From: "Eli Pariser" <bulletin@9-11peace.org>
To: <9-11peace@complete.org>
Subject: America's Other War
Date: Wed, 27 Feb 2002 09:03:40 -0500
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AMERICA'S OTHER WAR: THE WAR ON DRUGS
Wednesday, February 27, 2002
Susan V. Thompson, ed.

Read online, subscribe, or unsubscribe at:
http://www.9-11peace.org/bulletin.php3


CONTENTS
---------
1. Introduction: A Pound of Cure
2. One Link
3. War on Drugs = War on Terror?
4. Afghanistan
5. Colombia
6. Bolivia
7. America: The Home Front
8. Get Involved
9. About the Bulletin


INTRODUCTION: A POUND OF CURE
------------------------------
"If you quit drugs, you join the fight against terror in
America."
-- President Bush

If you were watching this year's Super Bowl, you may have
heard something like this: "Where do terrorists get their
money? If you use drugs, some of it might come from you." In
two 30-second ads costing over $3.2 million to produce, the
Bush administration attempted to directly link the War on
Terror with the United States' longstanding War on Drugs.
In the commercials, normal-looking kids say things like "I
helped kill a judge" or "I helped bomb a school."  But this
simplistic linkage between the two Wars white-washes over
the complex issues and controversy involved in America's War
on Drugs both at home and abroad.

In the United States, the War on Drugs has many detractors.
Some argue that the legal prohibition of drugs creates and
maintains the black market for them, just as the prohibition
of alcohol once did. Others note that the current policy of
giving addicts jail sentences rather than treatment does
nothing to address the actual problem of the addiction.
There are many who believe that marijuana and perhaps other
drugs should be legal for use by patients with painful
diseases such as AIDS. Criminalization of minorities is
another important issue in the drug war which could
certainly bear more examination.

But the American War on Drugs is also being waged in several
foreign countries, and this front in the drug war is just as
controversial. For years, the US government has been sending
military forces abroad in an alleged attempt to shut down
the supply of cocaine and other illicit drugs. These
interventions thus far have had little success, and indeed
often result in the punishment or murder of the poor peasant
farmers growing coca and poppy crops, rather than those
actually involved in the commercial trade of drugs. These
efforts have brought Bolivia and Colombia to the brink of
civil war, a fact which seems to indicate that American
foreign policy in this area is acting as a destabilizer,
rather than a constructive force for change. Rather than
pull out, however, it looks as though America's long
involvement with Colombia in the name of stanching the flow
of drugs is about to expand into a new, larger, dirtier, and
ineffective conflict under the banner of the War on Terror.

For this reason we have decided to devote this week's
bulletin to the War on Drugs and the controversy which
surrounds it. We hope to begin to answer the question of
whether the Wars on Terror and Drugs are actually linked or
whether this is just a new way of creating support for an
unpopular and ineffective set of American policies.


ONE LINK
---------
"Terrorism is now being used and has been used pretty much
the same way communism was used. If you want to press some
agenda, you play the terrorism card. If you don't follow me
on this, you're supporting terrorism. That is absolutely
infantile, especially when you consider that much of the
history of the drug trade trails right behind the CIA and
other US intervention programs."

Noam Chomsky's take on the drug war at home and abroad:
http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=12420


WAR ON DRUGS = WAR ON TERROR?
------------------------------
"It's one thing to drop an egg into a frying pan to
demonstrate that drugs are bad for you, and quite another to
link drug users to bloodthirsty murderers." This article
includes a description of the Super Bowl ad mentioned above
and why its reasoning is flawed.
http://www.workingforchange.com/article.cfm?itemid=12794

This is another excellent article on the Super Bowl ad that
explains almost all of the issues in the drug war clearly
and concisely, from the full jails in the States, to the
CIA, to the American presence in the Andean region.
http://www.workingforchange.com/article.cfm?itemid=12753

Here is the official explanation of how drugs and terror are
linked, from the website that is the center of the new phase
of the US government's campaign against drugs.
http://9-11peace.org/r.php3?redir=105


AFGHANISTAN
------------------
While the Bush administration seems to be trying to include
the long-standing American War on Drugs within the new War
on Terror, it is instructive to examine the current
situation in Afghanistan. The recent War on Terror there has
completely destroyed the progress of the War on Drugs in
that country, which begs the question of whether the aims of
these two wars are as compatible as the Bush administration
claims.

Just a couple of years ago, Afghanistan was the world's
number one producer of heroin. Then the Taliban successfully
banned poppy farming, which led to a 91% drop in poppy
production. But now the US has ousted the Taliban, and that
has led to an unexpected consequence -- the hungry people of
Afghanistan have begun replanting their poppy fields.
http://9-11peace.org/r.php3?redir=106

The main drug control agency in Afghanistan has just been
evicted by the new government there.
http://www.independent.co.uk/story.jsp?story=116264


COLOMBIA
--------------
Colombia is not only a very good example of all the failings
of American foreign intervention in the name of the War on
Drugs, it is also becoming the focus of expanded military
efforts as part of the War on Terror. Coincidence?

Read this excellent history of the conflict in Colombia. It
contains a concise critique of the contradictory and
generally counterproductive nature of American foreign
policy in the country. The article also includes a number of
suggestions as to how to change American foreign policy for
the better.
(Note: article was written in 2000)
http://9-11peace.org/r.php3?redir=107

This article focuses specifically on the origin and history
of FARC (the Revolutionary Forces of Colombia). Read it to
find out what FARC is, and why the American classification
of FARC purely as a group of drug traffickers is myopic and
inaccurate.
http://www.tni.org/drugs/pubs/farc.htm

For many years, American counter-narcotics efforts in the
region have included spraying herbicides and defoliants
(targeted at coca fields) that have been killing legitimate
food crops and polluting the area.
http://www.guerrillanews.com/war_on_drugs/doc53.html

Despite the fact that American troop activities in Colombia
are supposed to have been confined to anti-drug efforts, the
Clinton administration was also providing support and
training to the Colombian army.
http://9-11peace.org/r.php3?redir=108

According to two recently commissioned reports, the War on
Drugs is just a pretext for ongoing American intervention,
and this pretext should be dropped to allow expanded
American military operations in the country.
http://www.antiwar.com/cockburn/c080201.html

The Bush administration is now considering naming the rebels
in Colombia as a specific target in the War on Terror.
America's activities in the region have so far been limited
to counter-narcotics activities, rather than risk sending in
troops and possibly creating a situation similar to Vietnam.
http://9-11peace.org/r.php3?redir=109

The Bush administration's new budget contains a request for
$98 million, which would be used to provide helicopters and
other military aid for Colombian troops. This means that the
US is already publicly tying its military aid to the
Colombian government's war against FARC, rather than only to
anti-drug efforts.
http://www.workingforchange.com/article.cfm?itemid=12784

America's broadening intervention since Sept. 11 has
basically closed the book on the peace process, and will
probably lead to a very dirty full-scale civil war within
Colombia.
http://www.workingforchange.com/article.cfm?itemid=12671


BOLIVIA
----------
To read a quick summary of how the drug war is leading to
civil war in Bolivia, click on the "tell me more" link on
this page for action against US foreign policy in the
region.
http://www.stopthedrugwar.org/boliviawar/


AMERICA: THE HOME FRONT
-----------------------------------
A history of the drug war within America, in point form.
http://www.hr95.org/dw101.htm

On Feb.12 of this year, the President unveiled a new
anti-drug strategy aimed at cutting the use of illegal drugs
by 10 percent over two years and 25 percent over five years.
The DEA has already begun acting on this strategy by raiding
medical marijuana clubs in California.
http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=12414

But perhaps the drug war is being fought on the wrong
fronts.

American domestic policy is generally to jail people with
addictions. But this does nothing to address the addiction
itself. Read the story of Jill, a meth-addicted single mom,
and how treatment rather than jail turned her life (and her
toddler's life) around.
http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=12277

The official line is that the Bush administration is
focusing on cutting demand by focusing on treatment and
prevention. However, the author of this article argues that
the US government is saying one thing, while in reality,
doing the opposite.
http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=12439

And finally, the author of this article argues that the new
laws and domestic security measures will eventually be used
as part of the drug war.

"The domestic tools of the War on Terrorism will be applied
to major drug traffickers, fortified by the claim that the
illegal drug trade funds terrorists. The traffickers will
soon become terrorists in public perception."
http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=12455


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