The War on Drugs

First of all there is no war on drugs -- there is a drug war. Second of all the U.S. is not trying to stop the production and traffic in cocaine and heroin -- it's simply trying to maintain control of the racket. This should be obvious to anyone who read Juan Forero's excellent report on the front page of Saturday's New York Times. Naturally you had to read the entire article to get the entire picture but it's something like this. The U.S. has spent the past six years and $ 4.7 billion supposedly trying to eradicate cocaine production and trafficking in Colombia. However production and price have remained pretty much the same as they were before Clinton launched the program (yes -- this is a Clinton program). And, the reporter mentions at the very end of the piece, the effort has had the effect of furnishing the control of the drug trafficking routes to the right-wing paramilitary commanders instead of the left-wing insurgents. Is it just me or is this just so obviously a racket that you just want to go fucking nuts? Basically the U.S. sent the military into Colombia to wipe out the traffic in blow only they didn't wipe it out -- they just shook down the competition. Now you've got the degenerate children of the U.S. and international bourgeoisie living it up in the night clubs of Los Angeles and New York City run run running to the yayo while U.S. prisons fill up with Black and Latino men who got pinched for allegedly hustling relatively tiny quantities of dope while the U.S. military is maintaining a Civil War in Colombia to keep that coke money flowing. Because it is all about the money. Every year between $ 500 billion and one trillion dollars of drug money is laundered through U.S. banks and companies [see US Senate, (1999); Minority Staff Report for Permanent Sub committee on Investigations, US Senate Committee on Government Affairs, November 9, 1999 and US Senate, (2001); Minority Staff Report for Permanent Sub committee on Investigations on Correspondent Banking: A Gateway for Money Laundering, Senate Committee on Government Affairs, February 5, 2001]. It is this continuous flow of cash money that has kept the U.S. stock market strong despite the dwindling competitiveness of U.S. companies in the world market. Nothing helps financial liquidity like an annual influx of several hundred billion dollars in cash. The leftist insurgents (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia) plan to decriminalize the production of coca once in power. Legal proceeds don't need laundering. So Uncle Sam's got to move against them.