Bali drugs: Death sentence for Briton Lindsay Sandiford
Source: BBC News
A 56-year-old British grandmother has been sentenced to death in Indonesia for drug trafficking.
Lindsay Sandiford was arrested in May last year after Bali police, carrying out a routine customs check, found 4.8kg (10.6lb) of cocaine in the lining of her suitcase.
Sandiford, whose last UK address was in Gloucestershire, said she was coerced into bringing the drugs to the island.
Her lawyers said they were "surprised" at the verdict and would appeal.
Read more: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-21137649
Piazza Riforma
(94 posts)is a hard habit to break.
quadrature
(2,049 posts)traffic again.
Piazza Riforma
(94 posts)so I don't share in your admiration for Indonesia's primitive response to the drug problem.
dotymed
(5,610 posts)no problems....
I don't get your point. Are you saying that diplomats or CIA agents are typically drug smugglers, but have the privilege of immunity by their station in life, so she is being treated unfairly because she lacks privilege?
Art_from_Ark
(27,247 posts)The worst they can usually expect if they commit a crime in their host country is expulsion.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diplomatic_immunity
marble falls
(57,271 posts)JustABozoOnThisBus
(23,369 posts)close to zero.
karynnj
(59,504 posts)in countries where there are tensions between the host and the diplomats. That immunity has been misused at points like when the US has protected non diplomats (example CIA) by labeling them diplomats.
I can't remember many scandals where diplomats were stopped with large amounts of drugs.
Art_from_Ark
(27,247 posts)like average Joes and Janes are.
karynnj
(59,504 posts)to themselves and their country to carry drugs.
The CIA's drug smuggling operations are very well documented. Also, diplomatic courier pouches are not searched. Cocaine (not crack) is pretty much a drug of the affluent. It would not be much of a stretch to imagine that cocaine is brought into America through either of these entities. Our diplomats regularly bring liquor into Islamic countries, where it is illegal. I guess "being treated unfairly" depends on your outlook. I just do not agree with the two sets of laws in our country and in the world.
"W" bragged about using cocaine in the WH while his "daddy" was president.
cali
(114,904 posts)Pretty fucking stupid.
marble falls
(57,271 posts)teabagging teapublican teabilly.
Tom Ripley
(4,945 posts)marble falls
(57,271 posts)Tom Ripley
(4,945 posts)questionable history. There is ample documentation of the blood and dirt on their hands.
marble falls
(57,271 posts)rogue operators? You bet. Edwin Wilson comes to mind. But the CIA as an organization has always been an implement of policy and answerable to Congress and the President. They do as they are asked. Who was wrong in Viet Nam? The military or the Presidents it served at the pleasure of? One might point out the well documented warnings of the CIA that W ignored about a coming Sept 11 or that the CIA ran black site prisons as ordered by the President. The President did not find out like the rest of us, he authored and authorized it. And the CIA did not endorse 'enhanced' interrogations like water boarding.
toby jo
(1,269 posts)The CIA is up to their eyeballs in drug dealing, another bunch of scumbags.
Your wife aside, sir?
Black ops produce some of the most disgusting actions men commit - they've got the eagle smelling like shit. It takes a certain 'ego', & we've got em.
marble falls
(57,271 posts)and uncivil behaviors. What do you know of what the CIA has done or not done in service of every single administration that had the CIA? How do you assume who in the CIA did what to whom? What makes you think that the CIA has done more bad than good? Do you think the CIA operates as an autonomous entity with no oversight from anybody? The CIA has the same constraints and oversights as the State Dept, being over seen by Congress and the President. My wife has service to this country the equal of any serviceman with very little of the benefits. As a Viet vet, I believe my opinion has a bit of standing. And I think I might have a little more insight on the topic of the CIA than you may.
Nothing personal, just saying. Have a wonderful life. G*d bless the President, G*d bless the nation, G*d bless all of us.
DisgustipatedinCA
(12,530 posts)But since you brought it up, be aware: your wife works for an organization that has murdered people since its inception and has overthrown democratically elected governments since its inception. Please don't attempt to use the "I have inside information" line regarding the CIA, unless you're ready to spill the beans and watch your wife face some serious trouble. That means you're just like the rest of us, and you only know what's publicly knowable about the CIA. And what's publicly knowable about the CIA is pretty bad. They're murderous fucks.
marble falls
(57,271 posts)woefully uneducated charges. You don't know a thing about the CIA, so get educated before you further expose your ignorance or at least try to substantiate your charges. ALL CIA employees are murderous fucks? Substantiate that little nugget. I don't think you can. I stand by my words. You stand on your ignorance of the facts.
dotymed
(5,610 posts)must be a "teabagging teabilly" too...
It must be hard to know so much and have to read these uneducated, common folks, ignorant nuggets
Response to marble falls (Reply #18)
Post removed
marble falls
(57,271 posts)the President gave it its mission. Reagan is the man you need to be mope slapping. By the way - who's responsible for drone attacks? The President or the CIA?
dotymed
(5,610 posts)maybe you should read: CONFESSIONS OF AN ECONOMIC HIT MAN, by John Perkins. You may possibly consider a different viewpoint...maybe not...
marble falls
(57,271 posts)Controversy and criticism
Columnist Sebastian Mallaby of the Washington Post reacted sharply to Perkins' book[3]: "This man is a frothing conspiracy theorist, a vainglorious peddler of nonsense, and yet his book, Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, is a runaway bestseller." Mallaby, who spent 13 years writing for the London Economist and wrote a critically well-received biography of World Bank chief James Wolfensohn,[4] holds that Perkins' conception of international finance is "largely a dream" and that his "basic contentions are flat wrong."[3] For instance he points out that Indonesia reduced its infant mortality and illiteracy rates by two-thirds after economists persuaded its leaders to borrow money in 1970. He also disputes Perkins' claim that 51 of the top 100 world economies belong to companies. A value-added comparison done by the UN, he says, shows the number to be 29. (The 51 of 100 data comes from an Institute for Policy Studies Dec 2000 Report on the Top 200 corporations; using 2010 data from the CIA's World Factbook and Fortune Global 500[5][6] the current ratio is 114 corporations in the top 200 global economies.)
Other sources, including articles in the New York Times and Boston Magazine as well as a press release issued by the United States Department of State, have referred to a lack of documentary or testimonial evidence to corroborate the claim that the NSA was involved in his hiring to Chas T. Main. In addition, the author of the State Department release states that the NSA "is a cryptological (codemaking and codebreaking) organization, not an economic organization" and that its missions do not involve "anything remotely resembling placing economists at private companies in order to increase the debt of foreign countries."[7] Economic historian Niall Ferguson writes in his book The Ascent of Money that Perkins's contention that the leaders of Ecuador (President Jaime Roldós Aguilera) and Panama (General Omar Torrijos) were assassinated by US agents for opposing the interests of the owners of their countries' foreign debt "seems a little odd" in light of the fact that in the 1970s the amount of money that the US had lent to Ecuador and Panama accounted for less than 0.4% of the total US grants and loans, while in 1990 the exports from the US to those countries accounted for approximately 0.4% of the total US exports (approximately $8 billion). According to Ferguson, those "do not seem like figures worth killing for."[8]
The World Bank has certainly loaded 3rd world country with disastrous debt that has destabilized these countries to large part. I argue that these were unintended consequences that were exploited by private equity firms and commodities speculators and not the planned strategies of the NSA, let alone the CIA. And it they had been planned, the President and Congress would have authored it.
muriel_volestrangler
(101,368 posts)Wow. Where did you pick up that far right wing view? What other non-violent offences do you think we should kill people for?
You do remember you're posting on a liberal site, don't you?
dotymed
(5,610 posts)I have often been called a socialist but this is the first time I have been referred to as a "teabagging teabilly."
Have a great day....
marble falls
(57,271 posts)some real evidence of your claim, like main stream media or maybe a court case.
Comrade Grumpy
(13,184 posts)You could start with Alfred McCoy's "The Politics of Heroin in Southeast Asia" on the CIA's role in transporting opium for its hill tribe allies during the Vietnam War.
You could also look at Sen. Kerry's hearings for the role the CIA played in Iran-Contra drug smuggling.
And then there was the CIA alliance with French intelligence and the Marseille mob to break the back of Communist unions in the port city. This was the French Connection.
This stuff is not conspiracy theory, or even particularly controversial. And it makes sense in a way. Both intelligence agencies and illegal drug trafficking organizations are amoral, clandestine operations.
marble falls
(57,271 posts)Comrade Grumpy
(13,184 posts)It even goes back before the CIA even existed. During World War II, the OSS sprung mobster Lucky Luciano from prison to go to Sicily and enlist the mob on the side of the Allies. Yeah, they were trafficking heroin. That was the root of the alliance that later morphed into the French Connection.
I mentioned McCoy's book above. It's considered the seminal work on the topic.
Now, your wife, I'm sure, is a nice lady. I bet she worked as an analyst, not a spook. I don't have a problem with intelligence collection and analysis; it's the whole subversion and secret armies thang that bothers me about the CIA.
marble falls
(57,271 posts)is he reached out to the gov't explaining that he had control of the ports and docks and was in a good position to not only watch for saboteurs but also the muscle required to do something about it and he also had some influence on Mafia partisans in Italy that could help deal with extremely tough German defense. And he was deported. A good deal, I'd say.
Situations may cause some questionable allies. I think WWII qualifies a situation that called for the unique abilities of some questionable sorts - Mao, Stalin, the Shah's father comes to mind. And some of these other sorts had access to Heroin and the marketing of it. But I also don't think the OSS or CIA had any much to do with it other than say in Afghanistan we overlooked the Northern Alliance funding itself with opium. We overlook Karzai's drug dealing brother, right now. Is that the CIA? Or is that the official policy at least defacto policy of the US. CIA is not a policy organization. It is not autonomous. It is an instrument of the gov't. It doesn't set policy, it is an instrument of policy.
My wife is a nice lady. I like her lots. But CIA subverts nothing it isn't ordered to subvert. And a lot of the secret armies are made up of active duty personnel.
Frankly the mercenary armies we call "contractors" bother me a lot more. Why is it I wonder after Congress went through Iran/Contra and people were put in jail and disgraced, what they only reported for financing was selling missile parts to Iran to raise money for the Contras. $10M was raised in what I believe was one of the few instances where the US sold arms at a profit for itself. To put that $10M into perspective, the British, the French and the Russians sold $1.5 billion in arms at the same time. We won't discuss the assassinations the Sandanistas committed while coming into power or the fact that when the Sananistas allowed free elections, they were voted out. Thats not suppositions, that's facts.
When dealing with a lot of the accusations made against Langley, I try to apply Ocham's razor. Blaming the CIA for drug use or availability of drugs in the US as a reality or the result of rogue operations to fund other operations just as rogue just doesn't make the cut.
Auzziegob
(6 posts)Why did these blokes target her son and make her try to smuggle the dope