Monday, September 14, 2009

This is a neocon on drugs. Any questions?

A friend to this blog has (in a comment appended to the post below) directed my attention to this article, written by the notorious arch-neoconservative Michael Ledeen. Ledeen, among many other unsettling things, was one of leading voices in favor of the Iraq misadventure, although he later denied saying what he said. He also strongly implied that any mistakes made by Dubya in Iraq should be blamed on his female advisers. (And let's not even talk about the P2 thing.)

In his latest volcano of wisdom, Michael Ledeen offers his unusual view of the narcotics trade. Here is Ledeen on drugs:
There is a mounting body of evidence of a global alliance directed against the United States, running from Moscow to Tehran, Damascus and Caracas. United by hatred of America, funded by oil and narcotics revenues (including our own), and unanimous in their contempt for free societies, the leaders of Russia, Iran, Syria, Venezuela, Nicaragua, Cuba and Bolivia publicly declare their intentions and demonstrate their resolve.
Secretive flights from Tehran to Damascus and thence to Caracas arrive at a special area in the central airport, where men disembark, are not checked by immigration authorities, and are given Venezuelan passports. Containers are unloaded and do not pass through customs. Similar secrecy attends the return flights. Neighboring countries believe that many of the men are officials of Hezbollah, who then fan out across the region (and perhaps across our southern border) to recruit foot soldiers for their expanding terror bases, and we know, thanks to a paramilitary operation by the Colombians at the beginning of the summer, that Chavez’ regime provided Swedish anti-tank missiles to the Colombian terrorist group FARC. We also know, thanks to years of hard work by the DEA and South American partners, that Venezuela is a major transshipment port for cocaine and other narcotics. The drugs are sent to Africa, and then to Europe, and finally into the United States.
Right now, your head must be spinning so fast you could be trying out for the lead in the next Exorcist movie. Ledeen has proposed an insanely circuitous route for the transport of illegal drugs to the United States, a route that bears little resemblance to any I've heard previously described.

Let's see if I have this right: From the poppy growers of Afghanistan -- where our warlord allies have vastly increased heroin production ever since we showed up to run the place -- all of the stuff goes first to Tehran, where the government runs the worldwide narcotics trade -- even though Iran is a country hated by both the Afghans and the Americans. Of course, Iran just happens to be a place that Ledeen has long wanted to see toppled. (Israel, by pure coincidence, wants the same thing.)

Now, you'd think that the American occupiers of Afghanistan might be in a position to impede this massive traffic across the Iranian border -- but such, it would seem, is not the case.

The H then go Damascus, Syria, which does not border Iran; Iraq is in the way. (In other words, the H has to cross territory occupied by Americans. Ledeen doesn't tell you that part.) Syria just happens to be another country disliked by Ledeen, the neo-cons and Israel.

From Syria, the stuff (even the stuff intended for Europe) goes first to Venezuela -- always, always Venezeula -- another nation where the neocons want to see regime change.

From there, the shit all goes to Africa. Ledeen does not tell us exactly where in Africa. Maybe we should simply take over the entire continent, just to be on the safe side.

Finally, from Africa, the H goes to Europe and/or the United States. And Russia is also heavily involved. Ledeen does not really explain how.

All of the foregoing reminds me of the guy who re-traced the route of Phineas Fogg just to return his neighbor's hedge trimmer.

You may have noticed a story from earlier this year which undercuts Ledeen's theory. The UN has highly praised Iran for its staunch efforts to stop the blow of H from Afghanistan into Iran. See, for example, here:
More than 3,600 Iranians have been killed in gun battles with smugglers in the last 25 years and every year thousands of kilograms of heroin, opium and hashish stream through these porous mountain passes.
Keeping the smugglers out of Iran is an expensive business and the Iranian government is finding it hard to bear the financial burden. At a press conference with Antoinio Maria Costa, the governor of Sistan-Baluchistan requested more help from Europe.
A story of this sort might give naive people the impression that Iran wants international help in its fight against the drug trade. But wait -- how can this be? According to Michael Ledeen, Iran is secretly running that trade.

Ledeen's article hints at an explanation for this seeming discrepancy. Iran received praise from the UN, and the UN is, as the John Birchers always warned, thoroughly eeeee-vil. So evil, in fact, that Barack Obama should be condemned for "embracing" it. Or so sayeth Ledeen.

Now, I'm a Barry-basher from way back, but I can't help becoming much more sympathetic to our hapless prez when a bloody neocon like Michael Ledeen starts to screech his screwball anti-O conspiracy theories. Ledeen does not criticize Obama (as I do) for his refusal to nationalize the too-big-to-fail banks, for his snubbing of single-payer health insurance, or for his Dubya-esque policies on spying. No, Ledeen seems to have no problem with any of that. Ledeen's critique has a very different foundation: Obama is a traitor because he has not (yet?) called for war with Iran.
We know that Obama does not particularly like America, but failing to respond to a threat of these dimensions, not to mention actively helping our enemies, is grave indeed.
You know the old saying "the enemy of my enemy is my friend"? Well, screw that. The neocons who gave us Iraq are going after Obama big time. Just because I don't like our foolish president doesn't mean I'm going to ally myself with the bloodthirsty creeps who, under Cheney and Bush, brought this nation to near-ruin.

One last word about Michael Ledeen. He is an unapologetic admirer of Machiavelli. And Machievelli was an unapologetic advocate of telling lies for "higher" political purposes. Mike, if you want the public to trust you, here's a clue: Ixnay on the Achievelli-May. Capice?

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

It's a great idea to publish everything that seems to make some sense regarding the World Wide Drug system, however I do know about some of this and would caution everyone to not decide what is happening until later. Right now there is a lot of confusion regarding trying to surface the truth. Regarding what I know, please remember my earlier posts about the family I was in for more than 26 years, they were directly involved in laundering drug money into property using big banks and in the 90's started a company that air distributed Drugs and Black Market Nuclear materials world wide and CIA Rendition FLights. Also remember that they often bragged about being CIA Assets and that nothing would ever prosecute them even if it involved murder. Clyde O'Connor is my ex-sister-in-law's brother and her husband is my ex-wife's brother and silent money man partner to Clyde.

Meet the family:
Mexico drug plane used for US 'rendition' flights: report -- Sep 4, 2008 http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5j6QonBKKMo2gw1e3ql-xUcQEZbVg

The World Wide Drug system along with Oil are the two primary products sought after. The Illinois area alone back in the 90's was receiving a weekly shipment of $100million. The family were directly involved in laundering money with those involved since the later 70's when they started. As I know, back then it was mainly CIA operations that they were laundering for. They were also involved in Iran/Contra in the mid 80's but weren't ever Indicted as many were able to get away scott free. Believe me when I tell you they were terrified of being arrested. All of us in the family including myself were under strict orders not to mingle with anyone and if anyone asks any questions we were to report them to the family leaders. They were totally paranoid at that time. Realize that my ex-brother-in-law drives a bullet proof car! He was to have paid almost $200K for it and he's a property developer! Building homes can be a real dangerous venture I guess.

A worthwild concern to think about is to realize that the goal from the sale of drugs is to support a White House Coup. But I do know that a larger goal ultimately is for World Wide Control. It may help if everyone starts looking at this from the top down rather than the bottom up.... Final plans for the White House Coup started with 911 as a kick off point. I do know they had been preparing for this for decades. I learned about 911 in 1996 from the family and other details. But with reading Joe's blog, I'm sure he will have something to say about this, but Joe wasn't in the family I was in for 26 years either!

Just give it some time and the real truth will surface for all of us to see. What exists right now to me doesn't seem correct.

Marty Didier
Northbrook, IL

Anne said...

It's long been my contention we went to war in Afghanistan in part to restart the poppy growing.
Having it stopped was intolerable. If we, the public ,just think of counties as mob families, it makes it easier to figure out WTF.

Anonymous said...

Review the Reagan administration's propaganda concerning the Sandinistas and cocaine.

While the administration was allowing a secure importation channel of massive amounts of cocaine through the Somacistas Meneses and Blandon, which turned into the crack epidemic via Rick 'Freeway' Barnes and his entrepeneurial use of the Crips and the Bloods for street distribution, Ollie North was trying to use Barriman Seal to set up a photo op 'proving' the Sandinistas were the ones plying the cocaine trade.

While, of course, using both Noreiga and the military junta in Haiti for secure transhipment points.

Dirty business, and then the lies are automatic, since the truth is so damning.

XI

Bob's Urunkle said...

That's "Freeway" Ricky Ross, the Ray Kroc of Crack (he also invented the franchised crack house). Anyway, Ledeen knows about coke and Persians, I'm sure he and Ollie got to try some of the goods with Ghorbanifar when working out the shipment of TOW anti-tank missiles... but Ledeen's probably confused over who's stash it was and thinks it must have come from the Evil Empire (pt 3)