for the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Wichita, said the office “believes the evidence in this case was legally obtained.”
“I think our legal arguments are clearly stated in the documents we have filed,” Cross said. He said he couldn’t comment further because the case is before a federal court.
A federal grand jury indictment released Dec. 21 accused Andrews, a 38-year-old aircraft plant worker, and seven other Wichita men of 48 counts of drug-related crimes including trafficking and conspiracy. The government seeks a forfeiture of $300,000 from Andrews.
In an affidavit filed in July seeking the search warrant, a federal agent said a secret search was necessary to protect evidence and to prevent suspects from fleeing or from intimidating witnesses.
The affidavit alleged the Crips gang has been involved in cocaine, crack cocaine and marijuana distribution in Wichita for “at least the past 15 years.”
“Tyrone Andrews has been supplying various individuals in the gang with cocaine for many years, and is considered to be a major supplier of cocaine to the Crips…” the affidavit alleges.
The affidavit alleges that Andrews lived at one home but used a house on South Ridgewood as a drug “stash” house.
As part of the investigation, agents wanted to check the house to see whether electronic recording devices could be installed, the affidavit said.
Normally, investigators leave a copy of a search warrant and a receipt for items taken once a house is searched. But in the Andrews case, investigators obtained clearance to secretly search the house, which they did July 17, and not notify him until 90 days afterward, O’Hara said.
In the affidavit, the ATF agent contended that earlier disclosure to Andrews could “seriously jeopardize the investigation.”
Another court document says that officers secretly entered the house and saw drug trafficking materials.
O’Hara said: “I don’t know that I’ve seen a warrant like this before.”
Filed under: Border Patrol, cocaine, drug smuggling, drug trafficking, Felipe Calderon, George Bush, Illegal Immigration, Immigration, los zetas, Mexico, Military, war on drugs | Tags: Loma Bonita, tijuana
Mexico Death Rate From Drug Cartels Rise
Manuel Roig-Franzia
Washington Post
March 16, 2008
The killers prowled through Loma Bonita in the pre-dawn chill.
In silence, they navigated a labyrinth of wood shacks at the crest of a dirt lane in the blighted Tijuana neighborhood, police say. They were looking for Margarito Saldaña, an easygoing 43-year-old district police commander. They found a house full of sleeping people.
Neighbors quivered at the crack of AK-47 assault rifles blasting inside Saldaña’s tiny home. Rafael García, an unemployed laborer who lives nearby, recalled thinking it was “a fireworks show,” then sliding under his bed in fear.
In murdering not only Saldaña, but also his wife, Sandra, and their 12-year-old daughter, Valeria, the Loma Bonita killers violated a rarely broken rule of Mexico’s drug cartel underworld: Family should remain free from harm. The slayings capped five harrowing hours during which the assassins methodically hunted down and murdered two other police officers and mistakenly killed a 3-year-old boy and his mother.
The brutality of what unfolded here in the overnight hours of Jan. 14 and early Jan. 15 is a grim hallmark of a crisis that has cast a pall over the United States’ southern neighbor. Events in three border cities over the past three months illustrate the military and financial power of Mexico’s cartels and the extent of their reach into a society shaken by fear.
More than 20,000 Mexican troops and federal police are engaged in a multi-front war with the private armies of rival drug lords, a conflict that is being waged most fiercely along the 2,000-mile length of the U.S.-Mexico border. The proximity of the violence has drawn in the Bush administration, which has proposed a $500 million annual aid package to help President Felipe Calderon combat what a Government Accountability Office report estimates is Mexico’s $23 billion a year drug trade.
A total of more than 4,800 Mexicans were slain in 2006 and 2007, making the murder rate in each of those years twice that of 2005. Law enforcement officials and journalists, politicians and peasants have been gunned down in the wave of violence, which includes mass executions, such as the killings of five people whose bodies were found on a ranch outside Tijuana this month.
Like the increasing number of Mexicans heading over the border in fear, the violence itself is spilling into the United States, where a Border Patrol agent was recently killed while trying to stop suspected traffickers.
Drawing on firepower, savage intimidation and cash, the cartels have come to control key parts of the border, securing smuggling routes for 90 percent of the cocaine flowing into the United States, according to the State Department. At the same time, Mexican soldiers roam streets in armored personnel carriers, attack helicopters patrol the skies, and boats ply the coastal waters.
“The situation is deteriorating,” Victor Clark, a Tijuana human rights activist and drug expert, said in an interview. “Drug traffickers are waging a terror campaign. The security of the nation is at stake.”
Mexico Government and Military Aiding Drug Cartels
http://infowars.net/articles/march2008/060308mexicans.htm
Gang Members Get Trained in the Army
http://www.washingtonpost.com/w..031501013.html?hpid=artslot
Filed under: army, California, cocaine, DEA, defense department, DHS, DoD, drug smuggling, drug trafficking, FBI, Homeland Security, Illegal Immigration, Immigration, marine, Mexico, Military, Pentagon, Troops, war on drugs | Tags: El Salvador, Hells Angels, Howard Stevenson, LA, Mara Salvatrucha, Mexican Mafia, Norteños, Sureños
In 2003 there were just 16 incidents of gang members in the U.S. Armed Forces, while in 2006 the total was 10,309
New America Media
March 9, 2008
While hundreds of Mexican soldiers are deserting the army to join drug trafficking gangs, California is facing the opposite problem: A growing number of gang members here have infiltrated the U.S. Armed Forces in order to receive military training.
The numbers speak for themselves: In 2003 there were just 16 incidents of gang members in the U.S. Armed Forces, while in 2006 the total was 10,309, according to the study, “Gang-Related Activity in the U.S. Armed Forces Increasing,” released in 2007 by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). Twenty-two official entities, including the Los Angeles Police Department, participated in the report.
This study, classified as sensitive and meant for use by official agencies, reveals the presence of street gangs like the Mexican Mafia (EME), the Mara Salvatrucha, Hells Angels, The 18th Street Gang, the Norteños, the Sureños, as well as various supremacist groups on military bases.
Two years before this report came to the light, the Ceres Police Department, in northern California, already knew its fatal results.
Howard Stevenson, sergeant of the force, was killed by Andrés Ray, a Marine who went AWOL from Camp Pendleton and who police say was a longtime member of the Norteños.
According to a report by the Ceres Police, Raya shot the sergeant five times in cold blood, with two shots to the head. Three other officials were injured in the incident and the gang member lost his life.
As a result of the bloodshed, local Police Chief Art De Werk told his staff to treat the anti-gang fight as an exercise in military strategy.
“Gang members are using the techniques and skills learned in the Army to commit crimes, and there is no doubt about that. The worrisome thing is that they endanger not only officials but all of society,” says Gregory Lee, former supervisor of the national Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) and private consultant in Los Angeles.
In Southern California the orders are clear: Any indication that a gang member has military training must immediately be reported.
Each time authorities enter a gang member’s house, said an anti-gang official who preferred to remain anonymous, “We have precise orders to look for photos, Army uniforms, anything related to the Army or that demonstrates a military training of that gang or gang member.”
That information is classified in a special gang database, according to the source.
“For us, it is vital to know if we are confronting an enemy with military training,” says Lieutenant George Zagurski, member of the intelligence unit of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department. He declined to state the number of local gang members known to have been trained by the Army.
“These are facts for exclusive and official use. We do not want to discuss this with the public,” the lieutenant told La Opinión.
Despite the confidential nature of the topic, some experts calculate that out of 100 people who enter the Army, two have a gang affiliation.
“It’s an open secret that the ringleaders of local gangs are encouraging their younger members to enter the Army and receive military training and later to train the rest of the group,” claims the former DEA advisor.
The National Gang Task Force reports that from 2003 to 2006, the Army investigated more than 100 cases of crimes that involved soldiers related to the most dangerous gangs in the country.
Meanwhile, the U.S. Armed Forces Criminal Investigation Command has documented the death of at least two soldiers – killed, it appears, by other soldiers with ties to rival gangs. It also registered an increase in the amount of violent incidents between soldiers who are affiliated with gangs.
“Officials do not want this topic spoken about because it uncovers how the Army, in its rush to recruit more soldiers, has had to lower its security standards, allowing in volunteers with criminal backgrounds. We all know that a high number of soldiers has died on the battlefield and others have deserted. We don’t have enough soldiers and the Army has strict orders to increase the number of enlisted troops nationwide, even if that means recruiting criminals,” Lee maintains.
Under the so-called “moral waiver,” the Armed Forces between 2003 and 2006 permitted into the Army 4,230 convicted criminals, 43,977 people with misdemeanors on their records and 58,561 drug addicts. In 2007, another 10,000 people with criminal records were recruited by the Pentagon, according to an investigation by the Michael D. Palm Center, based in Santa Barbara, Calif.
“The problem is not that the Armed Forces are recruiting convicts. On the contrary, we think that the Army has very good programs of rehabilitation. The problem is the increase. The Army is more worried about filling its recruitment quotas than in looking for the best candidates,” says lead researcher Michael Bucai.
Nevertheless, it is becoming more and more difficult to detect links between gangs and those interested in enlisting in the Army. According to gang experts, these mafias are using new strategies to infiltrate their members into the Armed Forces.
“Many older gang members are taking care of their newer members so that they maintain a clean criminal record and thus can have unrestricted access to the Army or guns,” says an anti-gang official. “We have noticed that in common crimes, gang members are forced to give the name of another member of the group that already has a record so that he gets written up and helps the others to remain clean.”
The infiltration of gang members into the Armed Forces must be taken seriously because it represents an important risk for local and national security, says the former DEA agent.
“Gang violence is getting more and more acute and bloody and is the price that society must pay for the faults in the system,” Lee opines.
On various occasions, La Opinión tried to contact the Department of Defense spokesperson to understand how they are dealing with the issue. However, as of this issue, there has been no response.
At an international anti-gang police summit in Los Angeles on March 3, officials weighed in about whether gang members have infiltrated the U.S. military.
“These are just rumors,” said Christy McCampbell, Deputy Assistant Secretary for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs. For his part, Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa said he did not know of any evidence of gang infiltration in the U.S. Army but would consider looking into the matter.
Also at the summit, Martín Escorza, head of the National Gang Task Force, said the issue is real. Adding to the problem, he said, is the presence of gang members trained in the armed forces of their respective countries, like El Salvador or Mexico.
Filed under: California, CIA, cocaine, DEA, drug smuggling, drug trafficking, Iran Contra, Propaganda, public relations, war on drugs | Tags: enrique bermudez, FDN, gary webb, Honduras, LA, mike wallace, Nicaragua, Norwin meneses Rick ross, robert bonner, robert parry, william casey
Ex-DEA Head Admits CIA Imported Cocaine
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JR8s-mIj9BM
New Video: “Cocaine & the Contras” – Robert Parry & Gary Webb
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YUWVmcIQi9g
Full Video: http://prisonplanet.com/articles/..0308_b_contras.htm
Filed under: Alex Jones, Border Patrol, Censorship, cocaine, DHS, drug smuggling, drug trafficking, heroin, Homeland Security, Illegal Immigration, Immigration, Los Zeta, Media, Mexico, Pentagon, war on drugs | Tags: media blackout, nuevo laredo, Rio Grande, Sara A. Carter
Award Winning Reporter Details U.S. Media Blackout On Mexican Military Incursions
Washington Times investigator exposes mayhem on the southern border
Steve Watson
Infowars.net
March 6, 2008
An award winning reporter has detailed an ongoing media blackout concerning a major issue of national security on the southern border.
Sara A. Carter, National Security and Pentagon reporter for the Washington Times, spoke to the Alex Jones show today regarding consistent incursions into the U.S. by armed Mexican troops aiding illegal smugglers.
Ms. Carter has won several national prestigious awards for her coverage of border issues north and south, including the 2006 Eugene Katz Award for Excellence in the Coverage of Immigration, presented annually by the Center for Immigration Studies.
“There’s a lot of people who don’t realize how serious the situation is on the southern border.” Ms. Carter said. “Even to the extent when sometimes some of our own government officials choose to ignore it, even though they know it’s going on.”
“This is a very serious national security issue in many respects and it deals with an array from smuggling humans, to smuggling narcotics, and the whole mix up is that there’s many people within the Mexican government and military that have already been bought and sold out to the drug cartels.”
“It’s very difficult to distinguish between those that are really trying to do the job, and those that are sell outs to the drug cartels. I’ve seen it with my own eyes, I’ve been down in many of the same border cities, I’ve spent an enormous amount of time in Mexico working with intelligence officials and others, and I have many Mexican sources who had said ‘please get the truth out’.” Ms. Carter continued.
Ms. Carter pointed out that although such activity has been ongoing for years, there has essentially been a news blackout in America.
“It is a huge story. It is bigger than most of us even know, and people are afraid of covering the story. We hear reports but we don’t see in depth detail.” Carter said.
Filed under: 9/11, 9/11 Truth, Bill Clinton, CIA, cocaine, death threat, Dissent, Extraordinary Rendition, Hillary Clinton, i-69, Joe Scarborough, Marion Cotillard, Media, morning joe, MSNBC, NAFTA Superhighway, North American Union, ohio, Oppression, police brutality, Protest, rhode island, secret camps, secret prisons, Taser Guns, Texas, Torture, trans texas corridor, TTC, We Are Change, Willie Geist
MSNBC Reporter: “I hope we have a special prison for 9/11 Conspiracy Theorists”
MSNBC Reporter Willie Geist also said that he hopes the protester is quote “Taken to one of those Secret Prisons in Eastern Europe and never to be heard from again.”
Steve Watson
Infowars.net
March 4 , 2008
The corporate media has stepped up an ongoing smear campaign against anyone who dares to question the government’s leaky and falsified account of the events of September 11th 2001.
We received reports this morning that MSNBC ran a piece on Morning Joe during which a reporter called for anyone questioning the official account to be placed in secret CIA prisons.
One emailer wrote:
MSNBC Reporter on Morning Joe Today said “I hope there a secret prison for all 9/11 Conspiracy Theorists in Eastern Europe somewhere”
So when is it official that we live in the New Soviet Union, the U.S.S.A.?
The piece was a response to events in Corpus Christi yesterday where police arrested and detained a 9/11 truth protester with a sign at a Bill Clinton rally.
Video of the piece has now surfaced on youtube. Watch as the reporter sardonically states “you don’t do that because that’s when the secret service steps in”, while his yes people, including Joe Scarborough himself, who seem to be having their own conversations in the background, start braying “Where’s the Taser? Tase him bro!” like automated robots:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NdvQ1Gmy3Co
Evidently in the new America sign waving and enjoying your first amendment right is now considered a matter for the police.
These events follow the phony media-contrived “outrage” over comments made by Oscar winning actress Marion Cotillard.
After the comments, which are reportedly a year old, were hyped by the mainstream media, it quickly became apparent that a manufactured frenzy was in full swing when some newspapers wrote false reports claiming Cotillard had retracted her comments and apologized.
It is clear that this move was designed to foster a default position media response when it comes to any future story involving 9/11 truth.
Bill Clinton Confronted by We Are Change in Houston
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5hxljIgbeC0
Ohio CHANGE Confronts Bill Clinton
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DdI91KyCQEY
Rhode Island CHANGE confronts Hillary Clinton
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UROLEWrlYAo
http://rawstory.com/news/2008/911_p..d_after_yelling_at_0303.html
Bill Clinton Confronted in Austin
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qhghPu6mzpY
Filed under: airstrikes, CIA, cocaine, cocaine trafficking, colombia, Communism, Coup, DEA, death squads, drug smuggling, drug trafficking, FARC, George Bush, Hugo Chavez, military strike, money laundering, neocons, NYSE, Raul Reyes, Saber Rattling, Troops, Venezuela, Wall Street | Tags: Ecuador, James Esposito, Rafael Correa, Thomas M. Kent, Victor Ricardo
The Murder of Raúl Reyes: Border War or Wall Street Mafia Hit?
Kurt Nimmo
Infowars
March 3, 2008
From Bloomberg:
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez’s orders to close his Bogotá embassy and send tanks to the border raise tensions beyond his previous rhetoric and to the point where miscalculation could trigger a military clash.
Chavez, who ordered 10 armored battalions to the border yesterday, said Colombia’s air strike March 1 on a rebel camp in Ecuadorean territory risks a regional war. He pledged to support Ecuador under any circumstances. The raid killed Raul Reyes, reputed to be second in command of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia.
If we are to follow the corporate media line, Chávez and Ecuador’s Rafael Correa, both oft characterized as rotten commies, are to blame for the prospect of impending war with Colombia, even though Colombia is at fault for a violent violation of Ecuador’s national sovereignty.
After all, according to Reuters, “Colombia apologized to Ecuador for the troops crossing the frontier, but said the attack on a rebel camp was necessary after its forces came under fire from across the border.” In order to minimize this egregious violation — consisting of air strikes and the deployment of ground troops — we are told “Colombia, a U.S. ally, also said it found documents at the [FARC] jungle camp that linked the leftist government of Correa to the Marxist guerrillas — a charge Ecuador dismissed because the evidence was not presented for public scrutiny.”
It is part and parcel of an ongoing demonization process, designed to portray Chávez and Correa in league with FARC and the Devil. FARC was long ago fingered as a “narco-terrorist group” by the United States and the shadowy “revolutionary,” i.e., communist, organization plays a leading villain role in the State Department’s International Narcotics Control Strategy Report, issued this month.
Of course, all of the supposedly diligent work under the guise of the Foreign Narcotics Kingpin Designation Act, passed in June 2000, may be considered little more than a useless spinning of wheels — and a huge squandering of tax payer money — so long as the Drug Enforcement Administration ignores ground zero of the illegal drug trade, situated squarely on Wall Street. It should come as no surprise Wall Street has traditionally gone where the money is, no matter communism or any other distant second consideration, stuff good for Sunday school lectures but useless for investment purposes.
Back in 1999, Agencia de Noticias Nueva Colombia reported Richard Grasso, president of the New York Stock Exchange, flying off to southern Colombia to meet with the recently deceased Raúl Reyes:
Grasso was accompanied by Finance Minister Juan Camilo Restrepo and presidential commissioner for peace Victor Ricardo. The Argentine daily Clarin reported that Grasso was also accompanied by NYSE vice president Alain Murban and adviser James Esposito. The meeting took place inside the rebel-controlled peace zone in an area near the village of La Machacha, in southern Caqueta department… Local media said Grasso had asked to meet a representative of the FARC’s high command to discuss foreign investment and the future role of US businesses in Colombia.
But why would a NYSE big fish want to talk with a communist revolutionary about “foreign investment and the future role of US businesses in Colombia”?
It’s a no-brainer, really. Because the numero uno foreign investment opportunity in Colombia is anchored in the drug trade, not bananas and cut flowers. Plenty of money is to be made laundering drug money, a Wall Street specialty.
It was not reported what became of the discussion between Grasso and Reyes, but it really does not matter because Reyes is now pushing up daisies. The State Department may finger FARC as the cause of all evil in the region, but it completely ignores the group’s competitor, namely Colombia’s infamous rightwing paramilitary death squads, in the business of laundering drug money and with the assistance of DEA agents, according to Department of Justice attorney Thomas M. Kent.
Is it possible Colombia crossed over into Ecuador to assassinate Raúl Reyes in classic Tony Montana fashion? After all, the State Department has long accused Reyes of setting the FARC’s cocaine policies, including the production, manufacture, and distribution of thousands of tons of cocaine to the United States and the world.
Of course, the corporate media is not interested in the underlying dynamic of the situation in South America, as the point is to portray Hugo Chávez as a warmonger, increasingly so especially after the CIA failed to overthrow him and the Venezuelan leader takes pleasure in thumbing his nose at Bush and his coterie of neocons.
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/f0f70450-e879-11dc-913a-0000779fd2ac.html
Chavez Sends Tanks To Colombian Border
http://www.reuters.com/..RSS&feedName=worldNews&rpc=22&sp=true
U.S. Could Intervene As Chavez Preps For War
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages..14&in_page_id=1811
Chavez Warns Of War With Colombia
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D8V5H5TG1&show_article=1
Filed under: 2-party system, 2008 Election, Al Gore, Bill Clinton, cocaine, cocaine trafficking, Coverup, drug smuggling, free market, Hillary Clinton, left right paradigm, Mena, money laundering, neocons, Neolibs, White House
Hillary Clinton is the prefered candidate of Bush
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o4l9yRezxsA
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/..800&partner=MYWAY&pagewanted=print
http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/…TICS/cocaine.html
Clinton raising money from the very industries she is bashing in her speeches, taking over $260K from big pharmaceutical and $220K from the oil & gas
http://www.nysun.com/article/69285
Filed under: CIA, cocaine, columbia, drug smuggling, Extraordinary Rendition, FBI, Guantanamo, Mexico, Torture, war on drugs
CIA Torture Jet wrecks with 4 Tons of Cocaine
Daily Kos
December 13, 2007
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oszATUJ4IRE
This Florida based Gulfstream II jet aircraft N987SA crash landed on September 24, 2007 after it ran out of fuel over Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula it had a cargo of several tons of Cocaine on board now documents have turned up on both sides of the Atlantic that link this Cocaine Smuggling Gulfstream II jet aircraft N987SA that crashed in Mexico to the CIA who used it on at least 3 rendition flights from Europe and the USA to Guantanamo’s infamous torture chambers between 2003 to 2005.
noworldsystem.com 