Hashish & the War on Terror: Drugs in Uniform

By RON JACOBS

...If one recalls the various US wars on Central American countries during the 1980s, s/he will certainly remember the so-called Iran-Contra affair. In essence, this was a US operation that was run out of the Vice President's office (Pappy Bush) that traded guns for cocaine to the CIA proxy army in Nicaragua (the Contras) and in turn traded weapons parts and technology via Israel to the Khomeini government in Iran for cash. This cash came from the sales of the contra cocaine to various drug dealers in the United States-some of whom were enterprising enough to turn the coca paste and powder into a substance that would turn many of our country's inner cities into cocaine-fueled war zones. The substance I am referring to became known as crack.

The tale related to me by my Lebanese acquaintance and the endless reports of secret US involvement in drug dealing prove only one thing. That is that there is probably no armed organization, local or international, that has not been involved in this business. It is a quick and sure way to make money that cannot be traced and does not need to be accounted for. When the US trumpets a drug seizure in the Gulf or in the deserts of Texas, remember to ask yourself how many others they let through, either because of individual corruption or because of those shipments' role in funding their national security.

Aha! Is this one more reason to keep drugs illegal? If so then, not only does the "war on drugs" provide an easy method to lock up unruly and potentially unruly elements of society as a means of maintaining internal security for the elites and their supporters, it also provides a rationale that can be used to wrongfully board and seize ships suspected of carrying illegal drugs in international waters. In a complementary manner, the pretext of potential terrorism as a reason to violate previously agreed to international laws and standards as to various human and sovereignty issues, when combined with anti-drug with anti-terror laws has created an authoritarian international military and intelligence apparatus composed of government and private military entities that is capable of investigating on and incarcerating virtually any of the earth's citizens.

In an aside, one has to wonder how long it will be before US troops begin to use some of the drugs they are capturing. After all, in a war-torn land where they must celebrate New Year's with non-alcoholic beer, the desire of some soldiers for some kind of mood modification and stress release will eventually override any fear they have of the military's anti-drug regimen. Sure, it's not the 1960s or Vietnam, but many human psyches can take only so much of a life without the type of release afforded by alcohol and other mood altering substances. During the Soviet war in Afghanistan their military also suffered from a drug problem thanks to the easy availability of hashish and opium combined with troop morale as low as that of the American soldiers during the last few years of America's war in Vietnam.

Ron Jacobs is author of The Way the Wind Blew: a history of the Weather Underground, which is being republished by Verso.
He can be reached at: rjacobs@zoo.uvm.edu

http://www.counterpunch.com/jacobs01062004.html