No one alive and engaged at the time is likely to forget the farce of President George W. Bush standing on the flight deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln on May 1, 2003, proudly delivering a victory speech beneath a banner reading, “Mission Accomplished.” To say that the staged event was premature would be an understatement. It would also be missing the point.
The Bush machine didn’t declare victory on that day because they believed it had been attained, nor did they believe it to be at hand. On they contrary, it is clear in hindsight that quite the opposite is true. By May 2003 the administration realized that the war in Iraq could become a very ugly affair, and it was time to rally the public around the flag. “We must push on a little longer until our certain victory” is an infinitely more effective battle cry than, “This is obviously not working, but let’s keep going anyway.”
The same propaganda methodology is used almost daily in the drug war. If you conduct a Google news search for “marijuana bust” or any similar term, you will find an infinite number of articles containing self-congratulatory quotes from police officers, sheriffs, DEA agents, prosecutors and politicians that declare a major victory in the war on drugs. It truly begs the question, “if we’re really winning, then why are we losing?”
One such disgracefully Rove-esque bit of propaganda was recently provided by California Attorney General Jerry Brown. Yes, even Governor Moonbeam has traded his populist-left soul for the rank of foot soldier in the War against Some Plants.
Earlier this week, Brown held a press conference to announce the success of Operation Silver Fox, an eight-month, multi-agency investigation that Brown touted as a “body blow” to Mexico’s Sinaloa Cartel. The results of the operation? In eight months, agents seized 191 kilograms of cocaine , 136 pounds of marijuana, $1.7 million, 7 handguns and two rifles. Sixteen individuals were indicted, all but four of whom are at large.
At first blush, this may seem like a significant operation. However, to make that mistake would be to grossly under appreciate the economic realities of the drug trade.
According to the U.S. Department of Justice, approximately 600 metric tons of cocaine was shipped to the U.S. last year from South America, about 90 percent of which transited the Mexico-Central America corridor. The government further estimates that the Sinaloa Cartel, led by Joaquin “Chapo” Guzman-Loera, controls between one third and half of Mexico’s wholesale cocaine trade. Those official estimates would indicate that Chapo controls the importation of between 180 and 270 metric tons of cocaine per year. That’s between 180,000 and 270,000 kilograms.
California’s “body blow” to the Sinaloa cartel, then, probably deprived the cartel of a little less than one one-thousandth of their annual sales total. And the money? $1.7 million is a lot of money to me, but not to Chapo. He was named to this year’s Forbes Magazine list of the world’s richest people and is estimated to be worth more than $1 billion.
Mission accomplished.
Not growing up anywhere near California I can't say I know much about Jerry Brown. But as I was growing up and learning more about the world I found I had a lot of respect for some of his actions, like choosing to not live in the governor's mansion but instead in a downtown location with the regular folks. And that he worked to avoid the other trappings of power.
ReplyDeleteI even saw him on Tony Brown's Journal and listened to him pitch a flat tax, which sounded awesome and fair.
However, this most recent turn of events, being beholden to the worst trapping of power—money—is a VERY SAD turn of events. It seems totally out of keeping with the tiny sliver of his personality I was familiar with.
He formerly seemed to realize that the best strategy was not an over-the-top complicated and expensive action, but low-key, humble, and simple strategy. Clearly ending the drug war is the latter.
Like I wrote Barack Obama:
Since you are a man of prayer, here is a religious perspective. Who came out to defeat Goliath? Was it someone even bigger? Or was it some kid? Something totally unexpected, laughed at and scorned by the leaders, and seemingly totally underpowered?
Where was the King of the Universe born? In a marble palace with a silver spoon in his mouth on silk sheets to beautiful and famous parents? Um, not according to the story! He was born in a smelly barn, his bassinet was a feeding trough for large animals, his young-teen mother was considered by some to have slept around, later he was homeless and wandered around without any visible job. The irony!
Here is a pop-culture fiction reference. What brought down the invaders in “War of the Worlds?” Was it bombs? Was it tanks? Was it a surge of army men dressed in black, kicking in doors unexpectedly?
Please consider ending this war to be parallel to how many have viewed political elections (before you came along). Many people did not like either option, either candidate, they just “voted for the lesser evil.”
Surely it should be obvious by now that the ills that prohibition was designed to combat have spawned significantly more serious ills!