$15,000,000,000 to fight the “narcotics trade,” and Blackwater may get some

It gets more and more surreal.

Since the U.S. government is now a wholly owned subsidiary of a conglomerate of defense contractors and the fossil fuels industries, it’s important to find new and better ways for our tax dollars to support those murderous kleptocrats- preferably ways that attract little scrutiny, and play into the warped values so carefully calibrated by our corporate media. We can’t spend money on things that might actually help children, like ensuring that they have safe homes, nutritious food, clean clothes, and quality educations and health care. That would be socialism! But we can try to keep them from having sex! And we can try to keep them off drugs! Homelessness, hunger, and lack of opportunity are of little import, but kids on drugs is bad! And it exists in a vacuum. It has nothing to do with that homelessness, hunger, and lack of opportunity!

So, the Wall Street Journal is reporting today that:

A Defense Department contract involving antidrug training missions may test the durability of the political controversy over Blackwater Worldwide’s security work in Iraq.

The Moyock, N.C., company, which was involved in a September shooting in Baghdad that left 17 Iraqis dead, is one of five military contractors competing for as much as $15 billion over five years to help fight a narcotics trade that the government says finances terrorist groups.

Also competing for contracts from the Pentagon’s Counter Narcoterrorism Technology Program Office are military-industry giants Raytheon Co., Lockheed Martin Corp. and Northrop Grumman Corp., as well as Arinc Inc., a smaller aerospace and technology contractor.

Of course, the first reaction is to wonder why in hell we’d be considering giving more money to a bloodsucking private army that murders civilians and is run by a fundamentalist religious fanatic. That’s the obvious question, and it will remain unanswered. As our nation is dismantled and sold for scrap, Blackwater is the future. But the bigger question, which is, of course, overlooked by the Journal itself, is why are we looking to spend $15,000,000,000 on the war on drugs?!

(more)

The article, of course, makes the offhand assertion that the money is needed because the narcotics trade finances terrorism. Right. You know what really fuels terrorism? According to our own spy agencies, the Iraq war fuels terrorism. You know what fuels the narcotics trade? The fact that by invading Iraq, Bush failed to defeat the Taliban, who are now resurgent, and enjoying the profits of record opium crops.

But why deal with the actual facts, and the actual failures of this astonishingly inept and corrupt maladministration. We’re all still paying tax dollars, and corporate welfare is no longer just a means of siphoning some of it away. Corporate welfare is now one of the primary functions of our government. That and shifting the very functions of government to private institutions that are accountable to no one.

As the Journal article concludes:

Richard Douglas, deputy assistant defense secretary for counternarcotics, counterproliferation and global threats, said Blackwater’s training of Afghan antidrug forces has made them more effective. “We’ve been very happy with the results of our association with them in Afghanistan,” he said.

Of course they’re happy with the results. Because record opium crops means just another excuse for more money to be stolen from the people and given to the corporate kleptocrats.

21 comments

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  1. 15 Billion dollars over 5 years, and the SCHIP bill was too expensive?

    Got it…just checking…

    • pfiore8 on November 13, 2007 at 20:29

    money

    it’s really incredible… i have no words, so i’ll just use yours:

    Of course they’re happy with the results. Because record opium crops means just another excuse for more money to be stolen from the people and given to the corporate kleptocrats.

    btw, lots of people at dKos think you should be on kos’s shortlist for one of the three new CEs

    you have a very strong rep there and lots of respect… good on you Turkana.

  2. springs to mind… has there been any reports on a surge in heroine availability in any part of the world? Is the Bush regime using drug money to fund it secret wars and illegal programs just like Daddy Bush did while VP?

  3. If you don’t think that men who kill for money won’t be tempted to help facilitate the import of such products into the US (given their additional security clearance), then you’ve got nothing to worry about…it could never happen.

    Me, I suspect the mercenaries who work for Blackwater will be bringing more dope to the US by next spring than we’ve seen in years.  Lots of money…little or no oversight.  Opportunity is knockin’.  

  4. creatively painting new names on old things that don’t really belong to them and charging for them as if they did and since Blackwater is being investigated for black marketing arms in Iraq, I can’t wait to find out what they rename the drug trading circles they will end up involved in and profiting from.  Get that dollar coming and going…….it’s the mercenary way!  In a war zone everything belongs to the guy with the most bullets.

  5. Iran/Contra.

    Did we learn nothing yet about who runs the drug trade?

    Or there was our astute Mexican friend who laughed in our faces about the much arms trade coming from guesswhere, who said “you think they pay for weapons in cash?”

    • jim p on November 14, 2007 at 01:02

    but I always thought, despite it’s billing, that it was the “War to Consolidate Drug-Dealing.” Along those lines, It’s pretty obvious that the millions in small bills the business generates every day cannot possibly go through the banking system without conscious participation of bankers.

    I think “consolidation” explains the Blackwater involvement. You need force to get rid of various freelancers in the industry.

    My imagination still breaks down when I try to picture, in Afghanistan, miles-long caravans of donkeys and scooters carrying hundreds of tons of opium all the way to Europe. (Through Turkey and, the swimming donkeys, going through the new home of Halliburton, the UAE.)

    If only we had air-superiority in Afghanistan, or–crazy as it seems–spy satellites, we could finally track these caravans and stop the trade.

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