Europe, Latin America and the Need to Strengthen Anti-Narcotics Cooperation
Latin American drug networks are increasing their operations in Europe, primarily because the size of the cocaine market has decreased in North America. The appropriate response, argues this briefing paper, is to further improve transatlantic counter-narcotics cooperation. That could include stronger links between anti-drugs programs, enhanced security policies and more.
As Esam Al-Amin explained here, Mohamad Morsi made some colossal blunders during his one year rule of Egypt, as its democratically elected president. He was elected in what most observers regard as a reasonably fair election.
But the exclusive report by Al Jazeera (also attached below) reveals that the United States — which claims to support democracy in the Middle East and elsewhere — has been actively involved in bankrolling Morsi's opposition, and in so doing has continued its long policy of subverting Islamist democratic victories when they win fair elections (Hamas in 2006) or threaten to win fair elections (Algeria 1991).
Al Jazeera reveals how stark contradictions continue to rip through the three legs of the moral triangle that is US foreign policy — i.e., the contradictions between (1) the values we profess to to the world that we uphold, (2) the values we actually hold as demonstrated by our actions abroad as well as at home (don't forget the neo-fascist, non-accountable, hidden hand the emerging American deep state exemplified by the NSA scandal) and (3) the world we have to deal with deal with (in this case epitomized by the changing conditions of the Arab Spring).
Phi Beta Iota: We consider Somalia and Yemen to be two perfect candidates for any coalition that wishes to wage peace instead of war. Bury them in solar power, desalinated water, hydroponic agriculture, and free celluar and Internet access. Then get out of the way as they create wealth and with wealth, legitimacy and stability.
ROBERT STEELE: I have elected to answer this personally. It may well be the most fundamental question this web site has received in that any corruption in the answer to this question assures the failure of any strategy, policy, acquisition, or operation that is spawned from an inherently corrupt — a deliberately corrupt — refusal to take the question seriously.
There are several ways to address this. The first is the most obvious, which is to say that the traditional threat is state on state conventional forces, and the non-traditional threats are everything else. Here in one chart is what General Al Gray, USMC, then Commandant of the Marine Corps, with my assistance as his ghost-writer, put in “Global Intelligence Challenges in the 1990's” (American Intelligence Journal, Winter 1989-1990).
Click on Image to Enlarge
The whole point of that article was to suggest that both the US Intelligence Community and the US Department of Defense needed to radically alter how they trained, equipped, and organized. I now realize that it was corruption, not stupidity, that buried this message. As SOCOM and Navy Irregular Warfare said in defending their decision not to go after the Somali pirates from 2005-2008 and later, “it's not an expensive enough problem.”
Other Pieces of the US Police State are Moving Into Place on Schedule
“Documents obtained by the Electronic Frontier Foundation from the Homeland Security Department's Customs and Border Protection indicate that the agency is close to finalizing payload standards for its drone aircraft. Among the things the CBP might want to use in its unmanned aircraft: “non-lethal weapons designed to immobilize” targets. In 2009, the agency announced that it had acquired its sixth Predator drone, stationed at an Army Airfield in Arizona.”
As pointed out by a commenter to the article, “For one thing, there are no “non-lethal weapons”. DoD long ago renamed them “less than lethal”, because of the legal liability (rubber bullets can kill, just as a hard hit baseball to the chest can stop the heart) But more significant, DHS is paving the road for internal use of armed drones, against Americans! Or did you for one minute think that these birds are glued to the border, and can only face South?”
