USG CONTRACTS TO AFGHAN DRUG LORD FOR INTEL TO RUN MCCRYSTAL'S ASSASSINATION SQUADS

Failure looms. COIN is out, targeted decapitation-back in. USG Intel now run by largest heroin dealer on the planet, USG has sub'd out intel for so long it doesnt have capacity. In the meantime, new intel chief, Wali Karzai using his control of intel and the USG to kill off his competition in the world wide drug trade (probably shipping product on USG planes, as well). Stan of Bananastan being set up to take the fall. Petraus runs for president in 2012

McChrystal shifts to raids - and Wali Karzai

General Stanley McChrystal's team once talked openly about the need to remove from power Ahmed Wali Karzai, the most powerful man in Kandahar. Wali Karzai's role in the opium trade was counter to the population-centric strategy. We are backing thugs. intelligence chief General Michael T Flynn
get rid of [Al] Capone.

Wali Karzai "will be allowed to stay in place", complete reversal, de-emphasize governance reform and focus on Special Operations Forces (SOF) raids on suspected Taliban leaders in Kandahar city. needs intelligence provided by Karzai

message from the Barack Obama, progress by the end of December 2010. So, shift from governance reform to night raids

failed "population centric" strategy for putting pressure on the Taliban, now "removal" of many "lower level" Taliban commanders by "special operations forces". Afghan government had taken too long to get representatives into the two key districts of Helmand. doubted it would be any better in Kandahar

downgrading of governance, new emphasis on targeting

Says Washington Post columnist David Ignatius, who frequently registers the latest thinking of the military leadership,

"Shaking up the power structure might put the United States on the side of the Pashtun man in the street," wrote Ignatius, "but it would open up a power vacuum that could be exploited by the Taliban." "There isn't time for risky experiments in Kandahar."

McChrystal had already ordered SOF raids dependent based on intelligence by Wali Karzai. on May 7, Karzai boasted he supplied "the majority of intelligence in this region"

NATO official confirmed, our intelligence comes from him, neither ISAF nor US SOF have intelligence networks of their own. Karzai dominated the flow with control over police and official Afghan intelligence. Karzai completed consolidation of political control over the national police using the Karzai private militia used by Central Intelligence Agency, the Kandahar Strike Force, to kill the province police chief and chief of criminal investigation.

More importantly, Karzai controls Kandahar branch National Directorate of Security which combines the intelligence and secret police. It is the largest network of informants in the province. It has taken the lead in carrying out the raids against the Taliban

McChrystal, accepts intelligence from Karzai, says it would be "foolish" to refuse it. He also uses information from drone recon which leads to constant mistakes. drone strikes had killed farmers

Karzai use US power against his political enemies, call down NATO air strikes or night raids by US SOF, target tribal opponents. The whole military effort is locked into Karzai's political strategy and his grip on power

McChrystal, ready to sacrifice political change to be able to do what he does best

The Politics of Heroin in Southeast Asia

The Politics of Heroin in Southeast Asia

ARTURO BELTRAN LEYVA

December 16th in the town of Cuernavaca
Arturo Beltran Leyva
one of the top three capos of the trade
He had more power than Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, the drug cartel boss who was listed as Fobes’ #701 richest man of 2009
born on September 21, 1961 in
Badiraguato, Sinaloa
bribing the highest ranking military officials. Many anti-drug czars in the PGR (which is Mexico’s version of the FBI), the SSP (our Department of Defense) and even the SIEDO (an anti-narco intelligence service of sorts)
Most of Sinaloa, Sonora and Durango—the tri-state region known as the Golden Triangle—was his
So was the entire state of Guerrero, especially the tourist-friendly zone of Acapulco
top stairs of La Indepe here in Monterrey, where junkies swarm
last year
he became convinced that his brother’s arrest was a result of the betrayal of his one-time friend and apprentice, “El Chapo,”
rail of blood and bullet casings to Morelos, Sinaloa, Guerrero, Mexico State (Edomex) and Mexico City.

he would be attending a three-day Christmas party thrown by his sicarios in Tepoztlan, Morelos (close to Cuernavaca
he evaded them
located Don Arturo in a luxury apartment/upscale shopping mall complex
but the real question is WHO benefits from his death?
The Beltran cartel will restructure itself
Edgar Valdes Villarreal “La Barbie”, a Laredo Texan with talent for the killing; Mario Beltran Leyva “El General”, most likely the next in line
Sergio Villarreal “El Grande,
the two biggest beneficiaries of Don Arturo’s demise are a) his allies, the Zetas; and b) his enemy “El Chapo.”
Monterrey, Nuevo Leon
Gulf Cartel territory
the Zetas, a paramilitary organization trained by the Yankees and hired by the Gulf Cartel to keep things civilized and business booming.

Follow the Money How John Kerry busted the terrorists' favorite bank.

Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI) was a highly respected financial titan. In 1987, when its subsidiary helped finance a deal involving Texas oilman George W. Bush,
It had high-powered allies in Washington
1988, when John Kerry, then a young senator from Massachusetts, decided to probe the finances of Latin American drug cartels.
Kerry fought against intense opposition
from senior members of his own party
from the Reagan and Bush administrations,
By the end,
exposed the infrastructure of BCCI
a model for international terrorist financing
Despite having helmed the initial probe which led to the Iran-Contra investigation, Kerry was left off the elite Iran-Contra committee in 1987.
the Democratic leadership in Congress made Kerry the chairman of the Subcommittee on Terrorism, Narcotics, and International Operations and told him to dig into the Contra-drug connection. Kerry turned to BCCI
Manuel Noriega was laundering drug profits through the bank on behalf of the Medellin cartel.

By March 1988, Kerry's subcommittee had obtained permission from the Foreign Relations Committee to seek subpoenas for both BCCI and individuals at the bank involved in handling Noriega's assets, as well as those handling the accounts of others in Panama and Colombia.
faced a roadblock
would interfere with an ongoing sting operation in Tampa, the Justice Department delayed the subpoenas until 1988, at which point the subcommittee's mandate was running out.
Prominent figures with ties to the bank included former president Jimmy Carter's budget director, Bert Lance, and a bevy of powerful Washington lobbyists with close ties to President George H.W. Bush,
In 1985 and 1986
Reagan administration launched no investigation even after the CIA had sent reports to the Treasury, Commerce, and State Departments bluntly describing the bank's role in drug-money laundering and other illegal activities.
1989, Kerry hit another obstacle.
Foreign Relations Committee chairman Claiborne Pell (D-R.I.),

under pressure from both parties, formally asked Kerry to end his probe.
Kerry quickly dispatched investigator Jack Blum to present the information his committee had found about BCCI's money-laundering operations to the Justice Department. But according to Blum, the Justice Department failed to follow up.
Kerry could play ball with the establishment and back away from BCCI,
Kerry opted in 1989 to take the same information that had been coldly received
to New York District Attorney Robert Morgenthau, who agreed to begin a criminal investigation of BCCI,
In 1990, when the Bush administration gave the bank a minor slap on the wrist for its money laundering practices, Kerry went on national television
"We send drug people to jail for the rest of their life," he said, "and these guys who are bankers in the corporate world seem to just walk away, and it's business as usual…When banks engage knowingly in the laundering of money, they should be shut down. It's that simple, it really is."

In early 1991, the Justice Department concluded its Tampa probe with a plea deal allowing BCCI officials to stay out of court. At the same time, news reports indicated that Washington elder statesman Clark Clifford might be indicted for defrauding bank regulators and helping BCCI maintain a shell in the United States.
Kerry pounced, demanding (and winning) authorization from the Foreign Relations Committee to open a broad investigation into the bank in May 1991.
Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis and Democratic doyenne Pamela Harriman personally called Kerry to object, as did his fellow senators.
BCCI itself hired an army of lawyers, PR specialists, and lobbyists, including former members of Congress, to thwart the investigation.
Kerry refused to back off
began to expose the ways in which international terrorism was financed.
BCCI catered to many of the most notorious tyrants and thugs
Saddam Hussein
Medellin cocaine cartel,
Abu Nidal,
those who went on to lead al Qaeda.

BCCI went beyond merely offering financial assistance to dictators and terrorists:
the operation itself was an elaborate fraud, replete with a "global intelligence operation and a Mafia-like enforcement squad."
July 1991
British and U.S. regulators finally responded
BCCI was shut down in seven countries,
put it out of business what Morgenthau called, "one of the biggest criminal enterprises in world history."
The current president's career as an oilman was always marked by the kind of insider cronyism
as a director of Texas-based Harken Energy, Bush himself did business with BCCI-connected institutions almost at the same time Kerry was fighting the bank.
there was a "mosaic of BCCI connections surrounding [Harken] since George W. Bush came on board." In 1987, Bush secured a critical $25 million-loan from a bank the Kerry Commission would later reveal to be a BCCI joint venture.
A decade after
CIA discovered Osama bin Laden was among those with accounts at the bank.
French intelligence
in 2002

identified dozens of companies and individuals who were involved with BCCI and were found to be dealing with bin Laden
the financial network operated by bin Laden today "is similar to the network put in place in the 1980s by BCCI." As one senior U.S. investigator said in 2002, "BCCI was the mother and father of terrorist financing operations."
difficult investigation," Brown said. "Because many important members of his own party were involved in this scandal, it was a distasteful subject for other committee and subcommittee chairmen to investigate. They did not. John Kerry did."

CONTRAS, COCAINE AND COVERT OPERATIONS

An August, 1996, series in the San Jose Mercury News by reporter Gary Webb linked the origins of crack cocaine in California to the contras, a guerrilla force backed by the Reagan administration that attacked Nicaragua's Sandinista government during the 1980s. Webb's series, "The Dark Alliance," has been the subject of intense media debate, and has focused attention on a foreign policy drug scandal that leaves many questions unanswered.

This electronic briefing book is compiled from declassified documents obtained by the National Security Archive, including the notebooks kept by NSC aide and Iran-contra figure Oliver North, electronic mail messages written by high-ranking Reagan administration officials, memos detailing the contra war effort, and FBI and DEA reports. The documents demonstrate official knowledge of drug operations, and collaboration with and protection of known drug traffickers. Court and hearing transcripts are also included.

Special thanks to the Arca Foundation, the Ruth Mott Fund, the Samuel Rubin Foundation, and the Fund for Constitutional Government for their support.