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OfflineLarrythescaryrex
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US can not afford drug war.
    #14585958 - 06/09/11 02:46 PM (12 years, 8 months ago)

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-narco-contract-20110609,0,1742011.story

U.S. can't justify its drug war spending, reports say
Los Angeles Times
Brian Bennett
 
U.S. can't justify its drug war spending, reports say
Government reports say the Obama administration is unable to show that billions of dollars spent in the anti-drug efforts in Latin America have made a significant difference.
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“We are wasting tax dollars and throwing money at a problem without even knowing what we are getting in return,” said Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.), pictured in May, who chairs the Senate subcommittee that wrote one of the reports about spending on the drug war. (Jim Lo Scalzo, European Pressphoto Agency / May 17, 2011)


By Brian Bennett, Los Angeles Times

June 9, 2011
Reporting from Washington— As drug cartels wreak murderous havoc from Mexico to Panama, the Obama administration is unable to show that the billions of dollars spent in the war on drugs have significantly stemmed the flow of illegal narcotics into the United States, according to two government reports and outside experts.

The reports specifically criticize the government's growing use of U.S. contractors, which were paid more than $3 billion to train local prosecutors and police, help eradicate fields of coca, operate surveillance equipment and otherwise battle the widening drug trade in Latin America over the last five years.

Related
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Mexico poet an emblem of nation's drug war carnage
"We are wasting tax dollars and throwing money at a problem without even knowing what we are getting in return," said Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.), who chairs the Senate subcommittee that wrote one of the reports, which was released Wednesday.

"I think we have wasted our money hugely," agreed Bruce Bagley, who studies U.S. counter-narcotics efforts and chairs international studies at the University of Miami at Coral Gables, Fla. "The effort has had corrosive effects on every country it has touched."

Obama administration officials strongly deny that U.S. efforts have failed to reduce drug production or smuggling in Latin America.

White House officials say the expanding U.S. counter-narcotics effort occupies a growing portion of time for President Obama's national security team even though it garners few headlines or congressional hearings in Washington.

The majority of U.S. counter-narcotics contracts are awarded to five companies: DynCorp, Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, ITT and ARINC, according to the report for the contracting oversight subcommittee, part of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.

Counter-narcotics contract spending increased 32% over the five-year period, from $482 million in 2005 to $635 million in 2009. DynCorp, based in Falls Church, Va., received the largest total, $1.1 billion.

Among other jobs, the U.S. contractors train local police and investigators, provide logistical support to intelligence collection centers and fly airplanes and helicopters that spray herbicides to eradicate coca crops grown to produce cocaine.

The Department of Defense has spent $6.1 billion since 2005 to help detect planes and boats heading to the U.S. with drug payloads, as well as on surveillance and other intelligence operations.

Senate staff members described some of the expenses as "difficult to characterize." The Army spent $75,000 for paintball supplies for training exercises in 2007, for example, and $5,000 for what the military calls "rubber ducks." The ducks are rubber replicas of M-16 rifles that are used in training exercises, a Pentagon spokesman said.

The Defense Department described its own system for tracking those contracts as "error prone," according to the Senate report. The report also said the Defense Department doesn't have reliable data about how successful its efforts have been.

A separate report last month by the U.S. Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress, concluded that the State Department "does not have a centralized inventory of counter-narcotics contracts" and said the department does not evaluate the overall success of its counter-narcotics program.

"It's become increasingly clear that our efforts to rein in the narcotics trade in Latin America, especially as it relates to the government's use of contractors, have largely failed," McCaskill said.

Vanda Felbab-Brown, an expert on U.S. drug policy at the Brookings Institution think tank in Washington, said the U.S. military and other government agencies, not private contractors, should take the lead in training foreign armies and police in drug eradication and control.

"But unless we are able to resource our government properly, that is the only way we can do it," Felbab-Brown said.

The latest assault on the United States' counter-narcotics strategy comes a week after a high-profile group of world leaders called the global war on drugs a costly failure.

The group, which included former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan and past presidents of Mexico, Brazil and Colombia, recommended that regional governments try legalizing and regulating drugs to help stop the flood of cash going to drug mafias and other organized crime groups.

But James Gregory, a Pentagon spokesman, said the Defense Department's efforts against the drug trade "have been among the most successful and cost-effective programs" in decades. He cited the U.S. success in the 1980s in stopping cocaine shipments from Colombia that had been inundating Florida, and the efforts in the 1990s at helping Colombia overcome a drug-fueled insurgency.

"By any reasonable assessment, the U.S. has received ample strategic national security benefits in return for its investments in this area," he said.

Administration officials say that the counter-narcotics program is producing more recent benefits as well.

Along the Mexican border, increased patrols and other efforts have helped seize 31% more drugs, 75% more cash and 64% more weapons during the first 21/2 years of the Obama administration than in the previous 21/2 years, the Homeland Security Department says.

After a decade of U.S. assistance to Colombia and years of using U.S. contractors there, annual cocaine production in Colombia has fallen 60% since 2001, according to the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy. Some of that cocaine production has shifted to Peru, however.

Backed by the U.S., Mexico's stepped-up offensive against drug cartels similarly has had the unintended effect of pushing them deeper into Central America, especially Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador. Violence has soared in those countries.

One result has been a new emphasis on surveillance technology and intelligence collection.

In particular, the U.S. effort has focused on improving efforts to intercept cellphone and Internet traffic of drug cartels in the region, according to two U.S. officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly.

During a visit to El Salvador in February, the head of the State Department's counter-narcotics programs, William Brownfield, opened a wiretapping center in San Salvador, as well as a regional office to share fingerprints and other data with U.S. law enforcement. El Salvador is the hub for U.S. law enforcement efforts in Central America.


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RIP Acidic_Sloth

Sunset_Mission said:
"larry the scary rex
verily scary when thoroughly vexed
invoke the shadows and dust, cast a hex
mercifully massacring memories masterfully
relocate from Ur to 8th density and become a cosmic bully
mulder and scully couldn't decipher his glyphs
invoke the shadows and dust, smoke infernal spliffs"
April 24th 2011

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InvisibleEntheogenicPeace
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Re: US can not afford drug war. [Re: Larrythescaryrex] * 1
    #14586655 - 06/09/11 05:12 PM (12 years, 8 months ago)

---

Edited by EntheogenicPeace (01/06/22 06:11 PM)

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Offlinelimestoneman
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Re: US can not afford drug war. [Re: EntheogenicPeace]
    #14587586 - 06/09/11 08:46 PM (12 years, 8 months ago)

USA NO CARE. USA GOT BIG PEE PEE. USA MAKE IT RAIN.

That's all I ever get out of our leaders mouths in response to the drug war.

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InvisiblePassiveAgressive
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Re: US can not afford drug war. [Re: limestoneman]
    #14588083 - 06/09/11 10:21 PM (12 years, 8 months ago)

Well, I hate to fall into a category of being a "usual dissident" on these matters, though I do not approve of some of the reasons the US does what it does, so I'm a usual dissident. Lockheed, DynCorp, and Raytheon are all there providing UAV oversight. I doubt the cartels are the only things they are watching.  UAV's have become a scourge. Keep them on the real battle-field please.


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Thousands of candles can be lit from a single candle, and the life of the candle will not be shortened.
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OfflineInvaderShroom
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Re: US can not afford drug war. [Re: limestoneman]
    #14588091 - 06/09/11 10:21 PM (12 years, 8 months ago)

of course. we already know they won't admit they're wrong. it's not like pride is worth more than education and the slow job market. oh wait, it is.


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How to Pass a drug test:D
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OfflineHybridprX
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Re: US can not afford drug war. [Re: InvaderShroom]
    #14589775 - 06/10/11 10:21 AM (12 years, 8 months ago)

It's all a big cash grab on behalf of the U.S

How many millions of dollars get funneled to secret bank accounts by agencies involved in the drug war, alot.

Same as in Iraq, the administration involved with hiring mercenaries and the companies over seeing the reconstruction efforts were caught very early on in the war stealing money and inflating their annual budgets.

This world and the people that help it run are all as crooked as a three dollar bill.


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OfflineDrGreenThumb865
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Re: US can not afford drug war. [Re: HybridprX]
    #14589816 - 06/10/11 10:29 AM (12 years, 8 months ago)

Why can't the government understand that by legalizing only marijuana they will SAVE $7.7 billion a year in enforcement costs and MAKE $6.2 billion a year in taxation. There's nearly $10,000,000,000 a year that could go to something good for the country instead of this pointless prohibition.

Quote:

Milton Friedman leads a list of more than 500 economists from around the U.S. who publicly endorse a Harvard University economist's report on the costs of marijuana prohibition and the potential revenue gains from the U.S. government legalizing it and taxing its sale. Ending prohibition enforcement would save $7.7 billion in combined state and federal spending, the report says, while taxation would yield up to $6.2 billion a year.




They could be MAKING money instead of SPENDING it... You would think our greedy government would be all for it. :facepalm:


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:mushdance:



Edited by DrGreenThumb865 (06/10/11 10:33 AM)

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Offlineamitrippin83
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Re: US can not afford drug war. [Re: DrGreenThumb865]
    #14589957 - 06/10/11 10:58 AM (12 years, 8 months ago)

It would be soo much easier just to invade and make Mexico a part of the U.S. ....it's just my opinion. Or spend the billions on a real wall to put across our border.  It really doesnt matter anyway, the world is not going to get any better.  So its time for me to ingest some drugs and step back out of reality.  :perc::bigjoint: :tunnel:


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What was before the Big Bang?  What caused the Big Bang?  Where did the space for the Big Bang to take place come from?  Is it all just a dream or something like the matrix.  It makes me wonder.  So many stars.

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OfflineStatuesCryBleeding
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Re: US can not afford drug war. [Re: amitrippin83]
    #14591126 - 06/10/11 03:19 PM (12 years, 8 months ago)

Canada and mexico.... Contrary to popular beliefs, Amerika has 52 states....

Sovereign nations my ass....

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Invisibleluvdemshrooms
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Re: US can not afford drug war. [Re: StatuesCryBleeding]
    #14591185 - 06/10/11 03:33 PM (12 years, 8 months ago)

Quote:

StatuesCryBleeding said:
Canada and mexico.... Contrary to popular beliefs, Amerika has 52 states....

Sovereign nations my ass....




Canada's been our bitch for years. Rightly so.

Mexico wants to be but we won't let them. Rightly so.


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You cannot legislate the poor into prosperity by legislating the wealthy out of prosperity. What one person receives without working for another person must work for without receiving. The government cannot give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody else. When half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work because the other half is going to take care of them and when the other half gets the idea that it does no good to work because somebody else is going to get what they work for that my dear friend is the beginning of the end of any nation. You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it. ~ Adrian Rogers

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Offlinelimestoneman
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Re: US can not afford drug war. [Re: luvdemshrooms]
    #14591197 - 06/10/11 03:36 PM (12 years, 8 months ago)

I'm starting to think that we're Mexico's bitch, and drug cartels are controlling the government.

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OfflineDrGreenThumb865
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Re: US can not afford drug war. [Re: limestoneman]
    #14591206 - 06/10/11 03:38 PM (12 years, 8 months ago)

Quote:

limestoneman said:
I'm starting to think that we're Mexico's bitch, and drug cartels are controlling the government.



I'm gonna have to agree with you on that dude. :awethumb:


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InvisiblePassiveAgressive
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Re: US can not afford drug war. [Re: limestoneman]
    #14591281 - 06/10/11 03:57 PM (12 years, 8 months ago)

Quote:

limestoneman said:
I'm starting to think that we're Mexico's bitch, and drug cartels are controlling the government.




Hence all of the UAV's. They want their control back, ALL OF IT!!!!! :kingcrankey:


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Thousands of candles can be lit from a single candle, and the life of the candle will not be shortened.
Happiness never decreases by being shared. - Prince Gautama Siddharta, the founder of Buddhism, 563-483 B.C.

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