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Goes On…
By Stanley Meisler
WASHINGTON-The House on Wednesday (Sept 16, 1998) turned aside
Clinton administration objections and overwhelmingly passed a
$3.2 billion bill to bolster the Coast Guard, the Customs Service
and Latin American governments in their struggle to stop drugs
from reaching this country (the USA's) borders. The House of
Representatives passed the bill, 384 to 39, just hours after White
House drug czar General Barry R. McCaffrey testified in the Senate
that a similar measure awaiting action there would be too expensive
and would represent "micromanagement of drug tactics based
on a shallow analysis of the problem and our available tools."
(Of course, the "problem" is that the anti-drug bureaucracy
refuses to accept the fact that it no longer has public support,
and that a majority of Americans support the complete repeal of
prohibition. WFI Editor)
In the House, Republican leaders insisted that they were boosting
the budget for drug interdiction because they believe that President
Clinton has failed to stem the flow of drugs into the country.
"By the summer of 1992," House Speaker (now former-Speaker)
Newt Gingrich (R-GA) said, "we were winning the war on drugs."
But, he charged, after Clinton took office in 1993, "for
a variety of reasons, the war on drugs went off track."
(The truth, however, is that the US Government has never been
anywhere near "winning" the absurd "War on Drugs,
such statements on Gingrich's part being nothing more than puffery.
WFI Editor) The bulk of the bill's funds would
be spent during the next three years on the purchase and maintenance
of airplanes for the U.S. government -- $917 million for the Coast
Guard and $889 million for the Customs Service. The money would
be in addition to $1.67 billion the administration has set aside
for drug interdiction during each of the next three years.
Despite some grumbling over Gingrich's decision to allow the bill
to reach the House floor without committee hearings or approval,
Democrats joined Republicans in supporting it. Latin American
specialists were troubled by provisions that would increase funding
for foreign military units engaged in drug interdiction. The
bill earmarks $177 million for helicopters and planes for Colombia
and $18 million for helicopters for Mexico. Bolivia and Peru
also would receive extra funds.
The Washington-based Office on Latin America, a private, nonprofit
think tank that has often fretted over increased military assistance
to the region, warned that the bill would "undermine U.S.
policy goals of supporting democracy and human rights around the
world." (What U.S. policy goal supporting democracy and
human rights around the world? WFI Editor) Rep.
Maxine Waters (D-Los Angeles) sought to delete the funding for
Colombia and Mexico, urging Congress to "stop dumping our
dollars on corrupt police" in those two countries. (Why
doesn't Congresswoman Waters complain about dumping dollars on
corrupt police in the United States? WFI Editor)
But her amendment eliminating these funds was defeated 354 to
67. McCaffrey, in his testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said the bill "proposes authorizations that are far in excess of expected appropriations and the president's budget without specifying where these funds will come from." He seemed most upset by the congressional attempt to, in his eyes, exert excessive control over administration drug policy. As an example, he cited a provision that set aside $1.25 million for "concertina wire and tunneling detection systems at the La Picota prison" in Colombia. SOURCE: Excerpted from the 17 September, 1998, issue of the Los Angeles Times, Orange County Edition, from an article entitled, "House OK's $3.2 Billion Measure to Bolster the Fight Against Drugs." Reprinted in the public service of the national interest of the American people.(WFI EDITOR: Since the CIA got reined in by congressional legislation in the 1970s, the DEA became the instrument of terror by which the United States exercised its influence in the Americas. U.S. troops were actually deployed in Colombia, in the suspicious and illegal "War on Drugs." Whole regions of central and south America have been under the thumbs of military dictatorships that were all supported by subsidies from the United States. Panama came into existence through the intrigues of American interests, supported by American military and political power. The very term "banana republic" derives from the U.S.-installed puppet regimes that made it possible for U.S. conglomerates - like United Fruit - to make vast fortunes from the lucrative banana crop.What is even more chilling is the fact that what keeps the price of illegal drugs high, is the Federal Government's so-called "War on Drugs." Once legalized, most of these drugs would cost so little there would be no incentive for underworld mobsters to deal in them, and most of the violence of the street would evaporate. But then, without violence, the massive police force of the republic would have nothing to do, and would be subject to being laid off, which would challenge the core of power in the republic, the law enforcement bureaucracy, which has continued to bloat up, even though crime statistics are down. The police state is passe. The time has come for Americans to wake up and smell the coffee.) |
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