A Further Blurring of the Terrorist-Criminal Lines, and the Emerging Role of DEA
It is interesting to note the first major conviction in the United States in a drug case tied to radical Islamist movements, in this case, the Taliban. (Many more case documents can be found here.)
“As an enemy of the United States, Khan Mohammed intended to ship heroin to the United States and use profits from that trade to assist the Taliban,” said DEA Acting Administrator Michele M. Leonhart. “A dangerous double threat, Kahn Mohammed purchased rockets to attack American and coalition soldiers who were risking their lives to stabilize Afghanistan. The conviction of Kahn Mohammed puts an end to this source of poison and violence.”
If there remained any doubt that Islamist militants are perfectly willing to engage in criminal activity to finance their military actions, this case should dispel them. As money from donations and charities becomes harder to acquire and move safely, the easy alternative is the drug trade.
Hezbollah learned this in its heroin trafficking days a decade ago, and continues to use a range of illicit activities to fund its operations.
In addition to showing how the lines between drug trafficking and terrorism are often blurred to the point of extinction, it is important to note the role of DEA in this.
Since 9/11, DEA has not been a major player in counter-terrorism issues, until recently. As the terrorism-crime nexus has become more clear, the DEA’s long history of dealing with both money movements and criminal networks has become more relevant and useful.
It was also the DEA that rolled up weapons trafficker Viktor Bout, and before that, Monzar al Kassar, another trafficker with extraordinary talents, and also one that wanted to arm the FARC.
In Colombia, the DEA has been behind the extradition of leaders of two designated terrorist organizations, both involved in the drug trade-the right-wing paramilitary AUC and the Marxist FARC.
I believe this is the future. Religious/ideological radicalism and organized criminal groups will become less and less distinguishable in the pipelines of illicit activities we see more and more.
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The Handover of the Paramilitary Terrorists in Colombia Could Be a Milestone Is Hezbollah Now the Greatest Threat?
Doesn’t this highlight the foolishness of our strategy of prohibition of drugs?
Alcohol prohibition helped create a massive organized crime network and we were never successful at eradicating alcohol smuggling. And even after the end of prohibition, that legacy continues fueled in large part by drug prohibition.
When will we learn? If drugs were legalized and treated as a public health issue instead, we’d deprive criminal and terrorist organizations of much of their funding.
— Jan Rooth May 17, 11:23 #
Exactly!
— rich May 17, 11:42 #
To Jan and Rich, re:your argument for legalization, I give you the Netherlands and its concommitant health, crime and terrorism problems. Your solution is a combination of idiocy, naivety and wishful thinking.
— Wayne Steadman May 17, 12:09 #
To Wayne:
The crime rate in the Netherlands is far lower than in the US. See this
Life expectancy is also higher – they rank 28th, the US ranks 45th, so I’m skeptical of any claim that their health is worse.
And since the problem is that international trade in illicit drugs funds terrorist and criminal organizations, one could hardly expect legalization in tiny little Netherlands to change that. We (the United States) are the world’s biggest market for illicit drugs. And our policy drives muck of the prohibition policies around the world. Nothing will change until we change.
Also, we incarcerate more people than any other advanced nation, much of that drug related. Yet we have had precious little success stemming drugs (and most of the success we have had is due to education and rehabilitation initiatives – not criminalization.
— Jan Rooth May 18, 13:05 #