Lawfare turns laws into weapons. No better example of lawfare exists than the never-ending saga of the South American Drug War. Drug lawfare is waged by the DEA and the U.S. Congress to protect oil, gas, mineral, and timber extraction industries from irate villagers. The villagers are upset because the foreign extraction corporations operating in Latin America tend to take a colonialist approach to business, pillaging, and stealing indigenous property to gain access to rich natural resources. The blowback consists of cheated inhabitants who revolt in clever ways and who tend to enlist the aid of anyone willing to back them.
Congress decided it’s the DEA’s job to help counter these revolts and any democratic, socialist or communist political economy that might arise. Legislators legitimatized their tactic by making drug enforcement part of the national security apparatus. Because huge amounts of money can easily be allocated for drug enforcement—no questions asked—the U.S. taxpayer is tricked into funding corporate welfare schemes tied to financing death squads in Honduras and elsewhere. T. J. Coles is director of the Plymouth Institute for Peace Research and he describes the history and ongoing situation in Honduras:
The cover for setting up a military police force is countering narco- and human-traffickers, but the record shows that left-wing civilians are targeted for death and intimidation. To crush the pro-Zelaya, pro-democracy movements Operation Morazán, [created] the Military Police of Public Order (PMOP)…the PMOP consisted of 4,500 personnel in 10 battalions across every region of Honduras, and … murdered at least 21 street protestors [in 2018]. […]
Between 2010 and 2016, as U.S. “aid†and training continued to flow, over 120 environmental activists were murdered by hitmen, gangs, police, and the military for opposing illegal logging and mining. Others have been intimidated. In 2014, for instance, a year after the murder of three Matute people by gangs linked to a mining operation, the children of the indigenous Tolupan leader, Santos Córdoba, were threatened at gunpoint by the U.S.-trained, ex-Army General, Filánder Uclés, and his bodyguards…crimes against the peoples of the region increased…Lawfare is also used, with over 160 small farmers in the area subject to frivolous legal proceedings. […]
…The names and command structures of U.S.-backed military units in Honduras have changed over the last four decades, but their goal remains the same. […]
Ending the U.S. funded drug lawfare racket in Latin America would compel extraction industries to deal with their own political problems in ways that don’t bleed taxpayers. No longer able to hide behind the plausible disguises of drug enforcement, the need for corporate business and political security would encourage commercial operations to spend their own money to make peace with the locals and to cease using lawfare to rob, attack, or murder citizens, journalists, and political or environmental activists. As a bonus for those opposing corporate welfare handouts of any type, the drug war perfectly showcases the evils of corporate welfare when it’s left unchecked.
Lawfare — good word, Servetus.
Nice one, Servetus. Happy new year my couch friends. Hope you all enjoyed some bubbly (bong hits, that is) in your new year’s celebrations…
Excellent Servetus.
But, you’ve struck up my government issued Tourette syndrome created by the use of drug money to fund a war to fight Americans exploiting Iraq and Afghanistan. Stuck in the middle are the kids, families, and innocent people.
How can we say it is Illegal for tens of thousands of Central Americans to flee northwards into America at will, just to save their own lives? The Drug Laws: your child can be murdered just so my little Johnny can make a choice to say ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to street dealers selling uncontrolled drugs to anybody with money.
More Central Americans began to flee northward as a direct result of America’s Federal Courts, Federal Judges, and Federal Prosecutors issuing a ‘Drug Money Laundering License’ for a small fee to Wachovia (now belonging to Wells Fargo) and HSBC Bank in Dec of 2012 . . . war in Syria amped up overnight when banks were given the license. With no incentive to stop, HSBC, BNY Mellon, Deutcha, JP Morgan, etc have been known to launder over $2 trillion since 1999 . . . a few years of laundering drug money for Osama to move assets around and to lock down on opium production so the Taliban’s enemies would have less access to fund their fight and to drive up the prices of Taliban stockpiles in a world where 1/3 or more of the world’s heroin just never existed, overnight——Because Osama believed something would cause Americans to flock to Afghanistan and stay for a very long time, like the Russians.
Now, drug money controls the Labor Laws, funded by Americans via the 1961 U.N. Singles . . . Christians aren’t meant to manipulate governments set up by God, like totally controlling the Labor and Wage Laws of Afghanistan for Mineral rights (computer chips), thus loopholes found in ‘Workers rights’, ‘wages’, ‘safety standards’ and ‘trade’ i.e. no laws stating that if X happens on account of B making a trade with L, so B can move contracts to M, then Iran must be willing to take a Percent of imports from Afghanistan or Iran must be allowed to sell a percentage of their stuff to Afghanistan as stated in the contracts with M. We’ve subcontracted the shit out of those two nations because it is very costly for Americans to fight an enemy funded by drugs and not by commerce/tax/industry as seen in past American wars where infrastructure and factories were targets.
ISIS this July or June in Italy, lost 1.2 Billion euros of meth to authorities. How many times have they succeeded before and since? Euros will buy twice to four times the amount of death in Warlands. European currencies are far more valuable than most money.
At least the American people will no longer fund the Marijuana portion of the 1961 U.N. Single Laws. Now, ISIS will have to start selling grass to local Islamic Magistrates that keep the drug illegal, like Lebanon and Syria. I swear, ISIS will burn no more ‘local’ pot fields anymore.
But Cocaine and heroin are still all the reasons why Americans buy plastics from China/Asia, today with the altered 2007 Contracts that gave America its own oil field in the middle of Iraq . . . from Nationalized (1972/73) to denationalized oil. And plastics love to be made with oil. Now any American can exploit an Iraqi child when they buy a toy or food packaged in plastic or when they drive a new car made with plastics or on a tared road or in a car ran on gas or in a car that needs lubes or a TV or a computer/cellphone/tablet made with plastic parts . . . and cell phone/cable/internet bills are just extensions to paying more death by the use of the items made from plastics circa 2007 . . . that and our providers constantly used plastics from Iraq so we can have internet/cellular/cable, and computer chips from Afghanistan, being China and India are their bordering neighbors. And Asia sells America her most tech from many of Afghanistan’s mines.
We need to start growing our own plastics and computer chips.
If there was only a plant that could create biodegradable plastics, lubes, paints, fuels, textiles, etc. Then Iraq and Afghanistan might be free from American consumerism. The American Dream is Keeping Up with the Jones and if they have it, damn sure well we must also buy one, but better and newer.
OT…
this one gave me a flashback to 20 years ago:
Side Effects of Smoking Marijuana Every Day, According to Science
Here’s a scary creature, the bobbit worm, or should it be Boebert?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K_7ByiYbCYM
https://nypost.com/2021/01/05/rep-lauren-boebert-loads-gun-walks-around-dc-in-new-video/
Ha ha, perfect timing ms Boebert. Your political career is off to a great start, lol.
or their samples written
Inauguration day: huff post has pictures of my congressman Markwayne Mullin standing right behind three secret service agents point pistols at a blocked door with broken glass pane. He’s the guy with the beard.
If I got paid a dollar for every time I wrote to him about the War on Terror, the market, and the Drug War, I’d be making corporate wages. His secretary (assuming) once phoned me about using my idea of fining Europe for violating the 1961 U.N. Singles Convention in regards to narcotics coming out of enemy lands and using the fine to pay for the wall. I don’t think they realized I wasn’t being serious, but that guy does work on Georgia, the nation, in regards to monopolies and trade.
Now, or several hours ago, other Republicans like him, are holding him hostage.
Forgive me for using INAGURATION DAY. I’m asleep at the wheel, stunned at what’s going on now and all year long. Too bad I don’t have access to an edit option. And lots of flower mixed with waxes and diamonds and vape hits (my mom died one year ago today)
But its good that most of those guys are white or they’d be shot at by now.
Too bad they cannot accept the election results. But Trump will run again and again and again.
Sheldon Adelson dies at age 87
See? 2021 might not be the worst year ever. Certainly getting off to a good start…
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I’ve heard people say that “only the good die young.”
If Trump isn’t President anymore, does this mean my guy will still do work on the Nation of Georgia in regards to trade? Of all the things Mark has done, Georgia stands out as ‘odd’ and I’m assuming its because Trump has business ties with Georgia plus Russia and how those two Conflict regions affect Trump’s bottom line and how his BOTTOM Line might cross lines and boundaries in America, Georgia, and Russia that are unlawful, so Mark might have been trying to lift and separate the barbed wire between Lawful and Illegal for Trumps Bottom Line to be copesetic and crawl–slip through–to keep from being snagged and cut and stuck in the fence.
OT:
The other night and day, my wife and I went to an IFR rodeo in Guthrie at a big indoor arena out in the middle of the sticks and I just realized: you never see NASCAR, NFL, NBA, Pro Baseball, and NHL fans drink beer and liquor at their sporting events . . . even in States that once allowed endless sales of 3pt beer before those States turned into 6pt endless beer sales at ball games.
What I mean, you don’t see lots of males and females between the ages of lawful and old sitting with two mixed drinks in both hands that smell of strong liquor in an arena filled with dirt, hay, horse shit and cow shit–meaning they made that drink the way I’d make it if I was wanting to get ripped. Plus cowboys and cowgirls with a grasp over four aluminum bottles and sipping on another opened beer.
Granted, rodeos don’t command the same crowds, but I strongly believe that you have way more of the percentage of attendees drinking than the other sporting events.
This points out to the double standard that the population and law allows between one culture and another. Narrow country roads with two ways to leave or come from, means road blocks with a quick breathalyzer, but they won’t and for several good and not so good reasons. Such a roadblock would be very impractical due to location and audience attendance (can be up to 9,000 in non-Covid times) and the amount of money the rodeo brings to the surrounding area (millions of dollars). From booze sales, clothing, food, to leather boots to million dollar horses to bulls that will cost you $100,000 for just one . . . plus sperm gold.
And marijuana is 100% acceptable amongst the rodeo, except for rules about smoking and vaping in-doors. Thank god for dirty bathroom stalls where I can vape.
The music they play reminds me of ZZ Top at a Gangster rap concert in the middle of a Rave Festival with just a bit of honkey tonk and Aerosmith, and heavy metal.
I come from extremely racist parts of Oklahoma with zero-3 African Americans that made me rebel from the culture, but I was surprised at all the African Americans who attended and dressed the part, like the wife and I did.
This makes me feel real hopeful for our country in regards to race and union. Like, as soon as we start to separate, we’ve got some cowboys to wrangle us in–rope us back together again. I think there is a big difference between the cowboy and the good ol’boy, though they may dress alike from time to time and vote alike, with same interests. But, the cowboy accepts changes and accepts facts, only because it behooves him too for the nature of his and the cow’s survival. He might hate that he was wrong, but being wrong means he has to be right once again by going the opposite direction and not into the ravine. The good ol’ boy will walk into the ravine or try to build a bridge where a bridge should not exist. The cowboy ain’t got the time to build a bridge when its just easier to go the right direction.
Maybe because the Wicked Witch of Queens is gone, but I’ve gone mostly to country music and cowboy boots starting around early November (a possible mid-life crisis, but I’m an okie) of last year and accelerating. And I ain’t had a pair of boots since the Army gave me theirs or cowboy boots since I was 8. And I’ve never bought country music or volunteered my hand to tune the radio into an all country music station. I like rap, the Dead, the Doors, INXS, black metal, 90s rock and rave music.
The black man is the canary in the coal mine of our democracy and hopefully we reacted correctly and justly when we saw them flutter and drop dead–sounding off with panic, our warning. And just maybe veterans are weathervanes, and the winds look promising at this moment–less toxic . . . but for how long?
And how can white people with two 12s in their car feel comfortable with the N word so LOUD in rap music. I’m embarrassed that my ancestors directly built Baltimore to bring slaves in and their work–their labor, out, thus inventing the N word and the narrative that created the Rap music in the first place with their struggle. Most southerners were merely like Nazi troops filled with what ignorance can accomplish, but mine were like high ranking officials who worked early on in the party, according to an old family book passed down and re-written/published for the changes.
Where the medicine mix can be made: 25% of Oklahoma’s population are Native American and natives are considered victims of white man and his lies, yet, these victims owned slaves over here, and now full black skin can legally be red skin if deemed property, and that allows the culture to accept and be one and to merge into something I hope is much better than the Oklahoma I grew up in.
Man VS Beast, instead of man vs. man or man filled with nasty chemicals and equipment destroying the earth. Rodeo is simple and fans are treated like participants more than spectators. Its like the rodeo guys are so thankful I came to watch them and they will come up to you and get to know you for a bit, bleeding or not. We talk about getting fucked up, the animals, the land, the music, the outfits, the girls (bunnies), the points, other cowboys, other rodeos, but politics remain red–but nameless so they really don’t bring politics in. Those take a knee football players had the right to quit football and dilute the system by joining the police force as star athletes in the departments. Hell, they could have pulled enough strings where those guys did real police work for a few hours a month and still play ball, where others would still see the change–the new trail to better grazing lands. Instead, take a knee athletes let others do their hard civic work for them . . . take a knee football players are only publicity stunts, now. And I have no idea what they are taking a knee for anymore . . . Nike is just as cheap as Reebok, so no need to take a knee anymore.