Drugs and the War on Terror
Posted by StormWarning on 26 Dec 2005 at 05:37 pm | Tagged as: Federal Policy, National Security
Not surprising, but the War on Terror is having a positive effect in the War on Drugs.
Surprise - terror war aids drug war
One Arizona border unit sees marijuana haul triple.
As Congress and President Bush wrangle over the USA Patriot Act, the Border Security bill, and other tools of the war on terror, they may want to keep another law-enforcement group in mind - the nation’s drug-fighters.
That’s because the war on terror is proving to be a boon to the war on drugs. Drug seizures are up all along the US-Mexico border. Nowhere is the trend clearer than along a desolate 118-mile patch of Arizona desert across the border from the Mexican state of Sonora.
In what is rapidly becoming one of the highest drug-trafficking and people- smuggling sectors along the border, US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officers there have seized 13,000 pounds of marijuana since Oct. 1, triple the amount captured in the same period last year. That year, fiscal 2005, also set a record. The reasons for the success? Better intelligence-sharing, increased manpower, and improved technology that border officials have received in the aftermath of the 9/11 terror attacks…
Also here: Terror War Aiding Drug War
Another interesting aspect of drugs and the War on Terror comes from Robert Charles, writing on the Counterterrorism Blog, in his post where he reveals that some of the terrorists/insurgents in might actually be using heroin. Iraq and Drugs - Opening A New Front in War on Terror Among the questions posed by Charles in his post is "What does the possible link mean operationally? Not much in terms of stopping a VBIED or mobile suicide attacker, since there is little difference between an insurgent exercising murderous irrationality and an insurgent exercising drugged-up murderous irrationality. On the other hand, implications for intelligence gathering, cross-fertilization of drug-related and insurgent-related information, increased counter-drug training for Iraqi police, greater reliance on DEA and other counter-drug experts in country, and a potential for leveraging this connection to find more bad guys could be real."
Could be nothing…could mean a serious complication.
Related posts:
Connecting “Normal” Crimes to Homeland Security
Methamphetamine and Terrorism (Crime)
Post Taliban Afghanistan – The New Parliament
Federal Policy, National Security
so they caught a lot of weed this yr…any change to the price? Heck, cannabis is the biggest cash crop in most states, too. This is so because of prohibition. Now we can get our soldiers into the drug war even more, but no military in the world can defeat the LAW of economics.
I find it ironic that prohibitionists want exactly the same thing that the drug cartels, the crime syndicates and international terrorists want: to keep drugs illegal.
Things that make you go hmmm…
OK, Mike. You and your organization wants to legalize and regulate drugs? I just glanced at your web site. After marijuana…what do you all do about heroin and methamphetamines…or with designer drugs? How does LEAP feel about those? Regulate? That is a question that makes me go hmmm…
I suppose I’ll just have a chat with a “bud of mine in the biz” (counternarcotics) and see what he says.
Glad you stopped by. Thanks.
Starting Friday ( the day before our family celebrated Christmas together ), a guy stormed into my dad’s office ranting wildly about drug enforcement agencies out to get him. He demanded some personal information on my family. The police arrived and escorted him out. He then confronted my brother that night. Today he was arrested for among other things, concealing a deadly weapon by a felon. He was arrested heading in the general direction of my father’s house. This guy used to be a pretty upstanding citizen and lived in a nice neighborhood. His wife left and took the kids and issued several restraining orders on him. He was seen burying something with a backhoe late Friday night as well. We’re talking 2 or 3 am. Backhoes have a way of getting a lot of attention at 2am. From being a business owner and fairly successful to going to prison and being considered out of his gourd in a small town in a matter of about one year is the result of one thing. Wanna guess what it is? It ain’t from drinking a beer or two at night. Some things society looks the other way at. Threatening people, scaring his wife and kids, and behaving eratically to the point of disturbing an entire neighborhood supposedly to “hide the evidence” isn’t normal. We don’t need drugs in our society, period. Whether legal or not is totally and completely irrelevent, drugs ruin people. Some people expect people like me to just sit back and watch them ruin themselves and others close to them. That’s not my style. Sometimes it takes a stern hand seperating an otherwise good and productive person from a habit they can’t control. I don’t mind being that hand. And, it’s a hand I expect my society to care enough to wield.
Is that clear enough? If Smithson doesn’t care enough about his fellow citizens to intervene when they’re in trouble, so be it. But, as much as he wants society to abandon those in trouble, I want to do otherwise.
Guess it’s just a matter of standards and expectations.
And, if a person wants to push those drugs on kids, I want them dealt with on a permanent basis. They obviously never learned right from wrong in the first place.
Is that clear enough?
Anyone want to debate that?
Now, whether avowed criminals will support other avowed criminals is what this topic is about. I think the only argument is if anyone has tried to prove that avowed criminals would not support other avowed criminals.
Man o’Man, do I and others who I know agree with you.
AMEN! Brother!
My friend who works at a HIDTA (with extensive counterdrug background) might possibly be more adamant than you.
I’m glad that the “guy” didn’t get to harm you or anyone else.
Drugs kill! Someone my wife knows killed someone driving the wrong way at 3am on a major interstate the other night. Everyone says that the “kid” (24 years old) was a good kid. But he killed someone else, driving under the influence of an unspecified drug.
No one my age is guiltless…well, maybe some people are…but when it comes to today’s society, and when it comes to the reality that drugs not only harm our society, but also help to finance terrorism, “drugs is bad.”
I wish I knew how to send these posts to “Smithson” so he could understand how you and I feel about the subject.