The CIA and Cocaine

I believe that any adult ought to be able to choose to ingest any substance they wish. However, the following story outlines the role of the CIA in supplying opiates and cocaine over the years. No one can prove these allegations as they would be protected "secrets", unavailable to any investigator. Still, the evidence supplied by participants and witnesses is rather compelling. Have a read:

Written by William Blum, a Washington, DC based writer on foreign policy and intelligence matters. Author of Killing Hope: U.S. Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II.
Editors: Tom Barry (IRC) and Martha Honey (IPS)

November 1996 -- - "FPIF" -- - In August 1996, the San Jose Mercury News initiated an extended series of articles linking the CIA's "contra" army to the crack cocaine epidemic in Los Angeles.¹ Based on a year-long investigation, reporter Gary Webb wrote that during the 1980s the CIA helped finance its covert war against Nicaragua's leftist government through sales of cut-rate cocaine to South Central L.A. drug dealer, Ricky Ross. The series unleashed a storm of protest, spearheaded by black radio stations and the congressional Black Caucus, with demands for official inquiries. The Mercury News' Web page, with supporting documents and updates, received hundreds of thousands of "hits" a day.

While much of the CIA-contra-drug story had been revealed years ago in the press and in congressional hearings, the Mercury News series added a crucial missing link: It followed the cocaine trail to Ross and black L.A. gangs who became street-level distributors of crack, a cheap and powerful form of cocaine. The CIA's drug network, wrote Webb, "opened the first pipeline between Colombia's cocaine cartels and the black neighborhoods of Los Angeles, a city now known as the 'crack' capital of the world." Black gangs used their profits to buy automatic weapons, sometimes from one of the CIA-linked drug dealers.

CIA Director John Deutch declared that he found "no connection whatsoever" between the CIA and cocaine traffickers. And major media--the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, and Washington Post--have run long pieces refuting the Mercury News series. They deny that Bay Area-based Nicaraguan drug dealers, Juan Norwin Meneses and Oscar Danilo Blandon, worked for the CIA or contributed "millions in drug profits" to the contras, as Webb contended. They also note that neither Ross nor the gangs were the first or sole distributors of crack in L.A. Webb, however, did not claim this. He wrote that the huge influx of cocaine happened to come at just the time that street-level drug dealers were figuring out how to make cocaine affordable by changing it into crack.

Many in the media have also postulated that any drug-trafficking contras involved were "rogue" elements, not supported by the CIA. But these denials overlook much of the Mercury News' evidence of CIA complicity. For example:

• CIA-supplied contra planes and pilots carried cocaine from Central America to U.S. airports and military bases. In 1985, Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) agent Celerino Castillo reported to his superiors that cocaine was being stored at the CIA's contra-supply warehouse at Ilopango Air Force Base in El Salvador for shipment to the U.S.² The DEA did nothing, and Castillo was gradually forced out of the agency.

• When Danilo Blandón was finally arrested in 1986, he admitted to drug crimes that would have sent others away for life. The Justice Department, however, freed Blandón after only 28 months behind bars and then hired him as a full-time DEA informant, paying him more than $166,000. When Blandón testified in a 1996 trial against Ricky Ross, the Justice Department blocked any inquiry about Blandón's connection to the CIA.

• Although Norwin Meneses is listed in DEA computers as a major international drug smuggler implicated in 45 separate federal investigations since 1974, he lived conspicuously in California until 1989 and was never arrested in the U.S.

• Senate investigators and agents from four organizations all complained that their contra-drug investigations "were hampered," Webb wrote, "by the CIA or unnamed 'national security' interests." In the 1984 "Frogman Case," for instance, the U.S. Attorney in San Francisco returned $36,800 seized from a Nicaraguan drug dealer after two contra leaders sent letters to the court arguing that the cash was intended for the contras. Federal prosecutors ordered the letter and other case evidence sealed for "national security" reasons. When Senate investigators later asked the Justice Department to explain this unusual turn of events, they ran into a wall of secrecy.

History of CIA Involvement in Drug Trafficking

"In my 30­year history in the Drug Enforcement Administration and related agencies, the major targets of my investigations almost invariably turned out to be working for the CIA." -- Dennis Dayle, former chief of an elite DEA enforcement unit.³

The foregoing discussion should not be regarded as any kind of historical aberration inasmuch as the CIA has had a long and virtually continuous involvement with drug trafficking since the end of World War II.

1947 to 1951, France

CIA arms, money, and disinformation enabled Corsican criminal syndicates in Marseille to wrest control of labor unions from the Communist Party. The Corsicans gained political influence and control over the docks--ideal conditions for cementing a long-term partnership with mafia drug distributors, which turned Marseille into the postwar heroin capital of the Western world. Marseille's first heroin laboratories were opened in 1951, only months after the Corsicans took over the waterfront.⁴

Early 1950s, Southeast Asia

The Nationalist Chinese army, organized by the CIA to wage war against Communist China, became the opium baron of The Golden Triangle (parts of Burma, Thailand, and Laos), the world's largest source of opium and heroin. Air America, the CIA's principal proprietary airline, flew the drugs all over Southeast Asia.⁵

1950s to early 1970s, Indochina

During U.S. military involvement in Laos and other parts of Indochina, Air America flew opium and heroin throughout the area. Many GI's in Vietnam became addicts. A laboratory built at CIA headquarters in northern Laos was used to refine heroin. After a decade of American military intervention, Southeast Asia had become the source of 70 percent of the world's illicit opium and the major supplier of raw materials for America's booming heroin market.⁶

1973 to 1980, Australia

The Nugan Hand Bank of Sydney was a CIA bank in all but name. Among its officers were a network of U.S. generals, admirals, and CIA men--including former CIA Director William Colby, who was also one of its lawyers. With branches in Saudi Arabia, Europe, Southeast Asia, South America, and the U.S., Nugan Hand Bank financed drug trafficking, money laundering, and international arms dealing. In 1980, amidst several mysterious deaths, the bank collapsed, $50 million in debt.⁷

1970s and 1980s, Panama

For more than a decade, Panamanian strongman Manuel Noriega was a highly paid CIA asset and collaborator, despite knowledge by U.S. drug authorities as early as 1971 that the general was heavily involved in drug trafficking and money laundering. Noriega facilitated "guns-for-drugs" flights for the contras, providing protection and pilots, safe havens for drug cartel officials, and discreet banking facilities. U.S. officials, including then-CIA Director William Webster and several DEA officers, sent Noriega letters of praise for efforts to thwart drug trafficking (albeit only against competitors of his Medellín cartel patrons). The U.S. government only turned against Noriega, invading Panama in December 1989 and kidnapping the general, once they discovered he was providing intelligence and services to the Cubans and Sandinistas. Ironically, drug trafficking through Panama increased after the U.S. invasion.⁸

1980s, Central America

The San Jose Mercury News series documents just one thread of the interwoven operations linking the CIA, the contras, and the cocaine cartels. Obsessed with overthrowing the leftist Sandinista government in Nicaragua, Reagan administration officials tolerated drug trafficking as long as the traffickers gave support to the contras. In 1989, the Senate Subcommittee on Terrorism, Narcotics, and International Operations (the Kerry committee) concluded a three-year investigation by stating: "There was substantial evidence of drug smuggling through the war zones on the part of individual contras, contra suppliers, contra pilots, mercenaries who worked with the contras, and contra supporters throughout the region. . . . U.S. officials involved in Central America failed to address the drug issue for fear of jeopardizing the war efforts against Nicaragua. . . . In each case, one or another agency of the U.S. government had information regarding the involvement either while it was occurring, or immediately thereafter. . . . Senior U.S. policy makers were not immune to the idea that drug money was a perfect solution to the contras' funding problems."⁹

In Costa Rica, which served as the "Southern Front" for the contras (Honduras being the Northern Front), there were several CIA-contra networks involved in drug trafficking. In addition to those servicing the Meneses-Blandon operation (detailed by the Mercury News) and Noriega's operation, there was CIA operative John Hull, whose farms along Costa Rica's border with Nicaragua were the main staging area for the contras. Hull and other CIA-connected contra supporters and pilots teamed up with George Morales, a major Miami-based Colombian drug trafficker who later admitted to giving $3 million in cash and several planes to contra leaders.¹⁰ In 1989, after the Costa Rica government indicted Hull for drug trafficking, a DEA-hired plane clandestinely and illegally flew the CIA operative to Miami, via Haiti. The U.S. repeatedly thwarted Costa Rican efforts to extradite Hull to Costa Rica to stand trial.¹¹

Another Costa Rican-based drug ring involved a group of Cuban Americans whom the CIA had hired as military trainers for the contras. Many had long been involved with the CIA and drug trafficking. They used contra planes and a Costa Rican-based shrimp company, which laundered money for the CIA, to channel cocaine to the U.S.¹²

Costa Rica was not the only route. Guatemala, whose military intelligence service--closely associated with the CIA--harbored many drug traffickers, according to the DEA, was another way station along the cocaine highway.¹³ Additionally, the Medellín cartel's Miami accountant, Ramon Milian Rodriguez, testified that he funneled nearly $10 million to Nicaraguan contras through long-time CIA operative Felix Rodriguez, who was based at Ilopango Air Force Base in El Salvador.¹⁴

The contras provided both protection and infrastructure (planes, pilots, airstrips, warehouses, front companies, and banks) to these CIA-linked drug networks. At least four transport companies under investigation for drug trafficking received U.S. government contracts to carry nonlethal supplies to the contras.¹⁵ Southern Air Transport, "formerly" CIA-owned and later under Pentagon contract, was involved in the drug running as well.¹⁶ Cocaine-laden planes flew to Florida, Texas, Louisiana, and other locations, including several military bases. Designated as "Contra Craft," these shipments were not to be inspected. When some authority wasn't apprised and made an arrest, powerful strings were pulled to result in dropping the case, acquittal, reduced sentence, or deportation.¹⁷

Mid-1980s to early 1990s, Haiti

While working to keep key Haitian military and political leaders in power, the CIA turned a blind eye to their clients' drug trafficking. In 1986, the Agency added some more names to its payroll by creating a new Haitian organization, the National Intelligence Service (SIN). SIN's mandate included countering the cocaine trade, though SIN officers themselves engaged in trafficking, a trade aided and abetted by some Haitian military and political leaders.¹⁸

1980s to early 1990s, Afghanistan

CIA-supported Moujahedeen rebels engaged heavily in drug trafficking while fighting the Soviet-supported government, which had plans to reform Afghan society. The Agency's principal client was Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, one of the leading drug lords and the biggest heroin refiner, who was also the largest recipient of CIA military support. CIA-supplied trucks and mules that had carried arms into Afghanistan were used to transport opium to laboratories along the Afghan-Pakistan border. The output provided up to one-half of the heroin used annually in the United States and three-quarters of that used in Western Europe. U.S. officials admitted in 1990 that they had failed to investigate or take action against the drug operation because of a desire not to offend their Pakistani and Afghan allies.¹⁹ In 1993, an official of the DEA dubbed Afghanistan the new Colombia of the drug world.²⁰

Endnotes

¹ Gary Webb, "Dark Alliance" series, San Jose Mercury News. Beginning August 18, 1996.

² Celerino Castillo, Powder Burns: Cocaine, Contras and the Drug War (Mosaic Press, 1994). Los Angeles Times lengthy series of articles, October 20, 21, 22, 1996. Roberto Suro and Walter Pincus, "The CIA and Crack: Evidence is Lacking of Alleged Plot" (Washington Post, October 4, 1996). Howard Kurtz, "Running with the CIA Story" (Washington Post, October 2, 1996). Douglas Farah and Walter Pincus "CIA, Contras and Drugs: Questions on Links Linger" (Washington Post, October 31, 1996). Tim Golden,"Though Evidence is Thin, Tale of CIA and Drugs Has a Life of Its Own" (New York Times, October 21, 1996).

³ Peter Dale Scott & Jonathan Marshall, Cocaine Politics: Drugs, Armies, and the CIA in Central America (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991) pp. x-xi.

⁴ Alfred W. McCoy, The Politics of Heroin in Southeast Asia (New York City, New York: Harper & Row, 1972, chapter 2).

⁵ Christopher Robbins, Air America (New York City, New York: Avon Books, 1985) chapter 9. McCoy, Politics of Heroin.

⁶ McCoy, Politics of Heroin, chapter 9.

⁷ Robbins, Air America, p. 128 and chapter 9. Jonathan Kwitny, The Crimes of Patriots: A True Tale of Dope, Dirty Money and the CIA (New York City, New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 1987). William Blum, Killing Hope: U.S. Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II (Monroe, Maine: Common Courage Press, 1995) p. 420, note 33.

⁸ Scott & Marshall, Cocaine Politics; John Dinges, Our Man in Panama (NY, New York: Random House, 1991); Murray Waas, "Cocaine and the White House Connection", Los Angeles Weekly, Sept. 30-Oct. 6 and Oct. 7-13, 1988; National Security Archive Documentation Packet: The Contras, Cocaine, and Covert Operations (Washington, DC).

⁹ "Kerry Report": Drugs, Law Enforcement and Foreign Policy, a Report of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, Subcommittee on Terrorism, Narcotics and International Operations, 1989, pp. 2, 36, 41.

¹⁰ Martha Honey, Hostile Acts: U.S. Policy in Costa Rica in the 1980s (Gainesville, Florida: University Press of Florida, 1994).

¹¹ Martha Honey and David Myers, "U.S. Probing Drug Agent's Activities in Costa Rica," San Francisco Chronicle, August 14, 1991.

¹² Honey, Hostile Acts.

¹³ Frank Smyth, "In Guatemala, The DEA Fights the CIA", New Republic, June 5, 1995; Blum, Killing Hope, p. 239.

¹⁴ Martha Honey, "Drug Figure Says Cartel Gave Drugs to Contras" Washington Post, June 30, 1987.

¹⁵ Kerry report, Drugs.

¹⁶ Scott & Marshall, Cocaine Politics, pp. 17-18.

¹⁷ Scott & Marshall, Cocaine Politics; Waas, "Cocaine and the White House"; NSA, The Contras.

¹⁸ New York Times, Nov. 14, 1993; The Nation, Oct. 3, 1994, p. 346.

¹⁹ Blum, Killing Hope, p. 351; Tim Weiner, Blank Check: The Pentagon's Black Budget (New York City, New York: Warner Books, 1990) pp. 151-2.

²⁰ Los Angeles Times, Aug. 22, 1993

Sources for more information

World Wide Web

Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/

Covert Action Quarterly
http://www.worldmedia.com/caq/

The National Security Archive
http://www.seas.gwu.edu/nsarchive/

Organizations

The National Security Archive
Gelman Library, Ste. 7012130 H Street NW
Washington, DC 20037
Voice: (202) 994-7000
Email: nsarchiv@gwis2.circ.gwu.edu
Contact: Peter Kornbluh

Congresswoman Maxine Waters
330 Cannon House Building
Washington, DC 20515
Voice: (202) 225-2201
Contact: Joseph Lee

Covert Action Quarterly
1500 Mass Ave. NW
Washington, DC 20005
Voice: (202) 331-9763
Fax: (202) 331-9751
Email: caq@igc.apc.org
Contact: Terry Allen

Latin American Working Group
110 Maryland Ave. NE Box 15
Washington, DC 20002
Voice: (202) 546-7010
Fax: (202) 543-7647
Contact: Lisa Hargaard

Publications

Lorraine Adams, "North Didn't Relay Drug Tips", The Washington Post, Oct. 22, 1994, p. 1.

William Blum, Killing Hope: U.S. Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II (Monroe, Maine: Common Courage Press, 1995).

Celerino Castillo with David Harmon, Powder Burns: Cocaine, Contras and the Drug War (Mosaic Press, 1994).

John Dinges, Our Man in Panama (New York City, NY: Random House, 1991).

Martha Honey, Hostile Acts: U.S. Policy in Costa Rica in the 1980s (Gainesville, Florida: University Press of Florida, 1994).

Subcommittee on Terrorism, Narcotics and International Operations, Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Drugs, Law Enforcement and Foreign Policy, December 1988.

Jonathan Kwitny, The Crimes of Patriots: A True Tale of Dope, Dirty Money and the CIA (New York City, NY: W.W. Norton & Co., 1987).

Alfred W. McCoy, The Politics of Heroin in Southeast Asia (New York, NY: Harper & Row, 1972).

Clarence Lusane, Pipe Dream Blues: Racism and the War on Drugs (Boston: South End Press, 1991).

National Security Archive, Documentation Packet: The Contras, Cocaine, and Covert Operations (Washington, D.C. October 1996).

Christopher Robbins, Air America (New York City, New York: Avon Books, 1985).

Peter Dale Scott & Jonathan Marshall, Cocaine Politics: Drugs, Armies, and the CIA in Central America (Berkeley, California: University of CA Press, 1991).

Murray Waas, "Cocaine and the White House Connection", Los Angeles Weekly, Sept. 30-Oct. 6 and Oct. 7-13, 1988.

Tim Weiner, Blank Check: The Pentagon's Black Budget (New York City, New York: Warner Books, 1990).

Reflections on Labor Day

My dad was a union man. In his youth, he bought the Horatio Alger myth. His last Republican vote was for Herbert Hoover in his first (and only) term. With the Great Depression, his job vanished as did his faith in the free market system. He saw the struggle for unionization, and revered FDR and the Wagner Act which enabled American unionism. American unions are now moribund. We've all bought the market story that fooled folks in the 1920's. Our jobs are flowing overseas, leaving us with little to make and sell to those foreigners from whom we buy nearly all our consumer goods. Wages are falling as American workers try to compete with virtual slave labor in third world countries. We face unsustainable trade deficits and the likely collapse of the US dollar. All of this bodes ill on this Labor Day, 2008. Here is a Bill Moyers video reflecting on the current state of US labor. Have a look:

Media and the Israel-Palistine conflict

Media shapes how we think about many issues. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is one of them. This video shows how many of our perceptions are formed.

Peace, Propaganda and the Promised Land

Wake Up America

I really wish we'd have nominated Dennis Kucinich. He gets everything right. Here is his speech at the Democratic National Convention. It probably didn't get much media play. Have a look:

Documents reveal PR push for Iraq war preceded intel findings

I suspect I've been preaching to the choir, hope not. This is pretty astonishing, I think. Have a read:

Documents reveal PR push for Iraq war preceded intel findings

Nick Juliano Published: Friday August 22, 2008
Print This Email This

New documents from within the Bush administration and US intelligence community during the run-up to the invasion of Iraq reveal that the White House began assembling a case for war before it had compiled the intel that ostensibly formed the basis of that case.

A new report on the documents from George Washington University's National Security Archive also presents compelling evidence that the Bush administration pressured the CIA and other intelligence agencies to tailor their reports to back-up Bush's desire to invade. The report suggests the bulk of this effort was run out of Vice President Dick Cheney's office, backing up numerous other post-war examinations of the path to invasion that saw Cheney as the mastermind of the plan to oust Saddam Hussein.

The Archive published a July 2002 draft of a CIA "White Paper" on Iraq's Weapons of Mass Destruction. The draft was prepared months before a National Intelligence Estimate on Saddam's regime, which Congress did not demand until September, although the final "White Paper" released in October purportedly summarized that very NIE.

In addition to the Archive's newly obtained documents, Dr. John Prados, who compiled the report, examined previous investigations of pre-war intelligence manipulation such as the recently completed Senate Intelligence Committee "Phase II" report on administration officials' pre-war rhetoric and books on the subject such as former White House spokesman Scott McClellan's memoir.

He concluded, in essence, that the Bush administration cherry picked intelligence to justify an invasion, that Tony Blair's British government was complicit in producing shaky intelligence on Saddam's WMDs, that administration figures -- especially Cheney -- pressured the CIA to give them what they wanted, and that intelligence undercutting the case for war was ignored in favor of less reliable sources who backed administration beliefs.

• The Phase II report on Bush administration public statements, in conjunction with the SSCI’s original July 2004 report on Iraq’s alleged Weapons of Mass Destruction, indicates that political manipulation extended beyond the intelligence itself to affect investigation of the intelligence failures on Iraq as well as the Bush administration’s use of that information.
• In conjunction with other recently declassified materials, the Phase II report shows that the Bush administration solicited intelligence then used to “substantiate” its public claims.
• A recently declassified draft of the CIA’s October 2002 white paper on Iraqi WMD programs demonstrates that that paper long pre-dated the compilation of the National Intelligence Estimate on Iraqi capabilities.
• The timing of the CIA’s draft white paper coincides with a previously available draft of the British Government’s white paper on Iraqi WMD, demonstrating that the Bush administration and the Tony Blair government began acting in concert to build support for an invasion of Iraq two to three months earlier than previously understood.
• A comparison of the CIA draft white paper with its publicly released edition shows that all the changes made were in the nature of strengthening its charges against Iraq by inserting additional alarming claims, in the manner of an advocacy, or public relations document. The draft and final papers show no evidence of intelligence analysis applied to the information contained. Similar comparison of the British white paper shows the same phenomenon at work.
• Declassified Pentagon documents demonstrate that the CIA white paper was modified in ways that conformed to the desires of the Undersecretary of Defense for Policy and his office, in much the same way that British documents indicate that country’s white paper was changed to conform to the desires of the Blair government.

The CIA was under enormous pressure, which resulted in its production of a White Paper that did not conform to the facts, according to the report.

"Under the circumstances, it is difficult to avoid the impression that the CIA and other intelligence agencies defended themselves against the dangers of attack from the Bush administration through a process of self-censorship," Prados writes. "That is the very essence of politicization in intelligence."

He goes on to report that CIA reports had "the character of rhetoric" and did not reflect "the kind of approach characteristic of intelligence analysis."
The Archive's report backs up similar contentions that first came to light with release of the Downing Street memo in 2005 and have been reinforced in scores of books and investigative articles. Most recently, investigative journalist Ron Suskind reported in his new book The Way of the World that the British government was secretly in contact before the invasion with the chief of Iraq's intelligence services who told them unequivocally that Saddam Hussein did not have weapons stockpiles. That revelation -- received in plenty of time to delay the invasion -- was ignored, Suskind wrote.

Prados reports on other sources the CIA had developed among scientists in Iraq and within Saddam's foreign minister. Information they provided was ignored in favor of what was later revealed to be untrue exaggerations passed along by Iraqi exiles.

The White Paper went through several drafts, Prados writes, and it is clear to see the administration's influence in its preparation.

"The net impression is that the CIA white paper was rewritten to conform to administration preferences. If so, U.S. intelligence a priori made itself a tool of a political effort, vitiating the intelligence function and confirming the presence of a politicized process," he writes. "The specific analytic failures on Iraq intelligence become much less significant in such a climate, especially in that they all yielded intelligence predictions of exactly the kind the Bush administration wanted to hear."

FULL ANALYSIS AT THIS LINK

The Arial Atom

We can't be serious all the time, so here's a bit of video about the Arial Atom. If you like cars, I suspect you'll love this. It's part of an episode of the BBC show Top Gear. Have a look.

Georgia, Europe, the US, Russia and Energy

Once again, trouble in this world proves to be heavily linked to energy access. An expert on the subject delivered an interview to Democracy Now which lays out the situation and presents a plausible interpretation of what lies behind the Georgia-Russia conflict. Have a look:

Blowback From Bear-Baiting

I've historically rarely agreed with Patrick Buchanan, and suspect we've still much about which we strongly differ. In this case, however, he's absolutely right. Have a read.

By Patrick J. Buchanan

15/08/08 "ICH " -- - Mikheil Saakashvili's decision to use the opening of the Olympic Games to cover Georgia's invasion of its breakaway province of South Ossetia must rank in stupidity with Gamal Abdel-Nasser's decision to close the Straits of Tiran to Israeli ships.

Nasser's blunder cost him the Sinai in the Six-Day War. Saakashvili's blunder probably means permanent loss of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

After shelling and attacking what he claims is his own country, killing scores of his own Ossetian citizens and sending tens of thousands fleeing into Russia, Saakashvili's army was whipped back into Georgia in 48 hours.

Vladimir Putin took the opportunity to kick the Georgian army out of Abkhazia, as well, to bomb Tbilisi and to seize Gori, birthplace of Stalin.

Reveling in his status as an intimate of George Bush, Dick Cheney and John McCain, and America's lone democratic ally in the Caucasus, Saakashvili thought he could get away with a lightning coup and present the world with a fait accompli.

Mikheil did not reckon on the rage or resolve of the Bear.

American charges of Russian aggression ring hollow. Georgia started this fight -- Russia finished it. People who start wars don't get to decide how and when they end.

Russia's response was "disproportionate" and "brutal," wailed Bush.

True. But did we not authorize Israel to bomb Lebanon for 35 days in response to a border skirmish where several Israel soldiers were killed and two captured? Was that not many times more "disproportionate"?

Russia has invaded a sovereign country, railed Bush. But did not the United States bomb Serbia for 78 days and invade to force it to surrender a province, Kosovo, to which Serbia had a far greater historic claim than Georgia had to Abkhazia or South Ossetia, both of which prefer Moscow to Tbilisi?

Is not Western hypocrisy astonishing?

When the Soviet Union broke into 15 nations, we celebrated. When Slovenia, Croatia, Macedonia, Bosnia, Montenegro and Kosovo broke from Serbia, we rejoiced. Why, then, the indignation when two provinces, whose peoples are ethnically separate from Georgians and who fought for their independence, should succeed in breaking away?

Are secessions and the dissolution of nations laudable only when they advance the agenda of the neocons, many of who viscerally detest Russia?

That Putin took the occasion of Saakashvili's provocative and stupid stunt to administer an extra dose of punishment is undeniable. But is not Russian anger understandable? For years the West has rubbed Russia's nose in her Cold War defeat and treated her like Weimar Germany.

When Moscow pulled the Red Army out of Europe, closed its bases in Cuba, dissolved the evil empire, let the Soviet Union break up into 15 states, and sought friendship and alliance with the United States, what did we do?

American carpetbaggers colluded with Muscovite Scalawags to loot the Russian nation. Breaking a pledge to Mikhail Gorbachev, we moved our military alliance into Eastern Europe, then onto Russia's doorstep. Six Warsaw Pact nations and three former republics of the Soviet Union are now NATO members.

Bush, Cheney and McCain have pushed to bring Ukraine and Georgia into NATO. This would require the United States to go to war with Russia over Stalin's birthplace and who has sovereignty over the Crimean Peninsula and Sebastopol, traditional home of Russia's Black Sea fleet.

When did these become U.S. vital interests, justifying war with Russia?

The United States unilaterally abrogated the Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty because our technology was superior, then planned to site anti-missile defenses in Poland and the Czech Republic to defend against Iranian missiles, though Iran has no ICBMs and no atomic bombs. A Russian counter-offer to have us together put an anti-missile system in Azerbaijan was rejected out of hand.

We built a Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline from Azerbaijan through Georgia to Turkey to cut Russia out. Then we helped dump over regimes friendly to Moscow with democratic "revolutions" in Ukraine and Georgia, and tried to repeat it in Belarus.

Americans have many fine qualities. A capacity to see ourselves as others see us is not high among them.

Imagine a world that never knew Ronald Reagan, where Europe had opted out of the Cold War after Moscow installed those SS-20 missiles east of the Elbe. And Europe had abandoned NATO, told us to go home and become subservient to Moscow.

How would we have reacted if Moscow had brought Western Europe into the Warsaw Pact, established bases in Mexico and Panama, put missile defense radars and rockets in Cuba, and joined with China to build pipelines to transfer Mexican and Venezuelan oil to Pacific ports for shipment to Asia? And cut us out? If there were Russian and Chinese advisers training Latin American armies, the way we are in the former Soviet republics, how would we react? Would we look with bemusement on such Russian behavior?

For a decade, some of us have warned about the folly of getting into Russia's space and getting into Russia's face. The chickens of democratic imperialism have now come home to roost -- in Tbilisi.

Mr. Buchanan is a nationally syndicated columnist and author of Churchill, Hitler, and "The Unnecessary War": How Britain Lost Its Empire and the West Lost the World, "The Death of the West,", "The Great Betrayal," "A Republic, Not an Empire" and "Where the Right Went Wrong."

Michael Moore Speaks Out on 9/11

Micheal Moore has been noted to have been silent on 9/11 conspiracy theories. After all, that puts one beyond the pale publicly. So, it's interesting that Brasscheck TV caught this interview footage. Have a look.

How Did this 9/11 Story Get Going So Quickly?

This is kind of intrigued me for a while. Here we are watching this amazing, incomprehensible event, and even before the buildings fall (of very shortly after), we're hearing full interpretations of the events that become the official line. Rather surprising if you think about it. Theses people have. Have a look.

All Those Explosions

It's a documented fact that hundreds of people heard and reported explosions at the 9/11 World Trade Center tragedy. Many of these, and the most seemingly powerful, came from deep in the Twin Towers. Much of this is either forgotten or ignored. As part of my "whacko" series, I will present three short videos (sorry only one video allowed per posting), which document some interesting things about the 9/11 story. I'm sure folks will react badly to this topic since most respond with "that's just crazy". Well, it's not, really. There's even a name for it: it's a False Flag operation, designed to ease the path to some other objective. It's actually rather common. In any event, my response to the "that's crazy" crowd is to point out that it's actually irrational to respond that way. Perhaps it is "just crazy" but you won't know without at least looking at all the arguments. So, have a look. Oh, by the way, the video takes about 30 seconds to start. Sorry about that.

Is Osama Bin Laden an American Invention?

Actually, in a real sense, I suspect he is. It's curious that we've not caught him. We certainly were familiar with Tora Bora, the system of caves that housed his fighters. The CIA funded it's construction, work which was carried out by the Bin Laden construction company. We had the plans for the place, and yet never got Osama. Indeed, in the wonderfully documented book "The War on Truth" the author relates a tale of a huge caravan of cars and trucks that left Afghanistan early in our invasion and entered Pakistan. The caravan took hours to pass and must have been visible to US satellites and aerial surveylance (particularly as the cars passed by into the evening when the string of headlights must have been spectacularly visible. Bin Laden was reported to be in that caravan which went unchallenged. The following short video reveals what many muslims believe about the topic.

Lowfill

Lowfill died today, Sunday August 3rd, 2008, early in the morning. John, her owner and our room mate was with her when she passed. I've only known Lowfill for a few months. She was a German wirehaired pointer, and a bit funny looking. Still, she barely showed her 13 years, and had a real twinkle in her eye. She was very clever. She loved to fetch, so much so that there was rarely any peace from her incessant fetch requests. She had great enthusiasm and a powerful love of people. Marianne and I will miss Lowfill. John will miss her even more. Rest in peace, Lowfill.