US Drug War or Curacao Contact? DEA Agents, Framing Venezuela, Dirty Honduran Military Officers and

US Drug War or Curacao Contact? DEA Agents, Framing Venezuela, Dirty Honduran Military Officers and Assassination of Honduras’ Drug Czar

http://hondurasoye.wordpress.com/2010/01/10/us-drug-war-or-curacao-contact-dea-agents-framing-venezuela-dirty-honduran-military-officers-and-assassination-of-honduras-drug-czar/

"Once again...".

"Empty praise...".

"So-called 'effectiveness'...".

You have strong opinions about it. Please explain. Where have you read "empty praise" of Venezuela's drug interdictions before? Why do you think it's "empty praise"? What information do you have that Venezuela's drug interdictions are not effective? Compared to what?

I am not terribly impressed with this article because it doesn't provide sources. I am inclined to believe that the U.S. "war on drugs" became extremely corrupt during the Bush Junta. They corrupted everything they touched. They also used everything for war propaganda and looting purposes. And this is not the first writer, by any means, who has said that the DEA is corrupt and that the "war on drugs" is actually a protection racket. You have only to look at the carnage that the Colombian military and its closely died death squads have created--murdering thousands of union leaders, teachers, human rights workers, community organizers, journalists, peasant farmers and others, and displacing millions of peasant farmers with death squads, intimidation and toxic pesticide spraying--to know that the $6 BILLION of U.S taxpayer dollars larded on Colombian is being grossly misused. I am also inclined to believe Evo Morales and Hugo Chavez on this subject. Morales specifically accused the DEA of colluding with rightwing extremists in fomenting a coup against the elected government (the white separatists riots and murders of Sept. 2008). He threw the U.S. ambassador and the DEA out of Bolivia because of it. Bolivia lost considerable U.S. aid in the Bushites' retaliation. I don't think Morales would have taken this action if he didn't have good cause.

I am inclined to believe the allegations in this article, but they are not well sourced--or rather they are not sourced at all. It's difficult to judge them. If you know something about this, please speak up and provide it.

It doesn't matter if you exclusively praise the interdiction efforts of a lefty like Chávez and slam everyone else from the completely opposite ideological and political spectrum, it's all still part of a fruitless endeavor that can't possibly work. It's not working anywhere else in the world.

Drugs still flow, people still buy them and get high. And no state should pretend it's going to repress lords and dealers out of the business nor addicts and junkies out of their addiction. That's a simple fact and one in need of acceptance by the powers that be.

The problem isn't how many tons of drugs are being interdicted, but how many are passing through. If it's still physically possible for the business to work and people still want to get drugs, you can't possibly stop that by force no matter how "efficient" you claim to be. If anything, repression only increases the opportunities for corruption and for violence as a reaction, even in Venezuela.

I'm hardly the first person to argue that the drug war is inherently flawed, as a concept, not because of the real or alleged conspiracy theories involved, but for the same exact reasons Prohibition didn't work. You could magically clean up the corruption in the DEA, which I haven't even tried to question though I would ostensibly criticize the one-sided caricature that turns everyone in that agency (or in Colombia for that matter) into a band of mustache-twirling villains, and it would make little difference.

You could put a left-winger in charge of Colombia after a revolutionary victory and create a Guevara-like paredon to "clean up" anyone who even slightly smells of "fascist" or "oligarch" (which would be a truly wonderful sight, don't you think? After all, it would just be an extrapolation of the kinds of things FARC does on a much smaller scale today, unless you will never possibly acknowledge that the only ones with sickening amounts of blood on their hands aren't the Colombian military and the paramilitaries) but if all you're going to do is keep busting drug lords and interdicting shipments, it would be just as tragicomic as what's going on now.

Tell me, is Chávez doing anything other than continuing these flawed anti-drug policies while waving the Venezuelan flag?

I would say that alternative measures, such as total or near-total legalization and decriminalization in those very few countries that have actually attempted to implement them, are if not more effective then at least a far lesser evil than just continuing the status quo of an endless war on human desire or even against the laws of supply and demand.

There are other areas where I can -and will continue to- disagree with you to a greater or lesser extent, but I'll stop here.

It is indeed comparable to Prohibition--but far worse--a total waste and misuse of trillions of dollars, if you add up all the costs, all the military and police agencies and prosecutors and judges and prisons involved. It is nuts.

It is also extremely corrosive of society, with the development of a fascist, militaristic culture of "us vs them" in police and military forces and the constant destruction of peoples' lives through imprisonment.

Legalization would completely eliminate the cost of enforcement, including the vast social costs, would immediately eliminate the criminal networks and--experience has shown--would also reduce use and addiction.

However, I think we have to realize how much this insanity from the U.S. government infects other countries, poisons what should be open political discussion and makes change very difficult. When Morales threw the DEA and the "war on drugs" out of Bolivia, and they legalized the coca leaf--in the constitution!--the U.S. immediately began to demonize Morales. He had taken away one of the boxcars on the U.S. "war on drugs" gravy train! They also hate him, of course, because he's a socialist and a close ally of Chavez. And I think this is where the defensiveness comes from, of Bolivian and Venezuelan authorities saying, "Yes, we DO interdict dangerous drugs and bust drug crime rings!" And they do. But I agree with your point--they shouldn't. They should legalize it all, let adults make their own decisions about drug use, and--as these two leaders do--try to create societies where people have hope, opportunity, creative work, decent living conditions, a say in their government, and strong, supportive communities.

Whether it is prohibiting alcohol, drugs, or sex, it is doomed to fail.