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October 1, 2008 - 6:32pm.
http://phillyimc.org/en/node/75577 The Anti-Empire Report 101 ways to get rich without doing anything socially useful All these grown men playing their boys' games. They create an assortment of financial entities, documents, and packages that go by names like hedge funds, derivatives, collateralized debt obligations, index funds, credit default swaps, structured investment vehicles, subprime mortgages, and dozens of other exotic monetary vehicles. They create all manner of commercial pieces of paper, of no known real or inherent value, backed up by few if any standards. Then they sell these various pieces of paper to the public and to each other. They slice and dice mortgages into arcane and risky instruments, then bundle them together, and sell the packages to those higher up in the pyramid scheme. And some of those engaged in this Wild West buying and selling become millionaires. Some become billionaires. They get Christmas bonuses greater than what most Americans earn the entire year. Is all this not remarkable? And much of the buying is not done with the buyer's own money, but with borrowed funds; "leveraged", they call it. The pieces of paper sometimes represent commodities, but the actual commodities are not seen, may not even exist; if the seller demanded the buyer's own funds, or the buyer wanted to see the goods, the whole transaction would freeze. They sell "long", expecting the price to rise; they sell "short", expecting the price to fall; they sell "naked short", which means they neither possess nor own what they're selling; a name for each gimmick. They take ever-greater risks buying and selling increasingly-esoteric pieces of paper. It's a glorified Las Vegas, casino capitalism. These pieces of paper can be so complex that many of those buying and selling them do not fully understand them; no problem, they just resell the pieces of paper to someone else at a higher price, even when one or both parties know that the paper, while pretending to be payable debt, is virtually worthless. The government, even when it tries to moderately regulate this Monopoly board, can at times also be confused by the complexities of the pieces of paper, compounded by the less-than-transparent practices that envelop the transactions; a potpourri including speculation, manipulation, fraud. Billionaire financier Warren Buffett has called the pieces of paper "weapons of mass financial destruction." The boys of finance have been playing their games for years, and so at each stage of the process there are insurance policies allowing the players to hedge their bets; they insure, and they re-insure; hopefully covering themselves against the many risks of the game, often knowing that they're trading in questionable debts; the giant corporation AIG, a major player in the insurance game, has just been taken over by the federal government. And with each transaction, at each level, someone earns a commission or a fee. There are also other firms whose purpose in life is to go around rating various players and their pieces of paper and their credit worthiness and giving seals of approval which are relied upon by investors. Some of these rating firms, we're now learning, have been surprisingly incompetent, when not simply dishonest President Roosevelt, confronted in the 1930s with similar players, called them "banksters". It's all built on faith, as fragile as the religious kind, the belief that something is worth something because it comes with a piece of paper with reassuring words and numbers written on it, because it's traded, rated, and insured, because someone will sell it and someone will buy it. The same market psychology, the same herd mentality, that went into constructing this house of cards built on pillars of greed can cause the house to collapse in a heap. But the Monopoly players keep their bonuses, and bow out with multimillion-dollar golden parachutes; while tent cities are springing up all over America. Is this any way to run a society of human beings? And the government is in the process of trying to bail out these reckless traders, these parasites, rescuing them and their system from their own nonsense. With our money; without a major restructuring of the Alice-in-Wonderland rules of the financial games, without instituting the toughest of regulations, oversight, and transparency, and with no guarantee that the spoiled-little-brat Masters of the Universe will act in any way other than their own narrow self interest, the rest of us be damned. Capitalism is the theory that the worst people, acting from their worst motives, will somehow produce the most good. There is perhaps some consolation. The libertarian and neo-conservative true believers will have a harder time selling their snake oil of privatization of Social Security or any other social program. Government regulation of matters vital to the public's welfare may be taken more seriously. We may hear less of that old bromide that markets are inherently self-correcting. It may even give a boost to the idea of national health insurance. And the libertarians and neo-conservatives are hurting and defensive, albeit not yet admitting to any new-found wisdom. A Washington Post interview with some true believers at the Cato Institute, where Ayn Rand's picture prominently hangs, produced these quotations: "Too much regulation got us where we are" ... "The biggest emotion we're feeling right now is frustration that the media narrative is that this is a crisis of the free market, a crisis of capitalism, a crisis of under-regulation. In fact it's a crisis of subsidization and intervention." ... "Capitalism without losses is like religion without hell."[1] And just think: Cuba has been tormented without mercy for 50 years because it refuses to live under such a financial system. Why I never watch presidential debates First it must be noted that Ahmadinejad, speaking at the UN earlier in the week, used no threatening language at all against Israel. What he said was that Iran was submitting to the UN "its humane solution based on a free referendum in Palestine for determining and establishing the type of state in the entire Palestinian lands." So John McCain just made up a story and Barack Obama said not a word in contradiction to anything McCain said or implied about Ahmadinejad. And that's it, America. That's all you get. You've heard a Republican saying some awful things about an ODE (Officially Designated Enemy) and you've heard a Democrat who has no problems with a word of that. That equals truth, doesn't it? This matter of Ahmadinejad and "wiping Israel off the map" has been a heated issue for three years now. However, according to people who know Farsi, the Iranian leader has never said anything of the kind. In his October 29, 2005 speech, when he reportedly first made the remark, the word "map" does not even appear. According to the translation of Juan Cole, American professor of Modern Middle East and South Asian History, Ahmadinejad said that "the regime occupying Jerusalem must vanish from the page of time." His remark, said Cole, "does not imply military action or killing anyone at all". It's the distortion of this to imply some sort of extreme violence on the part of Iran that has made the remark sound threatening. Cole added that the quote comes from an old speech of Ayatollah Khomeini, leader of the 1979 Iranian Revolution, and "is just an inexact translation. The phrase is almost metaphysical. [Ahmadinejad] quoted Khomeini that 'the occupation regime over Jerusalem should vanish from the page of time.' It is in fact probably a reference to some phrase in a medieval Persian poem. It is not about tanks."[2] At a December 2006 conference in Teheran, the Iranian president said: "The Zionist regime will be wiped out soon, the same way the Soviet Union was, and humanity will achieve freedom."[3] Obviously, the man is not calling for any kind of violent attack upon Israel, for the dissolution of the Soviet Union took place peacefully. For a word-by-word breakdown of Ahmadinejad's remark, in Farsi and English, see here:[4] Moreover, in June 2006, subsequent to Ahmadinejad's controversial speech, Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, stated: "We have no problem with the world. We are not a threat whatsoever to the world, and the world knows it. We will never start a war. We have no intention of going to war with any state."[5] Palintology The proper American term is "white trash". Or, as the honorable governor of Alaska apparently prefers, "redneck" -- "Rouge cou" is what she called a business she registered. And what do you call the person if on top of all that she declares in the year 2008 that Saddam Hussein had something to do with 9-11 and that "a surge in Afghanistan also will lead us to victory there as it has proven to have done in Iraq"? The proper term is "scary", or perhaps "scary moron". And what do you think of this person when you learn that she believes that the war in Iraq is a "task that is from God"? I think this is actually a form of insanity. There are people in institutions all over the world charged with killing others, who insist that they were acting under God's command. And if the above is not enough to make you fall in love with the woman, consider that she believes that humans coexisted with dinosaurs 6,000 years ago; and have a look at a video of the vice-president/president-to-be undergoing an exorcism performed by a minister to free her body from "witches".[6] When we consider the flak that Barack Obama received because his minister is not in love with US foreign policy, imagine what Palin will get for having a minister who performs witch exorcism. Nothing. So, have we forgotten anything about her charming belief system? Santa Claus? The Easter Bunny? Oh, she must have been kidnaped by a space alien. I hope some day to meet her and have her read my palms, my tea leaves, my aura, my horoscope, and my tarot. When is a holocaust not a holocaust? When the perpetrators call it a victory. Just imagine -- If the entire Iraqi population over the age of 10 is killed, disabled, imprisoned or forced into exile there will probably be no violence at all. Now that would really be victory. No American should be allowed to forget that Iraqi society has been destroyed. The people of that unhappy land have lost everything -- their homes, their schools, their neighborhoods, their mosques, their jobs, their careers, their professionals, their health care, their legal system, their women's rights, their religious tolerance, their security, their past, their present, their future, their lives. But they do have their surge. Politicizing and militarizing sports Last month at the United States Tennis Open women's final in New York, a woman comes out to sing "America the Beautiful". Pretty common of course at sporting events in beautiful America. If it's not that, it's another well-known hymn to athleticism like "God Bless America" or "The Star Spangled Banner". But this time, as she finishes singing, dozens of marines in full uniform march out and unfurl an American flag a mile long. The crowd eats it up. Two days later, at the men's final, same thing plus four jet planes roar past above the stadium. I wish I had been there. So I could have yelled out: "What the fuck does this have to do with tennis?" Hardly anyone would have heard me above the din of the patriotic orgy, but if anyone did, I would not be surprised if they reported me to the nearest authorities (and in present-day America one is never too far from authorities), and I'd be asked to accompany the authorities to the security office (and in present-day America one is never too far from a security office). Norman Mailer wrote in 2003, a few weeks before the US invasion of Iraq: "My guess is that, like it or not, or want it or not, we are going to go to war because that is the only solution Bush and his people can see. The dire prospect that opens, therefore, is that America is going to become a mega-banana republic where the army will have more and more importance in our lives. ... And before it is all over, democracy, noble and delicate as it is, may give way. ... Indeed, democracy is the special condition ... we will be called upon to defend in the coming years. That will be enormously difficult because the combination of the corporation, the military and the complete investiture of the flag with mass spectator sports has set up a pre-fascistic atmosphere in America already."[7] Für meine deutschen Leser Website help needed NOTES [2] "Informed Comment", Cole's blog, May 3, 2006; www.juancole.com/2006/05/hitchens-hacker-and-hitch... [3] Associated Press, December 12, 2006 [4] Global Research, January 20, 2007, http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=vie...) [5] Letter to Washington Post from M.A. Mohammadi, Press Officer, Iranian Mission to the United Nations, June 12, 2006 [6] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pNvemHKXZFs. Also see Associated Press, September 25, 2008 [7] International Herald Tribune, February 25, 2003 [8] www.amazon.de/Schurkenstaat-William-Blum/dp/389706... William Blum is the author of:
Capitol Hill Blue's columnists, blogs and reader comments Capitol Hill Blue is an independent, non-partisan news site that belongs to no political party and subscribes to no political or philosophical point-of-view. Our columnists are welcome to their opinions but readers should understand that their views do not necessarily reflect the editorial policies of this web site. We also welcome comments to selected opinion columns and in our popular ReaderRant discussion forum. Please remember, however, that we believe in civility on this web site and comments may be reviewed, moderated or removed if we feel they contain obscenities, racism, bigotry, anti-Semitic remarks or attack other posters. Our goal is reasoned discussion on issues facing this nation and we do not feel that goal is served by personal attacks and by seeing how many cute adjectives you can attach to an elected official or politician's name. Copyright © 2008 Capitol Hill Blue
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This is one of my all-time
Submitted by HansBennett on October 1, 2008 - 6:34pm.This is one of my all-time favorite essays from William Blum, which provides a bad-ass historical background the the 1996 San Jose Mercury News series by Gary Webb documenting CIA complicity in the crack-cocaine epidemic, as part of their Contra terrorist operations against the people of Nicaragua--the vast majority of whom had voted 67% percent for the Sandinistas in democratic elections. Check is out here:
The CIA and Drugs
Just say "Why not?"
by William Blum
"In my 30-year history in the Drug Enforcement Administration and related agencies, the major targets of my investigations almost invariably turned out to be working for the CIA."
Dennis Dayle, former chief of an elite DEA enforcement unit.{1}
On August 18, 1996, the San Jose Mercury initiated an extended series of articles about the CIA connection to the crack epidemic in Los Angeles. Though the CIA and influential media like The Washington Post , The New York Times, and The Los Angeles Times went out of their way to belittle the significance of the articles, the basic ingredients of the story were not really new -- the CIA's Contra army, fighting the leftist government of Nicaragua, turning to smuggling cocaine into the U.S., under CIA protection, to raise money for their military and personal use.
What was unique about the articles was (A) they appeared in a "respectable" daily newspaper and not an "alternative" publication, which could have and would have been completely ignored by the powers that be; and (B) they followed the cocaine into Los Angeles' inner city, into the hands of the Crips and the Bloods, at the time that street-level drug users were figuring out how to make cocaine affordable: by changing the costly white powder into powerful little nuggets of crack that could be smoked cheaply.
The Contra dealers, principally Oscar Danilo Blandon and his boss Juan Norwin Meneses, both from the Nicaraguan privileged class, operated out of the San Francisco Bay Area and sold tons of cocaine -- a drug that was virtually unobtainable in black neighborhoods before -- to Los Angeles street gangs. They then funneled millions in drug profits to the Contra cause, while helping to fuel a disastrous crack explosion in L.A. and other cities, and enabling the gangs to buy automatic weapons, sometimes from Blandon himself.
The principal objection raised by the establishment critics to this scenario was that, even if correct, it didn't prove that the CIA was complicit, or even had any knowledge of it.
However, to arrive at this conclusion, they had to ignore things like the following from the SJM series:
a) Cocaine flights from Central America landed with impunity in various spots in the United States, including a U.S. Air Force base in Texas. In 1985, a Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) agent assigned to El Salvador reported to headquarters the details on cocaine flights from El Salvador to the U.S. The DEA did nothing but force him out of the agency{2}.
b) When Blandon was finally arrested in October 1986, after congress resumed funding for the Contras, and he admitted to crimes that have sent others away for life, the Justice Department turned him loose on unsupervised probation after only 28 months behind bars and has paid him more than $166,000 since.
c) According to a legal motion filed in a 1990 police corruption trial: In the 1986 raid on Blandon's money-launderer, the police carted away numerous documents purportedly linking the U.S. government to cocaine trafficking and money-laundering on behalf of the Contras. CIA personnel appeared at the sheriff's department within 48 hours of the raid and removed the seized files from the evidence room. This motion drew media coverage in 1990 but, at the request of the Justice Department, a federal judge issued a gag order barring any discussion of the matter.
d) Blandon subsequently became a full-time informant for the DEA. When he testified in 1996 as a prosecution witness, the federal prosecutors obtained a court order preventing defense lawyers from delving into Blandon's ties to the CIA.
e) Though Meneses is listed in the DEA's computers as a major international drug smuggler and was implicated in 45 separate federal investigations since 1974, he lived openly and conspicuously in California until 1989 and never spent a day in a U.S. prison. The DEA, U.S. Customs, the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department, and the California Bureau of Narcotic Enforcement have complained that a number of the probes of Meneses were stymied by the CIA or unnamed "national security" interests.
f) The U.S. Attorney in San Francisco gave back to an arrested Nicaraguan drug dealer the $36,000 found in his possession. The money was returned after two Contra leaders sent letters to the court swearing that the drug dealer had been given the cash to buy supplies "for the reinstatement of democracy in Nicaragua". The letters were hurriedly sealed after prosecutors invoked the Classified Information Procedures Act, a law designed to keep national security secrets from leaking out during trials. When a U.S. Senate subcommittee later inquired of the Justice Department the reason for this unusual turn of events, they ran into a wall of secrecy. "The Justice Department flipped out to prevent us from getting access to people, records -- finding anything out about it," recalled Jack Blum, former chief counsel to the Senate subcommittee that investigated allegations of Contra cocaine trafficking. "It was one of the most frustrating exercises that I can ever recall."
A Brief History of CIA Involvement in Drug Trafficking
1947 to 1951, France
CIA arms, money, and disinformation enabled Corsican criminal syndicates in Marseille to wrestle control of labor unions from the Communist Party. The Corsicans gained political influence and control over the docks -- ideal conditions for cementing a long-term partnership with mafia drug distributors, which turned Marseille into the postwar heroin capital of the Western world. Marseille's first heroin laboratories were opened in 1951, only months after the Corsicans took over the waterfront.{3}
Early 1950s, Southeast Asia
The Nationalist Chinese army, organized by the CIA to wage war against Communist China, became the opium barons of The Golden Triangle (parts of Burma, Thailand and Laos), the world's largest source of opium and heroin. Air America, the CIA's principal airline proprietary, flew the drugs all over Southeast Asia.{4}
1950s to early 1970s, Indochina
During U.S. military involvement in Laos and other parts of Indochina, Air America flew opium and heroin throughout the area. Many GI's in Vietnam became addicts. A laboratory built at CIA headquarters in northern Laos was used to refine heroin. After a decade of American military intervention, Southeast Asia had become the source of 70 percent of the world's illicit opium and the major supplier of raw materials for America's booming heroin market.{5}
1973-80, Australia
The Nugan Hand Bank of Sydney was a CIA bank in all but name. Among its officers were a network of US generals, admirals and CIA men, including former CIA Director William Colby, who was also one of its lawyers. With branches in Saudi Arabia, Europe, Southeast Asia, South America and the U.S., Nugan Hand Bank financed drug trafficking, money laundering and international arms dealings. In 1980, amidst several mysterious deaths, the bank collapsed, $50 million in debt.{6}
1970s and 1980s, Panama
For more than a decade, Panamanian strongman Manuel Noriega was a highly paid CIA asset and collaborator, despite knowledge by U.S. drug authorities as early as 1971 that the general was heavily involved in drug trafficking and money laundering. Noriega facilitated "guns-for-drugs" flights for the Contras, providing protection and pilots, as well as safe havens for drug cartel officials, and discreet banking facilities. U.S. officials, including then-CIA Director William Webster and several DEA officers, sent Noriega letters of praise for efforts to thwart drug trafficking (albeit only against competitors of his Medellin Cartel patrons). When a confluence of circumstances led to Noriega's political luck running out, the Bush administration was reluctantly obliged to turn against him, invading Panama in December 1989, kidnapping the general, and falsely ascribing the invasion to the war on drugs. Ironically, drug trafficking through Panama was not abated after the US invasion.{7}
1980s, Central America
Obsessed with overthrowing the leftist Sandinista government in Nicaragua, Reagan administration officials tolerated drug trafficking as long as the traffickers gave support to the Contras. In 1989, the Senate Subcommittee on Terrorism, Narcotics, and International Operations (the Kerry committee) concluded a three-year investigation by stating: "There was substantial evidence of drug smuggling through the war zones on the part of individual Contras, Contra suppliers, Contra pilots, mercenaries who worked with the Contras, and Contra supporters throughout the region. ... U.S. officials involved in Central America failed to address the drug issue for fear of jeopardizing the war efforts against Nicaragua. ... In each case, one or another agency of the U.S. government had information regarding the involvement either while it was occurring, or immediately thereafter. ... Senior U.S. policy makers were not immune to the idea that drug money was a perfect solution to the Contras' funding problems."{8}
In Costa Rica, which served as the "Southern Front" for the Contras (Honduras being the Northern Front), there were several different CIA-Contra networks involved in drug trafficking, including that of CIA operative John Hull, whose farms along Costa Rica's border with Nicaragua were the main staging area for the Contras. Hull and other CIA-connected Contra supporters and pilots teamed up with George Morales, a major Miami-based Colombian drug trafficker who later admitted to giving $3 million in cash and several planes to Contra leaders.{9} In 1989, after the Costa Rica government indicted Hull for drug trafficking, a DEA-hired plane clandestinely and illegally flew him to Miami, via Haiti. The US repeatedly thwarted Costa Rican efforts to extradite Hull back to Costa Rica to stand trial.{10}
Another Costa Rican-based drug ring involved a group of Cuban Americans whom the CIA had hired as military trainers for the Contras. Many had long been involved with the CIA and drug trafficking. They used Contra planes and a Costa Rican-based shrimpcompany, which laundered money for the CIA, to move cocaine to the U.S.{11}
Costa Rica was not the only route. Other way stations along the cocaine highway -- and closely associated with the CIA -- were the Guatemalan military intelligence service,which harbored many drug traffickers, and Ilopango Air Force Base in El Salvador, a key component of the U.S. military intervention against the country's guerrillas.{12}
The Contras provided both protection and infrastructure (planes, pilots, airstrips, warehouses, front companies and banks) to these CIA-linked drug networks. At least four transport companies under investigation for drug trafficking received US government contracts to carry non-lethal supplies to the Contras.{13} Southern Air Transport, "formerly" CIA-owned, and later under Pentagon contract, was involved in the drug running as well.{14} Cocaine-laden planes flew to Florida, Texas, Louisiana and other locations, including several military bases. Designated as "Contra Craft," these shipments were not to be inspected. When some authority wasn't clued in and made an arrest, powerful strings were pulled on behalf of dropping the case, acquittal, reduced sentence, or deportation.{15}
1980s to early 1990s, Afghanistan
CIA-supported Moujahedeen rebels engaged heavily in drug trafficking while fighting against the Soviet-supported government and its plans to reform the very backward Afghan society. The Agency's principal client was Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, one of the leading druglords and leading heroin refiner. CIA-supplied trucks and mules, which had carried arms into Afghanistan, were used to transport opium to laboratories along the Afghan-Pakistan border. The output provided up to one half of the heroin used annually in the United States and three-quarters of that used in Western Europe. US officials admitted in 1990 that they had failed to investigate or take action against the drug operation because of a desire not to offend their Pakistani and Afghan allies.{16} In 1993, an official of the DEA called Afghanistan the new Colombia of the drug world.{17}
Mid-1980s to early 1990s, Haiti
While working to keep key Haitian military and political leaders in power, the CIA turned a blind eye to their clients' drug trafficking. In 1986, the Agency added some more names to its payroll by creating a new Haitian organization, the National Intelligence Service (SIN). SIN was purportedly created to fight the cocaine trade, though SIN officers themselves engaged in the trafficking, a trade aided and abetted by some of the Haitian military and political leaders.{18}
NOTES
1. Peter Dale Scott & Jonathan Marshall, Cocaine Politics: Drugs, Armies, and the CIA in Central America, Berkeley: U. of CA Press, 1991, pp. x-xi.
2. Celerino Castillo, Powder Burns: Cocaine, Contras and the Drug War, Mosaic Press, 1994, passim.
3. Alfred W. McCoy, The Politics of Heroin in Southeast Asia, New York: Harper & Row, 1972, chapter 2.
4. Christopher Robbins, Air America, New York: Avon Books, 1985, chapter 9; McCoy, passim
5. McCoy, chapter 7; Robbins, p. 128 and chapter 9
6. Jonathan Kwitny, The Crimes of Patriots: A True Tale of Dope, Dirty Money and the CIA, New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 1987, passim; William Blum, Killing Hope: U.S. Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II, Maine: Common Courage Press, 1995, p. 420, note 33.
7. a) Scott & Marshall, passim
b) John Dinges, Our Man in Panama, New York: Random House, 1991, passim
c) Murray Waas, "Cocaine and the White House Connection", Los Angeles Weekly, Sept. 30-Oct. 6 and Oct. 7-13, 1988, passim
d) National Security Archive Documentation Packet: "The Contras, Cocaine, and Covert Operations" (Washington, D.C.), passim
8. "Kerry Report": Drugs, Law Enforcement and Foreign Policy, a Report of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, Subcommittee on Terrorism, Narcotics and International Operations, 1989, pp. 2, 36, 41
9. Martha Honey, Hostile Acts: U.S. Policy in Costa Rica in the 1980s, Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 1994.
10. Martha Honey and David Myers, "U.S. Probing Drug Agent's Activities in Costa Rica," San Francisco Chronicle, August 14, 1991.
11. Honey, Hostile Acts.
12. Frank Smyth, "In Guatemala, The DEA Fights the CIA", New Republic, June 5, 1995; Martha Honey, "Cocaine's Certified Public Accountant," two-part series, The Source, August and September, 1994; Blum, p. 239.
13. Kerry report, passim.
14. Scott & Marshall, pp. 17-18
15. Scott & Marshall, passim; Waas, passim; NSA, passim.
16. Blum, p. 351; Tim Weiner, Blank Check: The Pentagon's Black Budget, New York: Warner Books, 1990, pp. 151-2
17. Los Angeles Times, Aug. 22, 1993
18. New York Times, Nov. 14, 1993; The Nation, Oct. 3, 1994, p. 346
Written by William Blum, author of Killing Hope: U.S. Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II; email:bblum6@aol.com