WikiLeaks Highlights Drug War Mission Creep

WikiLeaks Highlights Drug War Mission Creep

original.antiwar.com

If you want to see what mission creep looks like, in all of its Kevlar-vested, helicopter-flying, door-kicking glory, there’s no need to look further than the recent WikiLeaks revelations about the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency as it operates throughout the globe.

According to The New York Times, which has access to a cache of DEA-related State Department cables, the DEA now has 87 offices in 63 countries – pretty much double the number of countries from 20 years ago, before 9/11. Today, the Global War on Terror has infused the drug interdiction agency with an expanded mission as a paramilitary and intelligence-gathering agency on par with the CIA and U.S. Special Forces overseas.

(visit the link for the full news article)

A good read with plenty of source material. The author admits this doesn't really break any new ground. For many, it's nothing new. For others, such as myself, it's an interesting look at things especially when delving into topics like this for the first time or when trying to expand your knowledge of the topic.

Kelley B. Vlahos notes...

The New York Times was perfectly right when it said the cables “do not offer large disclosures.” But they paint an interesting portrait of classic mission creep, of a bureaucracy constantly reinventing and recalibrating itself to maintain its significance in the annual budget; and most importantly, how the war on terror has been used to advance those goals for the DEA. By no means is it the only agency doing it, but it is certainly the most obvious.

Mission Creep

Mission creep is the expansion of a project or mission beyond its original goals, often after initial successes. The term often implies a certain disapproval of newly adopted goals by the user of the term. Mission creep is usually considered undesirable due to the dangerous path of each success breeding more ambitious attempts, only stopping when a final, often catastrophic, failure occurs. The term was originally applied exclusively to military operations, but has recently been applied to many different fields.

en.wikipedia.org...

Great that someone focuses on the leaks instead of on wikileaks and their members.

Even if this is knowledge most have known and suspected, it is always good to have the proof that can and will be pointed to in every further discussion on the DEA's real role and their expanding powers in world.

Great post!

But of course, a thread about the cables gives no response, but a thread smearing Assange and WL gets 70 pages....

I don't understand what's wrong with people.

Yeah, go figure.

Originally posted by SkurkNilsen
But of course, a thread about the cables gives no response, but a thread smearing Assange and WL gets 70 pages....

I don't understand what's wrong with people.

You must only look as far as your avatar. No, I'm not blaming Julian, I'm talking about how our society has been hypnotized into a neurolinguistic pattern that goes: Receive new information > examine the source > compare the source with yourself > form opinion on source > tie opinion of source to information received > promote/attack the source based on opinion.

The term "cult of personality" doesn't just refer to a society that idolizes one particular individual, but it describes our current society's tendency to focus on personalities, rather than their works.

A healthy neurolinguistic pattern for dealing with new information is: Receive new information > examine the Information > compare the information with previous information > form opinion on information > tie opinion of information received to the source> promote/attack the source based on quality of information.

Also, thank you OP for bringing this info up. I haven't seen it posted elsewhere. S+F.

reply to post by nasdack24k


Hehe, I definetly see your point. I chose the avatar as sort of a provocation in another thread I have been very active in. But you are absoloutly right.