LAT: Burdened U.S. military cuts role in drug war

[sabra]

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-drugwar22jan22,0,7593287.story?coll=la-home-headlines

Burdened U.S. military cuts role in drug war
Air and sea patrolling is slashed on southern smuggling routes.

WASHINGTON — Stretched thin from fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan, the U.S. military has sharply reduced its role in the war on drugs, leaving significant gaps in the nation's narcotics interdiction efforts.

Since 1989, Congress has directed the Pentagon to be the lead federal agency in detecting and monitoring illegal narcotics shipments headed to the United States by air and sea and in supporting Coast Guard efforts to intercept them. In the early 1990s, at the height of the drug war, U.S. military planes and boats filled the southern skies and waters in search of cocaine-laden vessels coming from Colombia and elsewhere in South America.

But since 2002, the military has withdrawn many of those resources, according to more than a dozen current and former counter-narcotics officials, as well as a review of congressional, military and Homeland Security documents.

Internal records show that in the last four years the Pentagon has reduced by more than 62% its surveillance flight-hours over Caribbean and Pacific Ocean routes that are used to smuggle cocaine, marijuana and, increasingly, Colombian-produced heroin. At the same time, the Navy is deploying one-third fewer patrol boats in search of smugglers.

[endarkenment]

1. Wow, a positve unintended consequence. nt.

[Wizard777]

5. Nope! Bush is determined to get all that Afghani Herion into the country.

That's why he tried to sell our ports to the middle east drug smugglers paradise Dubai. When Manuel Noriega was telling teh international Community that "George Bush was his best cocaine customer." People weren't aware of Jr. He wasn't talking about Sr. That's what everyone thought at the time. Also Valerie Plame wasn't the first covert agent Jr. exposed. According to down low that Barry Seals. That resulted in the deaths of about 23 DEA Agents.

[endarkenment]

7. Fine. legalize it, label it as dangerous. check it for impurities.

The war on drugs we don't like is fascist bullshit.

[Wizard777]

10. if we can safely distribute to the general public.......

Something as deadly as polonium 210. Why not drugs from Heroin to Marijuana. Personally I can't see myself ever having a need for polonium 210. But for those who can't live without it. It can be purchased on the internet. At the very least legalization would provide for the general welfare as the US Constitution demands.

[galadrium]

2. Good, the war on drugs is a total waste of money. nt

[butterfly77]

3. There never was a war on drugs..

I see drug addicts all over the place. If drugs are getting into the country couldn't some type of nuclear device be hidden in the drugs.


I know of people who can get drugs anytime they want and there hasn't been a let up from what I can see it is getting worse. Marijuana should be legalized,it is a waste of time trying to stop people from smoking it when it can be grown just about anywhere and anyone can get it if they want it...

[Wizard777]

8. It's a real war. Paramilitary Civil War to be exact. That's the dictators war of choice.

I would be more concerned with poisoning the illicit drug supply. Either with Chemicle or Biological agents. They could literally have people all over America standing in line to become a walking Bio bomb. At this point the legalization of all drugs is a matter of National Security. It better that they get they get the drugs from Government regulated sources than remain the weak link in our defense chain.

[sweetheart]

4. a bridge too far

Iraq is their bankruptcy, throw more money in to the toilet and
watch it suck down the whole evil enterprise top to bottom. :-)

Good, the war machine's commanders have gone rotten, a huge
machine like a muscleman on steroids, crushing people with blundering
ignorance and always the guiding hand of the owners.

[acmavm]

6. Another war that we lost. A long time ago.

[Wizard777]

9. If we're not going to prosecute these treasons.

Then we need a Constitutional amendment that would prohibit the republicans from declaring thier dumbass wars in which We The People are the Enemy.

Btw the war on Terror is going that way. They are setting up a terrorism hotline for parents and others to report thier childrens radical ideology. You might to check with the benfits department at work. Your medical insurance probably only covers drug rehab. I'm quite sure they will be comming out with terror rehabs for you to send your kids to to have thier radical ideology treated.

"The War on Terrorism will a lot like the War on Drugs" George Bush in his 9-11 speech

That's when I knew we were gonna lose this.

[Vidar]

11. The war on drugs is designed to push illegal drug prices up,

just as the war in Iraq is designed to push oil prices up.

[BrokenBeyondRepair]

12. lol.. drug war; almost as funny as the war on terror

http://arkansas.indymedia.org/newswire/display/19687/index.php