Investor’s Business Daily
Letters To The Editor
12655 Beatrice St.
Los Angeles, CA
Ladies and Gentlemen:
Congratulations on your op-ed piece, “If U.S. Wins War On Terror, Why Not War On Drugs, Too?” by Betsy McCaughey, Hudson Institute.
The War on Drugs has been tremendously successful in helping to grow the US market share of worldwide drug imports and exports to a leadership position.
It has been the critical policy behind growing US money laundering from organized crime to an all time high of $500 billion – $1 trillion (Source: US Department of Justice). This figure is just annual flows – the accumulated “narco dollars” growing at significant compound investment rates since WW II are far more significant. Accumulated “narco capital” is now a dominant presence in the international capital markets.
With the US banks, securities firms, insurance and investment companies leadership in the reinvestment of annual and accumulated “narco dollars”, our leadership’s ability to “control and concentrate” capital to build their empire has never been stronger. The War on Drugs model – working through the UN and such efforts as Plan Colombia – is critical to the internationalization of the laws that support the growth of the financial – and hence political- empire of these private interests.
Obviously, investors want our stock multiples to be high. Therefore, it is essential that we keep attracting as much of the accumulated “narco dollars” as possible. What better way than more enforcement geared towards helping the federal enforcement establishment “control and concentrate cash flows” down to the block level throughout 63,000 neighborhoods in America. Three teenagers selling $300 of cocaine or ecstasy a day, laundered through a nearby fast food restaurant or motel chain, can generate $2-5 million on a corporate stock market value at PE’s of 20-30X. What would happen to the values of my mutual funds if all those kids got a legit job? Terrible.
Perhaps this is why the CIA Inspector General has admitted to intentional support by the US intelligence and enforcement bureaucracy of supporting narcotics trafficking in the service of global power plays.
Large financial instituions and corporations whose cheap cost of capital is essential to their global leadership will be pleased with Ms. McCaughey’s hard hitting and beautifully crafted defense of our War on Drugs policy. Surely, the head of fundraising and Hudson Institute should be quite pleased as well. Those who control and enjoy the reinvestment of successfully laundered “narco dollars” and their private foundations are large supporters of the top American think tanks and universities.
The taxpayers? The more we spend on the War on Drugs, the more neighborhoods deteriorate and the more drug trafficking and money laundering grow. The War on Drugs has an almost perfect performance. The combined corporate and government return is negative. However, it is relatively easy to continue to obfuscate the negative return on investment to federal state and local taxpayers, homeowners and families and promote the positive return on investment to corporate shareholders. As a Philadelphia mafia chieftain once said, “when the government pays your expenses, than your gross is your net.”
Recent reports from Afghanistan now confirm with the Taliban defeated and our 1st world syndicate and allies in country, Afghan farmers have started to plant opium in volume once again. That’s good news for the dominant global financial players, especially now that they are in position to control the cash flows for growing Afganistan opium harvests.
I am pleased to see that Ms. McCaughey understands the meaning of precisely how the war on terrorism is really “winning” in Afghanistan and that Investor’s Business Daily and the Hudson Institute are working hard to make sure the stock market multiples on the NYSE stay as high as possible by dancing to the tune of those who control the on/off switch for trillons of accumulated “narco dollars”.
Very Truly Yours,
Catherine Austin Fitts
President, Solari, Inc.
Former Managing Director, member, Board of Directors, Dillon Read & Co. Inc.
Former Assistant Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, First Bush Administration
Author, Narco Dollars for Beginners
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If U.S. Wins War On Terror, Why Not War On Drugs, Too?
By Betsy McCaughey
FOR INVESTOR’S BUSINESS DAILY-PRINT EDITION ONLY
As American forces hunt down Osama bin Laden and pound the remains of al-Qaida, the U.S. is showing it can fight terrorism. The Bush administration should use this proven ability to defeat the worst type of bioterrorism to date: illegal drug trafficking.
The cocaine and heroin flooding into the U.S. are addicting our children,
wrecking families, spawning crime on our streets and costing billions of
dollars a year.
The similarities between al-Qaida and drug terrorists are striking. Like
al-Qaida, drug traffickers swear allegiance to no nation and wear no
uniform. Just as al-Qaida occupied Afghanistan, drug traffickers occupy vast areas of
Latin America and use automatic weapons and airplanes to subdue the
populace. And, like al-Qaida, drug terrorists fund their operations with laundered
money.
Drugs = Terror?
The difference is that the U.S. has shown the will to defeat al-Qaida. A
passion to defeat drug traffickers has been sadly lacking.
The same all-out commitment of air power, special forces, intelligence
gathering, border and immigration controls and financial restraints that the
Bush administration and Congress are expending to rout out al-Qaida should
be turned against an even deadlier enemy.
The terrorists who struck on Sept 11 took more than 3,000 lives, a tragic
loss. But every single year, at least 16,000 Americans are killed by illegal
drugs. In addition, 5 million chronic users are so crippled by addiction they can’t
make it through high school, show up for a job or feed and nurture their
kids.
The families struck on Sept 11 posted pictures of their missing loved ones
outside the Family Assistance Center in New York. It was a sight no one
could ever forget. But it’s still true you couldn’t build a wall big enough
for all the pictures of children who’ve died or had their minds and bodies
destroyed by drugs.
Lack of will
Despite such death and suffering, American political leaders have not
mustered the bipartisan cooperation and public support to wage and all-out
war against drug terrorists. In 1998, Rep. Bill McCollum ,R-FL, announced
a new Speaker’s Task Force for a Drug-Free America, which he would co-chair.
The goal, he said, was to cut off 80% of the supply of illegal drugs by
2002. Now, one month before that deadline, Task Force Staff Director Char1es
Diaz concedes that the supply of illegal drugs coming into the country is
increasing.
Among the tragic results: a steady increase in the number of victims treated
for drug-related problems in emergency rooms. For children ages 12-17, the
drug-related emergencies soared 20% last year (data from the Department of
Health and Human Services).
Who’s to blame? Washington politicians, as much as anyone. The Bush
administration asked Congress for an impressive $1.3 billion for drug
control in Latin America.
At the same time, the administration and its predecessors have sent a mixed
message to the international community by granting foreign aid to virtually
every major drug-producing, drug-smuggling and money laundering country in
the world.
Under a long-standing policy, nations heavily involved in the drug trade are
not eligible for foreign aid unless specially “certified” that they’re
cooperating with American drug enforcement efforts.
In March, the Bush administration certified 20 of the 24 leading drug
trafficking nations and granted special aid-eligible status to two others.
That’s despite the refusal of many of these nations to report possible
money laundering, criminalize drugs and work with American investigators.
Foreign policy is always complex, with competing goals. It’s clear that in
these cases, the US considered other things more important than stopping
drug traffickers.
Foreign Policy Angle
That’s far from the message President Bush delivered to the world after Sept
II, when he warned nations harboring terrorists or laundering their money
that “You are either with us or you’re against us.” That should also be the
warning to nations tolerating drug terrorists.
Here at home, immigration and border patrol officials should have the same
powerful mandate to nab drug traffickers as they do al-Qaida terrorists, and
the same investigative tools at their disposal. Unfortunately, public
support for an all-out effort against drug traffickers is lacking. Leading
figures on the left and right insist that treatment is the answer, not
curbing drug supply.
Conservative thinker Milton Friedman warns that drug war tactics will turn
the US into a police state. Democrats and some Republicans are urging states
to roll back lengthy, mandatory minimum sentences against drug dealers.
Clinton’s drug czar Brian McCaffrey, on leaving office last January, urged
the nation to drop the phrase “war on drugs.” Latin America drug lords must
smile to hear us say suppliers aren’t the problem.
Almost all the cocaine and heroin coming into the US originates in Columbia,
including 85% of the heroin seized by federal authorities in northeastern
American cities. To rescue these cities from the drug scourge, the Colombian
cartels must be broken.
Colombia’s role
Colombia is a key battlefield. But the war has to be worldwide. Like
al-Qaida, drug traffickers operate globally, and if they are driven out of
one country they quickly appear in another.
One of the key challenges is Afghanistan. Some 70% of the world’s heroin and
other opiates come from that country, says the Drug Enforcement
Administration, and most of it goes to Europe. Almost none goes to US, but
that could change over-night if Latin American supplies were cut off or
became too costly.
Afghanistan drug trafficking is dangerous to American lives in another way:
It funds terrorism. The Taliban government that host-ad al-Qaida claimed to oppose opiate
production. But as Asa Hutchinson head of the Drug Enforcement
Administration, testified to Congress recently, the Taliban had a formal and
lucrative system for taxing the drug industry.
“Sadly,” said Hutchinson, “the profits of the drug trade” probably helped
pay for the Sept11 attack.
What About Afghanistan?
The coming days will be critical. Representatives of the warring factions in
Afghanistan have already met in Bonn, Germany, with US assistance to devise
a temporary government for that nation.
What will the U.S. demand of them? Shutting down the drug trade should be
one goal.
It’s not easy. Afghanistan has no other industries, and in a country
impoverished by drought and war, desperate farmers can make 100 times as
much growing poppies for the opium trade as other crops.
But al-Qaida terrorism and drug bioterrorism are inextricably linked, and
equally dangerous. Al-Qaida would kill all Americans if it could. And drug traffickers would
addict all Americans if they could. What Bush said about bin Laden and his
lieutenants, he should now say about drug traffickers: “It’s time to smoke
’em out”
Betsy McCaughey is an adjunct senior fellow at the Hudson Institute. She can
be reached at [EMAIL PROTECTED]