Por Ron Jacobs
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Image by Bret Kavanaugh. |
In Panama, the longtime friend of the United States intelligence network, Manuel Noriega, had his own connections to the Colombian narco-traffickers. His country served as an essential stop for cocaine smugglers en route to the United States. At the same time, Noriega was in favor of the treaty between Panama and the United States worked out during Jimmy Carter’s presidency that returned the Panama Canal to the Panamanians. It would be that position which was the primary trigger for the US invasion of Panama in December 1989, an invasion that killed over twenty thousand Panamanians and destroyed many more residents’ homes. Noriega was kidnapped by US forces and brought to Florida, where he sat in prison until he was convicted of drug trafficking in what can be described as a railroading. Meanwhile, George HW Bush had pardoned the US officials convicted in the Iran-Contra affair—officials who were part of the same drug trafficking Noriega turned a blind eye to just as he did to the illegal arms shipments to the mercenaries known as contras from the United States.
Over the past few years, the US government has called Venezuelan President Maduro and his government major players in today’s drug trafficking. The Venezuelan government repeatedly insists that this accusation is unfounded, but is part of the decades-long subversion of Venezuela’s leftist government. No US agency or international body has provided objective evidence of drug production linked to Maduro or the government, if at all. Despite a fair amount of research on the subject, I have found no evidence that the US claim is true, much less accurate. In fact, it seems quite likely that this is an attempt to paint the government in Caracas as a narco-government. My understanding of how cartel trafficking operates is that it’s more likely that the US-sponsored far-right opposition to Venezuela’s government includes a few drug traffickers among its ranks. I say this because historically, most major traffickers prefer to work with right-wing politicians.
Earlier this summer, the Trump regime upped Washington’s reward for the arrest of Maduro to fifty million dollars. It’s as if Washington thinks the world is the OK Corral and Wyatt Earp is packing heat-guided missiles. More recently, the Pentagon announced it will be deploying 4500 sailors, Marines, and other forces in the Caribbean, not far from Venezuela’s coast. In response, the Venezuelan government has mobilized its 4.5 million-member citizen militia. The rationale provided by the Trump administration is that these forces will be stationed there as part of its war on drugs and conduct illegal and essentially pointless attacks on the operations of certain drug cartels in Mexico and certain Central American countries. However, anyone familiar with the region’s map (a likely small number of US residents) can’t help but share Venezuela’s concern that the US has other intentions in the area, as well. China has decried the military moves and has reminded Washington that any attack on Venezuela would be a further violation of international law. Of course, Washington cares little about international law, as its actions around the world make clear. Kidnapping President Maduro and locking him up in some hellhole until his show trial is undoubtedly near the top of any list of those intentions.
In 2020, the US issued indictments against Maduro and some other members of the Venezuelan government for conspiracy to traffic drugs. I wrote the following in response:
One can object to my argument that these charges are just another pretext for potential military action against Venezuela. However, let me remind you that the US has proven over and over again that it not only needs very little reason to attack another nation it considers a threat to its hegemony. Indeed, Washington has lied more than once to do so. I find it difficult to believe that these indictments are anything but another such lie. Even if the prosecutors in this case could prove conspiracy—a charge that is speculative and subjective, as any charge can be—cocaine would still be coming into the United States like it has for decades. This is because drug trafficking prosecutions are not about ending drug trafficking, but about controlling who does the trafficking and who makes the money.(CP, 3/30/2020)
History tells us that military actions against drug trafficking do little to stem the flow of drugs into the United States. They do, however, make a lot of money for those industries supplying the surveillance equipment, the weapons, and the logistical hardware such actions require. Furthermore, using the military and police to fight what is essentially a public health problem makes a solution to the problem of addiction more difficult than other humane approaches. Then there’s the corruption; while it seems most military members can avoid the easy money that cooperating with drug traffickers can bring, others just get very rich doing the opposite. Washington has been trying to destroy the Bolivarian government in Venezuela since it was first elected to power when Hugo Chavez was at the helm. Its current sanctions against the country have exacerbated the effects of the global economic crisis in Venezuela.
Even if Venezuela is only one of Washington’s targets in Latin America, the essential nature of any military operations claiming to target drug cartels without direct cooperation from the governments of the countries where such operations might take place would be, at the least, illegal and inflammatory actions. Although the militaries of the US and Mexico usually cooperate, virtually all drug raids carried out by the US in Mexico up to now have been carried out by the CIA and the DEA. In the past, the reasons for this included maintaining an appearance of US respect for Mexican sovereignty. Once the US military begins launching raids inside other nations’ territory without those nations’ permission, the notion and fact of sovereignty is breached. Of course, it should be evident that the US really has little respect for any other nation’s sovereignty (with the possible exception of Israel, which steals land that is recognized as its own by Washington), and an ongoing campaign that continually violates Mexico’s borders would likely create an even greater divide between the two nations. Also, as I mentioned previously, it would do little to end the importation of drugs into the United States; it would merely change the personnel involved and the routes used in the importation process.
Ron Jacobs is the author of several books, including Daydream Sunset: Sixties Counterculture in the Seventies published by CounterPunch Books. His latest book, titled Nowhere Land: Journeys Through a Broken Nation, is now available. He lives in Vermont. He can be reached at: ronj1955@gmail.com
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