Drugs & US Law Enforcement (2006-2017)

[bourbon]

Op-Ed: Follow the Dirty Money, by Robert Mazur. The New York Times, 12 September 2010.

LAST month, a federal district judge approved a deal to allow Barclays, the British bank, to pay a $298 million fine for conducting transactions with Cuba, Iran, Libya, Myanmar and Sudan in violation of United States trade sanctions. Barclays was discovered to have systematically disguised the movement of hundreds of millions of dollars through wire transfers that were stripped of the critical information required by law that would have enabled the world to know that for more than 10 years the bank was moving huge sums of money for enemy governments. Yet all federal prosecutors wanted to settle the problem was a small piece of the action.

When Judge Emmet Sullivan of federal district court in Washington, who ultimately approved the deal with Barclays, asked the obvious question, “Why isn’t the government getting rough with these banks?” the remarkable response was that the government had investigated but couldn’t find anyone responsible.

How preposterous. Banks can commit crimes only through the acts of their employees. Federal law enforcement agencies are simply failing to systematically gather the intelligence they need to effectively monitor the crime.

The author served 27 years with IRS, Customs, and DEA; and spent several years undercover in the largest money laundering case in US history.

[Bob's World]

Anyone else notice how similar our approach to Insurgency and/or terrorism is to our approach to drugs?

Step one: Declare a war on the problem.

Step two: The problem must be the supply, not the demand, so set out aggressively to defeat the supply.

Step three: Recognize that Demand is important, but still only put minor energy against that to avoid having to make any hard choices that affect yourself. Enforce 'rule of law' at home to criminalize and punish those who participate, but ignore why they participate and how changes in governance approaches could mitigate demand or change the destructive nature of the market that has been forced into illegal and often violent approaches through the denial of legal venues to operate.

Step four: Take the war against the Supply overseas and pick a couple of key states to focus your efforts in.

Step five: As problem continues to grow put more and more money, people and effort against eradicating supply in those key states.

Step six: Having "squeezed the balloon" adequately in key states, but not done anything to address demand, watch suppliers simply move to a different state and continue operations.

Step seven: Shift focus to new supply state and begin squeezing the balloon again.

Step eight: Repeat steps 1-7 as necessary, often returning to states where the problem was previously "defeated" until your national influence and economy begin to wane under the burden of direct and higher order effects.


One word: "Responsibility." Until governments are willing to take responsibility for the effects of poor governance, bad laws, and bad choices and instead are allowed to focus massive time, energy, blood and treasure attacking the naturally occurring effects of their causation, we are doomed to a downward spiraling do-loop on these issues.

Drug Dealers don't create the illegal drug problem, they exploit it for their economic gain.

Insurgents don't create insurgency, they exploit the condition of insurgency for their own purposes as well when and where governments fail to provide the type good governance that immunizes populaces against such movements.

Target Demand first (not to be confused with those who actually participate in the "market," but rather why the market exists); and mitigate the damaging effects of Supply while continuing to focus on Demand.

[Entropy]

BW,

Yes, so true. The GWoD's is mostly a failure considering the billions spent.

[slapout9]

One word: "Responsibility." Until governments are willing to take responsibility for the effects of poor governance, bad laws, and bad choices and instead are allowed to focus massive time, energy, blood and treasure attacking the naturally occurring effects of their causation, we are doomed to a downward spiraling do-loop on these issues.

You forgot step Zero, which is to make up some Bovine Excrement excuse to, go to step: one declare war, in the first place.

Classic John Boyd where you sew "menace,mistrust,and uncertainty" where there is none.

[Bob's World]

You forgot step Zero, which is to make up some Bovine Excrement excuse to, go to step: one declare war, in the first place.

Classic John Boyd where you sew "menace,mistrust,and uncertainty" where there is none.

Theory A: Slap is John Boyd

Theory B: John Boyd has photos of Slap in a very compromising position...

But you are totally right that we do get into some crazy stuff, and once everyone buys in, then its not crazy anymore. Then when someone comes along with a rational postion it is what ends up sounding crazy in comparison.

[carl]

Anyone else notice how similar our approach to Insurgency and/or terrorism is to our approach to drugs?

I think your eight step program (plus Slap's step zero) very well describes our 100 year war on drugs. It is a strain though to apply it to our small wars abroad.

Those small wars involve motivations like political ideology, religious zealotry, megalomania and interference by mischief making, malicious nation states. Drugs are a matter of people wanting to get high or get rich. That makes a very great difference.

Commander Reyes in the SWJ blog Plan Mexico post makes some recommendations, such as lightnening up on marijuana in Mexico, that will not be popular with American drug warriors. Does anyone know how widespread that opinion is in Mexico especially amongst the police and military? If Mexico were to reduce or eliminate the criminal penalties associated with marijuana, boy would that stimulate the bidding at imperial headquarters.

[slapout9]

But you are totally right that we do get into some crazy stuff, and once everyone buys in, then its not crazy anymore. Then when someone comes along with a rational postion it is what ends up sounding crazy in comparison.

Yep, and that is what is happening to our country now, we are being destroyed morally.

Examples:

Would God have bailed out Wall Street?

Would God kill people and put them in jail for smoking some weeds?

Would God say 20 million unemployed people is OK with me?

Would God foreclose on the largest number of houses in history so that they could sit empty.... and people are left without proper shelter?

Would God bomb Iran?

Our National leadership of all parties and all positions are Moral cowards

Time for a song.
"What If God were One Of Us?"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B5P5v...eature=related

[bourbon]

Those small wars involve motivations like political ideology, religious zealotry, megalomania and interference by mischief making, malicious nation states. Drugs are a matter of people wanting to get high or get rich. That makes a very great difference.

As it applies to BW’s comparison, I believe the demand for drugs is analogous to the population’s willingness to support or tolerate the insurgency/ terrorist group.

Greed and desire to do drugs are motives just like political ideology, religious zealotry, or megalomania.

So if this were the SAT’s: the supply of drugs (to include dealers) is to the demand for drugs as the insurgency/terrorist group is to the population’s willingness to support or tolerate the insurgency/ terrorist group.

[Bob's World]

My point is that insurgents don't cause insurgency, governments do.

The government creates the "demand", or what I call "conditions of insurgency" among the populace they govern when they fall short in a few critical, fundamental ways that Dr. Maslow identified long ago. When they cut the populace out of the loop in terms of granting them the right and authority to govern (become illegitimate in the eyes of the governed); when they apply the rule of law in a manner the populace perceives as unjust; when they formalize inequalities that treat certain segments of the populace worse than others as a matter of some status (race, religion, neighborhood, etc); and when they deny the populace trusted, legal, and certain means to make changes in government when necessary. This is DEMAND. it is Poor Governance. It is the Conditions of Insurgency.

Where there is Demand, there will be supply. Some leader will come along, and he will employ some ideology that speaks to the target audience, and he will create an insurgent organization to challenge the government. That is SUPPLY.

What does the Government do? It holds itself shameless and blameless, ignores the tremendous demand they are creating and the reasonably easy changes they could make that would quickly diminish demand; and instead they blame Supply, and they Attack Supply.

Now, supply must be dealt with, but only as a supporting effort to taking on Demand. Supply side economics do not work!

The U.S. Civil rights movement response (our nation's second greatest COIN effort) targeted Demand and passed and enforced the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

(For those wondering what number one is, no, not Iraq. Number one was coming together in the summer of 1787 to scrap the articles of confederation and produce the Constitution. That is one genius bit of COIN there.)

The recent success in Sri Lanka? Pure Supply-side. Demand is probably greater than ever, and a new supplier WILL step up. It is as inevitable as the turning of the tide.

We will never be good at COIN until we slap ourselves on the forehead and realize that Insurgents don't cause Insurgency, Governments do.

Similarly, Mr. Bin Laden is also in the Supply business. If one wants to find Demand they must go to U.S. Foreign Policy. If we want to defeat terrorism against the U.S. we must definitely manage the supply, but we must make that secondary to targeting Demand. Our current Supply side approach is quite arguably making Demand greater than ever, and that should scare people. What happens when AQ is defeated, but Demand is still there? The next group to come along may likely be way smarter and way more dangerous to our way of life than the current suppliers.

No, our war on Terror is way more like our war on Drugs than most realize.

[slapout9]

We will never be good at COIN until we slap ourselves on the forehead and realize that Insurgents don't cause Insurgency, Governments do.

Exactly,and Governments do that by acting Immorally, by operating against the greater interest of the people that creates a gap for the insurgent to enter through.

[JMA]

Yep, and that is what is happening to our country now, we are being destroyed morally.

Examples:

Would God have bailed out Wall Street?

Would God kill people and put them in jail for smoking some weeds?

Would God say 20 million unemployed people is OK with me?

Would God foreclose on the largest number of houses in history so that they could sit empty.... and people are left without proper shelter?

Would God bomb Iran?

Our National leadership of all parties and all positions are Moral cowards

Time for a song.
"What If God were One Of Us?"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B5P5v...eature=related

The other side of the coin is whether God would tolerate madmen having nuclear weapons, genocide being planned and/or committed, whole nations being oppressed by ruthless dictators, people killing in his name, people growing/processing/distributing/selling drugs which destroy the lives of many thousands etc etc.

The most difficult question you can ask of the "everything is negotiable" generations is "what do you stand for". Long on criticism of the actions of others you at least stand for something they are merely empty skeletons.

I like this quote from Theodore Roosevelt - American 26th US President (1901-09), 1858-1919

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; because there is not effort without error and shortcomings; but who does actually strive to do the deed; who knows the great enthusiasm, the great devotion, who spends himself in a worthy cause, who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement and who at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly. So that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.

[Bob's World]

The nature of the deed matters; as does how one goes about it.

In the construct of "Ends-Ways-Means" Ways is by far the most important. Ends are broad and incredibly generic. In fact the US stated ends are so incredibly broad that we (with equally incredible hubris) declare them to be "Universal." Means are pretty fixed. We have DIME. Ways are the most interesting, here is where there is room for artistry of thought, for the fine-tuning of approach that can determine the success or failure of some operation or engagement. We argue too much about Means, and have determined that Ends (universal, so no need to adjust) and Ways (Nation building) are resolved questions, so now it is just a matter of who does it; with the easiest answer being "have the military do it" so thus the need to convert the military to a nation building force. Simple, right? Or maybe just scary in what is lost in the simplicity.

[slapout9]

The other side of the coin is whether God would tolerate madmen having nuclear weapons, genocide being planned and/or committed, whole nations being oppressed by ruthless dictators, people killing in his name, people growing/processing/distributing/selling drugs which destroy the lives of many thousands etc etc.

I agree completely which is why answering the moral question is the most important.

As for quotes I like this quote from the Bible. "Fools go where Angels fear to tread."

[Valin]

WSJ
JOSé DE CóRDOBA And DARCY CROWE
9/24/10

BOGOTA—Colombia's army killed the military leader of the country's communist guerrillas in a two-day battle that involved airstrikes against his jungle bunker, dealing a major blow to the four-decade insurgency, officials said Thursday.

Related:
How They Found Him

[davidbfpo]

A very nice story, however well sourced I am sure others will be sceptical. Personally I think it is "smoke".

[AdamG]

Special forces used helicopters to reach the remote Macarena mountain range, where they decorated a 82 foot (25 metre) tree with 2,000 lights.

The tree's lights are fitted with motion sensors, so that the festive offering is illuminated when rebels pass.

Banners reading: "Demobilise, at Christmas everything is possible" and "If Christmas can come to the jungle, you can come home" decorate the branches.

Rest of story and Youtube video here
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worl...tmas-tree.html

[AdamG]

WASHINGTON — The Drug Enforcement Administration has been transformed into a global intelligence organization with a reach that extends far beyond narcotics, and an eavesdropping operation so expansive it has to fend off foreign politicians who want to use it against their political enemies, according to secret diplomatic cables.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/26/wo...rugs.html?_r=1

[Sergeant T]

Interesting take on the problem.

Now, the United States, which has waged a 40-year, $1 trillion war on drugs, is looking for answers in tiny Portugal, which is reaping the benefits of what once looked like a dangerous gamble. White House drug czar Gil Kerlikowske visited Portugal in September to learn about its drug reforms, and other countries — including Norway, Denmark, Australia and Peru — have taken interest, too.

"The disasters that were predicted by critics didn't happen," said University of Kent professor Alex Stevens, who has studied Portugal's program. "The answer was simple: Provide treatment."

[AdamG]

The Colombian military has nabbed a sophisticated, 100-foot long submarine capable of transporting eight tons of cocaine to the coast of Mexico, authorities said Monday.

The fiberglass sub, which was seized in a jungle in Timbiqui, near the Colombia's southwestern Pacific coast, could carry a crew of four to six people, had two diesel engines and navigational equipment allowing it to remain fully submerged up to 30 feet below the surface of the Pacific Ocean, navy officials said.

It also had a 16 ½ foot periscope and an air-conditioner to keep the crew cool during the trip. Authorities estimated it cost about $2 million to build.

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/worl...#ixzz1E2zlvDq7

[SWJ Blog]

Colombia Assuming Instructor Role for Other Militaries

Entry Excerpt:

Colombia Assuming Instructor Role for Other Militaries by Chris Kraul, Los Angeles Times. BLUF: "We have a lot to learn from Colombia. We're now going through what they have experienced for the last 20 years," the 27-year-old Garcia said later of the drug-fueled violence plaguing Mexico. "What Colombian pilots know about night missions, flying over difficult terrain, and participating in joint task forces is invaluable to us."



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