Deadlier Than Irene (Oliver North)

Creators Syndicate ^ | September 2, 2011 | Oliver North

[jazusamo]

WASHINGTON — Some have described Hurricane Irene as "the most over-hyped event in history." Americans in the Northeast who were flooded out of their homes and businesses and those without electricity, fuel or water don't agree. But a U.S. official I spoke with this week told me, "The next storm coming from down south is already deadlier than Irene, and nobody is paying attention." My source wants to remain anonymous because he is not authorized to talk about these matters with the media. He doesn't work for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the Federal Emergency Management Agency or the National Weather Service — and he isn't talking about Hurricane Katia, now approaching the U.S. mainland from the Atlantic Ocean. He works for the Drug Enforcement Administration, and he says, "Our government has helped to create the 'perfect deadly storm.'" Sadly, his forecast is likelier to be right than anything from our weather guessers. According to The Associated Press, Hurricane Irene claimed more than 40 lives and caused an estimated $7 billion in damage. That's just a fraction of the number of American lives already lost this year to overdoses on illicit substances and in drug-related violence. Estimates of the financial costs associated with illegal drugs — criminal activity, lost productivity, medical treatment, rehabilitation and incarceration for those convicted — are more than $215 billion per year. According to my source, "that's nothing compared to what's coming. It's about to get a whole lot worse." The facts bear out his dire prediction. In the 1980s, Nancy Reagan was famous for telling kids, "Just say no to drugs." Today's first lady is on an anti-fast food campaign. In the 1990s, the Clinton administration increased funding for the DEA and started Plan Colombia to deal with the tons of cocaine coming into the U.S. The Obama administration has reduced funding for both. As president, George W. Bush enforced a zero-tolerance policy for federal workers using illicit drugs. Now the White House and Justice Department refuse to enforce federal narcotics laws against those with a "prescription" for medical marijuana or for "user amounts" of drugs in the possession of criminals. And now Americans' insatiable appetite for mind-altering chemicals, psychotropic substances and hallucinogenic vegetation is threatening the stability of entire nations. Illicit drug trafficking and human trafficking across our southern border have reached unprecedented levels. Violent criminal gangs directly connected to Mexican drug and extortion cartels kill and maim nearly 1,000 Mexican citizens every month — a level of violence well beyond that experienced in Iraq or Afghanistan. The carnage is wrecking any hope for normal life or economic activity in Mexican society and prompting a new flood of desperate "refugees" across our border. Last week, members of the vicious Los Zetas cartel firebombed a casino in Monterrey, Mexico's second-largest city. The attack incinerated 52 people inside the building. Mexican counter-narcotics officials say the attack was intended to "scare the casino's owners into making payments for protection." This week, more than 130 schools in Acapulco did not open because teachers have been threatened with "execution" by drug gangs if they show up at school without paying the cartelistas 50 percent of their salaries for protection. But it's not just Mexico. Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, El Salvador and Costa Rica in Central America are now under siege, as well. All of these countries are enduring a dramatic spike in violent crime — particularly unsolved homicides and kidnappings — and, of course, government corruption. In Honduras, the Sinaloa cartel perpetrates gruesome "extortion murders" to impress upon reluctant farmers and businessmen the "necessity of paying their protection tax." Chuck Holton, my friend and fearless cameraman who has accompanied me on multiple trips to cover our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, has just returned from Guatemala, the scene of grisly violence against farmers who refuse to plant the "specialty crops" demanded by gun-wielding drug dealers. Holton said: "The Guatemalan government is struggling to mount a response against the infiltration of hyper-violent Mexican cartels that have moved into the northern reaches of the country, where they cultivate marijuana for export to the U.S. Often the drugs are shipped in Agency for International Development grain sacks in a truly surreal form of recycling." The Obama administration, so proud of its "contingency planning" for Hurricane Irene, appears blind to the growing "drug storm" already overwhelming our southern neighbors. The U.S. Justice Department, paralyzed by allegations of complicity in allowing thousands of firearms to be "gunwalked" into Mexico, is busy trying to deflect blame for an "operation" gone terribly wrong. We can only hope that the O-Team looks south to the darkness on the horizon.

[jazusamo]

OLIVER NORTH PING!

Please Freepmail me to be added to the Ollie North ping list.

[Morpheus2009]

Unless we address government spending, our nation, economy, and employment of many citizens will literally decay, if it hasn’t happened already. Trust me, the worst storm we could ever see coming is if we major riots breaking out in our major cities similar to Greece, Britain, and so on. It sometimes seems unlikely, but it’s not impossible.

[Mariner]

It's a great argument for legalization.

It's not like demand will be suppressed in any way by government action. All they are doing is driving up the price and creating armies...on both sides of the legal divide.

Neither of these armies are good for us or liberty.

[jazusamo]

It’s not only not impossible but probable. Look at the support for illegals movement and talk of a revolution and armed conflict. Also look at several members of the Congressional Black Caucus stirring up the race card. The worse the economy gets the more likely it will come about.

[Lurker]

Well said.

[TSgt]

It's a great argument for legalization.

Yeah because legalizing drugs will solve all our problems! Hell, legalize child porn while you are at it! Sex with goats, etc...

[robowombat]

An indication of how much parts of the intelligence/security apparatus of the US government fears what is coming is that the CIA appears to be complicit in Gunwalker in order to provide firepower for the Gulf or the Sinaloa Cartel against the Zetas. Why? Because the fear is the Zetas are on the way to both placing their candidate in the presidency of Mexico and to defeating the other drug traffickers. So what? Because the Zetas leadership embraces a philosophy that goes beyond just greed and power worship of the crudest sort. Instead they see an opportunity to create a sort of sub rosa Zeta-Atzlan empire stretching from Central America to the US Southwest and California. They are lrwady establishing working relationships with Hezbollah and other Islamist groups. Their goal is a sort of virulently racist and anti-American regime linked to other such groups in he Arab world and, this is an irony they love, fueled by the huge amounts of cash from Americans insatiable,e appetite for narcotics. Five years ago I predicted on this site that the continuing illegals invasion would lead in time to Mexicanizing much of the border SW. It has turned out to be much worse. The illegal invasion became the Trojan Horse for the Zeta narco insurgeny to be introduced into the US.

[3D-JOY]

I am afraid I would reverse your statement.

It seems possible, but only sometimes unlikely.

I fear for our nation.

[stormhill]

It's a great argument for legalization.

The debilitating effects of drugs on society are not mitigated by the drugs' legal status. In fact, if you use the Prohibition model, legalizing drugs will be like dousing a fire with jet fuel.

Many years ago, I saw a documentary on the career of Pablo Escobar of the Medellin cartel. In it, he said he didn't view himself as a criminal but as a revolutionary; every shipment of yeyo he sen't north was in his mind an atomic bomb against the US. That got me thinking that in the war on drugs, we need to think of people in the drug trade as a fifth column; as such we need to take drug users and shoot them as traitors!

[Ramonne]

Until the drug users are the ones put in prison the
drug sellers will never end.
If no one wants to buy drugs, the sellers will be out
of business fast.
This whole drug war is a giant joke. We have filled up
our prisons with poor people trying to make some quick
bucks...while the party continues with the rest of the
world.
No one it seems remembers Mena Arkansas. Nor the CIA
bringing in drugs by the plane load. There are people
still in prison who remember it all.

[Gunslingr3]

The debilitating effects of drugs on society are not mitigated by the drugs' legal status

You're right, but they're made worse by a 'war on drugs' which only generates profits for criminals.

Do you think Prohibition 'mitigated the debilitating effects of alcohol on society'? Sometimes the proposed 'cure' is worse than the disease. Your proposal of shooting millions and millions of Americans is one such moronic 'cure'.

[livius]

One of the things that nobody is looking at...well, that this administration wants to prevent people from looking at... is the strong connection between the radical left, the leftist municipal unions in Latin American, and the drug traffickers.

Oliver North certainly would know a lot about this.

But until we can talk about what the real problem is in Latin America, neither we nor they will make any progress. The real problem is exactly the same as it is here: the left.

Anybody who thinks these drug gangs are apolitical criminals is a fool. The drugs come through Cuba and Venezuela, with much of their supply originating from the Bolivia and the other hard-left countries of South America, and the leftist municipal unions of Mexico - unions so radical they almost overturned the Mexican presidential elections a couple of years ago - have been making money off of this for years and funneling it to their causes.

Calderon would be a fool to expect any help from this administration, because Obama and the left are actually on the side of the drug gangs, which are essentially nothing but the overtly armed wing of Mexico’s left-wing unions. I’m sure Obama would love to have the same thing here, and perhaps his flash mobs are building up to this.

[rockinqsranch]

“We can only hope that the O-Team looks south to the darkness on the horizon.”

His neck doesn’t turn South apparently. It’s his watched pot that won’t boil if he does. He wants that boiling pot.

[AnalogReigns]

There is no comparison or relationship between child porn, or perverted sex, and drug decriminalization.

For over 100 years the USA had NO serious drug laws, and the current federal laws only came about during the 1920s alcohol Prohibition. During that 100+ years the country didn’t fall apart, nor did we slip down the supposedly slippery libertine/libertarian slope you assume we would of; freedom worked just fine.

What convinces me that at least limited decriminalization would be wise is that in countries that have tried it—ADDICTION RATES GO DOWN. That’s right, addiction rates in a place like Holland are LOWER than here...in spite of all our laws. Does that mean everything they do is smart, and we need to go nuts supporting the “sex industry” like they do? Of course not.

The violence associated with the trade—of substances worth many times their weight in gold—would also go down, as the prices of these substances went down. Would it be all roses and paradise? Of course not—a free republic is never about utopian dreams—those are the stuff of tyrannical nightmares in real life.

The only countries that have effectively limited drugs...are effective police states. Is that what Jefferson, Madision and Washington intended...and is that what you want for your children?

Will the police-state stop at just limiting drugs? Of course not!

The Founding Fathers would be ashamed of us, specifically for the civil liberties compromised in the name of the utopian/impossible goal of making our country “drug free,” as a “drug free” country necessarily becomes a “freedom free” country as well.

[TSgt]

I have yet to witness a single positive event as a result of drug use. In fact, the opposite is true and it often involves abused and or dead children.

If your claim is civil liberty, the Pandora’s box is open for other types of activities that are now illegal.

I will never support the legalization of drugs.

[Morpheus2009]

At most you have a temporary fix until your serious crooks manage to figure out something new. Europe has a rising issue with kidnappings and underage sex trade right now, legalizing and setting zones was part of it, but it was the equivalent of a band-aid in the long-term.

I will agree, though, that some serious questions have to be raised in some steps being made in the fight against drugs, as well as some observations, too.

First of all, while the country did not fall apart, there was an increased centralization of government, and plenty of bureaus established to regulate the prohibition, and a little migration afterwards to change the enforcement from bans into making sure you didn’t produce liquor without paying taxes, usually corporately.

Speaking about the 1920s, that was also the time where the black family structure was really beginning to hit the downward slope too.

As for limited decriminalization, I would agree, to the extent that if someone does something rediculous due to being high or being drunk, the legal responsibility for the accident/stupidity should fall on them, and there should be serious penalties for doing things under a narcotic influence.

We also need to be concerned about family structure as well, do you think a kid living with two parents is as likely to find interest in narcotic use as a kid who is living with a parent and his/her girlfriend/boyfriend, much less a single parent?

The other issue is age, it’s been statistically shown that kids who don’t seriously get started while in their teens aren’t likely to develop a serious addiction later on.

[AnalogReigns]

I don’t claim any positives for drug use. I do not, and never have used illegal drugs. Even if they were legal, I would never recommend anyone use them—as I consider them unhealthy and fundamentally immoral. Of course so are a lot of lifestyle options for a free people.

Health and moral issues belong to the field of Medicine and the Church however, NOT to the long arm of the law.

Again, I opt for a system which provably results in LESS ADDICTION. That system also happens to be the same as that of our nation’s first 100 years: FREEDOM.

The only demonstrably effective prohibitionary scheme against drug use is A POLICE STATE.

The current regime increases addiction rates (the real health problem of drug use—since it forces all users underground)...and, results in loss of everyone’s civil liberties—moving us toward a police state.

Why is that better than the system our Founding Fathers set up?

[AnalogReigns]

I don’t claim any “fix” eliminating crime, or the criminal element, other than standard law enforcement (which when used uniformly and without sentimentality...is very effective, see NYC since Giuliani).

The only thing is, just as the Mob is not involved in alcohol manufacture and distribution after Prohibition, since it is legal and regulated, so too, criminals will not be attracted to the drug trade, if it were legal and regulated. Would criminals still be around, and finding some other nefarious things to do? Sure—so arrest, prosecute and imprison them!

Our Founding Fathers never thought they were bringing heaven on earth, or that America would ever have “crime free zones”...

How we ever thought we’d eliminate the use of intoxicants is beyond me, and shows irrational faith in the reforming power of Liberal Big Government....AND THAT’S NOT CONSERVATIVE!!!

Lovers of Liberty can never be utopian.

[little jeremiah]

Placemark.