Concludes Senate Subcommittee
April 29,1990 SB News Press
Suit alleges U.S. ties with drugs and arms
News Press Staff Writer, Joseph Harry
Daniel Sheehan, the crusading Lawyer whose Christic Institute is attempting to expose what the group contends is a U.S. sponsored drug-and-arms smuggling network in Latin America, soon may get his day in court. ...The Christic Institute's latest hopes are based on first-degree murder and cocaine-trafficking charges filed by Costa Rica against John Hull, whose drug-and gun-running efforts had CIA support. ....Sheehan said the suit is important because it will, for the first time, officially expose the U.S. government's ongoing links with cocaine-and-arms running by right-wing, anti-communist groups in Latin America. ..
Sheehan spent most of his time Saturday giving a detailed account of what he argues is a U.S.-controlled drug and arms operation stemming back more than 50 years. It began, he said, with top U.S. officials in the Roosevelt administration protecting a Chinese anti-communist heroin smuggling ring in the late 1930's. It continues today, he concludes with members of the Reagan and Bush administration, who, Sheehan says, have turned the other cheek when dealing with known drug dealers like former Panamanian military leader Manuel Noriega.
“The war on drugs by the Bush Administration is a complete and unmitigated hypocrisy,” Sheehan charged, citing a year-old U.S. Senate sub-committee report, that concludes the United States had “willfully turned a blind eye” to cocaine smuggling activities by friendly foreign governments.
“We've heard virtually nothing about this from the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, the major networks, or even PBS,” Sheehan said.
United States foreign aid now being directed to the war on drugs Sheehan argued, actually is money that will be spent to “neutralize” leftist groups or anyone else that U.S.-backed governments or rightist action groups decide is dangerous to “state capitalism and free enterprise.”
So many pieces of the puzzle fall into place. No wonder the US Military can't control illegal drugs despite all the money they spend. The CIA is setting up gun routes that rely upon drug running pilots who will do anything for a quick profit. When the guns dry up the drugs continue.
“A year-old U.S. Senate sub-committee report, concludes that the United States had “willfully turned a blind eye” to cocaine smuggling activities by friendly foreign governments'.
Not only does the federal government look the other way, when friendly governments deal in drugs, (notably cocaine in Central & South America and heroin in Southeast Asia), they also contribute to the trade by setting up safe air routes to traffic the guns & subsequently the drugs.
Suddenly the media terminology crystallizes. Free enterprise has created these drug barons, these drug lords, these kingpins. This is why we use all these euphemistic terms to describe these drug pushers, these ruthless, barbarous renegades against society, amoral godless savages.
Why has the media saved all the pejoratives for the Guerrilla leaders? Our minds have been trained to think of a guerrilla as a Communist infiltrator trained in Russia by the KGB, guns supplied by the Cubans, wearing military fatigues furnished by the Communist bloc, dedicated to the violent overthrow of the existing order. They will kill women and children to achieve his ends.
The media saves the euphemisms for these criminal thugs, referring to them as drug lords, barons, as belonging to a 'drug cartel' It makes them sound so established, so business-like, three piece suits and personal computers. Big business, the oil cartel, the coffee cartel, an international corporation supplying needed goods for society but getting together internationally to maximize their advantages. The oil cartel supplies the world with oil to run our machines. The coffee cartel supplies us something to drink. The cocaine cartel supplies us with drugs to get high upon.
The press admires them because they have money; they are a big business. They are allies of the capitalists against the poor socialist peasants. They execute enemies of the capitalists, those union organizers, the church, & women's groups who are lobbying for personal rights & freedoms of the many poor against the privileges of the few. Our country's definition of good is any group that is against our enemies no matter how ruthless and immoral that group is. As witness to this, observe our alliance with the murderous Pol Pot regime of Cambodia, now that our 'enemy', Vietnam, has deposed them.
In the capitalist world created by the United States government & International Corporations, the pejoratives are reserved for the individuals committed to the rights of the poor, while the euphemisms are reserved for the drug lords, amassing incredible wealth by exploiting human weaknesses and vices. In this distorted perception the cocaine rings are good because they are capitalist and anti-Communist. Note that the Communist countries, our evil enemies, are all virulently anti-drugs (presumably because it undermines their society) and call drugs 'an imperialist scourge' (Knight-Ridder News Service May 10,1990) – (seemingly for good reason).
Establishment Ed: “How do you know that these sources you quote aren't equally biased. Why do you trust them as sources while you don't trust the propaganda put out by the New York Times?”
Radical Randy: “A Senate subcommittee report. That sounds fairly prestigious, and unbiased. They say the United States 'willfully turned a blind eye' to cocaine smuggling by friendly governments.
Ed: “Are you saying that the United States government actually assisted in the dealing of the cocaine?”
Randy, “Not that the CIA was actually dealing the cocaine, which they might have been. I'm saying that the pilots they used to run the guns were the same pilots that run the cocaine. So with immunity and protection from the U.S. government the cocaine trade was allowed to flourish and prosper.”
or
A Tribute to the SB News Press Staff Writers
Before going on, I would like to express my thanks to the real people at the SB News Press, those Santa Barbara writers writing real stories covering real events. I understand that your articles will never make the first page or even the first section. You're not important enough for that. Front section verbiage is reserved for the major new services, (however never the LA Times, too Western for the NY Times owned SBNP What do the people out west know anyway?)
I appreciate the unmanufactured quality of your reporting. It is as fresh as a mountain stream. A real person writing real news as it appears to him not as it appears to the corporate filter called the New York Times or any of the international news services. Of course the New York Times writers are the most clever – making an increase seem like a decrease, making a slaughter sound like a liberation, making a cut sound like a raise, and vice-versa.
It feels great to read an article that is not slanted to support the military-industrial-political establishment. A real article, written with a genuine reaction to a normal situation. Drug running by the CIA? Outrageous! Hats off to those who allowed the article to be printed. Hats off to whoever wrote the article.
Wow! Another real article in less than a week from, of course, another News-Press Staff Writer, this time Heron Marquez Estrada. Praise be to the courage to print the truth or at least an alternative view.
Again the verbiage is honest, straightforward, and descriptive, not deliberately convoluted. Rather than a group decision on how best to indoctrinate the public, following a state line at all costs to credibility, instead we have an individual giving a human response to an unmanufactured situation.
Read on for another significant piece to the puzzle. Sometimes a few pieces fall into place all at the same time, a series of pieces, lead to others, and a distinct picture begins to emerge.
or
Reporting the unbelievable
SB News Press May 2, 1990, Section B Page 1
Journalist tells of his Contra investigation
SBNP Staff Writer, Heron Marquez Estrada.
While investigating a bombing at La Penca, Nicaragua, journalist Tony Avrigan heard a story he did not believe. ... Avrigan, who along with his wife, was severely injured in the bombing, ...[conducted] a five year investigation of the alleged connection between Contra rebels, U.S. government agencies, Colombia's Medellin cocaine cartel, deposed Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega and others with ties to the drugs and arms shipment network. ... Avrigan also has alleged that the Medillin drug lords funneled $10 million to the Contras to aid their attempt to overthrow Nicaragua's Sandinista government. Avrigan said the Medellin 'foreign aid' was intended to appease the U.S government. ...
Among the central figures in the network was John Hull ... , who lived in Costa Rica and reportedly allowed his ranch there to be used as a drop-off point for both drugs and arms. Hull sued Avrigan in Costa Rica for criminal libel, but the couple was acquitted when the judge ruled that they were justified in their accusations against Hull. Hull now lives in Indiana. He is a fugitive wanted by Costa Rican authorities for murder and drug smuggling charges .... Hull now claims he sued the couple because the CIA ordered him to do so.
Noriega's involvement in the network arose out of his contract work with the CIA. … The CIA turned to Noriega to provide pilots in the early 1980s to fly arms to the Contras, Avrigan said. “Naturally, he gave them drug pilots.” Soon, drugs were added to the shipments and eventually drugs became the primary purposes for the flights, especially when Congress refused to provide further aid to the Contras. ...
He said a commission in the Costa Rican legislature conducted an independent inquiry and last year came to the same conclusions. .... The Costa Ricans were so upset at the introduction of the drug trade, he said, that the legislature has banned for life people such as North, former Rear Admiral John Poindexter, former Gen. Richard Secord and others who allegedly set up the network.
Or
Why Won't They Share?
Ah!! The puzzle pieces are falling into place. The Colombian drug lords who run the cocaine cartels are anti-Communist because it puts them on the side of the Americans, which allows them to continue their drug running unobstructed. In fact they might make a little more money if they run a few guns at the same time.
The Conservative Party is not necessarily pro-drugs but they are definitely virulently anti-Communist. Remember they don't want to share.
“Karl, I really wish you would share with your sister.”
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