Tag Archives: Christopher Valen

The Real Reason Drugs Are Illegal

As was doing research for the fifth book in my mystery series featuring Homicide Detective John Santana, I came across some interesting facts, which reinforced my believe that drugs have as much chance of being legalized as I do of becoming president. But my skepticism is based on something quite different than you might think.

Whenever those opposed to legalizing drugs are asked to defend their position, they often cite health concerns and moral, spiritual, and political reasons for their opposition. In some instances they’ll cite economic concerns, arguing that when compared to the social costs of drug abuse and addiction, government spending on drug control is minimal.

But there’s one economic argument for keeping drugs illegal that is rarely mentioned, and it has to do with the billions of dollars that are laundered through the global banking system every year.

The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime estimates the amount of money laundered globally in one year to be 2 – 5% of global GDP, or $800 billion – $2 trillion US dollars. Senator Carl Levin estimates that “$500 billion to $1 trillion of international criminal proceeds are moved internationally and deposited into bank accounts annually.” Estimates place the dirty money flowing into U.S. coffers during the 1990s amounted at $3-$5.5 trillion.

According to a report prepared by James Petras, Professor of Sociology at Binghamton University, the dirty money flowing through the major U.S. banks far exceeds the net revenues of all the IT companies in the U.S. The yearly inflows also surpass all the net transfers by the major U.S. oil producers, military industries and airplane manufacturers.

The bottom line is that “without dirty money the U.S. economy would be totally unsustainable, living standards would plummet, the dollar would weaken, the available investment and loan capital would shrink and Washington would not be able to sustain its global empire.”

And here’s the bad news. Petras believes the amount and importance of laundered money is increasing.

Conservative economist Milton Friedman once said that, “if you look at the drug war from a purely economic point of view, the role of the government is to protect the drug cartel,”––and, I would add, by extension the banks that illegally launder their drug money.

So the next time someone asks you why we can’t legalize drugs forget the traditional arguments and tell them the truth. The world and U.S. economy and banking systems are dependent on keeping drugs illegal.

How To Defeat Terrorism

Saudi Arabian ambassador Adel Al-Jubeir

Some have argued over the last decade that the best and most cost-effective way to prevent terrorism in the U.S. is through good intelligence work rather than through lengthy wars in Muslim countries. The latest example supporting this line of thinking occurred today when it was revealed that an Iranian-backed plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to the United States was disrupted by the FBI and the Drug Enforcement Agency.

An Iranian American, Manssor Arbabsiar, 56, has been arrested in the case. Gholam Shakuri, an Iran-based member of the secret Quds Force unit of Iranian’s Revolutionary Guard, was also charged but is not in custody.

The two men were charged with conspiracy to murder a foreign official, conspiracy to use weapons of mass destruction, and conspiracy to commit an act of terrorism, among other counts. Arbabsiar has confessed to the charges and is cooperating with authorities in custody according to government officials. The men planned to detonate a bomb at a busy Washington restaurant, killing Adel Al-Jubeir, the Saudi Arabian ambassador to the U.S., and scores of innocent bystanders.

However, a DEA informant posing as a member of Los Zetas, a Mexican drug cartel, infiltrated the plot. The Zetas cartel was to be paid $1.5 million to carry out the attack, and two advance payments of nearly $50,000 each were wired to an FBI-controlled bank account in August.

Los Zetas, founded by a group of Mexican Army Special Forces deserters, began as the military wing and private mercenary army of the Gulf Cartel. Los Zetas took their name from the radio code used for top-level officers in the Mexican army. After the arrest of the Gulf Cartel’s leader, Osiel, Cárdenas Guillen, the Zetas began operating independently, which led to the bloody turf war that has engulfed Mexico. The DEA describes them as perhaps “the most technologically advanced, sophisticated and violent of the paramilitary enforcement groups.”

The DEA informant who helped crack the case, had been charged with a drug offense and agreed to cooperate in the investigation by posing as a member of the Zeta drug cartel in a meeting with the conspirators in May. Later meetings took place in the U.S. and Mexico.

FBI Director Robert Mueller told reporters today that the case “reads like the pages of a Hollywood script.” But I believe it reads more like a recipe for winning the war on terror.

ICE Shifts Tactics

Wednesday in Minnesota, ICE agents arrested 37 criminal aliens as part of a nationwide sweep in which nearly 3,000 criminals were slated for deportation in an operation called “Cross-Check II.” More than 1600 had felony convictions ranging from attempted murder, manslaughter and kidnapping, to child abuse and sex crimes against minors. Of the 5,300 removed from this region this year, nearly 3,000––or 56%––had criminal records according to ICE data.

While illegal immigration continues to be a “hot-button” issue, especially among Republican presidential candidates, the Obama administration’s new emphasis on deporting aliens with serious felonies rather than those without proper documentation, who pose no threat to public safety or national security, is a welcome and much needed shift in focus.

The Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Justice can now review and clear out low-priority cases from 300,000 backlogged deportation proceedings. Those with no criminal records will be allowed to remain in the country and apply for a work permit. This shift in focus should also help the estimated two million young people who–– under the DREAM ACT––could have achieved citizenship by pursuing higher education or military service.

Those who continue to criticize the Obama administration often fail to report that as of September 2011, 1.06 million illegal immigrants have been sent home in 2 1/2 years — nearly equaling the 1.57 million that George W. Bush deported in two full presidential terms.

The Price of Fear

The 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks is an appropriate time to reflect on the price this country has paid. Some of the costs for upgraded airline security and improved data sharing among law enforcement agencies were reasonable and necessary expenditures, though some of the billions spent on screening airline passengers were dubious at best, as evidenced by the government’s recent decision to allow passengers to keep their shoes on.

Other measures such as illegal wire-tapping of innocent Americans, torture –– euphemistically referred to as “enhanced interrogation”–– and two protracted wars that have resulted in the deaths of some 6,000 American soldiers and more than 100,000 civilians in Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan, were more the result of fear than necessity.
While we have weakened Al-Qaida by killing Osama Bin Laden and many of its leaders, these deaths were primarily the result of targeted attacks using SEAL teams and unmanned Drones rather than invading armies.

The cost of these wars has been estimated to be $4 trillion dollars, in addition to the hundreds of billions spent on homeland security. We’re also facing billions more in medical and psychological costs to treat soldiers suffering from the physical and emotional damages of war, as witnessed by the incredibly high suicide rate for soldiers returning from the battlefield.

Since that fateful September day, we’ve experienced two recessions, including the deepest one since the Great Depression, and seem to be on the verge of a third. Instead of paying for the wars, taxes were cut, and the Treasury lost an estimated $1.3 trillion in lost revenue over 10 years. The budge surplus became a huge deficit, and the total federal debt nearly doubled to $10 by 2008. Today it’s almost $15 trillion. The U.S. government now owes three times more than it did in 2001.

Unemployment is high, U.S. households are deeply in debt, and Americans have lost billions in the stock market, in the value of their homes and in their net worth. The country and its two main parties are divided along ideological lines, and Congress is as toxic as nuclear waste.

Wall Street and the banking industry––instead of working to help the country––responded with an unbelievable gluttony of greed and exotic financial products like derivatives that can be bundled and resold throughout the world, even though many were worthless.

Osama Bin Laden believed he could bankrupt America and bring it to its knees in much the same way as he and the Mujahideen bankrupted the Soviet Union. Bin Laden’s weapon of choice for America was fear.

He has yet to be proven wrong.