Posted on 12/10/2001 3:06:29 AM PST by VA Advogado
America's war on terrorism ought to be linked inextricably to the war on drugs. It is not. That unfortunate failure, making it more difficult to defeat either scourge, is reflected in two anomalies.
*President Bush, omnipresent and eloquent in exhorting his fellow citizens to combat terror, since Sept. 11 has mentioned narcotics hardly at all. Not once in his daily rhetoric over those three months has the president used the phrase ''narco-terrorism.''
*The Drug Enforcement Administration, widely considered to have the best U.S. intelligence operations, has no seat at the inter-agency table in fighting terrorism. It never did, and the attacks of Sept. 11 did not change anything.
These facts of life are the background to last Tuesday's unprecedented narco-terrorism symposium convened by the DEA's aggressive new administrator, former Rep. Asa Hutchinson, and held at DEA headquarters in Arlington, Va. Criticism was restrained and indirect, but the consensus was clear that drug-fighting must be part of the anti-terror strategy.
The DEA always has appreciated the nexus between terror and narcotics, but the State Department and the CIA have not. Accordingly, the U.S. government for years turned a blind eye to the fact that Colombia's FARC guerrillas from the start have been financed by illegal narcotics. The Taliban, which supported Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaida terrorist network, have been financed by the opium trade to Europe. While U.S. policymakers still talk at length about state-sponsored terrorism, support now is more likely to come from the poppy seed than from a government sanctuary.
Raphael Perl, narco-terrorism expert for the Congressional Research Service, told last week's symposium that ''income from the drug trade has become increasingly important to terrorist organizations.'' He added: ''State sponsors are increasingly difficult to find. What world leader in his right mind will risk global sanctions by openly sponsoring al-Qaida or funding it?''
Steven Casteel, DEA chief of intelligence, agreed: ''State-sponsored terrorism is diminishing. These organizations are looking for funding, and drugs bring one thing: quick return on their investment.''
Narcotics provide more than a way to finance terrorism, in the DEA's view. Al-Qaida expands ABC--atomic, biological and chemical--to ABCD, with drugs added, according to Casteel. ''Drugs are a weapon of mass destruction that can be used against Western societies and help bring them down,'' he said.
On Sept. 7, DEA agents seized 53 kilos of Afghan heroin distributed by Colombians. ''I would argue,'' said Casteel, ''that we've been under attack in this country for a long time, and it didn't start on Sept. 11.''
Considering DEA's experience, it would seem natural that its representatives would immediately be put on the high command of the new war against terrorism. They were not, and still are not.
Larry Johnson, a former CIA official who was a high-ranking State Department counterterrorism expert during the first Bush administration, told the symposium: ''I can say, hands down, that the best intelligence we have on the ground overseas is DEA, and yet, after all of the time that I've been involved with counterterrorism, not once have I seen a DEA body sitting at the table, at the [Counter-terrorism and Security Group] meetings which go on at the White House, where you're talking about combatting terrorism.'' Nor are they there today.
No wonder the president never uses the words narco-terrorism. What is lost by this silence is the leverage of the presidential bully pulpit to fight drugs. Last week's DEA symposium was called ''Target America: Traffickers, Terrorists and Your Kids.'' The ''kids'' part was discussed by Stephen Pasierb of the Partnership for a Drug-Free America. He presented polling data showing a rare conjunction between generations: a mutual inclination by parents and children to believe that illegal drugs finance terrorism.
That opportunity can be exploited by the government's massive megaphone, especially the presidential bully pulpit. ''The understanding of this link [between narcotics and terrorism] is essential,'' said Pasierb, ''and that's what our leaders can do. Leadership in this nation can help our people understand.'' The wonder is that the blase attitude toward narcotics in high places that marked the Clinton administration has not totally disappeared under Bush.
Eventually we will win it. Its a slow daunting task but as long as we have prisons and law enforcement, these people can be held accountable.
Exactly. That's why it will probably happen. Welcome to Novak's "No-knock America".
The War on Drugs has been a monumental failure.
Not true. Whatever the percentage of hard-drug abuse in the USA, the number would be far higher --- and the results in terms of destruction of our society and culture would be far more severe --- than they are today.
We are not winning, or losing, but holding our own.
Where did you get that idea? Sure, he gets his rhetoric in line with Constitutionalism every once in a while. Then he goes and blows it with statist ideas like this one.
I happen to be well known here as a constitutional conservative. However, the first duty of government is to protect us by way of our borders. These drug dealing/using roaches must be exterminated.
You'd better lie down and put cold compresses on your head to get your brain temperature down below 105 degrees.
Correction: 106 degrees.
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