Occupiers involved in drug trade: Afghan minister

reply to post by eikmun


Of course not.



CBS 60 Minutes transcript

CBS News Transcripts 60 MINUTES November 21, 1993

HEADLINE: THE CIA'S COCAINE; CIA APPARENTLY BEHIND SHIPPING OF A TON OF COCAINE INTO THE US FROM VENEZUELA

BODY: THE CIA'S COCAINE

MORLEY SAFER: A ton of coc aine--pure coc aine, worth hundreds of millions—is smuggled into the United States. Sound familiar? Not the way this ton of coc aine got here, according to what the former head of the Drug Enforcement Administration told Mike Wallace. This drug shipment got here courtesy of what he calls drug trafficking by the CIA, in partnership with the Venezuelan national guard. While rumors of CIA involvement in drug trafficking have circulated for years, no one in the US government has ever before publicly charged the CIA with this kind of wrongdoing. It is not the kind of accusation anyone in government would make without thinking long and hard.

MIKE WALLACE: Let me understand what you're saying. A ton of coc aine was smuggled into the United States of America by the Venezuelan national guard...

Judge ROBERT BONNER (Former Head, Drug Enforcement Administration): Well, they...

WALLACE: ...in cooperation with the CIA?

Judge BONNER: That's what--that's exactly what appears to have happened. (Footage of Wallace and Bonner walking)

WALLACE: (Voiceover) Until last month, Judge Robert Bonner was the head ofthe Drug Enforcement Administration, the DEA. And Judge Bonner explained to us that only the head of the DEA is authorized to approve the transportation of any illegal narcotics, like coc aine, into this country, even if the CIA is bringing it in.

Judge BONNER: Let me put it this way, Mike. If this has not been approved by DEA or an appropriate law-enforcement authority in the United States, then it's illegal. It's called drug trafficking. It's called drug smuggling.

WALLACE: So what you're saying, in effect, is the CIA broke the law; simple as that.

Judge BONNER: I don't think there's any other way you can rationalize around it, assuming, as I think we can, that there was some knowledge on the part of CIA. At least some participation in approving or condoning this to be done. (Footage of Wallace and Bonner; the CIA seal)

WALLACE: (Voiceover) Judge Bonner says he came to that conclusion after a two-year secret investigation conducted by the DEA's Office of Professional Responsibility, in cooperation with the CIA's own inspector general. And what reason did the CIA have for promoting this drug smuggling?

Judge BONNER: Well, the only rationale that's ever been offered is that that--this would lead to some valuable drug intelligence about the Colombian cartels. (Footage of a drug inspection; a ship; trucks; a building; General Ramon Guillen Davila)

WALLACE: (Voiceover) Over half of the Colombian drug cartel's coc aine crosses the border with Venezuela on its way to the United States and Europe. Back in the 1980s, the CIA was mandated by then-President Reagan to develop intelligence on the Colombian drug cartels. And so the CIA, with Venezuela's Guardia Nacional, or national guard, set up an undercover operation, a drug-smuggling operation in Venezuela that could handle the trans-shipment of the Colombian cartel's coc aine on its way to market.

The plan was to infiltrate the cartel, and it worked, for the CIA-national guard undercover operation quickly accumulated this coc aine, over a ton and a half that was smuggled from Colombia into Venezuela inside these trucks and then was stored here at the CIA-financed Counternarcotics Intelligence Center in Caracas. The center's commander and the CIA's man in Venezuela was national guard General Ramon Guillen Davila.

Ms. ANNABELLE GRIMM (Drug Enforcement Agency): I tried to work together with them. I was always aware that they were not telling me everything they were doing. (Footage of Grimm; a building; Mark McFarlin; a plane taking off)

WALLACE: (Voiceover) Annabelle Grimm was a DEA agent with 18 years' experience when she was made agent-in-charge in Caracas. And she says that the CIA station chief, James Campbell, and this man, Mark McFarlin, the CIA officer in charge at the center, told her that to keep the undercover smuggling operation credible, they had to keep the cartel happy, and the way to do that was simple: deliver their dope, untouched by US law enforcement, to the cartel's distributors, their dope dealers in the United States.

Ms. GRIMM: The CIA and the Guardia Nacional wanted to let coc aine go on into the traffic without doing anything. They wanted to let it come up to the United States, no surveillance, no nothing.

WALLACE: In other words, you weren't going to stop them in Miami or Houston or wherever. These drugs were simply going to go to the United States and then go into the traffic and eventually reach the streets.

Ms. GRIMM: That's what they wanted to do, yes. And we had very, very lengthy discussions. But I told them what the US law was and the fact that we could not do this.

WALLACE: So here you've got Jim Campbell, chief of station, who knows about this; Mark McFarlin, CIA officer, knows about this and are stimulating this--this business of sending what are uncontrolled deliveries of drugs--smuggling drugs into the United States, right?

Ms. GRIMM: Right.

WALLACE: Why in the world would they want to do that?

Ms. GRIMM: As they explained to me, that--this would enable them to gain the traffickers' confidence, keep their informant cool and it would result in future seizures of larger quantities of drugs. And also, they hoped to--I guess they thought they were going to get Pablo Escobar at the scene of the crime or something, which I found personally ludicrous.

WALLACE: But if Annabelle Grimm thought this was ludicrous, the CIA station chief, James Campbell, did not. He enlisted the assistance of CIA headquarters in Washington to get approval for the drug shipments. And his bosses at the CIA in Washington went over Annabelle Grimm's head, directly to her bosses at DEA headquarters in Washington.

edit to add transcript

[edit on 11/3/2009 by ThaLoccster]

And this is why drugs will never be legalized. Our government and probably many others around the world are large supplier of things like coc aine, heroin, opium, marijuana etc.

Legalizing drugs would end so much violence, drug education could be taught in schools and drug stores selling pure drugs with no harmful cuts would pop up all over. It would be a great source of legal revenue but it would end all the mass amounts of money pouring in for governments involved in the drug trade.

Alright guys,
Here it is how I see it. If we are not controlling the opium trade out of Afghanistan. Then others will, giving them money which leads to influence and power. So do you want a bunch of Jihadist's making the cash. It is estimated the farmers alone in afghan earn about 700 million a year of the opium that is grown. This is then turned over to the field labs which extract it down to a morphine base. These labs it is estimated make about half that. Then their are the brokers, smugglers, and hired muscle. Everyone is making cash. And who was taxing it before we got there? Who was making the money the Taliban. So now that we are there should we just let them continue to sink their hands in the opium cookie jar, or should we enjoy the cookie? And cmon be realistic the trade cant be stopped, without major changes in the country and nobody has the will or resources to make that happen. So this is just common sense. Now if you live in la la land and believe the government cares about its citizens and acts with honor at all times then this would be quite a surprise. JcOg323

Originally posted by JcOg323
Alright guys,
Here it is how I see it. If we are not controlling the opium trade out of Afghanistan. Then others will, giving them money which leads to influence and power. So do you want a bunch of Jihadist's making the cash. It is estimated the farmers alone in afghan earn about 700 million a year of the opium that is grown. This is then turned over to the field labs which extract it down to a morphine base. These labs it is estimated make about half that. Then their are the brokers, smugglers, and hired muscle. Everyone is making cash. And who was taxing it before we got there? Who was making the money the Taliban. So now that we are there should we just let them continue to sink their hands in the opium cookie jar, or should we enjoy the cookie? And cmon be realistic the trade cant be stopped, without major changes in the country and nobody has the will or resources to make that happen. So this is just common sense. Now if you live in la la land and believe the government cares about its citizens and acts with honor at all times then this would be quite a surprise. JcOg323

Except for the fact the Taliban was against opium profuction. Someone might be making money off of it, but it would surely not be the Taliban.

why is ats allowing a new drug topic on this site everyday now that has to do with afghanistan but wont allow drug topics regarding policies that affect us here on our homeland?

its absurd everyday i come on here and there are posts like this yet we cant responsibly discuss the medical marijuana policies

ive talked about this on every drug post on ats since the obama admin put out the new policy and i will continue to state this on every ats thread involving drugs until the rules at ats are adjusted

either allow us to talk about things maturely or dont let us talk about them at all, but dont pick and choose

if we can talk about this, then we can talk about medical marijuana


its absurd we can have a topic speaking of heroin and coc aine yet we cant discuss a LEGAL MEDICINE that could benefit millions

[edit on 4-11-2009 by Dramey]

Originally posted by Dramey
why is ats allowing a new drug topic on this site everyday now that has to do with afghanistan but wont allow drug topics regarding policies that affect us here on our homeland?

It's about production and possibly how it may be paying for terror activity. It's not about personal use or glorification. which tends to happen when this topic comes up.

Originally posted by SLAYER69

It's about production and possibly how it may be paying for terror activity. It's not about personal use or glorification. which tends to happen when this topic comes up.

well there really isnt a reason mods cant just monitor them and delete them as they come and ban abusive users, there really isnt a reasonable reason to allow us to talk about something that is pretty much common knowledge (drugs going to fund terrorist and gang activity) yet we cant talk about a situation that takes place regarding another substance (the obama admins new policy regarding the federal stance on medical marijuana use. that they will no longer pursue charges against medical users in states where it is medically legal.)

i mean right now with marijuana illegal, money generated from its use and import is going to fund illegal entities in other nations that export to the united states, thats been known, yet now obama is saying we can make it medically legal on the state level as the federal government will no longer trump the states laws allowing medical use, that would really hurt the Illegal marijuana trade in the United States and less money would go to "the terrorists"

but we cant have a thread about that, yet this one its ok

personally i think we should be talking about all of the topics above, im just questioning why ats takes such a stance when denying ignorance

we are allowed to talk about things where people are being hurt, but we cant talk about things politically where people are being helped

they all are truly important topics that should be allowed to be maturely discussed, a lot of great knowledge could be shared

Originally posted by Dramey
why is ats allowing a new drug topic on this site everyday now that has to do with afghanistan but wont allow drug topics regarding policies that affect us here on our homeland?

its absurd everyday i come on here and there are posts like this yet we cant responsibly discuss the medical marijuana policies

ive talked about this on every drug post on ats since the obama admin put out the new policy and i will continue to state this on every ats thread involving drugs until the rules at ats are adjusted

either allow us to talk about things maturely or dont let us talk about them at all, but dont pick and choose

if we can talk about this, then we can talk about medical marijuana


its absurd we can have a topic speaking of heroin and coc aine yet we cant discuss a LEGAL MEDICINE that could benefit millions

[edit on 4-11-2009 by Dramey]

Because ATS is about whoring as much ad revenue as possible. Drug discussion generally gets filtered and considered "unsafe" on most controlled servers (for instance in most corporate offices) and ATS is afraid they'll lose money. I've gone round and round with the people who own this site about this but it's like talking to a wall. Really kind of destroyed my opinion about this website.

Kind of funny that a real conspiracy that goes on every day and effects every single one of us is censored on ATS. But that goddamn Mothman is running wild!

By the way, how about that movie The Fourth Kind? Or maybe you'd like to drive a Prius?

[edit on 4-11-2009 by CuriousSkeptic]

Originally posted by JcOg323
Alright guys,
Here it is how I see it. If we are not controlling the opium trade out of Afghanistan. Then others will, giving them money which leads to influence and power. So do you want a bunch of Jihadist's making the cash.

A bunch of Jihadist's *are* making the cash. People like clinton, bush and the CIA. People that are responsible for kidnapping, torture, murder, and the rape of children. People that carry out false flag attacks on our country and kill thousands -- then use that as a pretext to go overseas and kill millions. Our jihadists are monsters.

I think all drugs need to be legalized. Although it would damage a percent of the population like alcohol, at least the 'freaking government criminals would lose a significant portion of their covert funding. That alone would increase the quality of life for most Americans by an order of magnitude.

very interesting this is no longer on the main page

also very interesting none of my posts were censored or deleted, and neither was this thread

i applaud ats for leaving it up even though i still criticize them for not allowing certain topics to be discussed even though others are


what is disappointing was i did not intend to hijack this thread, but since i brought up the situation, there has been no further development in this story

thats too bad

this topic and the rest deserve attention