DMGSPYCAT:The most important work I think is by, "Gary Web, "Dark Alliance: the CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion" which gives names, dates, places, and dollar amounts to build a towering wall of evidence in support of his argument.
and also,
Cellerino Castillo, "Powder Burns: Cocaine, Contras & The Drug Connection (1992), is yet another book by a retired DEA agent.

********************************************************************


Chickens of ISI cooperation
by Abid Ullah Jan

Which government agencies made war on its own people, selling tons of drugs to them, destroying their lives, incarcerating thousands under conspiracy theory and making billions of dollars for waging wars and destabilising other states?

If your answer is ISI, you're wrong. The answer is CIA and DEA. (1)

A Western intelligence agent called this "a jaded view" of this scribe about US intelligence agencies. I am, however, making this point once more not to disillusion readers about the American agencies or to defend the agency that has turned my life into a living hell but to point out how propaganda works and how the chickens of individual, agency and state cooperation with US come home to roost in the long run.

ISI, inter-services intelligence agency of Pakistan, faced severe criticism at a US Senate briefing on March 20, 2003 on the drug trade. Questioning two key members of the Bush administration at a hearing of the House Subcommittee on Asia and the Pacific, several Congressmen came down hard on Pakistan. (2)

Nancy Chamberlin, who was Washington's ambassador in Pakistan till last year was forced to confirm and reconfirm that over the last six years ISI's involvement in the drug trade was "substantial."

When asked, as ambassador did she ever report Pakistan's involvement with the Taliban and its intelligence unit's involvement in the opium trade? "No, I did not," said the former ambassador. Why not? This is what she was not asked but we have the right to ask and also find out, why not.

The purpose of the hearing was to implicate ISI, Pakistan military and Pakistan, but to leave other facts and factors aside. The latest hearing of US Senate is just another threat in the vast trap being laid for Pakistan army for many years.

Washington Post published a report by John Ward and Kamran Khan in its September 12, 1994 edition in an attempt to implicate Pakistan army in drug trafficking. The News published this report in October 1994. The same effort was duplicated by the same Kamran Khan in April 04, 1999 edition of the News.

A few individual instances of drug trafficking by some opportunist army or air force officers was presented out of context to put the blame squarely on shoulders of the armed forces, and tell the public that Pakistan army from top to bottom is following drug trafficking as a matter of official policy.

The US Senators didn't ask Ms Chamberlin as to why she didn't ever report ISI's involvement with drug trade because the answers thus far were enough for the self-appointed cops to frame charges against Pakistan. Going beyond that point would have brought dirty hands of the US agencies in discussion. We can't say if ISI has made any profits from the drug trade but there is no denying the fact that like the US subversive activities in Nicaragua and elsewhere in South America, CIA has definitely financed its Afghan war through drug funds. How far has ISI assisted CIA in these escapades is not on public record but there is no denying the fact that now is the time for CIA to exploit its partnership with ISI's for framing Pakistan.

It has been confirmed that there were no heroin factories in Pakistan before 1979 and "in 1980," says Harold D Wankel, DEA Assistant Administrator of Operations. Later on, Opium production had all but been destroyed by Afghanistan's Taliban regime. Poppy cultivation, according to the UN, plummeted from 80,000 hectares in 2000 to little over 5,000ha in 2001. But in 2002, with the renewed interest of ISI, production was back to between 40,000ha and 60,000ha, according to the UNDCP. This is a weak indication of US agencies have brought ringing poppy growing and heroin manufacturing spill over to Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Stronger evidence lies in the fact that the CIA-drug relation goes back to late 1960's. According to Victor Marchetti, a veteran of 14 years with the CIA - where he rose to be executive assistant to the Deputy Director of CIA - in 1967 "one officer was assigned to travel all over Latin America, buying up all sorts of hallucinatory drugs which might have some application to intelligence activities and operations." That was the point when CIA first got involved with the drugs, and planned to use them for financing it operations.

John D Marks, who worked as an analyst and US State Department Intelligence Expert for many years, wrote how the CIA was involved in narcotics trafficking since Vietnam War. In Vietnam, he wrote, "the CIA hoped to defeat the Pathet Lao and North Vietnamese; for that purpose,... The CIA was willing that the Meo [continue] to sell the drugs during their 'secret' war," for the US against communists.

As recently as 2001, many farmers, including Haji Sultan, chief of the Nur Zai tribe in Afghanistan, made the explosive charge that before coming to power, officials in the pro-US Karzai regime made it clear that if the pro-Taliban southern provinces changed sides, the government would look the other way if opium was grown. "You can imagine. Poppies were outlawed by the Taliban. Suddenly, everyone in the south saw they could make money again if they kicked out the Taliban. (3)

When planes of the' CIA proprietary airline, Air America could be used to carry opium for Meos and the US highest military officers supported by the Agency could be the kingpins of the drugs trade - as explained in "CIA and the Cult of Intelligence"; how can we believe that the CIA didn't suggest ISI and Pakistan army to help it trade drugs for buying guns and turning Afghanistan into a Soviet Vietnam.

ISI might have assisted CIA in trafficking drugs as it has assisted it in every other adventure within and outside Pakistan, but our armed forces have definitely not trafficked drugs as a matter of official policy like the CIA. The DEA sponsored ANF in Pakistan has definitely advanced US agenda, such as its role in framing editor in Chief of the Frontier Post. However, there is no evidence that ISI got involved with CIA to the extent of SIN (the CIA created unit in Haitian Army). In 1986, the CIA created SIN to fight cocaine trade. However, according to its undeclared objectives, SIN quickly got involved in the CIA-protected biggest drug dealing operations in the Caribbean region.

Even if some military or ISI officials have been involved in drug trafficking on personal level, it needs a Herculean effort to counter US propaganda and make public believe that the amount of privately smuggled drugs into US is no more than a fraction of the amount trafficked by the US agencies. (4) According to San Diego Union-Tribune (August 13, 1996), Celerino Castelo -- a former DEA agent -- stated that together with three other ex-DEA agents, they were willing to testify in Congress regarding their direct knowledge of CIA involvement in international drug trafficking. Castillo estimates that approximately 75% of narcotics entered the US with the acquiescence or direct participation of US and foreign CIA agents.

Other than baseless accusations, the US has no evidence to prove our armed forces guilty of drug trafficking for its own sustainability. On the other hand irrefutable evidence is available to show that the CIA has funded most of its covert operations - like the one used for shutting down BCCI - with drug money, earned through organized selling of drugs to its own people. According to the court transcripts of BCCI case: "By late 1987, the agents had passed approximately $2.2 million derived from Don Chepe's [Colombian drug lord] proceeds through the IDC account, and had split the 7-8% commission profit with Mora [an established money launderer in Colombia] and Don Chepe's representative Javier Ospina, without telling any BCCI officers about drugs." (5)

Rep Dana Rohrabacher, a Republican from California, who showed too much interest in ISI's role in drug trafficking the other day, also needs to take a little pain to inform the public about the US politicians, agencies, and their friends involvement in the drug trade. In the second week of October 1994, at a press conference even her former president, Bill Clinton, momentarily took on ghastly pallor when queried by the stalwart of Washington press corps, Sara McClendon. She claimed that the Bush administration and the CIA established an operation in early 80's to ship drugs into the US. She wanted to know what Clinton knew about CIA's arms-drug shipments through Mena airport in South Arkansas -- Clinton's home state.

Clinton said he knew nothing. Since it was a federal matter "the state really had next to nothing to do with it" said Clinton. "Everybody who's ever looked into it knows it."

Just two days later, Evans Pritchard, Washington Bureau Chief for the Sunday Telegraph London wrote that Clinton, like his predecessors, knew a good deal more about drug-arms shipments in Mena and the CIA's involvement. He wrote in October 9 issue of Sunday Telegraph that by that time Arkansas "was close to becoming a narco-republic -- a sort of mini-Colombia, within the borders of the United States."

According to Judge Robert Bonner, head of the DEA until 1993, a ton of pure cocaine, smuggled into US by the CIA in partnership with the Venezuelan National Guard, went into the hands of another US agency and the story got public. (6) Who knows how many other such shipments were successfully made without the mistaken interception by another agency.

Unfortunately, anyone trying to expose the US agencies involvement in drug trade is considered as having "jaded view" about American intelligence agencies. Compared to such individual views, we must not forget that the US administration has a "jaded view" of Pakistan and the whole country is being victimised for that. Why don't the US Senators have a look at what John Stockwell, the highest ranking official of the CIA to ever leave the Agency and go public, has to say: "For twenty years, the CIA was helping the Kuomintang to finance itself, and then to get rich, smuggling heroin. We put (in) Air America, the CIA subsidiary - it would fly in with crates marked 'humanitarian aids' which were arms, and it would fly back out with heroin. And the first target - market - of this heroin was the US GIs in Vietnam." (7)

The CIA makes partners for dealing drugs; they profit together for some time and then it discredits and discards them once the purpose is served. Haiti is the recent example where CIA was in deep connection with the paramilitary group FRAPH and Warren Christopher confirmed that Emmanual Constant, head of FRAPH, and Michael Francois, the Haitian police Chief were on ClA's pay-role. Drugs, undoubtedly, was the common ground of understanding between them.

The same might be true for ANF and some officers of ISI but it is not true for Pakistan army as an institution. Unlike the CIA, Pakistan army has never trafficked in dope as a matter of official policy. If some of our officers were involved in narcotics trafficking for their own gains, it is unjustified to attribute their misdeeds to the institution. These allegations are a ridiculous attempt to further discredit the already discredited armed forces of Pakistan, which has let itself played into the hands of US agencies.

Providing evidence of US agencies involvement in drug trafficking is beyond the scope of this article. Suffice it to say that the chickens of our agencies cooperation with CIA and DEA are coming home to roost. Remember the apologetic explanations from our Foreign Office when the press mistakenly reported that it had asking US to withdraw DEA officials from Pakistan on May 17, 1997. Foreign Office apologised and called eradication of drugs as "the common objective" between Pakistan and the US, and such reports "against our public interest."

One gets satisfied with the after thought that we deserve what the US is doing to us. Didn't we tell the government in 1997 that neither the US so-called drug war our "common objective," nor is the presence of US agents in Pakistan in our "public interest." The government did not listen to us then. No one can save it from reaping the whirlwind now.

Concluded March 24, 2003




Notes


1. See: Peter Dale Scott and Jonathan Marshall, "Cocaine Politics Drugs, Armies
and the CIA in Central America (University of California Press, 1991), which tells how the CIA works with narcotics traffickers, and then fights to suppress the truth. It concludes, the US government "is one of the world's largest drug pushers."

Also see, "Gary Web, "Dark Alliance: the CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion" which gives names, dates, places, and dollar amounts to build a towering wall of evidence in support of his argument.

Cellerino Castillo, "Powder Burns: Cocaine, Contras & The Drug Connection (1992), is yet another book by a retired DEA agent

Ryan Mark Zepezauer, "The CIA's Greatest Hits (The Real Story)." According to the author, by 1970 the US was flooded with pure Asian heroin; some of it was even smuggled back into the country in the corpses of US soldiers...... The CIA airline, Air America, ran weapons to Hmong armies in Laos and brought their opium crop back out to market. Some of these massive profits were laundered in Australia and then used to finance other CIA operations..... The Nicaraguan contras were partially funded by cocaine operations, smuggled to and from the US on customs free supply flights. CIA assets in Honduras, Costa Rica, El Salvador and Panama helped to facilitate the trading."

Michael Levine, Laura Kavanau Levine, "The Big White Lie: the Deep Cover Operation" exposes the CIA's exploitation and the "deadliest lie" ever perpetrated by the US government - the War on Drugs.

2. Dawn report, ISI criticized at US Senate hearing, March 22, 2003

3. Charles Clover, "Afghan poppy farmers resist attempts to destroy crop..," Financial Times; Apr 10, 2002

4. According to Paul Johnson, Modern Times (New York: Harper Perenial, 1991 rev. ed., p.782), "By the end of the 1980's it was calculated that the illegal use of drugs in the United States now netted its controllers over $110 billion a year." Just one CIA drug ring that of Rafael Caro Quintero and Miguel Angel Felix Gallardo based in Guadalajara, Mexico was smuggling four tons a month into the US during the same period! Other operations including Manuel Noriega (Panama), John Hull (Costa Rica), Felix Rodriguez (El Salvador), Juan Ramon Matta Ballesteros (Honduras) and elements of the Guatemalan and Honduran military were dealing close to two hundred tons a year or close to 70% of total US consumption at the same time!

5. US District Court transcripts for the BCCI related case: US Vs Amjad Awan et al 88-330-Cr-T-13R48-791-49, 50
R67-1136-160, 161 and 162
R83-881-26,27, and 28
GE 3193

6. Robert Bonner , CBS "60 MINUTES" Show, November 21, 1993.
7. For more information in this regard, see The Politics of Heroin in Southeast Asia by Alfred W. McCoy with Cathleen B. Read and Leonard P. Adams II (http://www.drugtext.org/library/books/McCoy/) and The Politics of Heroin: CIA Complicity in the Global Drug Trade by Alfred W. McCoy (http://www.ftrbooks.net/conspiracy/cia/heroin_politics.htm)

Ah, dmgspycat, you are right on the money. Anybody who has studied the history of drug prohibition in the US can only come to the conclusion that the 'war on drugs' represents everything that anybody hates about governments.

With its racist roots, and total lack of learning about exactly what happens when a substance that people want to use is suddenly made illegal, the war on drugs is a case study on what NOT to do.

I am constantly amazed upon study of the events leading up to it by the propaganda employed in demonizing certain substances, while keeping a good old boy attitude concerning others (alcohol and tobacco for example).

Alcohol is an extremely dangerous drug that is tolerated because the 'powers that be' use it. The hypocrisy involved in some holier-than-thou idiot demonizing somebody who comes home from a long day at work and wants to smoke a joint, all the while this hypocrite sips his martini smugly just amazes me.

Where are we after 20 years of 'just say no'? Are we a better society? Do we treat each other with any more respect? Are pot smokers somehow less human than beer drinkers?

The war on drugs is a prime example of government gone wild.

There isn't nor has there ever been a war on drugs. A war on drugs could be easily won.

The first step in 'winning' the drug problem is legalizing Marijuana.

You'd think that such a simple fact would be apparent to everybody. Unfortunately, it is not.

Sad.

Ah yes, the recently dearly departed, 'suicided' Gary Webb. Ruffle the CIA feathers, you might suddenly 'suicide' yourself.

Alas, there is something we agrea on Joc...lol. Right on!

What is funny is that the war on drugs is SO moronic, so incredibly stupid, that even those who disagree on just about everything else can agree about it.

It is a simple fact - but who ever let that get in the way of a Gov't/CIA monopoly?
The Drug War means: we'll kill anyone who messes up our drug business, and lock up anyone who sells drugs we don't control.

To quote the Simpsons Mr. Burns:"What unmitigated evil shall the Republican Party undertake this week?"

First the reality is that making a drug illegal and enforcing that law will decrease the number of users. What do I base that on? Well several things. First of all a year after prohibition ended dui rates in many parts of the US doubled. Second states and countries that have legalized drugs have the highest usage rates any where in the world.


Given that should we continue to keep drugs illegal(for the record btw the begining of drug law in the US was in fact at the request of China which was trying to control the flow of opiates out of its borders and in fact the earliest laws were taxation not criminalization). Some drugs quite honestly belong squarely on the wrong side of the law. Specificly cocaine, crack, pcp and other drugs that have extremely detremental effects on users, and can make users prone to violence(Cocaine can foster extreme paranoia as can crack and I don't think I need to start in on PCP). On the other hand a lot of drugs that are illegal could easily be legalized with minimal detriment to the population. Marijuana is a perfect example. While its by no means 100% safe its not much more dangerous then alcohol or tobacco nor does it generaly make people more prone to violence(lets be honest it usualy does just the opposite in fact). Further given its relative popularity the goverment could make a decent chunk of cash by legalizing it and then putting heavy taxes on it like they do with cigarettes. Also I personally think that the ways we deal with drug users in this country are a waste of time and resources. If the govt insists on keeping drugs illegal they'd be better served treating addicts like any other criminal suffering from a mental illness. Offer them treatment rather then simply locking them up and at least some of the people involved will actually get better rather then returning to the same habits when they get out of jail. It obviously won't help every one but giving the ones who are willing to break there patterns a way of doing it is considerably more logical.

Saturday, 07-Sep-2002 8:17 PM

REFORMASI and the Royal Family (Part 5)

As previously mentioned, the Selangor Sultanate has its roots in the Bugis Empire. The Bugis, then, was a seafaring race active in barter trading. Selangor, which first was a vassal of Melaka, then Johor, was “no man’s land” - a sort of a Wild West where survival of the fittest was the order of the day. Selangor was a ripe candidate for whoever was strong enough to tame it and fend off the neighbouring “colonialists” empires.

It needed a “band of pirates” to play this role and who better than the Five Bugis Brothers - Daing Perani, Daing Menambun, Daing Merewah, Daing Chelak, and Daing Kemasi. Take note though, “pirates” was how the Western history books describe them. In the East, they are considered warriors just like how the English regard Sir Francis Drake or Sir Walter Raleigh whose full-time occupation was to plunder Spanish and French ships in the name of the Monarch of England.

The five brothers were the sons of Daing Rilaka, the ruler of Riau, one of the more powerful Indonesian kingdoms in that era after the Javanese. When the five brothers were driven into exile for killing a chieftain’s son in a quarrel over a woman, they decided to settle in Selangor and proclaim themselves the rulers.

Eventually, Daing Chelak’s son, Raja Lumu, became the First Sultan of Selangor and the Bugis abandoned their wayward ways and took up the noble occupation of opium trading. And I say this not tongue-in-cheek, for opium trading was a legitimate way to earn a living then. Even governments dealt in opium and they did so to finance their imperialist activities – though at the expense of the native population.

In the 18th century, the Dutch empire in Indonesia, like those of the other colonial powers in Asia, became closely linked with the expansion of the international opium trade. Indeed, opium may be called the fuel of empires, and the Bugis were very much active in this trade, sharing half the spoils the Dutch plundered from the British ships passing through the Straits of Melaka.

Control of the opium trade in this region gave the Dutch rulers of Batavia many advantages. First, trade in the drug supplied them with a ready source of cash. Secondly, the trade was a means by which the Dutch could secure a dominant role in the trade with China. Thirdly, the opium monopoly pioneered the organisation of the colonial administration. Drug profits financed the costs of trade and warfare in the 18th century and later financed the establishment of the colonial administration throughout Java and the other islands.

From the very beginning of European imperialism in Southeast Asia, opium had been seen as a source of profit for traders coming to the region from the West. Arab and Indian merchants, other than introducing Islam to this region, also introduced the drug to eastern Asia as early as the 8th century. It was widely used as a pain killer, cough suppressant and a cure for Diarrhea. In India and among the Malays, there are reports that it was used as a stimulant by soldiers before going into battle.

The Dutch and their Bugis “business partners”, however, must take the credit, or blame, for perfecting the opium trade in Asia. In the 1650s, the Dutch began to buy opium in Bengal, the region of India which soon became the most abundant supplier of opium to Southeast Asia and China. Dutch traders shipped elephants from Sumatra as well as Sri Lanka and the Malay Peninsula to Bengal in exchange for opium.

Java, the Malay states, Sumatra and other parts of Southeast Asia were markets for this opium. The first reports of opium smoking are also from Java. Thus, the Dutch taught Asia a new vice. Before this, opium had only been ingested. Now, people learned how to inhale it. And it was not long before the Chinese too learned how to smoke pure opium.

Opium had been transformed from a medicine, which was occasionally abused, to something quite different - a recreational drug or pleasure-seeking substance. By the 1660s, the habit appears to have spread to the Dutch outpost on Taiwan and, from there, to Fujian and the Chinese mainland.

Thomas Stamford Raffles, who later founded British Singapore, took control of Java from the Dutch in 1812 during the Napoleonic Wars. He then took over the Dutch monopoly of selling opium to the Javanese.

During the pre-industrial era, Europeans had very little to offer Asians in the way of goods to trade. Outside of firearms, there were few European products that Asians found interesting. The Dutch, and before them the Spanish and Portuguese, had come to Indonesia in search of spices and other tropical goods which Europe lacked. The same was true for European trade with China. The Europeans discovered that opium was an easy way to obtain trade commodities in Southeast Asia which had a market in China or the west.

Much of Sumatra's tin, pepper and gold, as well as Java's sugar, coffee and indigo were sold, not for silver or cloth, but for opium. If Europeans wished to trade in Asia, they had to pay cash, which, for them, was an unsatisfactory alternative. They found, however, that an addictive drug was a great substitute for cash.

At the beginning of the 19th century, the Dutch lost control of Java, first to the French under Daendels and then to the British under Raffles. Long before this, however, they had lost control of the opium trade, at its source in India, to the British. Opium, thus, provided leverage for British trade to dominate Asia in the 19th century. It was not just a quick way to pay for their purchases, but it also gave them a measure of control over all the commerce in Asia.

During the 19th century, the Dutch Indies expanded to what is now Indonesia. The Dutch still depended on the British, however, for opium. And, it was from the opium the Dutch sold to the Indies where the colonial government reaped its greatest profits.

So, there you have it, the Selangor Royal Family are the off-springs of fierce opium traders. Even wonder why it is not easy to tame the members of the Selangor Royal Family? And, ever wonder why it is the most Reformasi-minded of all the Royal Families?

In fact, one of the members of the Selangor Royal Family was in the SWAT team that arrested Anwar Ibrahim on the night of 20th September 1998. And the reason he was in that team was to ensure that there would be no hanky-panky and Anwar would be safely brought to the police headquarters with no “accidents” along the way.

But I don’t think I will be allowed to tell this story – at least not while the present government is still in office – or else I will be joining my five comrades in Kamunting.www.freeanwar.net/articles2002/article090902.htm

Ah, history. Gotta love it. opium is the petroleum of the east.

"They got war on the streets and war in the middle east/
Instead of a war on poverty/
they got a war on drugs/
so the police can bother me/
I aint never did a crime i aint have to do/
...And still i see no changes/"
-2Pac

Is it a sin for a poor man to steal a loaf of bread to feed his starving family?
Let's face the facts, 90% of the "drug dealers" are poor black males,only selling them because its the only way they can get ahead. If we all stand together, we can make these corrupt politicians STOP throwing the book at non violent drug offenders. I mean no offence to any race, creed or religion here, but why do %80 of rich people in this country get manditory rehad(a slap on the wrist), yet poor people get thrown in prison(for years) for the exact same non violent drug offence?

I agree, everything should be legalized.

no, its the easiest way to get ahead, not the only way

the drug problem is incredibly complex, i think to totally legalise everything (a position i used to hold) would create just as many problems as it would solve. I think, the best way to deal with it would be to legalise some forms of drugs, and to stop prosecuting users and targetting dealers etc with far harsher sentences.

I agree. The issue is too complex to simply legalize everything. To me not filling our prisons with casual drug users who haven't committed additional crimes would be a good start. Legalize some and lessen the penalties for others.

Also, a great testament to just how irrational the government can be concerning drugs is they pass up a perfect opportunity to tax the hell out of Marijuana like they do cigarettes, yet still persist in demonizing it.

When else does the government pass up such an opportunity to tax something?

Actually, it is taxed. Even illegal commerce is taxed. If you're arrested as a drug dealer, you can be prosecuted for having unreported income, just as Al Capone was. The government can tax that which it also forbids.

Several states actually have forms for dealers to fill out and tax stamps that drug dealers are supposed to affix to packages of drugs that they sell. There are even different rates established for different types and quantities of drugs. Reporting the sale of drugs for tax purposes this way cannot be used to prosecute you, because that would be self-incrimination(forbidden by the 5th amendment.)

Check this out:

http://www.ksrevenue.org/perstaxtypesdrug.htm

Interesting. I didn't know that. Thanks for the link.

I still think a sales tax would be a much more reliable source of income for them. I would imagine not many drug dealers pay their taxes.

You are right, it is taxed... that is if they catch/find out about it. The other 98% is not taxed. Let's imagine a drug dealer did pay his taxes on the drugs he/she has sold, The person or persons in question would be so heavily watched it isnt funny. Therein the drug dealer would eventually get raided/busted, so logicly speaking, no drugs are ever taxed...

I agree..