Drugs and the dogs of war
Research shows militants have long used the drug trade to finance their battles
Jim Sanders

It has been estimated that drugs are the third biggest global commodity after petroleum and weapons. Together, oil, guns and drugs are the economic pillars of globalization.

The United Nations estimates that the annual global turnover of narcotics is in the range of $500 billion US, much of which is laundered through offshore banks and then invested in businesses and governments worldwide. It is even said the global economy would collapse if the drug trade ceased.

It is within the fortune-making machine of war that the drug trade finds common ground with the oil and arms industries. War is a dirty business, often driven by covert operations and human-rights abuses. In war, criminal networks and drug traffickers and their smuggling routes become valuable assets to be managed and utilized for strategic gains.

Not only does the drug trade facilitate intelligence gathering, it is also a means for covert operatives and revolutionaries to fund themselves beyond the gaze of politicians and the public.

These practices were highlighted for the public in the 1980s by the Iran-Contra Affair. In U.S. government hearings, it was discovered that in order to circumvent Congress’ concerns about human-rights abuses, American agencies traded arms with Iran, an avowed enemy.

Similarly, 1998 internal investigations into CIA involvement in cocaine trafficking in Central and South America revealed that the U.S. agency had turned a blind eye to the fact that drug trafficking was being used by Nicaraguan contras to fund the guerrilla war being fought against the revolutionary government of the mid-1980s.

The conclusion that can be drawn is that the modern cocaine epidemic that continues to ravage many North American cities, including Winnipeg, was in part perpetuated by the CIA and the American government.

Things have only gotten worse. The dark alliance of globalization has reached new heights in the war-plagued country of Afghanistan, a country NATO forces supposedly invaded in order to spread democracy. Six years later, the only thing spreading is the Afghan heroin industry, which has more than doubled in size since the U.S.-led invasion.

It isn’t often that we hear about the history of the heroin trade in Afghanistan. That’s because it was originally used as a means to support Osama bin Laden’s guerrilla war against the Soviets. University of Ottawa Prof. Michel Chossudovsky, in an essay titled The CIA, Heroin, & Who Is Ousmane Bin Laden?, stated “CIA assets again controlled this heroin trade,” meaning Bin Laden is really a former intelligence asset with ties to the drug trade in The Golden Crescent.

It should also be of no surprise that the new president of Afghanistan is a former executive of the American oil company Unocal.

What I have touched on here is but the tip of the iceberg. No doubt many sordid tales of governments being linked to the drug trade have yet to be uncovered.

For instance, why was a Lear jet with 43 pounds of heroin discovered at an airport in Florida in 2000 — an airport that three weeks later hosted the flight training of two of the 9/11 hijackers?

In 2006, why was a DC-9 painted to look like a U.S. Homeland Security plane discovered in Mexico with 5.5 tons of cocaine on board?

Something tells me we might start looking for answers by asking the CIA about these two planes.

Check out these two websites for in-depth research into this subject: www.globalresearch.ca and www.madcowprod.com.

Jim Sanders is a local documentary filmmaker and co-founder of Dada World Data Productions.