The Drug Induced Fog of War

author : Ron Jacobs topic : Afghanistan | Colombia

by Ron Jacobs

Oct. 7, 2005-- Recent reports from Washington and Kabul suggest that the United States and its client government are considering some legal production of opium in that tattered country. The reasons for this is two-fold. First off, the US-sponsored authority in Kabul, H. Karzai, knows that his government can not stop opium production without losing his position, his power and perhaps his life. Secondly, some of the members of the government there are engaged in opium production and refuse to give it up, especially since there are no other truly profitable endeavors they could undertake. (Karzai and his cronies have all of the more legal activities sewn up.) In addition, the opium industry is how they keep their people employed and also how they arm themselves.

In the Latin American front of Washington's "war on drugs," the ambassador to Colombia William Wood is urging the Colombian military to spray that nation's national parks with the fumigation agent glyphosate in order to destroy any coca plants that are being cultivated there. Colombia's national parks include thousands of acres of virgin forest and contain species that are found nowhere else in the world. As campesinos, environmental and human rights representatives have made clear time and time again, when helicopters and planes drop this agent from the air, it destroys every plant in its path. That means the farmers' food crops are destroyed along with any coca crops that might also be growing in the region being fumigated. In addition, the fumigation has occurred more often in areas under the control of Colombia's revolutionary guerrilla groups than in areas known to be under the control of the various rightwing paramilitary organizations that also exist in Colombia. Just like the US and Iraqi forces under US command destroy fruit orchards in Iraq to make their line of sight more open and deprive the Iraqi resistance fighters a place to hide, so does the destruction of the jungle foliage in rebel held areas of Colombia make it easier for the Colombian military, its right wing paramilitary allies and its US advisers to kill Colombian rebel fighters and their supporters.

Meanwhile, it has been reported in several places that members of the US military are involved in the drug trade in all three of these fronts of Washington's so-called war on terror. On March 29th, 2005, five US soldiers who were part of the counterinsurgency effort in Colombia were arrested when they stepped off a plane at a Texas military base. One man was later released, but the other four are being held on charges of cocaine smuggling. In Iraq, where alcohol is not sold in military exchanges and is becoming less available on the local market because of the growing influence of Islamic law, which forbids drinking alcohol, reports have filtered into western media of GIs being disciplined for hashish and cocaine possession. As a result of the US invasion and its destruction of social order, heroin, hashish, and various pharmaceuticals are now openly available on the Iraqi black market and Iraq is becoming a major thoroughfare for the international drug market. As for the individual Iraqis employed in the US-run security forces, a recent Knight Ridder report by Tom Lasseter quoted a US Marine sniper: "I was up in a guard tower outside the FOB (base) and a group of IP (Iraqi police) came up and offered us hash and whiskey," said Sabin, a 26-year-old sniper from Richmond, Va., who was in a Ranger special operations unit during the 2003 invasion. "That's who's protecting the people." (Knight Ridder 9/29/05)

It's not that these men and women (in the case of the US military) can be blamed for wanting an escape from their situation, no matter how temporary. Veterans of the US war in Vietnam occasionally make the remark in conversations I have held with them that they don't see how today's GIs can get through a day without being drunk or stoned sometime during that time. Of course, many members of today's military are on some kind of prescription drug just like their civilian counterparts. In addition, pilots on long bombing runs during the initial phases of both the war in Afghanistan and Iraq were given amphetamines and other drugs that mimic the effects of amphetamines. According to a report published in the Christian Science Monitor in August 2002, "pilots are not required to take them -- although their careers may suffer if they refuse," (CSM, 8/9/2002). Obviously, the intention of this type of drug use is not to relax, but to stay awake and maintain an aggressive posture during the long and potentially boring flights to and from the selected bombing target.

Anyhow, back to Afghanistan and Colombia. It is in these two countries where the "war on drugs" and the "war on terror" coincide. In Afghanistan, the enemy -- supposedly Taliban remnants -- were applauded by Washington (before they became the enemy) for their crackdown on opium production in Afghanistan. Although one wonders who the US is really fighting in that country -- Taliban, locals who just want the US out, or enemies of the current US-installed government in Kabul -- the one thing that is certain is that Afghanistan is once again one of the world's top opium producers and the US is looking the other way. Who knows, perhaps the US is using some of its connections in the drug world to finance some of its commando operations that it doesn't want discovered. This type of scenario is historically a standard part of covert operations since at least the second world war if not before.

In Colombia, the worlds of drugs and counterinsurgency have always been murky. Since the current president Alvaro Uribe took power, they have become even murkier. Uribe's government has extended amnesty to many of the paramilitaries that protect and profit from the cocaine trade in Colombia while his military has intensified its attacks on the primary rebel group, FARC. Washington has encouraged this development by including the war on FARC as part of its "war on terror" and by increasing military aid to the Uribe government and military, despite its terrible record on human rights. To add to the mix, the latest turn in the US campaign against the Bolivarist government of Colombia's neighbor Venezuela was the decertification of Venezuela in the US "war on drugs." This action was taken after the Venezuelan government accused DEA agents of using their free rein in the country to spy. The DEA was then kicked out of Venezuela. Of course, Washington denied the charges, while announcing that it was increasing its monetary assistance to groups opposed to Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez and his government. These groups are more than just political parties; in fact, some of their members were involved in a CIA-assisted coup against the elected government in 2001. Despite US attempts to paint Chavez and his government into a corner as a drug dealer -- much like the US did to Panamanian president Noriega before they invaded that country -- they have not been successful. That doesn't mean they will stop trying. Nor does it mean that they won't try some other timeworn tricks as they continue to try and overthrow Chavez and his government. That's what is so convenient about linking the "wars" on terrorism and drugs -- Washington can almost always make up a reason to take care of those that it perceives to be a threat. Venezuela may be one of the few places where they will fail.