-------------------- Received: from mailsorter-101-2.iap.bryant.webtv.net (209.240.198.98) by postoffice-131.iap.bryant.webtv.net; Tue, 16 Mar 1999 22:31:21 -0800 (PST) Return-Path: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Received: from mb.egroups.com (mb.egroups.com [207.138.41.137]) by mailsorter-101-2.iap.bryant.webtv.net (8.8.8/ms.graham.14Aug97) with SMTP id WAA12689; Tue, 16 Mar 1999 22:31:20 -0800 (PST) Received: from [127.0.0.1] by mb.egroups.com with NNFMP; 17 Mar 1999 06:28:39 -0000 Mailing-List: contact [EMAIL PROTECTED] X-Mailing-List: [EMAIL PROTECTED] X-URL: http://www.egroups.com/list/freedomfight/ Delivered-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Received: (qmail 16607 invoked by uid 7770); 17 Mar 1999 06:05:31 -0000 Received: from imo23.mx.aol.com (198.81.17.67) by vault.egroups.com with SMTP; 17 Mar 1999 06:05:31 -0000 Received: from [EMAIL PROTECTED] by imo23.mx.aol.com (IMOv19.3) id aIXIa14101 for <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; Wed, 17 Mar 1999 01:05:08 -0500 (EST) From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Message-ID: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Date: Wed, 17 Mar 1999 01:05:08 EST To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Mime-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: AOL 3.0 16-bit for Windows sub 38 Subject: [freedomfight] The Third World War? Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit <A HREF="http://news.bbc.co.uk/low/english/world/newsid_297000/297417.stm "> http://news.bbc.co.uk/low/english/world/newsid_297000/297417.stm</A> Wednesday, March 17, 1999 Published at 00:13 GMT The Third World War? by BBC News Online's John Walton The Third World War has already started. The fighting has so far claimed more lives than the Americans lost in their decade-long struggle in Vietnam. Democratic governments around the world aren't losing the battle - they are simply being bought by the enemy. Or so thinks veteran investigative writer and journalist David Yallup. The war he is referring to is the fight against drugs - or more precisely the campaign being waged by Western governments against the powerful and highly organised drugs cartels based in Latin America. In describing their power, Yallup unleashes hair-raising statistics. He estimates that the annual income of the world's top drugs cartels is close to $500 billion This figure would put the organised criminals who run the drugs trade on a financial par with China - in other words they are equal to the 11th largest national economy on the planet. It is a war that Yallup believes is not being taken with sufficient gravity. Fact is stranger than fiction So to take his campaign to the widest possible audience, Yallup has rejected factual reporting and served up his drugs war manifesto as a novel. But his book, Unholy Alliance, is based on solid facts. Yallup told BBC News Online: "You have a book which if I was to asked to quantify it, over 75% is fact, and layered on top is a story which weaves in and out." Buying America He says the plot - "cartels wanting to buy America by acquiring power legally through a president they have had elected although he does not know he is being sponsored by cartels - is exactly what has happened in about eight or nine countries". He says: "It has happened in Colombia, where President Samper, the last president, was put into power very largely by the Cali cartel putting up $8m for his campaign. "And they didn't put that up because he is a nice man." And, Yallup claims, the situation has been repeated throughout other Latin American countries over the last 15 years. So the threat to democracy and the power of the drugs barons, he argues, is clear. Not surprisingly, putting the book together wasn't easy. Some people saw Yallup's curiosity about the drugs trade, as being "misplaced". Killing for Fun While researching the book in Venezuela, Yallup found himself in serious danger. Looking back on his and a friend's close escape from death (an account of which makes up Chapter 10 of his book), Yallup says: "It became apparent to me that whereas the Mafia kill people - in my opinion and in my own personal experience - as a matter of business, a great many people involved in the drugs cartels kill for fun." "Life is very cheap," he adds. But perhaps more worrying for the rest of us, Yallup believes the power of the drugs cartels is far from being broken. "If you are going to fight an organisation of this kind of might and power - an organisation which has money that can buy virtually anything in this world - and you look at the joint allocation of funds between America and the UK this year - it is something like $21billion, which sounds like a huge amount of money until you put that against $500 billion "And when you realise that that amount of money is what the cartels make in one or two weeks it shows you how unbalanced the forces are, and how much more superior are the potential capabilities of the people that we are fighting against." Yallup makes no bones about his motivation for putting the book together - it's a simple cautionary tale. The Third War is in progress and, for the moment at least, the good guys are losing. "What was important to me was to say to the reader: 'You may have thought it was bad out there in this particular arena, but it's much, much worse than you thought it was, and this is an example of how far it has gone'." ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Unholy Alliance by David Yallup is published by Bantam at �9.99 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Internet FileZone: Always FREE! Instantly store & access your valuable PC files on the net, from any Web browser. http://offers.egroups.com/click/235/0 eGroup home: http://www.eGroups.com/list/freedomfight Free Web-based e-mail groups by eGroups.com
