U.S. adds 3 countries to drug traffic hub list

[Enrique]

Source: McClatchy

MEXICO CITY -- President Barack Obama, faced with skyrocketing violence and evidence of growing drug-cartel power in Central America, for the first time has named three of the region's countries to the U.S. list of major drug-trafficking nations.

The inclusion of Costa Rica, Honduras and Nicaragua on the Majors List was front-page news throughout the region, but there was little expectation that the designation would mean the U.S. will make new money and other resources available.

In Nicaragua, President Daniel Ortega said the U.S. determination could be a wake-up call for U.S. legislators that narcotics ``are seriously contaminating'' Central America.

``This contamination, this epidemic, is across the region, and that's why it is important that we have more resources,'' Ortega said, according to the La Prensa newspaper. ``It would be an investment, we say, by the United States, and I wish members of Congress would pay attention to this aspect.''

Costa Rican officials admitted that their country is overwhelmed by criminal groups tied to drug smuggling. ``Our resources alone are insufficient based on the magnitude of the situation we are facing,'' said Costa Rica's counternarcotics point man, Mauricio Boraschi.

Read more: http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/09/21/1834482/us-adds-three-nations-to-drug.html#ixzz10GlMEtLV


Read more: http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/09/21/1834482/us-adds-three-nations-to-drug.html#ixzz10GlMEtLV

[Uncle Joe]

1. The "War on Drugs" is doomed to failure and cannot be won without the people totally losing their

freedom, lives, families and prosperity.

At the risk of repeating my self.

The "War on Drugs" is doomed to failure and cannot be won without the people totally losing their freedom, lives, families and prosperity.

The "War on Drugs;" is a society killing cancer.

Thanks for the thread, Enrique.

[Peace Patriot]

6. Thanks, Uncle Joe! And I'll make in three repetitions...

The "War on Drugs" is doomed to failure and cannot be won without the people totally losing their freedom, lives, families and prosperity.

----

Hear! Hear!

:bounce: :applause: :bounce:

[SOS]

2. Is there a "majors list" of US financial institutions

that launder the drug cash and send it back to Costa Rica, Honduras and Nicaragua?

:shrug:

[dixiegrrrrl]

3. the War on Drugs is an excuse, like the War on Terror.

As the article puts in plainly:
`It would be an investment, we say, by the United States,"

See: what we are doing in Columbia, under the guise of "War on Drugs".

[pscot]

4. It's too bad that drug use leads to moral depravity

and eternal damnation. Otherwise we could just legalize them and take the profit away from the gangsters.

[L.Torsalo]

5. I live here in CR.

If you want abundant drugs, try Guatemala, where you can buy cocaine in the bars, weed on the street or in a cafe.Do them in front of cops. Heck, got the USA for drugs, very abundant and available. Costa Rica has such a tiny proportion of drug users to non that such listing in the drug hub category is nothing more than an excuse for the US to militarize my country. Hey Gringos, we don't need your stinking badges. Go home and clean up your own house. Apologies to the sane Americans who know what I'm saying.

[Peace Patriot]

7. I agree, L. Torsalo! That's what I see, too, from stateside. Militarization of Costa Rica--

which has such a proud and excellent tradition of non-militarism--is being perpetrated under the guise of the failed, corrupt, murderous U.S. "war on drugs."

It is disgusting.

I do think, though, that we need to try to understand the reasons for it. Whatever chance we have to stop things like this depends on our ability, first of all, to understand the real purposes behind it. That it is for drug interdiction is ludicrous. A kindergartner could probably see through that. Adults who believe it ought to be put away. War profiteering? Yes, I think that that is a big element. Billions from our government coffers--needed for schools, health care, labor protection, environmental regulation, help for small businesses, development of "green" energy, infrastructure repair, libraries, emergency services--needed for literally everything--pouring into the pockets of our privatized military!

But I don't think that there is something else, even worse, at the core of it: a Pentagon and "free trade for the rich" "circling of the wagons" strategy in the Central America/Caribbean region, at the least to create a slave labor force for U.S. multinationals, and obedient client states that allow U.S./World Bank/IMF banksters and other profiteers to loot these countries' public services and other kinds of theft, with the U.S. military as the enforcer of the economic subjugation of this reason. Honduras is the template. And it has a specific economic warfare enemy--the common market that is in development in South America, on principles of peace, cooperation and social justice (already in the works) which could well include or try to include Central America.

At the worst, this "circle the wagons" strategy is a war plan, with at least one sure target--Venezuela, which has the biggest oil reserves on earth (twice Saudi Arabia's, according to a recent USGS report). The U.S. needs oil to fuel its great war machine and for "free trade for the rich" globalization. And there it sits, right in our hemisphere, at the southern perimeter of the "circle the wagons" area.

Chavez and his government has been active in trying to organize the smaller Caribbean/Central American countries into a "fair trade" bloc--with the ALBA trade group. One of the key things that the U.S. supported rightwing coup in Honduras did was to cancel Honduras' membership in ALBA. It is a serious threat to U.S. multinationals, because, with the collective strength of the ALBA countries, a president like Zelaya would feel bolstered in, say, raising the minimum wage in Honduras or lowering the price of bus tickets for poor workers. They have common goals and help each other out to reach them. For instance, Venezuela provided Honduras with cheap oil, making lowering the price of bus tickets possible. ALBA is a mortal threat to U.S. "free trade for the rich."

Also, our true rulers--multinationals such as Exxon Mobil and Chevron--absolutely loathe the idea that the Chavez government is using oil profits to benefit the poor, with education, health care and so on. They want to net that country--or at least its northern oil provinces and Caribbean coast oil reserves and facilities--into their "circle the wagons" region. They can't have Iran, apparently. (Too well defended? Too much risk of China or Russia coming into it?) Venezuela must look like easy pickuns to the Pentagon war planners, by comparison with Iran. And they have, over the last half decade, surrounded Venezuela's northern oil provinces and Caribbean oil coast with U.S. military assets, including at least seven military bases in Colombia (and a new one overlooking the Gulf of Venezuela, only 20 miles from the Venezuelan border), USAF bases on the Dutch islands right off Venezuela's oil coast, new or beefed up bases in Honduras and Panama, the newly reconstituted U.S. 4th Fleet in the Caribbean and other assets.

Costa Rica is a "block" or "puzzle piece" that needed to be put into place. Can't have a neutral country in the midst of a war zone--or in the midst of the U.S. "circle the wagons" area. CAFTA was the beginning of sucking Costa Rica in. The latest Pentagon "war games" in Costa Rica is phase 2. I shudder to think what phase 3 will be, but it will probably involve suppression of the left (maybe in the context of a labor revolt?). There is some reason to believe that a labor revolt may be brewing in Panama. One DU poster said that he/she thinks that this is the reason for militarization of Costa Rica--to secure the Canal if there is a strike. This may be true, but I think that, if it is, it is part of the overall "circle the wagons" "free trade for the rich"/war strategy.

Investigative reporter Eva Golinger unearthed the USAF document (since suppressed) developed under the Bush Junta, that lays out the plan for "full spectrum" U.S. military operations in Latin America. Why would the U.S. need all these bases and military expenses and "full spectrum" capability in Latin America? Except for the fascist military/death squad murders in U.S. client states, Honduras and Colombia, and Colombia's 70 year civil war--stoked by $7 billion in U.S. military aid--it is the most peaceful region on the planet.

War profiteering, economic warfare and possibly war itself. I think that that is what Costa Rica has been allied to.

One key psychological component, as to whether a war is being planned, has been the intense, relentless lies, slander, disinformation and psyops against the Chavez government, across the board in all corpo-fascist media, with our 'paper of record,' The New York Slimes, leading the way. I've been following this disinformation campaign for some time, and it has astonished and alarmed me. I can think of a lot of reasons for it, but it is so intense, so pervasive, and so mind-bogglingly false, that its closest parallel is the leadup to the Iraq War.

There are other events and developments that contribute to my fear of an outright war, with Venezuela as the main target. I won't go into it all here, but, if I were a Costa Rican, I would be very concerned that I was going to be dragged into something even worse than the U.S. "war on drugs."