Jet Case Colored with Shades of Iran/Contra and “House of Death”

[Joanne98]

Jet Case Colored with Shades of Iran/Contra and “House of Death”
Why Would CIA and ICE Have Gotten Involved in “Mayan Express” Drug Shipments?


By Bill Conroy
Special to The Narco News Bulletin
January 12, 2008

The Gulfstream II jet that fell from the sky over Mexico’s Yucatan peninsula on Sept. 24 last year with close to four tons of cocaine onboard has been the subject of a lot of buzz on the Internet over the past several months.

At the center of that controversy are allegations that the downed cocaine jet was part of a CIA-backed narco-trafficking operation.

As today’s other report shows, Narco News has uncovered new information about the jet crash that connects it to an undercover U.S. government operation called the Mayan Express, which is being run by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), likely with the help of the CIA.

For those who might wonder why ICE would pursue an operation like the Mayan Express, it pays to keep in mind that Charles E. Allen, under-secretary for the Office of Intelligence and Analysis at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), also happens to be a veteran of the CIA and was a major player in the Iran/Contra scandal that played out during the Reagan administration.

One facet of Iran/Contra, as you might recall, allegedly involved the use of CIA resources to run drugs in order to raise money to fund the purchase of arms for the Contra rebels who were seeking to overthrow the Sandinista government in Nicaragua.

For ICE to be cleared to operate a high-profile overseas mission like the Mayan Express, which allegedly involved coordination with the CIA, it is very likely that Allen, DHS’ chief intelligence guru, had to be clued into the operation — since ICE is part of DHS.

Allen is not the lone Iran/Contra veteran now serving in a high post within the Bush Administration, though. Others include John Negroponte, who prior to taking over the post of U.S. Deputy Secretary of State served as Director of National Intelligence; Elliot Abrams, who is Deputy National Security Advisor for Global Democracy Strategy and who also allegedly played a role in helping to orchestrate the failed coup d’état against Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez in 2002; and Robert Gates, who is now Secretary of Defense.

Another reason to believe that ICE might get involved with this type of operation is that the agency has already earned a reputation for operating at the margins of the law in narco-trafficking investigations. ICE drew national attention for its handling of the House of Death case, which involved using an informant to penetrate a cell of the Vicente Carrillo Fuentes narco-trafficking organization in Juarez, Mexico, over the course of the early 2000s.

As part of that operation, the ICE informant, a former Mexican cop, participated in numerous murders between August 2003 and mid-January 2004 and was even caught running a load of marijuana behind ICE’s back. Yet even after becoming aware of these facts, ICE continued to use the informant. The investigation came to an abrupt end after the lives of a DEA agent and his family were threatened as a result of the ICE informant’s activities.

The House of Death case was approved and under the supervision of the U.S. Attorney’s Office in San Antonio, which is overseen by Bush appointee Johnny Sutton — who is accused of retaliating against the DEA commander (Sandalio Gonzalez) who blew the whistle on the ICE informant’s role in the murders. The 12 victims were found buried in the backyard of a house in Juarez.

So, among law enforcement agencies...
http://www.narconews.com/Issue49/article2964.html

[Richard Steele]

1. K&R

[Peace Patriot]

2. Rumsfeld plan for Oil War II: So. America, re the phony, corrupt "war on drugs"

On December 1, 2007, Donald Rumsfeld published an op-ed in the Washington Post in which he lays out plans for economic and military warfare against Venezuela and other oil-rich countries in South America. It was entitled, "The Smart Way to Beat Tyrants Like Chávez"
(http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/11/30/AR2007113001800.html)

I urge all Americans to read it, because where Rumsfeld's fantasies go, so go your sons and daughters in the military, and billions and billions of your taxpayer dollars, and our country's future. Do beware, of course, of congenital liar Rumsfeld's bullshit about Venezuela, which follows a particularly intense disinformation campaign by the Bush-purged CIA in the corporate news monopolies about Venezuela and its president Hugo Chavez. Pretty much all you need to know to parse Rumsfeld's lies is, a) Venezuela has very big oil deposits, and b) Hugo Chavez, an elected president with a 70% approval rating, is leading a movement (the Bolivarian revolution) for Latin American independence and self-determination, which includes using local resources such as oil to help the poor, and ending the failed and corrupt U.S. "war on drugs," which, in the hands of the Bushites, has become a bloody fascist project for slaughtering union leaders, small peasant farmers and political leftists, and restoring fascist rule in South America.

The real reason for Rumsfeld's new war plan is that Hugo Chavez is not alone in seeking South American independence. It is the overwhelming general trend, and its success as a movement has the global corporate predators who run our government very worried and angry. The following countries--covering virtually the entire continent--have elected leftist (majorityist) governments over the last half decade: Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador, Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay and Nicaragua. This trend also includes the likely election of a leftist in Paraguay this year, and, in Central America, election of the first progressive government in Guatemala, and a near win by leftists in Mexico--who lost by a hair, 0.05%--last year, in an election that was more than likely stolen, and in which U.S./Bush control of Mexico's oil was a critical factor. Bolivia, Ecuador and Argentina are close allies of Venezuela, in this historic movement. And Chavez and his ideas have warm supporters in the leaderships and populations of all the leftist countries.

Chavez ally Rafael Correa, the new president of Ecuador (where there are also big oil deposits) has promised not to renew the U.S. military base lease in Ecuador, which is ostensibly used for "war on drugs" surveillance flights. When asked about this policy, Correa said that he would welcome U.S. boots on the ground in Ecuador, if the U.S. would agree to an Ecuadoran military base in Miama. Har-har! Correa is quite a card. But his remark is very telling. The trend is overwhelmingly toward local sovereignty, and most South American leaders are aware that U.S. military activities in South America are neither a genuine "anti-drug" effort, nor well-intended. They are the aggressive U.S. foothold for rightwing plotting against properly elected governments that are democratic, into social justice and opposed to U.S. domination on several fronts, including "free trade" (global corporate predation) and World Bank/IMF loan sharkism. The oil rich countries are using their economic advantage not only to help the poor in their countries, but also to bootstrap other South American countries out from under U.S. dictation--for instance, Venezuela's loans to Argentina, to pay off their World Bank debt and recover from World Bank/IMF-induced economic devastation; the policy worked--Argentina is well on the way toward recovery; Venezuela thus helped to create a healthy trading partner for itself, Brazil and other countries, and this policy of locally-controlled lending has now been institutionalized in the Bank of the South, which is driving the U.S. dominated World Bank out of the region.

The last thing in the world that the Bush Junta wants is for oil to be used to help people, and to free third world countries from their clutches. But more than this, they want to restore direct control of Venezuela's and Ecuador's big oil deposits, Bolivia's gas deposits and other rich resources of the Andes region. The Bush "war on drugs"--infusing huge military spending into Colombia--promoting "free trade" (resource rape, slave labor) with Colombia and Peru and anyone else who will bite (almost nobody), and vastly corrupting these governments and societies and bending them to the Bushite will--are all aimed at the oil, first of all, and at other kinds of U.S./global corporate theft, all of which depends upon destruction of real democracy in the region. Venezuela, which has elections that put us to shame for their transparency, and is the most advanced on a course of independence from the U.S., is the first main target for demonizing--really unbelievable lying by the Bushites and the corporate press--to prep the U.S. population for violent U.S. intervention. That is, to prep us to go to sleep while it happens. Bolivia--which elected its first indigenous president, Evo Morales, a couple of years ago--is another initial target. Bush/CIA and local rightwing destabilization efforts have been quite visible in both countries. Venezuela has weathered them. Bolivia is more vulnerable at the moment.

Enter Donald Rumsfeld in his busy "retirement." The above helps to answer the question: What is our former Secretary of Defense--famous for the disaster he created in Iraq--doing designing Washington DC's foreign policy for South America in the WaPo? His "PNAC II: South America" is of course related to the disaster he created in Iraq, seeking "black gold" for his and Cheney's buds in the oil industry, and with apparently frustrated Bush Junta plans to gain control of yet more of the world's oil fields in Iran (--it appears to me that China, Russia and others have blockaded that second oil war front). The Bushites have to pay their paymasters--it's my guess as the price for continued support in staying out of jail for their many crimes. But more than this, if you've paid any attention to their policy in South America all along, you cannot help but see their planning for war. It's been under the radar of most north Americans--and the Bushites have surely had to "neglect" South America in their obsession with Mideast oil and bloodshed--but their plans have not been all that invisible to people paying attention to the Chavez demonization and other developments. Rumsfeld simply lays it out--a la the "PNAC"--but why he did so I'm not sure. It may have been a Rumsfeld error, actually, to alert the good, pro-labor Democrats in Congress, who are opposing a Bush "free trade" deal in Colombia (where they chainsaw union leaders and toss their body parts into mass graves), as to what the Bush Junta plan for South America really is.

And it isn't just a plan for South America. It's a plan for us as well. Rumsfeld suggests we get rid of any remaining "checks and balances" in our own government (i.e., that fusty old Congress), so the U.S. can "act swiftly" in support of "friends and allies" in South America (i.e., fascist thugs planning coups against democratic governments). And of course we will pay for it--we already are--in billions and billions for military aid to Colombia and U.S. military activity in Latin America, out of our already looted treasury, as well as from billions stolen in Iraq and spirited away in private mercenary groups like Blackwater and other hiding places, to proceed with private war activities and black ops, with no chance of scrutiny from the American people.

U.S. drugs and weapons trafficking is an integral part of this picture. The rightwing paramilitaries in Colombia--who are closely tied to the Uribe government (Bush's pals), at the highest levels (head of the military, former head of intelligence, and many Uribe office holders including relatives), are known drug traffickers, in addition to their connections to heinous murders, and to plots against Chavez and other elected leaders in the region. The (Bush) U.S. DEA and other "war on drugs" agencies work closely with these fascist murderers and drug dealers, on their immediate goals of ridding Chiquita (vast banana plantations) of union organizers, clearing land of peasant farmers for Monsanto (vast, environmentally unsound biofuel production, trumping food production), and so the big drug lords can move in, and protecting Occidental Petroleum's pipelines, which are regularly bombed by the local leftist guerrilla army, FARC, which controls a third of Colombia's territory.

It's interesting that the Bushites recently amended their justification of billions of dollars in military aid to Colombia to include "terrorism" as well as the "war on drugs." They are trying to edge the "war on terror" into the war on the poor that is on-going in Colombia. Without massive U.S. aid, Colombia's rightwing government would long ago have fallen, and a peace settlement brokered by the good governments surrounding Colombia (Venezuela, Ecuador, Brazil) and others, between the right and left factions in this civil war. The Bushites want to escalate this long standing local dispute into a general war, which would put the U.S., Occidental Petroleum, Exxon-Mobile, Monsanto, et al, and their credit enforcers the World Bank, back in charge. That is the goal. That is the plan that Rumsfeld lays out, and it has been long in the making.

Only this can explain the U.S./Bush interference in the recent hostage negotiation with FARC, brokered by Chavez. The first and bigger hostage release was sabotaged the SAME WEEKEND that Rumsfeld was publishing his new opus, and I think Rumsfeld's fingerprints are all over that sabotage. He mentions it in the opening paragraph. He expected that Chavez would fail--because that was the plan. However, urged on by the hostages' families and world leaders like the president of France, Chavez persisted and got two hostages released last week. Uribe, the little fascist worm who is caught between Rumsfeld/Washington's war plans and the overwhelming leftist (majorityist) and peaceful, democratic trend in South America, has had to eat crow, as Rumsfeld's tool.

Many news stories such as the hostage negotiations and other events leak into our corporate press, shorn of context. Another is this ridiculous tale, out of Miama, of a "suitcase full of money" supposedly intended from the Venezuelan government to the presidential campaign of Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner in Argentina. This CIA caper was clearly intended to "divide and conquer" and break up the Venezuela/Argentina alliance, and at the least to sow confusion and ill feeling. It failed. Both governments have blamed Washington, in very strong terms, and have pointed out the absurdity of the story details. (For instance, if Chavez wanted to give $800,000 to Fernandez, he would NOT have sent it on a private plane to Argentina; he would have have carried it on his own plane, with diplomatic immunity, two days later, when he visited Argentina.) A corrupt U.S. attorney in Miami is trying to make something of this CIA contraption--with the Bushites once again trying to salvage P.R. talking points from another botched operation in South America (the list is very long). And it would be worthy of Marx Brothers movie mockery, if they weren't so deadly serious in their intention to topple good governments, and to reinstall torture, murder and mayhem regimes, as they had under Reagan.

As for Mexico, "it's the oil, stupid." And the Bushites need a bastion of Bushitism in Central America, as a buffer against all these good, democratic, peaceful, social justice ideas coming from the south. "War on drugs" mayhem, and militaristic rightwing "crackdowns," are the means of suppressing not the drug trade, but rather peaceful leftist uprisings among the poor, like the one that occurred in Oaxaca (Yucatan) in 2006, and was mercilessly crushed by the Bush-installed Calderon government. Guatemala, however--where Reagan colluded on the slaughter of TWO HUNDRED THOUSAND MAYAN VILLAGERS in the 1980s--just elected its first progressive government, and the issue was the "war on drugs." The fascist candidate wanted a fascist "crackdown" on the "drug trade" mayhem in Guatemala. The leftist openly sold peaceful solutions to such problems, NOT a police state--and won.

The times they are a-changing. Rumsfeld will lose his new war. I'm sure of it--and not just because he is a royal dirtbag, war criminal and loser--but because the leftist movement in South America is so strong, so well organized and so well-led. The South Americans are showing us the way back to democracy. We should pay attention.

And, again, I urge everyone to read Rumsfeld's article, and then keep it in mind, when you "read between the lines" of corporate disinformation on South America. There is a REASON for the lies--and it is not good, not good at all. And although I think he will fail, Rumsfeld is capable of inflicting tremendous suffering and horror in his failures. He has not "retired." He is planning Oil War II. We must do everything we can to prevent that, starting with RECOGNIZING the lies when we see them, and working to re-empower ourselves, as a people, in relation to our own government. (Transparent elections, such as they have in Venezuela, would be a good place to start.)

-------------------

For an alternative perspective on Venezuela, I recommend www.venezuelanalysis.com. I also recommend the Irish filmmakers' documentary "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised," about the U.S. backed rightwing coup attempt in Venezuela in 2002, available at YouTube and at www.axisoflogice.com. NarcoNews is also an excellent source on the "war on drugs" (war on the poor) and on Oaxaca. Get informed on what is really happening in Latin America! Help counter the disinformation, and save U.S. soldiers' future lives!)

[Joanne98]

3. Thankyou so much Peace Patriot . That's a MUST READ!!!!!

[AntiFascist]

4. K&R, and excellent post above...

Gee, I wonder what the Clintons would do about this?

http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0707/S00058.htm

also, this is an interesting history of right-wing CIA operations:

http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/1983/07/willbedone.html

[Peace Patriot]

5. I think the Clintons will cooperate with Rumsfeld's South American war,

as they have on Iraq. And it wouldn't surprise me if Hillary wants to punish South American countries for their rejection of Clinton "free trade" (global corporate predation). "Free trade" was, after all, born in Clintondom. However, I also think that there will be constraints on the Clintons, one of them being the pro-labor Democrats in Congress who are opposing "free trade" with Colombia (and for good reason--Colombia is where they chainsaw union leaders and throw their body parts into mass graves!). And Hillary will worry about deficits more than the Bush gang has done (they couldn't care less; their PURPOSE is to loot us), and this might limit her militarism.

Likely, what will develop will be more in the covert sphere, with Rumsfeld using his stolen billions to wage a private war, and Hillary contributing strategic help, but no full scale military support. It could be worse, though, if Bush acts (as Rumsfeld is clearly suggesting) in support of coup attempts now--in his last year--and leaves the next president in a foothold situation, with no good choices. I think the most likely place for this to happen--this year--is Bolivia. The fascists there are stirring up a whole lot of "destabilization" trouble, with rich rural landowners agitating to split their (gas/oil rich) rural provinces off from the central government (led by Bolivia's first indigenous president, Evo Morales), in order to deprive the poor of any benefit of those resources, to horde profits to themselves and sell out their country's resources to Exxon-Mobile et al. They really are selfish bastards, and brutal bullies, who drive peasant farmers off the land into urban squalor and then want no responsibility or costs of creating a good society.

I think that Oil War II-South America is very important to our corporate rulers. But I think it won't be quite the naked aggression that Rumsfeld wants, if Hillary takes power. It will be more like the Clintons' betrayal of the working class here--sneaky, clever, devious, lethal (--promising to include labor and environmental protections in NAFTA, during the campaign, then immediadately reniging on that promise once in office). Perhaps they will send somebody like Madeleine Albright down to kneecap Evo Morales, by forcing him into a peace negotiation (after Rumsfeld starts a shooting war) in which he has to agree to divide the country up. That sort of thing. Or perhaps they will use the UN (a "peacekeeping" force), once Rumsfeld, Blackwater and friends have instigated a civil war, to bring about a similar result--a result that favors corporate resource extractors in the near term, and sets up another rightwing state as a U.S. ally in a continent that has almost none left.

I think Rumsfeld is going to cause trouble--probably lots of it. The Bushites already are. But I don't think he will succeed. More long term, Clintonesque deviousness might be more successful. Really, it's going to take painstaking work, over a long period of time, to restore U.S. rule in South America. I doubt the Clintons will succeed either. The leftist (majorityist) revolution is just too powerful, and has had a lot of time to organize, in very effective ways, while the Bushites have been preoccupied in the Middle East. But Clinton might regain some ground, whereas Rumsfeld will cause--and already has caused--strong reaction and resistance. For instance, when the Bushites sent word to South American leaders that they must "isolate" Hugo Chavez and Venezuela, Nestor Kirchner, president of Argentina, said, "But he's my brother!"

How do you fight that? Love, solidarity, brotherhood? You can't assassinate them all. And other leaders have had very similar reactions to Bushite bullying and "divide and conquer" tactics--solid backing of Chavez. They feel new strength and rebelliousness--and I have to say, credit to Chavez. His attitude toward the Bush Junta--and the attitude of Venezuelans, in turning back the U.S.-supported coup attempt in 2002, and triumphing over many other U.S. plots, and repeatedly re-electing Chavez with ever increasing margins--is infectious. It has helped to empower a long bullied, suppressed and dormant people--the people of South America in general. And, boy, have they had it with U.S. interventions, and attendant fascist dictatorships, torture, murder and poverty. They are really on the march. They put us to shame with their citizen activism and love for democracy. I think it's a movement that cannot be stopped. Overt aggression will fuel it the more. Devious action--economic, or as to black ops/assassinations, or militarily via the UN--might slow it down, might net the corporates an oil source here, a sweatshop there. But, in the end, the U.S. and its corporate masters are going to have to accommodate themselves to this historic change.

The U.S. is exhausted, and broke. New military adventures are just not possible, without a full-on fascist state here--and that is a very difficult undertaking. It may not be worth it. If they arouse the people of the U.S., these corporate predators are going to be in big trouble, because they are hated everywhere, except in a few sultanates in the Middle East, and, of course, Israel (which is so dependent on U.S. war profiteers) If they fully alienate the vast U.S. population--who still have democracy in living memory-- they will have no home at all. I imagine some of them have fancies--and plans--to be stateless predators--outfits like Halliburton which has moved its headquarters to Dubai. But that might not work out so well. The Arabs are a closed society. And if people get uppity here, there could be hell to pay in efforts to dismantle bad actor corporations and seize their assets for the common good, slashing of the military budget, a fair tax system, prosecution of war criminals, and other seething retaliation by furious Americans, possibly after a period of civil disorder. It's happened before in this country--rebellion against the "robber barons" and the super-rich. Americans are slow to rebel, but when they do, look out! They can be very methodical and determined in re-leveling the playing field.

A Hillary presidency--if she is the "made" candidate, and I think she is--will more than likely be an attempt to keep a lid on such a rebellion, rather than stoking it up with fascist repression and more wars. If I were the Machiavelli advising our political establishment, that is certainly what I would urge. The fascist/corporates have pushed us very far. And they have a chance at consolidation of their enormous gains under Bush, via the rigged voting machines--by crowning a seeming "liberal" (who isn't). We will soon dismantle the "trade secret" vote counting system, at the state/local level. It is insupportable, on its face. So their ability to outright dictate who sits in the White House may well be time-limited. The best course for the corporates is to cool things a bit, to somewhat mitigate the outrages that have been committed against us. And that means no Rumsfeld war in South America--except by covert means.

I hope to Great Heaven I'm right, but I can see it going the other way as well--with Hillary or with another. Rumsfeld/Bush set up the war (they are already doing so), and the next president finds himself or herself so entangled that they can't get out of it, even if they want to. Vietnam being the precedent.

[AntiFascist]

6. Excellent post!

Do you have other good links to information about Rumsfeld's latest actions? (shadow government?)

Another fear is that the fascist elements may try to stage another terrorist event. If they implicated Latinos in the plot, then it could stir up enough anger in the right sectors to stage military action against Latino nations. :scared: (Similar to blaming Iraq for the actions of Saudis).

[dreamnightwind]

7. Thanks...

Thanks for that awesome post! (both of 'em!)