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Drugged into submission

Ian Buckley | 10.09.2002 00:23

Ian Buckley wonders whether our politicians are serious about the narcotics menace

Drugged into Submission
Ian Buckley wonders whether our politicians are serious about the narcotics menace

Readers will understand that I like to keep an eye on the various pronouncements of Tony Blair, if only to make fun of them. The PM is a mere bit player, but in his capacity as a human speak-your-weight machine for assorted supra-national interests his actions and speeches should be noted.

During his recent holiday junket/official visit to Jamaica, Blair curiously went out of his way to denounce the alleged Jamaican involvement in the drug trade. Hm, getting a little politically incorrect here, Tone! But there are degrees of political correctness, and whilst the odd Tory backwoodsman may also go on about black chappies bringing their "ganga weeds" into the country, there are certain areas they dare not comment on, but may, on occasion, be very briefly touched upon by the mainstream press.

Let us listen to what an Establishment Observer liberal, Ed Vulliamy, has to say about ecstasy, responsible for the deaths of many young people, notably Leah Betts: "Recent arrests have shown that Israeli crime syndicates account for more than 50% of the traffic. There have been suggestions that they are protected by the 'Russian' Mafia,* the most powerful criminal empire in New York." Additionally, the US traffic in ecstasy has also touched off a number of banking and financial scandals, due to the associated money laundering. Some of those involved were later to be pardoned by President Clinton in his notorious final clemency list.

'Most favoured nation'
Just imagine, if you can, the reaction to the news that over 50 per cent of the ecstasy used illegally came from Iraqi criminals! It requires little imagination to predict the banner headlines: "Iraqi monsters killing our children" or "Saddam's pills: deadlier than a Scud!" But strangely, a complete hush is maintained when Israel is concerned, apart from one small column at the back of a broadsheet, and the ordinary public are therefore kept in blissful ignorance of the true facts.

Nor is the situation concerning cocaine very different. One might expect this drugs market to be run from Columbia, the major source of the raw material, but this is only part of the story. The financial side of the cocaine-dealing is largely run through New York, again with the collaboration of the "Russian" Mafia and Israeli crime syndicates. The fully detailed story can be found in Professor Shahak's commentary on articles which appeared in the Maariv newspaper, published in Jerusalem. However, it must be admitted that heroin smuggling in Europe is largely controlled by Turkish and Albanian gangs.

Those with access to the internet and a spare half hour can discover allegations about the involvement of many high-profile public figures at the very apex of the pyramid of the drugs trade. Whatever the truth of this matter, one must become suspicious when one considers how neatly the rise of the drug trade has dovetailed with the junking of traditional employment in the mines, railways or steel. As with the fall of communism and the "opening up" of Eastern Europe to predatory capitalism, much is dubious on the grounds of timing alone.

Biggest contributors
War and "American Intelligence" have been amongst the biggest contributors to the tidal wave of drugs which is engulfing our societies. Back during World War II, the pattern was set when the US Office of Naval Intelligence collaborated with the mobster and narcotics kingpin "Lucky" Luciano. Roosevelt's government collaborated with the Mafia as enthusiastically as Mussolini had opposed it. The long-term results of reviving the Mafia to aid the Allied war effort were deadly. Between 1946 and 1952, the number of heroin addicts in the US tripled, thereafter doubling every five years or so.

Nor were any lessons learned from this trail of despair. As is now admitted by almost everyone except a few official mouthpieces, the CIA worked in close partnership with the opium warlords in the "Golden Triangle": of East Asia. The funds raised from drugs were unaccountable, and were useful for financing CIA covert operations in Vietnam. A decade later, and the CIA played the same trick again, this time with the Afghan guerrillas fighting the Russians.

It will readily be seen the official "war on drugs" is a dubious pantomine: a war that goes on and on and will never be won as long as the present system remains intact. The worldwide business in drugs is a prime example of the internationalisation of crime. We should consider it as the shadow side of globalisation. While addiction might officially be condemned, in reality it is probably half-welcomed. After all, doesn't a drugged zombie fit in better into the New World Order than an upstanding and freethinking citizen?

Our masters know this, of course - especially those of them who have the damned temerity to call themselves "Conservatives," while they gleefully rip our traditions and heritage to pieces. Those who think my words are harsh might like to consider the example of Milian Rodriguez, chief accountant and money launderer to the Medellin cocaine cartel, who was - before his later arrest - a Republican campaign contributor and honoured guest of Ronald Reagan's Presidential inauguration!

If I may be permitted to be personal, I sometimes like to relax by reading bound volumes of National Geographic from the 1950s. But on deeper reflection, the photographs of scrubbed American types in New England or Illinois to be found in these books inspire one with near horror. This was a society about to be led to the slaughterhouse, and the future victims were unable to comprehend the danger they were in.

They didn't know or understand the nature of the real threats to their society, any more than did the British national servicemen, who were also distracted by the alleged communist menace and blissfully unaware of the real forces that would lead to the near-destruction of the country they thought they were defending.

Indeed addiction to the drugs of television, the press and mere fashionable conformity is just as deadly as cocaine or ecstasy. We must never be lulled by the media into accepting the piecemeal demolition of our country. We must never again fight for our own enslavement and destruction. But we, at least, are awake from the drugged sleep that affects so many, and more of us are waking up every day.

* "Russian Mafia" is a a popular term used by the political classes and the media to describe organised criminal networks whose members originate in Russia or the former Soviet Union. This is misleading: the "Russian Mafia" is almost wholly Jewish.

Ian Buckley

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