WTF

What about “civil asset forfeiture”? The DEA has been stealing from people for years; so has the US Customs Service, excuse me ICE (Institutionalized (Racist) Crime Enforcement). They did away with due process using all kinds of arcane “legal” sophistry so that these good ole boys could profit at the federal, state and local level’ it’s a freaking right wing fascist conspiracy.

I’m going to sue them in federal court under the RICO Act and under international humanitarian law such as: crimes against humanity and the peace; genocide; ethnic cleansing.

Let’s see what the “federal drug judges” are going to say now.

[WORDPRESS HASHCASH] The poster sent us ’0 which is not a hashcash value.

I said nothing about LA County in what I wrote about the Maras, what part didn’t you understand? I give a damn about your values, and said nothing about victims of any system. What part of cause and effect don’t you get?

Yes, Switzerland. One of the finest national defense programs in recent history; there is a reason Switzerland was never attacked in either WWI or WWII, it would have been too damn costly for any attacking force. To this day all households in Switzerland maintain weapons ranging from rifles to mortars, bridges are prepared to be demolished on short notice, and fortifications are entrenched into mountain sides and continuously maintained. The defense system of Switzerland was the model for the creators of the Israeli Defense Force.

So yes, Switzerland; “arsenal of democracy” is a buzz term spouted by liberal interventionists and neoconservatives – both of whom don’t know their ass from their elbow when it comes to national defense, and like playing with war in pursuing their agendas.

You know I am aware of the charge against LA county for MS13.

And if I didn't provide a counter-argument, it's because I take my stance for granted.

Basically, I have zero sympathy with criminals, so I don't buy "victims of the system" crap.

Decisions were made at county level with budgetary constraints. Human nature is vicious, but the least we can do is remain clear on who is the criminal.

Ok – Switzerland. Arsenal of Democracy?

Look – I though you were aware of the endless, numerous, never ending attempts to rein in our procurement system. The smartest people on the planet are working on it since time immemorial. If it was that easy, to sit in an arm chair and chaff at inefficiency, and then rein in the monster – we'll, I'm sure it would be done.

@Metemneurosis

The Family is nonsense. It's the latest trend. It's one guy making a name with himself with one book. In the 70s the extreme-right harped on about the Socialist conspiracy and the NWO. I would think we would all seek to move out of that kind of narrow perception of our nation's extremely complicated politics.

I agree, DEA corruption is a priority. As is corruption in all security agencies. After all, who if not the watchers, need to be watched?

But frankly, reducing MS13 to a bad prison decision on the part of overtaxed local authorities, is like the above comment about Al-Qaida. Yes, we used them – but, we didn't control them. They used us too.

Again, its a reductionist tendency, which never seems to admit that the social trend can have an underlying dynamic, completely unrelated to the "someone pulling the strings" scenario.

I'm certainly happy to discuss social trends when that's either the subject under direct discussion or relevant to it.

The reason I brought up fascism is because in the video I linked to it was brought up that the leaders of the Family cited Stalin, Hitler, and Osama as role models for those they were grooming because they 'knew how to handle power'. I find it a scary thought that these people have any influence in our government.

And the point of my sarcastic reply was that one can be concerned about MS13 and social trends at the same time one is concerned about DEA corruption and other things. They aren't mutually exclusive. I am concerned about groups like MS13 among other things. But this blog deals with issues related to government corruption and loss of civil liberties. It would be presumptuous to come here and try to turn the discussion to MS13 instead of discussing what's being posted, unless it was directly relevant.

As far as a “turning point” as a resource goes, take a look at the Chouet interview I linked to above. Sure, he is a critic of America, but an incredibly informed one at that. He says:

“I remind you that up until the Nairobi and Dar es-Salam attacks, al-Qaeda (still known then as the "Services Bureau") was considered a tool, even an ally, by the United States, rather than an adversary. That was not our opinion.”…….
“The American services were long persuaded that they controlled the movement, either directly or vicariously through the Pakistani or Saudi secret services. That conviction often led them to lower their guard or to remain blind to certain tendencies.”

As far as fuel for Ike’s “military industrial congressional complex”? I think situations and opportunities present themselves, and the system just kicks in and reinforces itself. I think it is an organic process, and don’t really subscribe to the theory that it is orchestrated by men with monocles wearing Mr. Monopoly Man hats, though there may be a grain of truth to that. There is a wonderful documentary series by Adam Curtis of the BBC called “The Power of Nightmares: The Rise of the Politics of Fear” that argues politicians have failed on delivering in previous utopian ideologies and have turned to fear to unite and inspire their people. I disagree with some parts of it, but overall consider it an important documentary series. It’s all over Youtube so check it out sometime.

Butterfly effect club? Yes, I am. What part of chaos theory and the law of unintended consequences don’t you understand?

Switzerland has a better weapons procurement system. One only need to look at the tenure of Defense Secretary’s McNamara and Rumsfeld to see that quants, people with industrial experience and MBA’s doesn’t necessarily make for a good SecDef. They may be great in a border room, but they are worthless on military matters. Of course some experience with industry is necessary for the position, but it is not the right candidate pool to pick from.

And our military “in the hands of politicians who pander to an electorate more interested in potato chips and hamburgers”. President Eisenhower originally used the term “military industrial congressional complex” for a reason, he was right then and he is still right today. What need is higher troop levels today, but what we get today for our defense budget is pork. Manned aircrafts and high-tech destroyers means jobs and pork for congressmen; more troops just means more letters of condolences.

That point aside, I would be interested in further detail on the "turning point", that is when the Western use of Islamic fundamentalism mutated from a substantially ancillary resource in the "war against communism", to the present situation in which that fundamentalism serves in itself to justify the very profitable war support system so well entrenched in and around Washington.

@Mrs. Edmonds

I thought about this as well, and thank you for sharing the thought.

How to make the information hi-impact?

Wouldn't that require transcending political parochialism? Going beyond Ghirardi and NarcoNews, and to the New Yorker, Atlantic, and yes – transcending boundaries – to Commentary and the Standard.

Seriously.

I don't think it is feasible otherwise.

Generally these sort of things are valuable only when you have leverage from the intelligence community, abroad or domestic.

Look at all the incredible intelligence the Entente had during WWI. It was useless, couldn't place a dent in the Allied machines – except in Russia. That was an amazing intelligence success. But in the West? No luck. Yet "success" in Russia is qualified. Bolshevik's a success? For some.

I think there is always a danger in instrumentalising the kind of knowledge you have. You have to lose control.

If you try to sell the info via publicity, then you are selling a message, a story, and in that case you have to frame it in a way that civic society can effectively use it within our legal framework. I dare say, no one in America is ready for Byzantine intrigues. Too busy with Chicken and McNuggets. It is out of everyone's league. So selling it – good luck. It would be ten times more accurate than Greg Palast, precisely why no one will bother.

Look at Abramov. Your story is smaller corruption wise, and even less interesting to most Americans. Did American's care about BEA and Yamamah? It directly involved Washington and they still can't be bothered!

I'd say your info has impact abroad – but ultimately in whose favor?

You may not like our occasional collaborations with people who go rotten, but hey, let's see who uses your info for what means – and then we can come back to the moral debate, with a fresh perspective?

I think the idea of hi-impact is unrealistic, quite frankly. You can't maintain control over the info, indefinitely. It has an expiration date. I think Wikileaks has shown to be a hi-impact platform – even more than Vanity Fair. Obviously the foreign press will pick up on it – but that's where the moral dilemma will start.

Anyway, I understand you have a book due out soon, and in that sense hopefully at least you will be compensated for all your troubles with the incompetent morons that staff our agencies.

America has gone a long way from what it was prior to the seventies – when competence, integrity, and work, still had some value. It wasn't such a money-grubbing place, broken by self-hatred and lack of confidence. Back then, the best of your enemies would have used your info to defend the constitution – which is not to say that the rot hadn't already set in. We always had the mafia – but hey, back then you didn't have to be a lunatic to defend the constitution – there was an America. What's left of it now? Polarized society, with extremes who would rather have nothing to do with one another – both kookier than the next. People may chaff at old school America. Just enjoy the grub that's gonna come out of your melting pot. And that's coming from an old Jew, who at one stage could care less about the old Wasps!

Boy, do I care now. More repentant than you Metempsychosis (sorry, neurosis)

MS13 has nothing to do with our policies, nor can it be blamed on LA county incarceration policies and a history of prison segregation. I didn't think you were an adherent of the Butterfly effect club, and hence we are all part of some mystic interconnectedness?

MS13 is an organic process of social consolidation around resources in a third world country. We have to be vigilant, know the foe, and bent on beating him. For this, we have to deal with certain issues head on.

General Dynamics/NSA. I wasn't precise. I did not mean simultaneously. If you would still find that problematic when its serial – find me one example of a country with a better, more transparent, procurement system?

You can't.

Nor is it intuitive, to have a market driven procurement system – we've been through this argument a thousand times – about waste at the Pentagon.

No theoretician of public choice school can solve the riddle. But its one of monopsony. Both the industry and the government are captive a priori.

Sorry, in the end, I prefer my NSA guy to have industrial experience and vice-versa, than leave my military capacity in the hands of politicians who pander to an electorate more interested in potato chips and hamburgers, than what happens in El Salvador or Mali. It prejudices the politician in the direction of Lindberg and/or good ol'Noam Chom.

@Metemneurosis

Amen .You have repented my son. A little more sincerity and your sins shall be absolved and the kingdom of heaven is yours.

It's not me who reduces the world to some grand conspiracy theory of the DEA, and explains all drug traffic as magically dependent on CIA and US cargo-planes. That is a flawed view.

I was throwing in your direction the idea, that our democracy is not threatened by the DEA, but by social trends, which we cannot discuss. I am glad you immediately bring in fundamentalists and the word fascists as this shows how advanced any discussion of such prickly questions could possibly be among certain groups. You'd rather obsesses over one DEA agent in Chile, than what happens to a society when its productivity is cramped and its expenditures blow through the roof! After all, the former is proof of corrupt elites, the latter, of racism.

Go ahead, call it a "distortion".

This not only makes said agent money, but makes the eventual bust in a year or two that much much bigger, and glorious.

Additionally, they have time to tip off the news to a major bust about to occur, and get the interview and the blondes in the bar later in the night.

Pull enough of those and you might even get a book deal detailing the bullet-dodging, harrowing exploits of you and your fallen partner, may he rest in peace.

Scale accordingly.

I'll be on the road all day today, and after that stationary for 5 days.

Anon the Neocon: We have so many beans spilled: torture, Blackwater, NSA illegal wiretap…and what have we gotten? Nothing. So many scandals, so many known issues/cover ups, and no one is lifting finger for accountability…In fact people are getting desensitized…You know much of what I know (except a few specifics/details) has been out already…More will be out through the deposition video…and unfortunately nothing will happen…until people get ready for pitch fork; stop casting votes for disgusting phoney politicians like Obama and 99% of those already in congress.

You're right as long as there are ethnic gangs in the world no one has any right to be interested in DEA corruption or to even talk about radical fundamentalists groups obsessed with fascism. I'd like to apologize to all red-blooded American patriots for my momentary lapse of patriotism. I'd I'd like to confess here and now that it was secretly motivated by crypto-anti-semitism (I'm not sure how but this is what I'm told and I shall not blaspheme any longer by questioning). I will now immolate myself.

Actually MS13 is in part an unintended consequence of our policies. Douglas Feith is unfortunately tied technical questions of governance, and ethnic issues.

I do agree with the idea that "he who wants peace, must prepare an army”, and would consider a board member of General Dynamics serving as a National Security Advisor to be a massive conflict of interest. A cursory examination of our weapons procurement system would tell you it is deeply flawed and ripe with waste; though I am sure you do not care as neoconservative defense policy seems to champion techno-crap we don’t need at fiscally irresponsible costs.

Additional reading:
http://www.historycommons.org/entity.jsp?entity=muslim_brotherhood
http://www.historycommons.org/entity.jsp?entity=graham_fuller
http://www.truthout.org/article/alain-chouet-interview-with-le-monde
http://www.historycommons.org/context.jsp?item=a90qassembosnia&scale=2#a90qassembosnia

Oh – now its the "Family".

Please, do you know how many groups try to corner the US government?

"the Family"

The family I'm afraid of is MS13.

Typical that you guys aren't. Until of course you hear of the "CIA" component!

Someone somewhere writes a book, and like "Economic Hitman" it becomes big news, and suddenly, they know what America is about.

Per NarcoNews. Guess what, I too have been reading them for years.

Surprise?

But I read it with a pinch of salt, and I try not to over-attribute agency to America.

By the way, like it or not, the bigger the drug war, the more potential for corruption, and the more Latin American societies succumb to cartels, the less probable that we are going to keep out of them. Nor does the Hispanisation of our country help.

Now you may say – "racist" but let me assure you , that instead of wasting your time on the "Family" it is precisely the controversial issues, that you guys are scared to death of, which explain far more about our country, than silly obsessions like the Family, and DEA corruption.

Let's go beyond the Democracy Now perimeter, let's talk about Mara Salvatrucha, about Los Angeles, and about the increasingly dysfunctional state. Instead of talking about "efficient" conspiracy, let's talk about inefficiency in governance which can't even control a border!

Its precisely these kind of subjects – technical questions of governance, and ethnic issues, that explain why we are who we are – not the Family, or Douglas Feith. But you wont discuss them, because the former bores you – and the later, you can't step outside of your PC borders.

That's why I say, the CIA is the greatest victim in America – because it is the scapegoat of the coward.

By the way – I'll throw in another stick.

You guys all disagree with the idea "he who wants peace, must prepare an army?" This is rather ancient as a saying, Roman in fact.

If you agree with it – then what is wrong with someone who happens to be a board member of General Dynamics, also seconding as National Security Adviser?

Thank you everyone for the opportunity to put my questions, and share my opinion.

One question Mrs. Edmonds – why not just spill all the beans now?

That's all I want to know.

And I'll try not to get on your nerves or harass you. Sorry if you feel that way.

It’s an apples to oranges situation as to why First Merchant was blacklisted and others didn’t. First Merchant is a specific case – micro level; the UNODC quote is on a macro level. The illicit economy, the international drug trade in particular, provides liquidity for the global financial system. First Merchant is a drop in the bucket. Do you get what I’m saying in that you can’t really compare the two, do what ifs, why’s, and how comes, etc?

I do agree though, I would love to hear him talk about the financial end; Operation Casablanca would seem like a good example to start with.

Saying that AQ is a CIA asset is a broad stroke that lacks nuance, and completely overlooks the fact that nothing remains a constant.

From Reuters. More here.

Then the question is why would the US blacklist First Merchant Bank of the TRNC and yet allow other, unnamed, banks to profit by drug money? Would that be just because of al-Q? I doubt it very much given that al-Q is a CIA asset.

Or does the blacklisting of First Merchant have more to do with North Korean activities than with al-Q or drug trafficking?

http://www.askbutwhy.com/2009/08/charlie-and-danny-at-canary-wharf-uk.html

Metemneurosis: Right on re: Grassley. Also check Leahy's dining-wining and traveling via Turkish lobby here: http://foreignlobbying.org/client/Government%20of%20Turkey/

http://foreignlobbying.org/client/Embassy%20of%20the%20Republic%20of%20Turkey/

This only covers two years, so I wonder how much 'gifts/travel/etc.' they got to keep quiet about the case?!

Nunya: NarcoNews is a great site. Bill Conroy is a fantastic investigative journalist. They cover what the MSM, an in fact most if not all alternative media, dare not cover…

King Fisher: I too will check it out. Thank you for the recom.

Still on the road. After tomorrow I'll be in one place for 5 days, and will be able to write more…I understand the video will be out soon. I'll keep you posted.

Also, I am with you re this anti-semite game. They have overused and exhausted that line. Enough is enough; I've had it with these people and their agenda!!

I was pretty sleepy listening to this particular podcast, Sibel, did you mention this?

Mexico decriminalizes small-scale drug possession
By MARK STEVENSON Associated Press Writer
Friday, Aug. 21, 2009

http://news.lp.findlaw.com/ap/i/1102/08-21-2009/20090821022011_115.html

Sibel, you are quite the brave woman. I've lived my whole life in San Diego, I don't nose around with this shit at ALL. I avoid all law enforcement and drugs/druggies like the plague.

Simon

I'm looking forward to your feedback/comments!