Smoking Hash Shooting Up Snortin' and Supportin International Terrorism

Thursday August 08, 2002 15:23

by hashsmoker

America is becoming a stranger and stranger place

This is straight out of Big Brother - cliche I know about a lot of things to do with america these days. What makes it doubly disturbing is that The new US Man in Colombia (New President) at present has a mate who is the biggest Importer of Chemicals used in the Mass- Manufacture of Cocaine into the country. He is also fitting in nicely beside George II by going for the idea of recruiting millions of his people as domestic spies.

Bush Tars Drug Takers With Aiding Terrorists
Mandatory jail makes a drugs Gulag

by Duncan Campbell

The US government is stepping up its attempt to link the war on drugs and the war on terrorism.
Its Office of National Drug Control Policy is running advertisements which tell Americans that by buying drugs they may be financing terrorists - "whether you're shooting heroin, snorting cocaine, taking Ecstasy or sharing a joint in your friend's back yard".
President Bush has declared: "If you quit drugs, you join the fight against terror in America."
Campaigners for changes in the drug laws fear that it is the latest attempt to gather support for an increasingly unpopular war on drugs.
The ad campaign has highlighted the extraordinary number in jail for non-violent drug offences.
The number in jail for drug offences - about 500,000 - is greater than the entire jail population of western Europe. Of these, 320,000 are serving more than a year.
Just under 20% of those jailed for federal drug offences are serving time for marijuana offences.
Even minor marijuana offences carrying mandatory minimum sentences which some judges have apologized for having to apply.
Most are blacks or Latinos, and their imprisonment disenfranchises hundreds of thousands of voters whose absence from the polls was seen as one of the factors responsible for George Bush's election in 2000.
"We have denounced China as a Gulag state, but we have incarcerated many more," said Sanho Tree, director of the drug policy project at the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington.
"They want to hitch an increasingly unpopular drug war to a very popular war on terror."
It would be just as accurate, he said, to blame "soccer moms who drive SUVs" - four wheel drive "sports utility vehicles" - for supporting al-Qaida because of the extra petrol they use.
Many middle-class voters believe that the drug laws have eased when the reverse is true.
There were 734,498 marijuana-related arrests in 2000, 646,042 of them for simple possession, and 1,579,566 drugs arrests of all kind, the highest ever recorded by the FBI.
Last year the US spent $40bn fighting drugs, a 40-fold increase since 1980.
The effect on drug use and public opinion is minimal: 35% of Americans over the age of 11 have tried marijuana, and an estimated 11m say that they are current users.
Not all the voices raised against the drug laws are from expected quarters. Gary Johnson, the Republican governor of New Mexico, has been an outspoken advocate of legalizing drugs. Last week on an ABC television documentary the Detroit chief of police, Jerry Oliver, described the war as "insanity".
Linking drugs and terrorism shows that President Bush is still committed to a high level of imprisonment. His first budget measure on taking office last year was to give federal prisons $1bn more.
While states' spending on prisons has risen by 30% in the past 10 years, spending on higher education has fallen 18%.
Civil rights activists are concerned about the disparity in sentencing. Government figures show that black people make up 14% of the drug-taking population but 58% of those convicted of drug offences. Ninety-six percent of those prosecuted for possessing crack are black or Latino.
Drug offences are felonies and in many states disqualify voters from voting for the rest of their lives: 1.4 million African-American men are currently disqualified by felony convictions, including one in three of those in Florida and Alabama.
Nora Callahan, who co-founded the November Coalition in Seattle with another woman who, like her, had had a brother jailed for a long time on a drug offence, said: "This is a horrible inhumane war. Things are terrible and desperate for the prisoner in America... Millions of people have been stigmatized."
Mandatory minimum sentences were introduced in the late 80s.
Monica Pratt of Families Against Mandatory Minimums said: "There is a demonization of drug offenders in the US, but it's not the kingpins doing the hard time, it's these low-level offences."
Julie Stewart, its president, said: "These are ordinary people given extraordinary sentences," she said. "I was naive enough to think that once legislators knew what was happening they would undo the laws. That didn't happen, but the tide is beginning to turn in Congress."
Mr Bush's drugs tsar, John Walters, said the widely held view that the criminal justice system was unjustly punishing young black men was among "the great urban myths of our time".
But a new poll commissioned by the American Civil Liberties Union shows that the drug policies no longer enjoy popular support, despite the heavy lobbying by the prison industry and the prison guards' union to maintain the sentences.
It shows that 61% of Americans oppose mandatory minimum sentences for non-violent drug offences.
© Guardian Newspapers Limited 2002

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Comments (15 of 15)

___ ___ ____ _ _______ _______?

by Ray

Thu Aug 08, 2002 16:37

(Fill in the blanks)

by ah ray giz a break - least I rote an Intro

Thu Aug 08, 2002 17:02

I know but...

Thu Aug 08, 2002 17:11

First off, its kind of irrelevant. I mean, sure, the 'War on Terrorism' affects us all, and it is about Bush's attempts to tie that 'war' to the 'war' on drugs, so there is _some_ connection. But when you get down to it, the article is about US domestic policy, and this is the Irish IMC, so why bother?
And secondly, why not just post a summary and a link?

Yeah, I know, I'm probably taking up as much IMC resources by posting these comments, but I'm just getting tired of seeing the newswire full of random articles that people read somewhere else and post in their entirety, instead of stuff that people write themselves, about events in Ireland, or about which there is some possibility of activism in Ireland.

DID YOU SEE THE NEWS TODAY ABOUT COLOMBIA?

by BOSTON OR BERLIN RAY

Thu Aug 08, 2002 21:38

New president being sworn in in Bogota 20,000 police and military shutting down the city and IRA being blamed for training FARC geurillas who supposedly let off mortars and bombs on the day. Small world isn't it!

And that is before I start on about the US requirement for Biometric Passports containing Microchips within 2-3 years to cross their borders. As far as I know Ireland has said it will implement this.Because of Historical Connections and emigration all of this affects Ireland and citizens greatly.

And that is before we get onto the boston/berlin debate or even before we get onto Ireland being the country in Europe with the highest prison Population - a majority of whom come from Inner City areas - and guess what? Majority of offences are drug related.

So is it still irrelevant to Ireland or should I write longer intro's. Like the person said in the Marcos article down the newswire - things are becoming more and more the same everywhere. Ireland = erron as far as I'm concerned

you are WAY-OFF THE MARK!

by learner

Fri Aug 09, 2002 02:26

First off there is no war on terror, its a WAR OF TERROR on the people of the planet waged by the corporate fascist criminals.
==================================================
NEXT: if you remember the drug brought in on the Iran-contra arms/drugs pipeline addmitted to have been sold by the bush-I team
==================================================
if you take a look on the most part the drug are marketed to the people that the corporate fascist criminals want dead marketed I might add again by the corporate fascist crooks.
basicly drugs are used like rat poison. ==================================================

articles

Fri Aug 09, 2002 09:05

Re. Bogota - if the Irish connection is there, why didn't you post that article (or better yet, a link to that article)instead of a link about US _domestic_ policy?
Re. biometric passports - what is your source for this? More relevantly, where is your evidence that the Irish government (actually the EU government) is going to implement this. Again, why not post about that instead of posting about US TV documentaries and US marijuana-related arrests?
Irish prison population? Yes, this is an important issue. So why not post about it? Why post an article about the US prison population, instead of writing an article about the Irish one?

Instead of writing longer intros to articles about America, why not write articles about the Irish situation? If you think the US articles support your article, then add a link to them.

'Ray' (if thats your real name) why don't you post something positive on this site?

by King Mob

Fri Aug 09, 2002 09:19

'Ray' (if thats your real name) why don't you post something positive on this site? Like for example with the brave blact taxi driver and his storyteller who did write an original article on this newswire elsewhere? Or better still get up off your big fat lazy arse and actually contribute an article yourself? Or maybe you 'Ray' are just a negative moaner who likes to moan to get attention?

biometric passports

by kahootz

Fri Aug 09, 2002 09:54

biometric passports story was all over the papers last weekend. smell the coffee.

Posting

Fri Aug 09, 2002 10:35

I'm quite aware that I haven't posted any original articles to the newswire. So sue me. At least I'm not clogging up the newswire with crossposts and reprints, that push original and relevant articles off the front page.
Given that you don't know who I am, what articles I've written elsewhere, what activities I've taken part in, or anything at all about my personal circumstances, I'm not too worried about you calling me lazy.

Biometric passports

Fri Aug 09, 2002 10:48

I've spent the last few minutes googling, and have found references to some countries (UK and Australia) considering biometric passports at some unspecified future date, but nothing about Ireland. Of course, even if I had, it doesn't explain why the original poster reprinted an article from the Guardian about US domestic drug policy - an article that, as far as I can see, doesn't even mention biometric passports, let alone Irish ones.
But there I go, being all 'negative' again...

OK Ray -

by blisset (slight return)

Fri Aug 09, 2002 12:30

Bogota and Irish connection if there is one? Heard about the Irishmen in Prison in Colombia who have kind of been tried in the Media Worldwide?

IRA Training was blamed on Sky TV and National Irish TV in the last Two Days for Bombings in Bogota on the date of the Inaguration of their new Right Wing Drug Dealing Right wing Paramilitary supported US supported President.

I am not even sure if this bombing had anything to do with FARC let alone Irish Trained Farc Members. But it does give an interesting insight into how terrorism and International Terrorism is in many ways often a construct of the right. Suits the right in Columbia by allowing them to point to their enemies and shout international Terrorism, suits the Right in NI as well and the right in America and even the right here in Erron.

Did anyone notice how little discussion of the actual on the ground situation in Columbia made it into any of the media here. No mention of the disappeared that amount to at least one TU official or Left winger a day. It is Chile again except now both Ireland, US and the UK are together on side with a right wing CIA sponsored Government which wants to legalise fully the right wing Paramilitaries, recriut a million Columbian Citizens as spies - and destroy thye left wing in Columbia into the process. All handily using the war on drugs and terrorism.

Biometric Passports - source the Irish Times Last Saturday. It was dealt with in an Irish Context.

Irish Prison Population - have posted on this previously in the context of Aids and Hep C.
There is a situation in the world - not just an Irish Situation and I usually assume people know Irish News and Affairs quite well and will make these connections themselves. Not you ray though which makes me wonder who you are.

Laughing about the fact that you can be anonymous and annoying on this site is bullshit btw.

OK blisset

Fri Aug 09, 2002 13:12

Bogota and Irish connection - yes, I'm aware of the FARC/IRA (alleged) connection. But the article posted (in its entirety) above is about US domestic policy, not about Columbia, the IRA, or FARC.
Biometric passports - I missed the article in the IT on Saturday. But then, I also missed the paragraph in the article above talking about biometric passports.
Irish prison population - yes, its very high. Not something mentioned in that article about the US prison population.

You (and BOSTON OR BERLIN RAY) seem to be defending this post for what it *could* have been. There is a great potential article waiting to be written, that discusses current US drugs policy, how it affects Columbia (and mentions the possible IRA/FARC connection), and then talks about how Ireland is starting to follow the US lead, with a rising prison population, bad drugs policies etc, and how calls for biometric IDs could hasten that process, restricting civil liberties in the cause of 'the war on terror'.

Unfortunately, that's not the post we got. What we got was a reprint of a Guardian article focussed entirely on US domestic policy. And that is neither original nor relevant. It could have been a source of information and a linked resource *in* a relevant article, but it wasn't. And that's why I criticised it.

Oh, and re. anonymity. I wasn't 'laughing' about the fact that I couldn't be identified, I was pointing out the problem with people criticising me for 'laziness' when they don't know how I am.

Now we have an article - see

Fri Aug 09, 2002 13:16

Oh faker

Fri Aug 09, 2002 13:23

Someone keeps using my name.

A) I think Ray is right.

B) the previous King Mob, posted his abused at 8:19am. There is no way I could be up and that nasty at the same time.

Another way to to challenge this rhetoric

by Ian

Fri Aug 09, 2002 13:25

ian at theplatueau dot com

There's another link to be made between drugs and terrorism - Western agricultural policy in the way it undermies poor farmers can drive them to cultivate illegal crops. This was recently taken up by the Canadian minister of finance at the G8 finance minister's meeting in Halifax in June:

http://cbc.ca/stories/2002/06/14/manley020614

Of course the rhetoric of the "war on terror" and the "war on drugs" hides a less benevolent agenda. Can I suggest that this is maybe a way to challenge such rhetoric.

Here's a letter I wrote to the Irish Times recently (not printed):

Sir,
Regarding Conall O'Caoimh's article "CAP system turns developing world's farmers into beggars" (July 17). We must push for CAP reform because small Irish farmers stand to be sacrificed to big business, because we have a historic opportunity to develop policies that better protect the environment and communities, and because the injustice of current system to the some of the world's poorest people is morally reprehensible. But also, as the Canadian Finance minister recently pointed out while criticising the US's recent outrageous $170 billion package (mostly for big business), the way these subsidies undermine, for example, Afghani farmers, can drive them to cultivate illegal crops which are known to fund terrorist organizations. The greatest weapon we have against terrorism - should we choose to deploy it - is social justice.

Ian

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Smoking Hash Shooting Up Snortin' and Supportin International Terrorism

Comments (15 of 15)