Telling the Whole Truth About the "Drug War"

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Telling the Whole Truth About the "Drug War"
Posted by Al Giordano - September 22, 2010 at 4:22 pm

Thoughts on the Open Letter by El Diario of Juárez to Narco-Traffickers

By Al Giordano

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The newspaper writes:

“All of you are, at this moment, the de facto authorities in this city, because the legally instituted authorities have not been able to do anything to stop our colleagues from continuing to die, although we have repeatedly called for them to act.”

This is interesting because in most of the world the legal private sector of business interests, particularly the corporate media, have become themselves a kind of “de facto authority” over public opinion and all levels of government. Seen in that light, one has to recognize that we in the media are not suddenly passive victims of the drug war that for too long has been ideologically bankrolled by the “reporting” of too many of our colleagues.

That early paragraph in the open letter can only further rarify the dysfunction and risk of violence through its implicit recognition of “instituted authorities,” meaning government and its police and military forces, as somehow being more legitimate than those of organized crime and narco-traffickers.

As we have reported at Narco News for more than a decade, governments and their policies of drug prohibition are not intended to eliminate illegal drug use or commerce, because government officials – including politicians and the banks and other business interests that finance them – are profiteering off the drug war just as much as the so-called (and misnamed) “cartel” leaders.

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