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A daily brief about the world's most dangerous places from international war correspondent Chuck Holton
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Thursday Jan 10, 2019
Thursday Jan 10, 2019
The Iran cocaine connection, driver safety, and the president’s speech
Iran is attacking the United States - with Drugs? How dangerous is travel anyway and
We'll break down the President's speech on the border. Today on the Hot Zone.
Hi there. I'm Chuck Holton. If you can't defeat your enemy militarily, poisoning them from the inside is one way you can destroy them without an outright war. Well according to a new report, that's exactly what Iran was doing during the Obama administration - sending poison across our southern border and making lots of money doing it. In fact, the Iranian backed Hezbollah terror organization was making billions - billions through its criminal enterprises including massive drug trafficking into the United States across our southern border.
Project Cassandra, which was an operation launched by the Drug Enforcement Administration in 2008, uncovered $1 billion a year from money laundering, criminal activities, and drug and weapons trade being collected by Hezbollah, according to Politico. The undercover project went on for eight years, and in that time the DEA found Hezbollah was involved in cocaine shipments from Latin America to West Africa, as well as through Venezuela and Mexico to the United States.
Then the Obama administration turned it off. They halted Project Cassandra just as it was about to blow the Iranian operation wide open. The reason was the White House was about to seal that terrible nuclear deal with Iran, even though Hezbollah was still funneling cocaine into America. Obama appointed Officials at the U.S. Justice and Treasury departments delayed the Cassandra project’s requests, prosecutions, and arrests. And in 2015 planeloads of cash were being sent to Iran to close the deal and the Cassandra project was shut down.
My only question is this: How is this not treason? Intentionally blocking a productive criminal investigation in order to shield an enemy state from any damaging info, all while that state is actively shipping deadly narcotics into our country...well, it's kind of mind-numbing.
Since 2001, Iran and Hezbollah have been full court press to gain influence in the more Chavista-leaning countries of Latin America. I'm talking Venezuela, Cuba, Bolivia, and Nicaragua, among others. In Venezuela especially, government officials worked closely with Hezbollah to damage the US any way they could, especially by flooding the US with Cocaine, helping smuggle upwards of 250 tons of the narcotic to the US every year. according to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime Statistics.
Back in August of 2017 Donald Trump made a somewhat offhanded comment about the possibility of using military force in Venezuela.
Of course he was ridiculed for saying it, which is not surprising, he's ridiculed for everything he says. This is Joe Cirincione, who to call an outspoken critic of the president would be a massive understatement.
And in all fairness, the President's declaration did seem kind of strange at the time, But if we ever needed a reason to invade Venezuela, it was provided by the DEA and Operation Cassandra. In February, the Trump administration sanctioned several Venezuelan officials, including acting Vice President Tareck El Aissami, for their alleged ties to Hezbollah. they charged El Aissami with overseeing shipments of tons of cocaine from Venezuela into the United States.
If you recall the United States invasion here in Panama to depose the Panamanian President Manuel Noriega, then-president George H.W. Bush's reasoning for that invasion was almost exactly what we are seeing in Venezuela. Noriega was hip-deep in money laundering and helping out the drug cartels, and ended up spending most of the rest of his life in a US federal penitentiary because of it. So there is a precedent.
Ever since Trump made those comments about invading Venezuela, many here in Latin America have been kind of obsessed with the idea that it's really going to happen. Which is extremely unlikely. But just the other day I got a voicemail from a guy here in Panama out near the Darien who saw some military helicopters flying around and was absolutely sure it was the US military massing for an invasion. In reality, it was probably a southcom joint exercise with the Panamanian border police.
Nevertheless, Hezbollah’s activities in Latin America potentially pose a threat to U.S. national security and need to be met forcefully however we can.
One way we could stem the tide of drugs coming into our country would be to build a substantial barrier on our southern border. You know, like maybe a wall or something. On Tuesday night President Trump made quite possibly one of the most wooden speeches I've ever seen from a US president, seriously that guy is just not a good speaker. But the content of his speech was very important.
[excerpt from Trump's speech]
This is a very important point. The drugs coming across our southern border could be substantially reduced by a more imposing physical barrier. According to the Drug Enforcement Administration, the vast majority of drugs that kill American citizens enter our country through the US southern border. They classify the Mexican cartels as being in a class by themselves based on the thousands of tons they ship in every year. And the old fence along the border does virtually nothing to stop them.
Now if you are listening to the podcast and couldn't see the video, there several shots in that package I just played that showed men hiking across the desert with bulky square backpacks on their backs. Those backpacks are filled with Marijuana, cocaine, and heroin. Each pack can weigh up to 100 pounds and that is something that is happening along the frontier literally hundreds of times each day. The border patrol seizes about six thousand pounds of narcotics every single day - and that's just a drop in the bucket of what is coming across. So those who say a more substantial barrier wouldn't help? Listen, I've been reporting on this issue for fifteen years. And I can tell you the number one thing we could do to reduce the amount of drugs coming across would be to build a fence that cannot be cut down or easily climbed over. Are there tunnels? Sure. The cartels use hang gliders, drones and even catapults to toss dope over the fence. But the vast majority of it is simply driven across in pickup trucks or carried on the backs of drug mules who jump the fence where it is easiest and hike into the US. As that rancher said in the piece - Very often those same guys rob people on their way back south just to make a little extra profit. So a wall would save lives and money - and that fact is indisputable. What's amazing to me is how it seems like President Trump has this magical ability to make the Democrats come out against literally anything - all he has to do is support it. Suffice it to say there is a huge battle taking place right now in the media to convince average Americans that a wall would be a waste of money. I can assure you it would not. And a wall would stand the test of time - no future administration will be able to tear it down. Policies can change. A 30-foot barrier won't.
Finally today, a tragic story out of Zimbabwe that painfully illustrates the risks of traveling on public transportation in the third world. 47 people - 45 adults and two children were killed when two buses collided on the highway east of Zimbabwe's capital, Harare. The horrific images of the crash were heavily censored in local media because they were just too graphic.
I've known for a long time driving on the roads in developing countries is one of the most dangerous aspects of my life as an international traveler. I tell people all the time that the most dangerous thing I'm required to do in this job is drive to the airport here in Panama, where if you want to stay alive on the roads you pretty much have to drive like you are trying to get arrested. But I went and looked up some statistics about road fatalities, and even I was shocked at just how treacherous ground transport can be in developing countries. In the United States, we have less than 1 fatality for every 100 million kilometers driven. Contrast that with countries in Africa and you might not want to know...in Egypt it's 43 times higher. In Kenya, it's 36.
Over 36,000 people die each year on the roads in the United States. But in India, that number is like a quarter million. Yikes. Based on population, that's about sixty percent higher than the US.
Someday, self-driving cars will take over the world, and if you ask me that can't come soon enough. One, because I don't like driving, and two because I believe artificial intelligence would be much, much better than all the idiots who are on the roads today.
Be careful out there, folks. And check us out on Youtube if you haven't seen the video version of the podcast. I'm not going to be able to put out a video version every day while I'm on the road, but the plan is to at least try to release an audio version whenever possible. Please like and share this podcast with your friends, the great feedback I'm getting from you all really means a lot.
All right that's it for today. We'll be back again tomorrow, right here on the Hot Zone.
End Notes
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