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<A HREF="http://www.cia.com.au/serendipity/wod/dupl.html">The Duplicity of the
War on Drugs</A>
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The Duplicity of the War on Drugs
By Lee Rodgers
Editor's NoteContents
"The first casualty when war comes is the truth." - Sen. Hiram Johnson -
1917
THE "WAR ON DRUGS"
Engaging in polemic against perceived machinations of government is
always a difficult task, since the writer must constantly question his
own credulity. Also, it can be an intimidating task detailing evidence
of impropriety by heads of state. Moreover, addressing the myriad
propaganda found in those journals which act as proxies for those in
power is even more daunting, requiring the writer to keep current with
the various media. The intent of this essay is to demonstrate that the
War on Drugs was America's first great psy-war campaign perpetrated
against its own people and that such abuse of power is likely to happen
again. To demonstrate that psychological warfare techniques were
employed requires understanding subtle sequences of disparate, but
related, events. It involves asking questions as to the motivations,
skill, expertise and knowledge of those involved.
At the height of the war on drugs, President George Bush held up a bag
of cocaine in his first televised speech to the nation in September
1989. In December 1989, George Bush ordered the invasion of Panama to
overthrow its narco-militarist dictator, Gen. Manuel Noriega. In the
July 16, 1990 Newsweek, the scope of the war on drugs seemed ready to
expand from Panama into future military actions against the powerful
Colombian drug cartels. At face value, indeed the war on drugs seemed to
be stemming the flow of cocaine into the United States. However, as a
matter of fact, for the whole decade of the 1980's, casual and popular
use of cocaine fell out of favor, and overall use steadily decreased.
Yet as overall American consumption of cocaine in the mid '80's dwindl
ed, the Reagan and Bush administrations were calling for an escalation
in fighting drugs, declaring that America was awash in illegal drugs.
The 1980's was a remarkable decade in international events: the Cold War
was coming to an end, and the U.S. military-industrial complex was
facing spending cuts, with myriad economic ramifications. The U.S. had
gone through its longest period of peace since the end of World War I,
and many Americans were calling for a Peace Dividend. While it may seem
coincidental that the war on drugs was contemporaneous with the end of
the Cold War and was punctuated by the Iran-Contra affair, a closer look
at the war on drugs reveals disturbing patterns.
Critics of the Cold War have long pointed out that the Cold War was a
convenient vehicle for the military-industrial complex to acquire an
increasing share of the federal budget, regardless of the decline in
threat posed by the Soviet Union. The war on drugs, it has been noted,
arrives with all the familiar rubrics of constant threat and ceaseless
terror, the difference being it is an internal war. Other Western
countries have drug addiction problems addressed by doctors and
treatment clinics, but only the U.S. has a war on drugs. As ex-DEA (Drug
Enforcement Administration) agent Michael Levine has commented, "with
the fade of communism (the Pentagon and CIA) are building a pretext for
maintaining their budgets." (Esquire, March 1991, pg. 136) Indeed, after
Iraq invaded Kuwait in August 1990, the rhetoric of the war on drugs
changed, with the Bush administration declaring victory in the war
against drugs late that year. Only mere coincidence, or had the Bush
administration found it no longer needed the War on Drugs, having found
the Butcher of Bagdhad? During the Reagan years, as the Cold War started
to wind down, the administration was pursuing the Contra covert war in
Central America against Nicaragua and the leading Marxist Sandinista
party. While this covert war was being waged by the CIA and the
U.S.-supported Nicaraguan Contras, there were reports, as early as 1986,
of the CIA and Contras being involved in drugs-for-guns barter
arrangements. There is a wealth of evidence there was an even more
unseemly side to the already patently corrupt Iran-Contra affair.
Investigations paralleling the Iran-Contra hearings have delved further
into the accumulated evidence of Contra involvement in drugs-for-guns
deals and alleged monetary transfers to the Contras from the drug
cartels. It has been documented.by Senator John Kerry's Congressional
Committee investigation that while the interdiction efforts were
increased, illegal drugs, especially cocaine, were being smuggled into
the U.S. by CIA-Contra airplanes and boats under the cover of
gun-running operations. The Colombian cartels. confronted by the
escalation of the "War on Drugs". were able to continue trafficking,
despite increased U.S. interdiction efforts. The corresponding increases
in interdiction efforts and the availability of cocaine has not escaped
the mention of Princeton University Prof. Ethan Nadalmann: "Indeed, if
(the interdiction and enforcement) efforts have accomplished anything in
recent years. it has been to make marijuana more expensive and scarcer
and to make cocaine cheaper, more potent, and more available." (Foreign
Policy Magazine, Summer 1988) The Nicaraguan Contra civilian leadership
chose their base in Miami in the 1980's. where the cocaine cowboys were
already established and renowned during the 1970's for the violence that
is associated with the illegal cocaine trade. Southern Air Transport
(S.A.T.). a ClA-affiliated freight airline operating out of Miami has
been implicated in drug-running, evidence of which comes from many
sources. Notably, in Congressional testimony Wanda Palacio, an FBI
informant, has stated that she witnessed drugs being exchanged for guns
on an S.A.T. plane in Barranquila, Colombia. Corroborating this
testimony is an Associated Press story of Jan. 21, 1987, which states
the October 1986
S.A.T. plane crash in Nicaragua revealed flight logs indicating that the
pilot, Wallace Sawyer Jr., had been flying from Barranquila, Colombia to
Miami, Florida in early October 1985. Eugene Hasenfus, an Air America
veteran and sole survivor of that crash, filed suit against White House
National Security Council (NSC) aide Richard Secord and S.A.T. for
expenses and damages, claiming S.A.T. and Secord were his employers.
Secord in turn contends that Mr. Hasenfus' real employer was Ronald
Reagan and the actual chain of command was
Reagan-Poindexter-North-Secord. Then there were the allegations coming
from Costa Rica regarding White House involvement in the drug trade. The
Central American country of Costa Rica lies on Nicaragua's Southern
border, which made Costa Rica strategically important during the Contra
insurgency in Nicaragua. In that time, the Northern region of Costa Rica
bordering with Nicaragua was the site of extensive CIA and Contra
activity. In the wake of the Iran-Contra affair, White House NSC staff
members Lt. Col. Oliver North, John Poindexter, and Richard Secord were
banned-for-life from entering Costa Rica in 1989, after the Costa Rican
legislature implicated the NSC staff members in guns and drug smuggling.
Former Contra leader Eden Pastora has said "I knew that much of what
went through (CIA operative John Hull's northern Costa Rica ranch's)
airstrips was related to narcotics trafficking" as part of a "Colomb
ia-Costa Rica, Costa Rica-Miami connection." (Cockburn, p. 177) These
White-House NSC members, along with John Hull, were indicted in a Costa
Rican court as accessories to murder in the La Penca assassination
attempt bombing on Eden Pastora's life which resulted in the death of an
American journalist. North, Poindexter and Secord were never extradicted
or arraigned in Costa Rica.
Evidence of White House premeditated involvement in drug trafficking is
provided by examining the unusual covert action background of key
Iran-Contra players, dating back to American involvement in Laos. Air
America - the CIA's Thailand-based Vietnam-era airline - was notorious
for its participation in heroin trafficking as a part of funding and
supporting the CIA's secret war in Laos during the Vietnam war. This
profound bit of history has been the focus of much commentary by
historians, and has been confirmed by many sources (regarding the recent
controversial August 1990 comic movie Air America, former Air America
pilot Jack Smith spoke out on Entertainment Tonight, substantiating the
essential truths in the movie).
Since controlling the Laotian opium fields determined who would control
Laos, the CIA put all of its support behind their chosen drug lord, Vang
Pao, and the amount of opiates that came out of Laos tripled. As it
turns out, Richard Secord (CIA Special Operations Group Deputy Wing
Commander in Laos), Lt. Col. Oliver North, Richard Armitage, and John
Singlaub were all veterans of the secret war in Laos (Cockburn). The
presence of several Laos secret-war veterans who emerged as key NSC
players in Iran-Contra exceeds the realm of mere coincidence. In the
October 1986 S.A.T. plane crash which yielded Eugene Hasenfus and the
U.S. Government embarrassment, an old Air America operations manual was
found. (Cockburn p. 221)
Public record documents that General Manuel Noriega was on the CIA
payroll in the early to mid 1970's, as well as the 1980's. An important
point mostly ignored in the mainstream press, however, is the
Congressional testimony by George Bush's own NSC advisor, Donald Gregg,
that George Bush (then Pres. Gerald Ford's CIA Director) met with
Noriega and other Panamanian officials sometime in 1976. This meeting
with Noriega took place well after Noriega had been implicated in the
intelligence community as a drug trafficker in the DEA's June 1975 DeFeo
report. Meeting with a foreign official, CIA Director George Bush would
have been fully briefed on Noriega's dossier. Later, Jimmy Carter's CIA
director, Adm. Stansfield Turner, ended payments to Noriega; however,
Noriega's CIA pay checks resumed when Reagan/Bush took office in l980.
(1990 PBS Frontline on Noriega)
It is interesting to note at this point that George Bush was the Drug
Czar during his tenure as Vice President under Pres. Ronald Reagan. in
NSC memos discovered in the-Iran-Contra investigation, it has been
revealed that George Bush's NSC advisor Donald Gregg was aware early on
of Contra involvement in the drug trade.
Could ex-CIA chief George Bush, at that point Vice President and Drug
Czar, be unaware of such goings-on when his reporting subordinate was
quite aware of Contra involvement in the drug trade?
And the pattern continues: During the first two years of the Bush
presidency, William Bennett, Bush's first Drug Czar, was criticized by
members of Congress for his apparent indifference to Federal judicial
and legal loopholes which permitted U.S. companies to export unusual
volumes of cocaine processing chemicals to Latin American countries
harboring cocaine production laboratories. Mr. Bennett had been an
outspoken proponent of escalating the war on drugs, and yet on this
important front of anti-drug policy, Mr. Bennett was apparently
negligent. (Rolling Stone, "Between the Lines", October - November 1990)
It's doubtful that the concurrence of the Contra war in Nicaragua with
the emergence of crack cocaine were mere coincidences. It has been long
aknowledged that heroin's prominence and availability during the Vietnam
war was contributed by the trafficking of opiates in Laos and Southeast
Asia. Sadly, covert wars and drug trafficking go hand in hand.
Ex-CIA field officer John Stockwell has commented, "We cannot forget the
Senate Kerry Committee findings of cocaine smuggling on ClA/Contra
aircraft, the DEA reports on the number of prosecutions in which the CIA
has intervened to block prosecution of drug smugglers, the note that
escaped Lt. Col. Oliver North's shredder that $14 million of drug money
had gone to the Contras, or the CIA's 20-odd-year relationship with
Manuel Noriega." (Austin American Statesman, op-ed editorial) Nor has
this escaped the comment of ex-DEA agent Michael Levine: "God knows how
many secret elements are out there working under the guise of the drug
war. Oliver North was the latest example. His operation was hip-deep in
Contra drug smuggling. He was banned from Costa Rica for his involvement
with drug runners. The DEA documented fifty tons of Contra coke that was
being routed into the U.S. by a Honduran connection. An agent bought two
kilos in Lubbock, Texas, and made the arrest. The CIA comes quickly to
the rescue. A closed hearing is held. Case dismissed." (Esquire, March
1991, p 136)
Leslie Cockburn has documented that since drug trafficking was
facilitated via an unhindered CIA-Contra network unencumbered by
increased U.S. border interdiction efforts, the effect was "...
involvement of the CIA and the related White House covert operations
network in drenching America in cocaine and other narcotics ..."
(Cockburn, p.187) And since overall cocaine use declined in the '80's,
it was the cheaper and more-addictive Crack cocaine that came into
prominence. As the shipments of South American marijuana declined as a
result of increased interdiction efforts, cheap cocaine came to the fore
to replace marijuana as the drug of choice for drug users and drug
smugglers alike.
Ronald Reagan's Secretary of State George Schultz, Reagan's former U.N.
Ambassador Jeanne Kirkpatrick, conservative economist Milton Friedman,
and columnist and editor of the National Review, William F. Buckley,
Jr., all sharply departed from the administration's anti-drug cant by
arguing the brief for decriminalization of drugs. At the height of the
war on drugs rhetoric, these orthodox conservatives apparently
intentionally diverted the course of the drug war rhetoric by proposing
the opposite extreme of what the Bush administration was promoting. What
could prompt a handful of GOP party loyalists to not only depart from
lip-syncing the party line. but also to voice an opinion 180 degrees
opposite of the Bush administration's declared policies? Was there some
thing about the war on drugs that bothered them, that would lead them to
propose something radically different?
Surely the knowledge of the Contra drug smuggling of the late 1980's and
the emergence of crack cocaine in 1985 would have led the Reagan-Bush
administration to anticipate the wave of cheaper drugs and drug-related
violence similar to what occurred in Miami in the l970s, the difference
being that crack cocaine is appropriate for down-scale markets (i.e.
poorer neighborhoods). While the mass media increasingly emphasized
minority drug use and drug-related crimes in the mid- to late-1980's,
the CIA and Contras freely smuggled cheap and potent crack cocaine for
down-scale markets while border interdiction efforts escalated,
increasingly limiting drug cartel trafficking to less bulky and more
easily smuggled cocaine.
This suggests that the Reagan administration, with prescience and malice
aforethought, conspired in feeding Americans both the cocaine and the
cocaine hysteria, and that psy-war intrigues have now become tools to
manipulate American politics (remember the use of disinformation in the
Reagan years).
Looking at the accumulated evidence that the Contras and the CIA engaged
in cocaine smuggling to fund the covert war in Nicaragua, suspicion
arises concerning the apparent coincidence that CIA-Contra drug
smuggling was contemporaneous with the "war on drugs". From a CIA covert
action in Latin America the cocaine has made its way NORTH (ala Oliver
North) to the American consumer, who is consistently portrayed as
African-American by the mass media, even though the majority of cocaine
consumption is by whites. The disturbing prospect arises that this "war
on drugs" was nothing more than CIA-style psychological warfare which
sought to acquire as much as possible of the sum total of our civil
liberties while particularly targeting minorities.
Even though overall cocaine use steadily decreased throughout the past
decade, our government and press declared a drug epidemic requiring a
crackdown, while the Reagan administration's covert war pumped crack
cocaine into the inner cities, thus further destabilizing communities
already afflicted by poverty and violence. If one assumes that the
Reagan-Bush administration understood the consequences of CIA and
Contras smuggling cheap and potent cocaine into America unhindered, then
one should look at the effects this activity had directly upon the
poverty-stricken communities afflicted by the drug trade. The drug trade
directly exacerbated the effects of inner-city crime and made the cities
increasingly unstable and unsafe.
If the ghetto drug dealers are the young capitalists who could, under
better circumstances, become community leaders, the influx of cheap
cocaine and the increasing poverty makes these possible ghetto leaders
emerge faster as outlaws, the result being that they are eliminated.
What better way to undermine your enemies? What better way to fund
covert actions? And what better way to grandstand about crime, morality,
and values?
THE WAR ON DRUGS, THE MEDIA, AND RACE
But as the White House covert war went about poisoning Americans with
drugs, the burden of addiction belonged to a relatively small number of
Americans, and the media reported the melodrama of a war waged by
politicians and policemen - not by scientists and doctors. All too
frequently the rhetoric of the war against drugs played to the
prejudices and fears of a society beset by racial frictions.
One need not look far to see the pattern of miscasting the focus of the
war on drugs on African-Americans. Almost every time one opens up one of
the major weekly magazines, or watches network news, the story of the
war on drugs is supplemented with pictures of African-Americans being
arrested by the police. At times, the script of the war on drugs is
insidious, as in a Dec. 3, 1990 TIME Magazine article on the war on
drugs: "Recognizing that the war on drugs has singled out the poor,
Bennett has urged state and federal authorities to come down harder on
middle-class users. He considers 'casual' drug users 'carriers' who are
even more infectious than addicts because they suggest to young people
'that you can do drugs and be O.K.'" (pg. 48)
In this article, the assumption is made that middle-class users are
"casual" users and the poor are the "addicts." While Bennett admits to
bias against the inner-city poor, immediately adjacent to this paragraph
is a photograph of a downcast black woman in handcuffs with the caption
"... the myth is that drug use is primarily a ghetto habit." Every
photograph in the article is of African-Americans - dead, imprisoned, or
injecting drugs. Nowhere in the article are to be found photographs of
white drug users. On pages 46 and 47 of the TIME article, the charts
show that as crack-cocaine prices decreased during the 1980's arrests
increased - again making the association with more affordable drugs and
crime.
However, no charts are to be seen indicating the decrease in overall
drug use throughout the decade. But again, on page 46, TIME makes the
association between "hard-core addiction," poverty, and race: "While the
U.S. has made significant progress in curbing casual drug use, it has
made far less headway on the problems that most trouble the public,
hard-core addiction and drug-related violence. Last year the National
Institute on Drug Abuse estimated that the number of current users of
illegal drugs had fallen to 14.5 million from 23 million in 1985. But
while there was a dramatic decrease in the number of occasional users,
the number of people who used drugs weekly or daily (292,000 in 1988 vs.
246,000 in 1985) had escalated as addiction to crack soared in some
mainly poor and minority areas.
Now in examining these statistics, the article does mention that in the
period 1985 - 1990 there were 8,500,000 fewer users of illegal drugs,
but between 1985 and 1988, there were 46,000 more daily and weekly users
of drugs, which TIME, again, attributes to crack. The TIME article
attributes the upward trend, which differs from the downward trend by 2
orders of magnitude. to "crack ... in some mainly poor and minority
areas."
The bias of the TIME article is clear: Even though the increase in
frequent users is a mere 0.5% of the overall decline in drug use, TIME
blurs the distinctions between kinds of illegal drugs and the difference
between drug use and drug abuse. Without even backing up these claims
with any statistics, TIME exaggerates the increase in frequent drug use
and portrays minorities and ever-cheaper crack cocaine as the source of
the presumed drug scourge. The TIME article admits that whites account
for 69% of cocaine users. but buries that important little factoid in
the middle of the article and doesn't even delve into cocaine use by
whites. Might drug consumption be the same for both whites and blacks of
the same socio-economic groups? One study indicated that drug use is
higher among white high school students, for the very simple reason that
the white teenagers have more money to spend on drugs than black
teenagers. It is disturbing that the media consistently break down drug
use and abuse statistics into racial groups rather than economic groups.
Black community leaders have decried the apparent media bias in
over-reporting "drug-related" crimes in black communities and
under-reporting the illicit drug trade in white communities. They note
that when the economics of the illegal drug trade is analyzed it is
readily apparent that black communities could not possibly be the locus
of America's drug trade, for the very simple reason that these
communities do not have the kind of disposable income required to
support America's illicit drug habit.
According to a 1989 National Bureau of Economic Research survey,
two-thirds of all inner city male youth, both black and white, believe
that they can make more money from crime than from legitimate work -
double the percentage of a survey conducted 10 years earlier. But since
young minority males have been disproportionately targeted by the war on
drugs, they are the ones serving increasingly long prison sentences for
drug offenses.
Minority leaders understand all too well that casting their communities
as major centers of the drug trade perpetuates the notion that minority
neighborhoods are plagued by poor welfare-dependant rabble who waste
public assistance on instant gratification rather than attempting to
better themselves. In media over-emphasis upon inner-city drug problems,
people in minority neighborhoods are disproportionately portrayed as
threats and dangers to society. Taxpayer anger and resentment, already
expressed in disastrous cuts in social and education programs, is
further inflamed and aggravated by media images of minorities engaged in
violence and self-destructive behaviors.
DISMANTLING THE ASSUMPTIONS ABOUT RACE
Even though the association between crime and poverty have been long
established, the media report crime rates and social problems as though
the white majority and racial minorities are on an equal socio-economic
playing field. Reporting these statistics according to race, the media
represents by default that crime and other social problems are
correlated with race. But if the media were really interested in a fair
and unbiased presentation of crime in America the media would ask
whether a significant difference exists between the crime rates and
public assistance incidences of both impoverished minorities and
poverty-stricken whites. It may be more revealing to compare economic
groups rather than racial groups, since the comparison would reveal a
stronger relationship between social problems and economic strata as
opposed to social problems and race. One would think it incumbent upon
the media to inquire as to whether whites living in poverty behave any
differently than their minority counterparts who find themselves in
equal economic straits.
The media persist in reporting the relatively higher public assistance
and incarceration rates of the minority populace beleaguered by poverty
as though economics has nothing to do with social problems, leaving the
audience to assume that the overriding contributing factor to crime and
dependence upon public assistance is race. When one takes into account
the acknowledged fact that a vastly greater proportion of minorities
than whites live in poverty, a lower crime rate will be attributed to
the total white populace since poor, middle class and wealthy whites are
lumped into the wealthier white majority. The adverse effects of poverty
(i.e. crime, drug abuse, etc.) will be more pronounced for minorities as
a whole, when statistics are broken down strictly by race, failing to
factor in economic status. So by token of their relative wealth, whites
are portrayed by the media as somehow more virtuous than minorities even
though the media never addresses the obvious question as to whether
economically disadvantaged whites are as likely as to be welfare
mothers, pregnant teens, drug dealers or absentee fathers. While there
is no doubt that serious problems afflict minority communities, and
these problems are not to be downplayed for the sake of opposing
government policy, the question remains whether it is accurate or fair
to emphasize race when so many other conspicuous variables are involved.
In the sensationalism of the war on drugs, if one cannot "just say no"
then one is lacking in moral capacity, and, since the venal media
declares that all inner-city crimes have become drug-related crimes,
premature death is then the inevitable result of the idleness and
hedonism of the darker races. The perception that welfare dependence
fosters idleness, drug use, and violence in turn leads to the conclusion
that welfare recipients are taking advantage of other citizens and
offering nothing in return, which of course absolves the middle-class of
obligations in the form of taxes and concern for fellow citizens. Those
who wish they didn't feel pangs of conscience about the socioeconomic
distances between the inner city and the suburbs can be comforted by
media double-think about race - believing that the segments of society
most plagued by violent crime, poor health, shortened life span, and
poor education are the most deserving of such circumstances. Indeed,
poor whites exhibit greater high school drop-out rates than do poor
blacks.
In letting misconceptions about race justify repudiation of
responsibility for the barriers and poverty experienced by minorities,
responsibility is ultimately relegated to minority children who had no
say about the world into which they were born. How often have we heard
the sentiment expressed that "they have more children than they can
afford?" In the rhetorical manipulation of resentment against "welfare
mothers," their children are bestowed a heritage as society's "excess
baggage," despite the fact that single women (and men) are denied access
to federal welfare, and the reason federal welfare is grudgingly
disbursed is to give succor to the children in poverty who are blameless
for the circumstances into which they were born. But despite glaring
inaccuracies in their rhetoric conservative politicians (most notably
Ronald Reagan) exploited an existing substrate of prejudice by using
anecdotal rhetorical ploys like "welfare mothers," a hot-button image
that became a metaphor for the oft-depicted absentee fathers, pregnant
teens, high drop-out rates, crime, vagrant hedonism, etc. - phenomena
that in the minds of the middle class become indistinguishable from
race.
The media is complicit in promulgating this image, neglecting to mention
that the majority of welfare recipients are white, failing to examine
the incidence of the same social problems amongst white counterparts of
poor minorities, and conveniently forgetting the effects of America's
historic racial legacy that impacts minority communities to this day.
The media reinforce the assumption middle class "news consumers" harbor
that the disproportionate burden of poverty upon minorities is an
artifact of some imagined lack of industry on the part of an ethnic
minority.
Federal assistance in the form of Aid to Families with Dependent
Children, by the way, is capriciously withdrawn if the woman tries to
budget costs by cohabiting with a man who may or may not be the
children's father, or who may or may not even be the woman's lover. In a
country with a 50% divorce rate, when presented the choice between her
children's well being and a potential male partner whose presence
entails forfeiture of AFDC (provided he cannot stay one step ahead of
welfare investigators) the woman is compelled to choose against marriage
and for the children if his income is less than the monthly AFDC check.
Barely maintaining some modicum of objectivity, the mass media have
obsequiously followed the government's script of the war on drugs.
Having saturated the public with images of African-Americans indulging
in drug use or being arrested by the police, the media still neglect to
even mention that the majority of illegal drug consumers are white or
that the majority of the illicit drug trade occurs in white communities.
If media intent is to be judged by its actions, I am inclined to think
the media expect the "news consumer" to infer that the overriding
factors contributing to violence in the inner city are drugs and race,
that the worsening appearance of the inner city is a result of an
indigenous idleness and amoral hedonism rewarded and reinforced by what
is in fact paltry federal assistance to poor families.
But even though the children in impoverished minority neighborhoods are
future citizens and are blameless for their parent's econoinic
situation, it is anticipated they will ultimately repeat the cycle of
welfare dependency, which in effect justifies denying them, their
parents, and their communities desperately needed funds. This
self-fulfilling prophecy relegates America's children to a category
where nothing is owed to them in the form of education, health care or
respect, since conventional wisdom expects them to be another generation
of social parasites.
MINORITIES AND VOTING
Martin Luther King III, the son of Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., has
said the reason Dr. King was assassinated was that Dr. King was asking
for redistribution of wealth and power (remember that a 1979
Congressional Committee determined that there were indeed conspiracies
to kill Martin Luther King and JFK). It has been argued that the real
enemies of U.S.-based multinational monied interests are minorities who
have been denied equal educational access in the past, who are in dire
need of infusions of public money into their school systems, and who,
once educated, would start voting in increasing numbers in favor of
greater social programs and a redistribution of power in America.
How valuable is education in drawing a person into political or civic
life? Politicians are well aware of the correlation between the
likelihood of voting and economic and educational background.
Politicians know even though more than half of the total electorate,
voting and nonvoting, makes less than $30,000 per year family income,
more than half of the votes actually cast are by voters with family
incomes greater than $30,000 per year, skewing election results
according to higher income and education. If American education were to
improve across the board, one might assume that whether or not incomes
showed a corresponding improvement, voting rates would increase most in
those sectors currently receiving inferior education.
The media provide the easy explanation for inner city violence as the
result of drugs, which reinforces the Calvinist notion that minority
neighborhoods are plagued by welfare dependent rabble who presumably
lack the motivation to better themselves and waste public assistance on
instant gratification. This also fuels tax payer anger and resentment,
justifying repudiation of responsibility for the general plight of
minorities. In this double-think, minorities become undeserving of
desperately needed tax dollars, education, health care, etc., and
deserving of more prisons, longer prison sentences, and shorter life
span. Under the doctrine that the poor should be motivated by the
unremitting spur of their poverty while the wealthy should be motivated
by the opportunity to acquire yet more wealth, those who are most
educated, wealthy, and politically involved owe nothing to the segments
of society who have sacrificed the most for America's perceived wealth.
After all, if we were to better educate minorities resulting in their
voting in increasing numbers, consider the political ramifications if
they did not also realize commensurate increases in income or
opportunities (I'm certain conservative policy analysts are well aware
of the implications inherent in a more democratic society).
American demographers predict current ethnic minorities will constitute
the majority some time next century, so it's not hard to imagine why the
right wing has sought to undermine, distance, and alienate them from the
electoral process. Were education reform finally delivered to all
Americans under the principle that society should deliver the education
necessary for democratic rule, then candidates of both political parties
would have to vie for those precious voter market shares by focusing on
real issues, which is contrary to the nature of the media contests
necessarily funded by monied interests who want to retain the status
quo.
THE WAR ON DRUGS AND POLITICIANS
While the media can be accused of complicity in the exaggerations and
myths of the war on drugs by failing to report actual drug-use trends,
many politicians are guilty of outright malfeasance in cynically
manipulating war on drugs rhetoric. Boston University President John
Silber in response to questions on why he didn't announce his
crime-control plans in a mostly black Boston neighborhood said "Well, I
will tell you something about that area. There is no point in my making
a speech on crime control to a bunch of addicts." His comment was in
reference to the predominantly African-American neighborhood of Roxbury,
Mass. He later recanted his remark after a widespread outcry ensued.
President Bush in his September 1989 televised speech to the nation,
attempted to escalate the rhetoric of the war on drugs by holding up a
bag of cocaine purchased from a Washington, D.C. resident in Lafayette
Park - just across the street from the White House. It was a stage prop
to signify how the scourge of drugs had pervaded society, and that the
plague of drug dealers had finally washed up upon the innocent shore of
the White House lawn. This was exposed for the fraud it was when it
leaked out that DEA agents had to lure the drug dealer to Lafayette Park
in order to have the arrest occur across the street from the White
House. When George Bush was caught by reporters in his little
cocaine-bag trick, his response was, "I don't understand - I mean, has
somebody got some advocates here for this drug guy?" Bush's little
cocaine-bag trick was analogous to the larger intrigue apparently
perpetrated by the CIA and the media: the most easily scapegoated
elements of society were fair game in an attempt to justify prolonging
the military-industrial complex and expanding the scope of America's
internal security apparatus. This media image confirms the worst that
can be imagined by the middle class about the neighborhoods populated by
racial groups whose plight would otherwise demand more state charity -
as opposed to an escalation of the war on drugs which will further
enrich the coffers of the military and police agencies.
He thought he was playing to a willing audience, very much in the same
manner Ronald Reagan demonstrated gutter-level ethics by using
cryptoracist rhetorical ploys like "welfare mothers." In the supply-side
logic of Reaganomics, the poor should be motivated by the unremitting
spur of their poverty and the wealthy should be motivated by the
opportunity to acquire yet more wealth. The media have conveyed, for
mass consumption, the Calvinist fallacy that drug-use and poverty are
the products of laziness and immorality and the appointments and
comforts of the consumer life-style are symbols of American virtue.
THE WAR ON DRUGS AND LAW AND ORDER
Naturally, the cities of America, which witnessed prohibition-related
violence in the 1920's and 30's, bear the costs of similar violence
today, as poverty continues to take its toll on a growing underclass.
The conditions of chronic poverty (remember, 20 million people in
America suffer from hunger) only aggravates the human desires for
escapist self-intoxication, and intensifies criminal greed modeled after
and justified by Donald Trump, Samuel Pierce, Ivan Boesky, Michael
Milken, Oliver North, or corrupt military contractors. The rule of law
breaks down slowly in a spiral that starts from the top.
In states like Florida, tougher anti-drug legislation has resulted in
astonishing numbers of first-time drug offenders serving increasingly
longer mandatory sentences, thereby pressing the early release of
inmates convicted of violent crimes. The statistics are breathtaking in
that they demonstrate how obviously misguided the current drug strategy
has become.
George Bush's current Drug Czar, Bob Martinez, during his 1986 - 1990
tenure as Florida's governor managed to push through tough legislation
that entailed mandatory one-year to three-year prison terms for persons
convicted of selling drugs near college campuses, public parks, or
using, buying, or selling drugs near or in housing projects.
But while the number of inmates convicted of drug offenses for the
period 1985 - 1990 jumped 580% for simple possession and 700% for
low-level drug activity (i.e. purchase/sale), the number of high-level
drug traffickers (i.e. drug kingpins) remained constant in the 5-year
period at 1,000 inmates. According to two FSU researchers, the majority
of current arrestees have no prior criminal record. Despite Martinez's
accomplishment of building more prisons in his 4-year tenure than were
built in the previous two decades, Florida prison populations surged
with first-time drug offenders serving mandatory sentences. The
resulting overcrowding was eased via a variety of sentence- reductions
and early-release programs, resulting in the duration of murder
sentences dropping by 40%, robbery sentences dropping by 42 percent, and
overall prison sentences dropping by 38%. Florida, with all of its new
laws and new prisons, now has its convicts serving the lowest percentage
of their prison sentences in the country - 32.5%. (Mother Jones,
July/August 1991) It seems that not only is the war on drugs biased and
duplicitous, but is also stupid and lost.
But in examining the relative performance of our system, the U.S.
currently has the highest incarceration rate of any country in the
world, exceeding South Africa's and the Soviet Union's. Indeed there are
more American black males in prison than there are in college. In 1990,
a Minnesota drug-enforcement law was found racially biased and
unconstitutional by the Minnesota Supreme Court, because it imposed
harsher penalties upon illicit users of crack cocaine (predominantly
African-Americans) than consumers of more-expensive powdered cocaine
(mostly caucasians). And note that crack cocaine is essentially the same
as freebasing powdered cocaine - a practice popular among caucasian
cocaine users. A similar existing Federal law imposes harsher sentences
on crack-cocaine convictions than powdered-cocaine convictions.
Looking back at the past decade, we find that the number of Americans in
prison doubled from 500,000 to 1 million. that the majority of convicts
are imprisoned for drug offenses (not violent crimes), and while 80% of
drug users are white, and as of 1990, the majority of prisoners are
black. More disturbing yet, 1 in 4 black males in their twenties are
incarcerated or on parole or probation. but 1 of 5 black males between
the ages of 16 - 34 are in prison, or on parole or probation, which
indicates that the broader age range finds young black males staying out
of the criminal justice system, and that black males who came of age in
the Reagan era were those most targeted by the war on drugs. Between
1985 and 1988, prosecutions of white juvenile drug offenders dropped 15
percent while jumping 88% for their minority counterparts. When
assembled, these statistics have prompted many to call the government's
war on drugs a "race war," never mind the long-acknowledged lopsided
trend of minorities receiving harsher prison sentences than white
counterparts convicted of equal crimes.
With astonishing numbers of young minority males convicted of drug
offenses paroled from crowded jails, the effect is not to jail them, but
to bar them from voting and to further incumber them in finding
employment or advancing themselves economically as a result of the
stigma of their criminal records. But while drug treatment programs are
eminently more humane and more economical (1/4th the cost of prisons),
and realize vastly lower recitivism rates (1/4th the recidivism of
prisons), the emphasis is not upon bettering the lives of citizens who
run afoul of our drug laws, but to create a criminal justice debacle
that will take years to rectify.
But the racial aspects of the war on drugs are accompanied by an equally
insidious specter: the steady erosion of our civil liberties. Under
federal drug laws, agents can - without a formal court indictment -
confiscate your home, car, and the funds with which you would retain an
attorney so to defend yourself! And the government is not obliged to
return that property if you are acquitted. Your lawyer may be subpoenaed
to testify against you, so lawyer-client privilege is no longer
inviolate.
The Reagan and Bush era Supreme Court has upheld police powers to detain
and interrogate travelers who bear a resemblance to "drug couriers," to
engage in surveillance, including secretly taping conversations and
sifting through garbage. An anonymous tip is now sufficient grounds for
a search warrant, meaning the police no longer have to verify that their
source is reliable. New anti-crime legislation entails granting the
police the power to submit as admissible evidence any property gained as
a result of entering your home without a warrant. The new legislation
also includes extending mandatory death sentences to include drug
convictions which do not involve a homicide, and to limit federal death
sentence appeals thereby speeding executions. The U.S. Supreme Court has
recently ruled that a mandatory life sentence for a first-time drug
offender acting as a drug courier is not cruel and unusual punishment.
But apart from the violence of the drug trade, the number of deaths
attributed directly to illegal drugs in 1985 was 3,562, whereas 520,000
people die each year strictly from the health effects of our legal
drugs, tobacco and alcohol.
Even when the violence of the drug trade is taken into account, the
figure surges up towards 15,000 deaths per year, which still pales in
comparison to the violence and premature deaths attributed to alcohol.
But even though no drug is as renowned for its association with violence
and premature death as alcohol, surely Americans want to retain their
freedoms to use and abuse alcohol. Indeed, given the well- known
physically addictive nature of both cigarettes and alcohol, it is
interesting to note that marijuana is not addictive. Strictly by virtue
of marijuana's illegal status, it serves as a vertical marketing tool
for other illicit - and addictive - drugs. One need to look no further
for a finer example of the hypocrisy of our government's policies
regarding substance abuse and addiction, than the unseemly spectre of
our government's subsidies of the tobacco-growing industry. The
cigarette manufacturers however, expect healthy profits, since the
remaining market of addicted cigarette smokers will easily bear c
igarettes manufacturers' price hikes.
Indeed, in the face of a declining market of cigarette smokers in the
U.S., our cigarette manufacturers are seeking new markets. So, in the
course of recent trade negotiations with Thailand the U.S. government,
apparently looking after the interests of U.S. tobacco growers, recently
threatened to impose stiff trade penalties if the Thai government didn't
ease its prohibition of tobacco use in that southeast Asian country.
THE WAR ON DRUGS AND FREEDOM
The current wave of drug testing via urine specimens by corporations
will not detect occasional cocaine use but will detect occasional
marijuana use - marijuana being the drug-of-choice for what the right
wing considers political heretics. These are of course, the same liberal
heretics, according to arch-conservatives like Jesse Helms, who want to
give jobs away to blacks, who were unpatriotic spoiled brats who
protested against the Vietnam War and used drugs, who allowed an
epidemic of abortions, and who are responsible for the general decline
of morality and patriotism in the country. And the drug testing
ostensibly required to qualify for employment may be a cover for
corporations and insurance companies to winnow out employees who are
pregnant, have diabetes, etc., while providing no guarantee that the
results of the tests will be applied equitably or fairly.
And despite the obvious drug scandal lurking behind Iran-Contra, no one
in their right mind dare openly oppose the war on drugs for risk of
being suspect as a heretic, liberal, or worse, a DRUG USER. In this
political atmosphere reasoned debate about drugs is stifled and open
dissent casts suspicion on anyone opposed to a governmental drive to
acquire enhanced powers of repression and control. Too embarrassed to
even utter a squeak of opposition to an obviously cynical abuse of our
rights, the population is cowed into accepting the goverment's fear
campaign and grows to regard the complaints of civil rights advocates as
somehow either naive, liberal, fringe, militant, or radical.
The scope of this impingement upon civil rights has extended to the
criminalization of millennia-old American Indian ritual use of
hallucinogenic peyote cactus buds in religious practice. The ritual use
of hallucinogenic plants in the Native American Clourch was legal until
recently, but now that religious freedom has been abrogated by the war
on drugs.
FREEDOM AND SECURITY
The devastating violence of the Prohibition era finally prompted
nullifying the Prohibition amendment; the rum-running gangster violence
was far more devastating than the social costs associated with legal
alcohol. The question is, what is it that is so different about other
addictive drugs? If one were to compare the escalation of inner city
violence associated with the illicit trade of highly addictive drugs,
and the alternative of legalizing the drugs so that payment schedules
would no longer be enforced with hand guns, it seems the choice would be
for legalizing the drugs. While there would be some increase in drug use
and addiction as a result of legalization, the destructive violence
associated with the drug trade would be eliminated. In communities affli
cted with drug abuse and paralyzed by poverty and violence, eliminating
the violence is paramount. If the alternative of legalization entails a
marginal increase in drug addiction and a decrease in drug-related
violence, then it seems the truly rational alternative is to accept a
few more addicts in return for fewer deaths.
But in lieu of a rational discussion about the pro's and con's of
legalization, we have been treated to a barrage of rhetoric and
demagoguery. Rather than try to clarify the issue, rather than attempt
to answer to the desperation of communities besieged by poverty and
violence, our policitians lambast anyone who calls into question the
failed policies that have lead to this awful situation. Repeatedly, I
have observed politicians cloud the issue with rhetoric and polemics,
refusing to discuss the benefits and trade-offs of legalization,
annointing themselves sole purveyors of canonical truth. In the interest
of the status quo (i.e., minimal taxes for the rich and upper middle
class in fortress suburbia), our politicians have scape-goated
minorities so to justify denial of their plight or the need to spend the
money required to extract them from the mire of inadequate education and
health care. In the portrayal of the poor as deserving of their plight
and undeserving of the assistance of society, the polity has been
infected with the deadly pale cast of theocracy, thereby leaving us the
lurid spectre of an increasingly violent society.
It seems that the greatest threats to freedom in America are the habits
of liberty, citizen responsibility and tolerance falling into disuse. If
one turns on the T.V., the media promote (he perception that T.V.'s.
stereos, CD players. VCR's, fast food, microwave entrees, cars and
expressways expand the scope of freedom that one may enjoy, while the
same media has portrayed as threats to these freedoms tax-hungry
liberals and welfare- dependent neighborhoods riddled with drug dealers.
As the average American adult watches 30 hours per week of T.V., he is
increasingly isolated from civic life and perceives his world via a
one-way conversation with the sensationalist mass-media. In that one's
Constitutional freedoms and social-contract obligations are replaced by
consumer pseudo-freedoms, one's status as a consumer supplants one's
status as a citizen. Political expression of anything other than what
has been espoused by "experts" falls in the realm of the imprudent, and
aspirations or opinions that counter the "conventional wisdom" are
oddball, selfish, misguided, or misinformed. If not regarded as
"normal," "bipartisan," "acceptable," "efficient," "strong," or "tough,"
other ideas become regarded as anomalous. The labels "liberal," "weak,"
"anti-family," etc., pre-empt any doubts or criticism of what the ivory
tower technocrats and policy analyst priesthood has determined to be the
final shining ultimate truth. And if confronted with evidence that casts
doubt upon the wisdom or efficacy of current policy, the status quo is
defended by either clouding the issue with some tangential matter or
avoiding an honest response or concession with a reliable thought
terminating cliche. Our politicians conduct opinion polls, much in the
manner that marketing research is done for our clothes and our cars, to
parade that ephemeral mandate of the people missing when 50% of the
electorate didn't bother to vote (a viable well-funded organized third
party could easily take advantage of such a large proportion of
non-voters if they were convinced that voting would be in their best
interest). In election time, emotional rhetorical "hot buttons" (i.e.
drugs, flag desecration, Willie Horton. ACLU membership, reverse
discrimination) are determined via marketing research to determine which
voting blocks can be motivated to vote and which voting blocks can be
alienated and dis-motivated into not voting.
With costly media contests necessarily funded on both sides by monied
interests, the republic comes to resemble an oligarchy, with each party
becoming increasingly interchangable, offering safe opinions in return
for the largesse of well-to-do political donors.
The Democrats, nominal party of opposition in the past decade and
presumably friends of civil liberties, have become timid and as a result
Congress has abdicated more and more of its power to the executive
branch, a capitulation with profound ramifications. The myriad voices
that are necessary to democratic rule are homogenized into the
incomprehensible circuitous babble of politicians who listen not to the
electorate, but rather select the voters meeting the criteria of the
political marketing surveys.
But if the mass media were to offer its "consumers" an honest
examination of what the war on drugs has so far entailed, how long would
popular support last for an unjustifiable war on our civil rights? Under
the pretense of fighting drugs and violence, the government has acquired
enhanced police powers. A September 1989 Washington Post opinion poll
showed more than half the respondents were willing to "give up some
freedoms" in order to fight the war on drugs - including informing on
family members, universal mandatory drug testing, military involvement,
etc. The cynicism of the war on drugs might have passed as a lesson in
how absurd the rancor and rhetoric of democracy can get at times, but
foremost it stands as an ominous milestone. When one accounts for the
steady erosion of our civil rights, the Iran-Contra affair, the
CIA-Contra intrigues, the widespread media complicity in promoting war
on drugs rhetoric while ignoring the CIA-Contra involvement in the drug
trade, the war on drugs has been immediately damaging to the habits of
liberty and has sought to make the most basic tenets of our Constitution
null and void.
As the U.S. Government has been deprived of the USSR as an enemy, our
leaders must conjure up new threats so that we may require their
leadership. The war on drugs ostensibly attacked drug use and abuse, but
in the end it sought to acquire as much as possible the sum total of our
civil rights. In selecting the most easily scapegoated elements of
society and the poorly understood illness of drug addiction, the
government rallies one group of people against another by offering
protection from a government- proclaimed epidemic that would supposedly
spread, if left unchecked, to the innocent realms beyond the inner
cities.
In offering protection from a social problem better addressed by doctors
and education, the same government which promised to get big government
off our backs has succeeded in expanding its available powers of
repression and control and has scapegoated and marginalized a racial
minority. If one were to watch the evening news in recent years, one
might have drawn the conclusion that the greatest threat to our internal
security was an epidemic of drug abuse and related violence, and the
villains responsible for this awful plague were Narco-militarists in
Central and South America, and the darker races in America's
inner-cities. This widely broadcast notion set the precedent for further
incursions upon privacy and civil rights in the future. But just as the
Reagan administration was found to have violated its own declared policy
of combating terrorism and terrorist attacks by dealing arms to declared
terrorists, a deeper look into the war on drugs reveals a government
partnership with drug traffickers while presumably fighting drugs.
Massachusetts Institute of Technology Linguistics Professor Noam Chomsky
has noted: "If the media proceed to expose the probable U.S. government
complicity in the international drug racket, that will (cause the
administration serious problems) given the effort to exploit the drug
problem as an additional device to mobilize the public and bring it to
accept the strengthening of state power and the attack on civil
liberties that is yet another platform of the conservative agenda." (
Culture of Terrorism, p. 186) President Dwight Eisenhower warned in his
farewell address to the nation on January 17, 1961: "In the councils of
government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted
influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial com
plex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists
and will persist." But monied interests who buy the mass media have
convinced many voters that taxes are being wasted on social programs
presumably rewarding poverty and encouraging minority idleness leading
to drug dependency and violence. It's the same monied interests
benefiting from increased spending on the corrupt military-industrial
complex at the expense of social programs, childhood nutrition, and
education.
In light of the Iran-Contra intrigues and the psychological warfare
schemes of the war on drugs, it can be argued that Eisenhower's greatest
fear has come true. We must heed the 1961 omen and take care that we do
not submit to a demagogue offering security in exchange for freedom, for
we will find ourselves in a situation where we are neither secure nor
free. Democracy only works if all the groups collectively welcome each
other and accept each other's interests in addition to their own.
Otherwise, the polity evolves into something other than democratic, and
the buffer against turmoil that the habit of compromise provides is
diminished.
The only viable long-term alternative for the U.S. is to treat all of
its people as though they are indeed citizens. The dangers of a selfish
oligarchy using smoke and mirrors tactics is that the resulting mass
alienation of the public from the democratic process leaves the republic
vulnerable to the increasing incidence of demagoguery. It must be widely
recognized that all Americans' destinies are intertwined and all are
inexorably linked and responsible for one another. The alternative is
reaping a crop of tragedy from the iniquities that have been sown, and
that prospect could come sooner than we think.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
John Stockwell: Lecturer on CIA operations; former CIA field case
officer
Harpers Magazine: Editor Lewis Lapham's November 1989 rant about the
dangers and hypocrisies of the war on drugs
Associated Press, Jan. 21,1987
Associated Press, Oct. 3, 1988
Esquire Magazine, Michael Levine, March 1991
Spin Magazine, Michael Levine, May I June 1991
Foreign Policy Magazine, Prof Ethan Nadalman, Spring and Summer 1988
Newsday, June 28, 1987
The Pittsburgh Press, May 12, 1988
Rolling Stone, November issue, 1988
Rolling Stone, Between the Lines. October -November 1990
TIME Magazine, Dec 3, 1990
Village Voice, Oct. 11, 1988
Z Magazine, December 1990
Mother Jones Magazine, July / August 1991, "Just Say Whoa! to George
Bush's race-based war on drugs ..."
Humanist Magazine, The Empowerment Project, June 1991
Christopher Robbins: Air America, 1979 edition. Inexplicably Robbins has
deleted from his 1988 edition of Air America many references and quotes
that occurred in his original 1979 edition regarding direct CIA
involvement in drug smuggling in Laos and Southeast Asia. Robbins became
embroiled in controversy when he spoke out against the 1990 movie Air
America, and was roundly criticized by former Air America pilot Jack
Smith, ex-ClA agent John Stockwell, and journalist Andrew Cockburn.
Alan Moore & Bill Sienkiewicz: Brought to Light, Eclipse Books
Noam Chomsky: The Culture of Terrorism, South End Press
Joy & Siegel Hackel: In Contempt of Congress, Institue for Policy
Studies, 1987
Avirgan, Tony & Honey: La Penca: Report of an Investigation
Avirgan. Tony & Honey: La Penca: On Trial in Costa Rica
William Blum: The CIA: A Forgotten History
Marshall Scott and Hunter: The Iran-Contra Connection, South End Press
CATO Institute: The Crisis in Drug Prohibition
Michael Levine: Deep Cover, Delacorte Press, 1990
Henrik Kruger: The Great Heroin Coup, South End Press
Jonathan Kwitny: The Crimes of Patriots, Norton & Co.
Alfred W. McCoy: The Politics of Heroin in Southeast Asia, Harper & Row
Leslie Cockburn: Out of Control, Atlantic Press
Leslie Cockburn, CBS West 57th Street Programs: John Hull's Farm
Bordering on War. June 25, 1987; The CIA Connection: Drugs for Guns,
April 6,1987; CIA Front Dealing Drugs, July 11, 1987
Leslie & Andrew Cockburn, PBS Frontline: Guns, Drugs & the CIA, May 17,
1988; Helena Kennedy & Richard Bradley, The Heart of the Matter, BBC TV
Bill Moyers: "The Secret Government: The Constitution in Crisis", PBS,
Bill Moyer's Journal, Nov. 4. 1987
Charles Stuart: Murder on the Rio San Juan, PBS, Frontline, April 19,
1988
Barbara Trent & Gary Meyer: Cover-up: Behind the Iran-Contra Affair,
NIPI Home Video
The Shadow Government, Christic Institute Home Video
PBS Frontline on Noriega - 1990
The "War on Drugs"The CIASerendipity Home Page
-----
Aloha, He'Ping,
Om, Shalom, Salaam.
Em Hotep, Peace Be,
Omnia Bona Bonis,
All My Relations.
Adieu, Adios, Aloha.
Amen.
Roads End
Kris
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