Good point to bring up the PTSD-drugs link. I've also thought about the WoT-WoD interferences and noted someting else. While 20% of world population are Muslim, only 20% of Muslim are Arab - most are Asian. Remember that, before 9/11, Colin Powell said that Afghanistan could only be dealt with in the broader context of a South Asia policy?

Oil cartelization is just one leg of terrorism. The finances of Al-Qaeda-affiliates like Abu Sayyaf don't rely on religious oil revenues abuse, but drug trafficking income instead, and Asia is not less shaped by the drugs than the Middle East is by the oil. If defeating Al Qaeda means liberating the states it hijacked or is impending to control, and searing dictatorship requires dismissing artifical profit margin expansion of their main export articles, then this could provide some idea of the behind-the-horizon political implications of the WoT.

Drug prohibition was established after Wilsonianism failed after WWI, it could have some logic that it might be abandoned after Wilsonianism was picked up again after 9/11. From my vista as a dissident in Old Europe, I never understood why Americans do practice two so differing policies on two so similiar "How much should the state restrict the market"-issues like drugs and guns.

Good point on the terrorist/drug connection.

Here is possibly why the US is addicted to prohibition. Clue: follow the money.

http://www.narconews.com/narcodollars1.html
http://www.narconews.com/narcodollars2.html
http://www.narconews.com/narcodollars3.html

As a drug and alcohol counselor, I agree wholeheartedly with pain being the main cause of alcoholism and chemical dependency. PTSD is but an extreme example of the pain that alcoholics and drug addicts suffer. For many of my clients, abuse both phyisical and emotional was the means used to teach them destructive beliefs. The more "energy" used in the abuse, the more pain carried into adulthood. Consequently, that results in more "energy" needed to overcome those beliefs.
Oh, and the one emotional pain that I see? Shame.....whether it be men or women, it is shame that routinely surfaces as the undelying pain being covered up with drugs/alcohol. Women who suffered incest speak more about the pain they felt when, after the deed was done, they got the look of scorn and disgust from their father.

@ M. Simon: I clicked the Narco News, and the first thing which popped up was revisionist cartoonist Latuff, notorious for his Nazi-style Israel-bashing. Looks like that page doesn't provide useful information but rather represents a "blood for drugs" crowd who poke their fingers into the wounds the Cold War left behind and have nothing to suggest but disengagement. Poor, but at least it reminds us that a future reevaluation of Asia policy will have repercussions in South America.

leo,

I was going to put a warning on the Narco news stuff about the owner of the site.

He is quite friendly towards me but he is a rabid communist of the "we know what is good for you variety". His reports on Latin American doings are excellent if you filter out his political bias.

The author of the articles on Narco money was part of the Bush 1 administration - HUD I think. And was high up in the Dillon Reed organization. She now has her own organization Solari. She is no fascist. I would call her a member of the liberal right.

What this all points to is that good information can appear anywhere.

The other thing to remember is that other than my Sierra Times stuff and some libertarians out there the left basically owns the anti-prohibition movement. If it stays that way when the drug war ends the left will claim that because they were against prohibition that capitalism and liberal democracy suck.

I think it is vitally important that the right become a major part of the anti-prohibition movement to avoid what happened in Vietnam where the left used the visible racisim of America against the war effort. Just think of the slogan popular at the time "No Vietnamese ever called me ni**er"

The other thing that Narco-news reports is that our drug war in South America is funding the FARC and giving ammunition to the other communists of the region. The drug war is ruining our relations with South America and setting back progress there by decades. All in all a very bad deal. In addition it is diverting our armed forces to fight and die in a mission that could be solved by the stroke of a pen.

My take on the drug war in South America - a real example of Yankee Imperialism. We ought to change our ways before we make things worse.

Here is a short bio of the Narco Dollars author from the Narco News site:

Catherine Austin Fitts is a former managing director and member of the board of directors of Dillon Read & Co, Inc, a former Assistant Secretary of Housing-Federal Housing Commissioner in the first Bush Administration, and the former President of The Hamilton Securities Group, Inc. She is the President of Solari, Inc, an investment advisory firm. Solari provides risk management services to investors through Sanders Research Associates in London.

I forgot to mention that Al Giordano the owner of the site won the Supreme Court case extending First Amendment rights to the net.

Al is a very interesting guy despite his political leanings.

What this points out is that even "enemies" may have useful information and their stand on certain issues may be correct.

From the head of the first Narco Dollars page:

"The Latin American drug cartels have stretched their tentacles much deeper into our lives than most people believe. It's possible they are calling the shots at all levels of government."
- William Colby, former CIA Director, 1995

What he is saying is that the drug war dollars may be the reason we can't stop an obviously bad policy.

It is obvious that oil money (Saddam's, Saudi's, etc.) have corrupted our politicians - Galloway being the best known example. It is a certainty that narco dollars have corrupted our government.

To give an example: both Bush and Clinton talked of easing the prohibition laws on the campaign trail. As soon as they got into office they did 180s on the subject. Neither guy was unintelligent. What made them change their minds to support a bad policy?

Unanswered questions provide the room for conspiracy theories to rise. I'd add the international perception growing with the decades, which basically says if prohibition laws ever were abandoned the U.S. would have to be the starting point of this process, reversed domino wouldn't work.

Generally, I'd assume that the political compass of right vs. left belongs to an historical era and prefer to use the compass of revisionist vs. progressive. Your stance is backed by my observation that in the anti-war crowd there were people who argued they backed the terrorists because the Middle East is another South America, just with desert instead of jungle. I recall it because you never hear that in Europe.

I think that now as OPEC is damaged, the instrument to make the anti-prohibition movement adapt this new compass is to put the oil-drugs analogy in the frontline: both are essentially about trade cartels with fantasy profit margins, both are entwined by revisionist conspiracies not less fantastic, and both hinder the war on terrorism if not redesigned.

Of course, in both cases revisionist sites can be worth reading when provided with proper introduction - the one you gave was way better than the one I got from recognizing that cartoonist.

But the $64 question is how to get on with it after the grand strategy of the anti-prohibition movement "prove that there must be bribe by demonstrating that campaigning doesn't work" seems to have led to nowhere.

We should monitor whether the Iraqis will establish prohibition. Sooner or later, they will start their drug debate with an (religiously-fed) argument how to deal with Alcohol and then the inescapable rest follows.

I agree with your point about fantasy profits. What we now know about the oil cartel is that they operate by bribery. There is no reason to believe the drug cartel doesn't operate the same way. Look at alcohol prohibition.

Now you are correct that knowing about the corruption (in the general as opposed to the specific) may not help in the defeat of prohibition. A case in point is the knowledge now comming out about Saddam's payoffs to journalists and politicians. Before the war it was not something people wanted to believe. Even now as facts come out it is still hard for some to accept. Joe and I have had some exchanges about the problem of not being able to see what you don't believe. Moses' answer to this was 40 years in the desert.

So where does that leave us? My point of attack in the basic compassion of people. Medical marijuana referenda pass despite fierce government opposition. So we know the compassion is there.

I think that is why what I have uncovered is so critical to ending prohibition. I show that drug use is about pain relief. It is no more a moral queston than anesthesia for surgery is a moral question.

Bribery only works for questions where there is little public interest or a resevoir of support for the position that the bribee takes.

They way to destroy the effectiveness of bribery (other than uncovering instances of it) is to change the interest and support for an issue.

This war against drug is almost impossible to win it is because addicted people can do anything to relieve their pain. This is worrisome.