Venezuela a Cocaine Super-Highway to the US?
by Stephen Lendman (stephenlendman.org – Home – Stephen Lendman)
Venezuela under Chavez and Maduro is in the forefront of combatting illicit drugs. More on this below.
The US is the world’s leading facilitator of the illicit trade – working with drug cartels, notably through the CIA. Major US banks profit hugely from laundering dirty money.
In his book titled “The Politics of Heroin: CIA Complicity in the Global Drug Trade,” Alfred McCoy documented CIA and US government complicity in drugs trafficking at the highest official levels.
It continues today in Asia, Europe, the Middle East, South and Central America, facilitating the global supply of illicit drugs.
Peter Dale Scott explained that “(s)ince at least 1950, there has been a global CIA-drug connection operating more or less continuously” to this day.
“The global drug connection is not just a lateral connection between CIA field operatives and their drug-trafficking contacts.”
“It is more significantly a global financial complex of hot money uniting prominent business, financial and government, as well as underworld figures,” a sort of “indirect empire (operating alongside) existing government.”
America is one of numerous countries involved, the most harmful and disturbing because of its imperial power and global reach, influencing or affecting virtually everything worldwide.
The CIA relies on involvement in drugs trafficking for the significant amount of its revenues.
Heroin, cocaine, and other illicit drugs produce hundreds of billions of dollars in annual revenues – a US government-supported bonanza, facilitated by corrupt officials, the CIA, organized crime, US and Western financial institutions, as well as other corporate interests.
Pre-9/11, Afghanistan under Taliban rule eradicated 94% of opium production, according to UN estimates, one of various reasons why Bush/Cheney launched naked aggression on the country in October 2001.
One objective was increasing opium production. Afghanistan was transformed into the world’s largest supplier – at one point producing more than total global demand, now accounting for at least most of it.
Disinformation, Big Lies, and fake news are what CNN does best – the most distrusted name in television news, a lying machine masquerading as a news organization, its operation a virtual conspiracy against truth-telling on vital issues.
On April 17, its propaganda piece on Venezuela falsely accused the country of “creat(ing) a cocaine super-highway to the US” – a bald-faced Big Lie, turning truth on its head claiming the following:
“Cocaine trafficking from Venezuela to the United States is soaring (sic)…(Unnamed) US and other regional officials say (sic) it’s Venezuela’s own military and political elite who are facilitating the passage of drugs in and out of the country on hundreds of tiny, unmarked planes (sic).”
“Diosdado Cabello, the leader of Venezuela’s National Constituent Assembly and…Nicolas Maduro’s number two, was (sic) sanctioned in May 2018 for being ‘directly involved in narcotics trafficking activities’ ” – referring to Tareck El Aissami, Venezuelan executive vice president from January 2017 – mid-June 2018.
He’s currently Minister of Industries and National Production. Responding to fabricated charges, he said the following:
“When I headed the public security corps of my country, in 2008 — 2012, our fight against drug cartels achieved the greatest progress in our history and in the western hemisphere, both in terms of the transnational drug trafficking business and their logistics structures.”
“During those years, the Venezuelan anti-drug enforcement authorities under my leadership captured, arrested and brought 102 heads of criminal drug trafficking organizations not only to the Venezuelan justice but also to the justice of other countries where they were wanted.”
Bush/Cheney officials falsely accused Venezuela of non-cooperation against narco-trafficking the US supports worldwide.
Annually since then, Washington falsely claimed Venezuela hasn’t fulfilled its obligations under international narcotics agreements.
The Treasury Department sanctioned around two dozen Venezuelan nationals and over two dozen entities – falsely accusing them of narco-trafficking, including Aissami.
In response to false charges against him, he also wrote a public letter to US Treasury Secretary Mnuchin, saying in part:
US “interest groups not only lack any evidence to demonstrate the extremely serious accusations against me, but they also have built a false-positive case in order to criminalize – through me – the Government of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, a country that is decidedly waging a war on transnational drug trafficking business.”
Dozens of “captured drug lords… were promptly deported to the USA (and) Colombia, in accordance with the requests made by the authorities of each country and in compliance with the international agreements on the fight against organized crime, facts formally acknowledged by the US and Colombian
authorities.”
“…Venezuela has always been recognized by the United Nations as a territory free of drug production…(C)onnections between (the US) Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) (and) criminal drug organizations (are) very well documented…”
“The extraordinary progress made by the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela in the fight against drug trafficking – which I directed in my capacity as head of the public security corps – was acknowledged by (the UN, and other) international organizations…”
Venezuelan efforts in combatting illicit drugs trafficking are recognized “in the archives of the Judicial bodies of the United States and Colombia, which also acknowledged the efforts that I headed against organized crime, which is unprecedented in our hemisphere.”
Venezuelan law mandates interdiction of drugs-trafficking aircraft in the nation’s airspace. Its efforts “destroyed, disabled or brought down over 100 aircraft belonging to the drugs transport structure from Colombia and neighboring countries illegally flying over our territory.”
“Venezuela is waging an all-out war against drugs because it is a cross-border crime against humanity…”
“Venezuela also fights drug cartels because our country and our people are victims of drug trafficking, particularly of the powerful Colombian illegal drug industry, the main supplier of the drugs that flood the streets of the United States and Europe” – facilitated by the nation’s narco-terrorist authorities at the highest levels.
“Today more drugs are brought into the United States than ever before, while a corrupt and legal powerful financial structure legitimizes and recycles dirty money from this international illegal activity, which deprives thousands of American young people of their life and future.”
The so-called US war on drugs is all about facilitating illicit trafficking, along with criminalizing and mass imprisoning ordinary Americans for possession of small amounts for their own use.
The US is ground zero for the illicit drugs trade. Venezuela is the hemisphere’s leader in combatting it.
Will false US charges of illicit drugs trafficking against Venezuela be used by the Trump regime as a pretext for military intervention to topple Maduro and eliminate the country’s social democracy?
Everything tried so far failed. While direct US military intervention is unlikely, put nothing past extremists in charge of Trump’s geopolitical agenda.
They’re hellbent to get another US imperial trophy, along with gaining control over Venezuelan world’s largest oil reserves and other valued resources.
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