U.S DoD to Outsource $15B War on "NarcoTerror"

U.S DoD to Outsource $15B War on "NarcoTerror"

www.defensenews.com

The U.S. Defense Department has invited five contractors to bid on elements of a new multibillion-dollar effort to combat the global flow of illegal drugs allegedly used to finance terrorism.

Awarded by the Pentagon’s Counter-Narcoterrorism Technology Program Office (CNTPO), Dahlgren, Va., the contract vehicle has a potential value of $15 billion over five years.

(visit the link for the full news article)



[edit on 23-9-2007 by UM_Gazz]

Going on past form, anytime a "war" on something is declared it turns out to be a cash cow for the defence contractors and their shareholders and has an opposite effect, making a bad situation worse.
Interesting to see Blackwater involved in the bidding process too. With their main business being defence / security, I'd have thought they'd by more suited to protecting the goods rather than tracking and fighting the traffickers.
I like the new made up word too, "NarcoTerrorism". Perhaps it's just another term for the talking heads on Tv to rattle off on the nightly news, but let's not forget that the trafficking of drugs is also likely to be used to make money for clandestine units within our own governments too. After all, if they were really serious about stamping out the drug menace they'd have done so already, using the miltary that the taxpayer has already paid for. The ever present cynical side of me sees this as just another way to line the corporate coffers with public money.

www.defensenews.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

I hate stuff like this. 15 billion dollars in taxer payer money completely and utterly wasted. We might as well take out paychecks and throw them out our car windows on the way to work.

How come so much of our money goes to things that we neither need, nor see any real benefit from? We have the war on drugs, and all I see is the drug market boom. Where is all our money going, and for what?

Well Grimreaper797, I expect this is over and above the current War on Drugs.
They've cleverly repackaged this one with the word "Terrorism" attached so it qualifies for bigger bucks.

Hell, let me and a bunch of buddies get armed and go after the traffickers and we'd get results - I'm sure we could even undercut the other bidders by a wide margin and still retire to some sun kissed tropical isle with our Grand Cayman accounts bulging.

When public money is available, the sharks begin circling.

Wow. I didn't see this one coming

Everything that goes against the interest of the corporations is now classified as funding terror. Did any of you read this? :

Terror’s Purse Strings

Thanks for that link Beachcoma.

Can't help raising a cynical smirk at such things. The big designer labels get poorly paid 3rd world workers to make their products and reap enormous profits and that's Ok as long as the shareholders get their dividends and the public buy the stuff. Other 3rd world sweat shops make the knockoffs and they are demonised and labeled terrorist supporters for putting food on the table.

reply to post by Britguy


Sometimes the other sweatshops aren't even making knock-offs. I read somewhere that some designer labels outsource the production to several sweatshops and then pay the one who can deliver it the fastest. So the others who failed the race are stuck with a whole bunch of products which the label won't take.

What then? What are they supposed to do with the stuff they just toiled day and night to produce? It's really despicable.

This world is becoming surreal. I've been around a lot of astronomic figures to day, that are hard to connect to the real world.

Unfortunately they're all too real, cause the dough has to come from you and me.

First there was the new estimate of $750 million in daily costs for war in Iraq. Then there was the $6 billion being investigated as contractor fraud by Pentagon, and now this 15 billion to be spend on "narcoterrorism".

A genius term has been coined with that 'word'. Two of the worst concepts in any language joined in one word. A masterpiece of marketing prose.

So now every pity back-alley junkie will be 'a terrorist' as will the causual weed smoker.

I saw a hint of this coming in the investigation reports from the Madrid bombing. In case you not noticed, it claims al Qaeda people traded the explosives used from miners with hashish.

Fair new world. "Get back in line!"
Or you'll be a terrorist.

His father Started DARe the biggest FARCE ever crooked cops come to teach children about the dangers of the drug.

O boy

This is much like the House seizure for anything illegal a act prohibited by law.

Till the goverment wanted to protect us from gangsters and put this under tax law.

The big Rockefeller incident need I say more..........

which later moved into other areas.

Banking house seizures were made 500% easier in the court systems and later on it allowed for seizure of all property under many circumstances.

Drugs,spying,illegal activity,Banking,Tax law

many areas.

things like this scare me...........

[edit on 23-9-2007 by infamouskiller]

Originally posted by Beachcoma
So the others who failed the race are stuck with a whole bunch of products which the label won't take.

What then? What are they supposed to do with the stuff they just toiled day and night to produce? It's really despicable.

Oh ... THAT explains why I could get $8 Levi 501's in the street markets in Bangkok.

I guess they make their money back off the tourists, if they can. But it's still a pretty rotten thing to do.

Once again, another lopsided ATS post with a bunch of "me-tooers". Are we really losing the drug war? Personally, I don't think we are. Drug use has been flat for years, wouldn't it be rising if we weren't winning the drug war?

Saw a tv documentary once that alluded to the fact that most hard drugs are not organic in nature. They require vast amounts of chemicals made by world leading chemical giants. Who sell the like oil out in the middle of the ocean to avoid any legal trail back to them.

I vagualy remember them quoting that only 10% of 1 chemical made world wide has a legit use. The could stop this producting and deal a serve blow to the drug barons.

How true is this?

Any one else know?

reply to post by puzzled2


In order to address this, I'm going to look at the production of the top two hard drugs: coc aine and heroin.

The only industrial chemical that is required for the production of coc aine is hydrochloric acid. It's not a terribly hard chemical to produce, I suppose the drug traffickers could make it themselves, impossible to know what really happens, though.

As for heroin, the process takes many steps, but none of them are very complicated and the chemicals that are required to produce heroin are also easily produced.

en.wikipedia.org...

I don't think there's any conspiracy going on here.

Originally posted by uberarcanist

I don't think there's any conspiracy going on here.

Oh but I think there is. You've got to dig deeper than wiki. Find out who are producing heroin and coc aine these days.

Here's a thread you can check out on this site for at least one of the drugs.

Afghanistan Opium Production Reaches 93% of World's Supply

One of John Lear's more grounded in reality threads. Good read, you should check it out. And read behind the headlines. Also, if you have the time, go to your local bookstore and look for Freakonomics by Stephen Dubner and Steven Levitt. The book is really amazing, shows you how to look at things from another perspective, specifically how incentives work.

After all, human behaviour is economic behaviour...

I wasn't aware of John's thread, must have missed it, though the topic is one I'm trying to expert. Hope it's still alive, I have a few questions.

I found the thread Cannabis Cash 'Funds Islamist Terrorism' I mentioned in a previous post.

reply to post by uberarcanist


I followed your thread and noticed it said

The final grade of heroin favored in the West is more difficult to produce and involves a potentially dangerous chemical procedure

interesting that after 1st step What remains is then mechanically filtered to yield a final product of morphine weighing about 90% less than the original quantity of opium. A lot of waste there.

The morphine is reacted with acetic anhydride.

So looked on en.wikipedia.org..." target="_blank" class="postlink">further

Acetic anhydride (AA), the most commonly used chemical agent in heroin processing, is virtually irreplaceable. According to the DEA, Mexico remains the only heroin source country that has indigenous acetic anhydride production capability, producing 87,000 metric tons in 1999 alone. All other heroin producing countries must import large amounts of acetic anhydride

en.wikipedia.org..." target="_blank" class="postlink">further

then looked on the interpol site and in afghanistan they have to smuggle in 650+ metric tons to create their heroin. If they can smuggle that amount in then no wonder they can smuggle in a few bombs.

p.s USA export 600 million tons of the stuff
So thanks for showing me my original thought was right you need chemicals and lots of it. so governments do allow it to be traded.

dont act so surprised

check this out from 2002

The Bush administration has decided not to destroy the opium crop in Afghanistan. President Bush, who previously linked the Afghan drug trade directly to terrorism, has now decided not to destroy the Afghan opium crop.

"The war in Afghanistan will be decided within the next six weeks based on whether or not the poppy crops go to market," stated a U.S. intelligence official who recently returned from Afghanistan.

The source, who requested that he not be identified, noted that the opium poppy fields are blooming and ready for harvest. U.S. forces could destroy the crops using aerial spraying techniques, but no such actions are planned.

"If the estimated 3,000 tons of opium reaches market, it will lead to a new upsurge in international terrorism and a great loss in international credibility for the Bush administration and the United States' ability to conduct war in the 21st century.

archive.newsmax.com...

and more recently

Last year saw what is probably the single biggest one-year increase in opium production in world history. Since the Bush administration toppled the Taliban regime, opium production in Afghanistan has increased from 185 tons in 2001 to 3,700 tons in 2002

VIENNA, Austria - Afghanistan produced dramatically more opium in 2006, increasing its yield by roughly 49 percent from a year earlier and pushing global opium production to a new record high, a U.N. report said Tuesday.

Opium production in Afghanistan increased from 4,100 metric tons in 2005 to 6,100 metric tons in 2006,

www.msnbc.msn.com...


whats funny is the taliban was very successful at stopping poppy production right before 9/11. seems a little odd that poppy production was headed down then after the invasion and installation of the puppet Karzai into government (along with tons of "Ex"druglords) now poppy production is at never before seen levels.. hmmmm. Even funnier that they are purposly deciding NOT to spray poppy fields because it might destabilize pakistan Well i got news for you Pakistani leaders have very little control over a large portion of Pakistan, where is the taliban thriving again? yeah thats right!
they dont want the drug trade to stop, or the terrorist trade. Both are way to profitable for those in charge who claim to be fighting against it, for money of coarse
Lets sit back and see who gets this contract. who wants to bet it will be a company with government ties?

Just thought id throw in another little tidbid for you guys to chew on..

the orginal article states the following companies as bidders:
ARINC, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman and Raytheon, and security contractor Blackwater USA.
im sure most of you know about the other four but i never heard of ARINC so i looked them up.
Heres what i found.

In July 2007 ARINC shareholders announced the sale of 90% of the ownership interest to Carlyle Group for about $1 billion. The deal is expected to close by October 2007

en.wikipedia.org...
there we go 5 real honest upstanding war profiteers in on the action.