Since the discussion of the U.S. drug "war" has come up recently, list
members might be interested in Noam Chomsky's analysis of the motivations
behind it. Chomsky, if you don't know him, is a political writer and
academic who teaches linguistics at MIT and is widely reputed to be the most
quoted political writer in the world. This excerpt is from his short book,
_What Uncle Sam Really Wants_, Tucson: Odonian Press, 1992, pp.82-86.
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. . .[for the American government after the collapse of the Soviet Union]
the end of the Cold War brings problems too. Notably, the technique for
controlling the domestic population has had to shift, a problem recognized
through the 1980s, as we've already seen. New enemies have to be invented.
It becomes harder to disguise the fact that the real enemy has always been
"the poor who seek to plunder from the rich"--in particular, Third World
miscreants who seek to break out of the service role.
The War on (certain) Drugs
One substitute for the disappearing Evil Empire has been the threat of drug
traffickers from Latin America. In early September 1989, a major
government-media blitz was launched by the President. That month the AP
wires carried more stories about drugs than about Latin America, Asia, the
Middle East and Africa combined. If you looked at television, every news
program had a big section on how drugs were destroying our society, becoming
the greatest threat to our existence, etc.
The effect on public opinion was immediate. When Bush won the 1988
election, people said the budget deficit was the biggest problem facing the
country. Only about 3% named drugs. After the media blitz, concern over the
budget was way down and drugs had soared to about 40% or 50%, which is
highly unusual for an open question (where no specific answers are
suggested).
Now, when some U.S. client [i.e., a small foreign country dependent on
US dollars] complains that the US government isn't sending it enough money,
they no longer say, "we need it to stop the Russians"--rather, "we need it
to stop drug trafficking." Like the Soviet threat, this enemy provides a
good excuse for a US military presence where there's rebel activity or other
unrest.
So internationally, "the war on drugs" provides a cover for
intervention. Domestically, it has little to do with drugs but a lot to do
with distracting the population, increasing repression in inner cities, and
building support for the attack on civil liberties.
That's not to say that "substance abuse" isn't a serious problem. At the
time the drug war was launched, deaths from tobacco were estimated at about
300,000 a year, with perhaps another 100,000 from alcohol. But these aren't
the drugs the Bush administration targeted. It went after illegal drugs,
which had caused many fewer deaths--over 3500 a year--according to official
figures. One reason for going after these drugs was that their use had been
declining for some years, so the Bush administration could safely predict
that its drug war would "succeed" in lowering drug use.
The Administration also targeted marijuana, which hadn't caused any
known deaths among some 60 million users. In fact, that crackdown has
exacerbated the drug problem--many marijuana users have turned from this
relatively harmless drug to more dangerous drugs like cocaine, which are
easier to conceal.
Just as the drug war was launched with great fanfare in September 1989,
the US Trade Representative (USTR) panel held a hearing in Washington to
consider a tobacco industry request that the US impose sanctions on Thailand
in retaliation for its efforts to restrict US tobacco imports and
advertising. Such US government actions had already rammed this lethal
addictive narcotic down the throats of consumers in Japan, South Korea and
Taiwan, with human costs of the kind already indicated.
The US surgeon General, Everett Koop, testified at the USTR panel that
"when we are pleading with foreign governments to stop the flow of cocaine,
it is the height of hypocrisy for the US to export tobacco." He added,
"years from now, our nation will look back on this application of free trade
policy and find it scandalous."
Thai witnesses also protested, predicting that the consequence of US
sanctions would be to reverse a decline in smoking achieved by their
government's campaign against tobacco use. Responding to the US tobacco
companies' claim that their product is the best in the world, a Thai witness
said" "Certainly in the Golden Triangle we have some of the best products,
but we never ask the principle of free trade to govern such products. In
fact we suppressed them." Critics recalled the Opium War 150 years earlier,
when the British government compelled China to open its doors to opium from
British India, sanctimoniously pleading the virtues of free trade as they
forcefully imposed large-scale drug addiction on China.
Here we have the biggest drug story of the day. Imagine the screaming
headlines: "US government the world's leading drug peddler." It would surely
sell papers. But the story passed virtually unreported, and with not a hint
of the obvious conclusions.
Another aspect of the drug problem. which also received little
attention, is the leading role of the US government in stimulating drug
trafficking since WWII. This happened in part when the US began its postwar
task of undermining the anti-fascist resistance and the labor movement
became an important target.
In France, the threat of the political power and influence of the labor
movement was enhanced by its steps to impede the flow of arms to French
forces seeking to reconquer their former colony of Vietnam with US aid. So
the CIA undertook to weaken and split the French labor movement--with the
aid of top American labor leaders, who were quite proud of ltheir role.
The task required strikebreakers ands goons. There was an obvious
supplier: the Mafia. Of cours, they didn't take on this work just for the
fun of it. They wanted a return for their efforts. Ands it was given to
them: they were authorized to reestablish the heroin racket that had been
suppressed by the fascist governments--the famous "French connection" that
dominated the drug trade until the 1960s.
By then, the center of the drug trade had shifted to Indochina,
particularly Laos and Thailand. The shift was again a by-product of a CIA
operation--the "secret war" fought in those countries during the Vietnam War
by a CIA mercenary army. They also wanted a payoff for their contributions.
Later, as the CIA shifted its activities to Pakistan and Afghanistan, the
drug racket boomed there.
The clandestine war against Nicaragua also provided a shot in the arm to
drug traffickers in the region, as illegal CIA arms flights to the US
mercenary forces offered an easy way to ship drugs back to the US, sometimes
through US Air Force bases, traffickers report.
The close correlation between the drug racket and US sponsored
international terrorism (sometimes called "counter-insurgency," "low
intensity conflict" or some other euphemism) is not surprising. Clandestine
operations need plenty of money, which should be undetectable. And they need
criminal operatives as well. The rest follows.
___________________
Jenny Decker
<A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/">www.ctrl.org</A>
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