GUATEMALA, BELIZE, SALVADOR TAKE DEEP LOOK AT DRUG WAR HYPE COMING OUT OF THE USA

GUATEMALA SCOFFS AT USA CLAIMS ABOUT DRUG WAR AND BUSINESS THAT BENEFITS THEIR ECONOMY. IN GENERAL, BELIZE SUPPORTS THE GUATEMALAN VIEW OF THE DRUG WAR.


Guatemala Times:

MONDAY, 27 FEBRUARY 2012 17:28 BARBARA SCHIEBER


Guatemala City

Janet Napolitano said in Mexico at a pres conference today: It took us 10 years to find (al Qaeda chief) Osama bin Laden and we found him, and you know what happened there, Joaquin Shorty Guzman, Mexico's most wanted man, escaped from prison in 2001. Napolitano said U.S. and Mexican agents continue to search for him. She also implies that the war on drug is doing very well. She said: I would not agree with the premise that de drug war is a failure. It is a continuing effort to keep our peoples from becoming addicted to dangerous drugs.
Drug use is at an all time high in the US, the US is also the world’s biggest consumer of illegal drugs. Where is the success there? What effort is she talking about? If anything the US is not doing the right thing to keep drugs out of the hands of users. It is easier for an adolescent to get drugs then it is to get a beer or cigarettes in the US. Something in this story or maybe better described as a fairytale of Napolitano, does not add up.
We in Guatemala do not buy it.
Who is Napolitano defending: The military industrial interests who earn more money with war then with peace. She defends the ever expanding private prison business that has made so many new millionaires on the US. Finally it can no longer be ignored that the US economy would collapse even faster without the mighty “narco dollar”. Napolitano is not defending our interests, our lives, our children, our future, our security our quality of life, our rights in Guatemala.
Napolitano can take her fairytale and go home. Nobody in their sane minds believes a word she or the usual defenders of the drug war are saying.
We have been writing about the drug war unsuccessful strategies and atrocious damages to our region and our country since we stared “The Guatemala Times” in 2008. Our position has been clear since then: Guatemala is a casualty of the failed war on drugs waged by the US and caused by the consumers of drugs in the US. The money issue, the massive power of the narco- dollar through money laundering that benefits the US and European Economies has been a taboo for the international mainstream media, it is not politically correct to write abut the dark powers of the narco –dollar within the “legal” economies of the developed world.
There have been only two voices in the desert of the deafening silence of the international mainstream media about this perfect example of the hypocrisy of the developed world regarding the situation of third world countries, were people are getting killed to provide the rich countries with their needs, be they legal or illegal. There is no difference.
The Guardian published an article 13, December, 2009. “Drug money saved banks in global crisis, claims UN advisor” Drugs and crime chief says $352bn in criminal proceeds was effectively laundered by financial institutions. Drugs money worth billions of dollars kept the financial system afloat at the height of the global crisis, the United Nations' drugs and crime tsar has told the Observer. Antonio Maria Costa, head of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, said he has seen evidence that the proceeds of organised crime were "the only liquid investment capital" available to some banks on the brink of collapse last year. He said that a majority of the $352bn (£216bn) of drugs profits was absorbed into the economic system as a result………………