With the black market, corruption is inevitable

The mainstream media is catching on to the fact that our sacred border isn’t secure even when we have our own employees guarding it.

Mexican cartels corrupting more US border officials?

In the Mexican drug war, U.S. authorities are finding a disturbing trend: an increase in American law enforcement officials corrupted by wealthy Mexican criminals who pay them to look the other way as illegal drugs and immigrants flow north into the United States.

“It is the single most debilitating factor in successful law enforcement on the border, and we do a horrible job of weeding that corruption out,” says retired DEA supervisor Anthony Coulson.

In the last five years, nearly 80 U.S. Border Patrol agents and Customs and Border Protection officers have been arrested along the Mexican border, and according to federal authorities, hundreds more officials are under investigation.

Of course, the notion that you even could weed that corruption out significantly is ridiculous.

No government in the world can compete with the black market in financial compensation for police officers.Guitherism

Part of the problem is also due to the fact that during the Bush administration there was a big political push to massively increase the number of border agents.

Scott at Grits for Breakfast could have told you that would be a stupid idea. In fact, he did. Back in 2006, he noted:

Seriously – if you were a cartel leader, wouldn’t you be manufacturing phony ID papers and sending in your lieutenants to apply for these slots as quick as you could? And do you think the Bush Homeland Security department will handle vetting 10,000 new agents any more competently than, say, the response to Hurricane Katrina?

Maybe I’m just being cyncial, or maybe I’ve just seen it happen too many times, but I predict we’ll see increased corruption problems among border officials in coming years as a result of this illogically rapid, politically motivated border security buildup.

Wow. Now that’s a pretty darn good “I told you so”!

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25 Responses to With the black market, corruption is inevitable

  1. Matthew Meyer says:

    Yup.

  2. Gart says:

    And is not just US border officials. The corruption goes far and deep and touch every echelon of the US society: judges, bankers, politicians, you name it! You have to ask yourself: can the thousands and thousands of tons of cocaine, (not to mention similar amounts of other drugs), that manage to enter the US year after year be explained by the ingenuity and industriousness of drug traffickers alone? The reality is that a business that generates US320 billion a year, A YEAR, (and remember this is being going on for several decades) can’t be sustained on drug traffickers’ sheer luck. Surely, their high success can only be achieved with the aid to a great extent of the highly praised American entrepreneurial spirit, don’t you think?

    Gart Valenc
    http://www.stopthewarondrugs.org

  3. Gart says:

    A couple of days ago, former Mexican president Vicente Fox said:

    It is the US who has to stop the flow of drugs, not Mexico.

    His comment takes on a completely new meaning when seen through the prevailing levels of corruption in the US, isn’t it.

    Gart Valenc
    http://www.stopthewarondrugs.org

  4. DdC says:

    A PAGE FROM SUSURLUK: DRUG MONEY IS BAILING OUT THE BANKS
    “For years and years, information and evidence being collected by the counterintelligence operations of certain U.S. intelligence and law enforcement agencies has been prevented from being transferred to criminal and narcotics divisions, and from being shared with the Drug Enforcement Agency and others with prosecutorial power. Those with direct knowledge have been prevented from making this information available and public by various gag orders and invocation of the State Secrets Privilege. Why?”
    ~ Sibel Edmonds

    Drug War Bailing Out Banksters – 07/13/09

    Sibel EdmondsFBI Whistleblower Talks to Antiwar.com

  5. Rick Steeb says:

    The very concept that mere mortals can forbid their peers’ enjoyment of intoxicants is the fundamental corruption.

    There is no way to righteously enforce an unjust law. The inevitable cognitive dissonance requires one’s conscience to be utterly suppressed; then bring on the temptations! Duh.

  6. Duncan20903 says:

    .
    .
    People have been aware of this phenomenon for so long that it’s verbally expressed in latin. Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?, or who will guard the guards themselves?

    Take 1/2 the population and swear them in as Police officers. Handcuff them to the other 1/2 of the population and we’ll still have a significant criminal class, despite a police officer being at the scene of every crime committed.

  7. DdC says:

    When necessity was the “Mother of Invention”, not Zappa’s band. Competition set the stage for quality workmanship and skills. The best workers got the best pay. To invent and produce what the people needed. Now its all corporate profit and the only competition is for lower wages. Mostly found in third world sweatshops thanks to NAFTA/GATT. The same scenario is played out with the drug war. It’s not a matter of stopping someone from individual rights to smoke pot. Its profit stopping them, for whatever reason. Or profit enforcing the bogus laws. While the substance is outlawed, it is not competition. All attempts to prohibit a vice have nothing to do with safety of the person, but profit or tax on implementing the laws. No victim no crime. But that doesn’t stop them from filling private “for profit” prisons. Now the vice provides quotas. Mandatory sentencing is nothing but long term investments. We the tokers are a commodity for the fascists to buy and sell and rent out. Now lets see what the spineless krats gave away to the moneysluts over the budget. I’d wager its not saving a trillion bucks ending cannabis prohibition.

    Vices Are Not Crimes – 02/13/09

    Vices are those acts by which a man harms himself or his property.

    Crimes are those acts by which one man harms the person or property of another.

    “One may well ask: How can you advocate breaking some laws and obeying others? The answer lies in the fact that there are two types of laws: just and unjust. I would be the first to advocate obeying just laws. One has not only a legal but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws.”
    — Martin Luther King, Jr.

  8. atheistcable says:

    I appreciate the quote by Dr King, but this, then, leads to an important question: Why is there virtually no noise being heard from the black community concerning this undeniably racist drug war?

    I’ve heard cries about so many black Americans being in prisons for drug possession, and more cries about racial profiling of drivers, but where are the public demonstrations against the entire War on Drugs?

    If the drug war isn’t working, then why are we wasting tax dollars on this public policy?

    Why am I not hearing from black Americans demanding that cannabis AND cocaine, heroin, meth, and other Schedule I and II drugs be legalized?

    Remember, if the drug war is not working, then we should abolish the DEA. If the drug war is not working, then we should legalize heroin and meth. Right? Are we suddenly having a problem with legalizing meth?

    • Emma says:

      There seems to be increasingly vocal support for drug reform from the “black community”. See Michelle Alexander and her book “The New Jim Crow”. Or see the recent NAACP endorsement of cannabis legalization in CA.

    • Duncan20903 says:

      Meth is already legal by prescription. It’s more than likely in stock and has been distributed to school children by the last pharmacy counter where you had a prescription filled.
      http://www.rxlist.com/desoxyn-drug.htm

      Heroin isn’t legal for anything in the US, but it is a legal prescription drug in Great Britain, approved for patients as young as age 3. Don’t google heroin “great britain” as the British refuse to use that word as a description of prescription heroin. They call it diamorphine.

      In 2008 the Swiss voted to continue supplying their junkies with free heroin by a margin almost 7 to 3. That was after a 10 year study period to see if it works.

      Legalization is not a binary choice between summary execution of those violating the drugs laws and allowing the sales rep from the heroin factory to set up a promotional table with free samples in the lobby of the local elementary schools.

      You ask if anyone favors re-legalization of heroin and meth in such a way as if you couldn’t imagine anyone doing so. I can broadcast back in equivalent disbelief that anyone could possibly support the abject failure of public policy which we call the war on (some) drugs. It is absurdity in the extreme to continue using tactics that are a proven failure in the past, and guaranteed failure in the future.

      Yes, the prohibition of coke, heroin, and morphine has failed just as spectacularly as the prohibition of cannabis. Yes, I support limited access in a highly regulated environment with the Swiss HAT model being the closest. I assert that someone has a screw loose if he supports the continuation of the proven failure of absolute prohibition.

      Casting the debate as if the only available choices are “absolutely prohibited” or “junkies in the 3rd grade” is simply a false dilemma.

  9. DdC says:

    The entire liberal {gerbal} base is M.I.A…
    where are the blacks? where are the greens? where are the anti warriors? Women and Gays? All thanking us for our support when they were searching for justice.

    • darkcycle says:

      It’s not the base, it’s the apparatchiks of the parties. Where are the blacks? Voiceless as usual, except for the religious vestiges of a civil rights struggle that took other avenues until now. Are you people blind? Or maybe deaf? Ever hear of Rap? Or Reggae? Ugh, I’m tired of people with tiny lenses making pronouncements for entire population groups. Get a clue, and a life. Expand your social circle, stop listening to the same “classic rock” station you’ve had your noise suppressing headphones tuned to for twenty years. I’m stinking tired of this shit here. You people, of all people, should know better.

      • Duncan20903 says:

        Does every village really need a resident idiot?

      • DdC says:

        Dunkem he’s not an idiot, just naive.
        Watch the ad hominem or Pete’s censor pencil gets angry.

        DckCircle. It’s the base, all weak. All rapping about their own self made conditions. Reggae and Rap reach less than 10% Willie Nelson gets more favorable press. Stop hiding behind skin pigments. No excuses. If conditions are bad, then move. I, like many millions of others went to segregated schools long after the civil rights act passed in 64. Economic segregation. Don’t own property you can’t attend school. The liberal answer was to bus whites into the ghettos. Didn’t work. Our school was spared/ Blacks in Pittsburgh spent more time destroying property than protesting for their own rights/ Let alone some Ganja tokers. None of the antiwar movement rock and rollaids bands have sung about the drug war conditions. Name a greenpeace for Ganja member? You’re destined like dunkem to be slaves to the end,

        Even when we freed you, the first thing you do is move to the big cities working for the man. Then no work and 40 years later still in the same damn depressed place. You want pity, earn it. Greens are the same politically correct appeasers. Women? Gays? Both shunning anything cannabis. Clinton the first black prez said they were little cancer sticks. You’re in a hole you dug and now lashing out at truth shows your desperation and gullibility. Might as well join the Teabog ditzos. While the mean old GOP cut throats lead them by the chain around their necks. Republican village idiots are spoiled brats with bank vaults and nuke power. Appeasers lap it all up then cry about it? Please DKCircle grow the fuck up and that goes for your lil lapdog too! You know how many CIA sponsored crack dealers infiltrated Ganja users and growers? Few if any. Yet entire neighborhoods of blacks sold out in the 80’s. What happens to a women you make a CEO? She turns into a gray haired white man. Speed is for rednecks and crack is black whack. That’s the way it is. Reggae isn’t even the most popular sound in the islands let alone the states. Calypso and pop for the tourists. Making them pretty much politically mute.

        it’s the apparatchiks?

  10. Black Market says:

    People who think that the incredible amount of drugs that enter our country is all due to the skills of the cartels and “bad guys” are naive. There is no way that legitimate people, such as cops, judges, border patrol agents, not to mention bankers and lawyers are getting a cut of the profits.

  11. Windy says:

    darkcycle, sorry I just cannot listen to rap, it’s NOT music, it’s more like what the beatniks used to do — reciting bad poetry set to a beat. It truly annoys me that the musical awards shows even acknowledge it, let alone showcase it or give it any awards. It’s noise to me, the kind of noise that sets my teeth on edge. I’ll take rock over rap any day. Btw, I’m in my mid 60s and I listen to today’s rock, not classic, I even listen to a Canadian station to hear really great music that never gets played on American stations because the bands that play it are Canadian.

    Black Market, you meant to say “are NOT getting a cut of the profits”, I’m sure.

    • darkcycle says:

      Windy If you don’t like the beat, that’s taste. I’m speaking to the lyrics. You can tolerate poetry, clever rhyming, right? Read some of the lyrics on line. Some are stupid, many are brilliant. And they fill the same niche that the Doobie Brothers, Joan Baez, Arlo Guthrie, and the other protest-rock musicians in the sixties and early seventies filled. (right after that time, of course, rock and roll abdicated it’s social message to disco-balls, coke,and platform shoes.)
      I for one am not about to render a judgement based on a lack of information. I don’t KNOW that there aren’t African American leaders speaking to this issue in numbers that reflect the population. All I know is, the media has one or two (Al Sharpton, and Jessie Jackson, both Reverends)who they will allow to speak, and that’s it. I don’t see these leaders because they haven’t been given a mouthpiece, and I’m not where I would ever be exposed to them to hear. If a local African American leader (say, a guy who runs a food bank, or a crisis center in an African American community, or a local business man) takes this issue on, what’re the chances he’ll get any traction with the media? Nil, that’s what, especially if he sounds SANE to the average White Ear. One other thing these African American ‘spokesmen’ purveyed by the media have in common…they all sound a little crackers to anybody who hasn’t lived in their shared social context. That’s deliberate on the part of the MSM.
      I’ll leave you with a simple definition then I’ll get off my soap box:
      Prejudice: noun
      1. an unfavorable opinion or feeling formed beforehand or without knowledge, thought, or reason.
      Or, to render judgement prior to having the facts.
      I try to avoid that.

      • Windy says:

        I do like the beat, the beat without the words would be great to dance to, but I can’t stand watching the rappers — the gestures (mostly gang signs and grabbing the crotch, and I am NOT a snob when it comes to sexuality, I just prefer it be subtle, not vulgar) or listening to the way they use words — a majority of the time they can’t be understood by anyone who speaks normal American English. Rap might be a socially conscious genre but it most certainly is not music and should not be treated as such, IMNSHO.

        As for reading the poetry of rap, I have read some (my sons and my grandkids are “fans”), doesn’t do much for me, either. There are other (real) musical artists out there doing similar things to the protest songs of the 60s and 70s, I prefer to get my protest fix from them and sites like this.

      • darkcycle says:

        I’d venture that you’re responding exactly as they intended you to. Think about it, we long hairs embraced long hair, love beads and rock music. Why? Well, to set ourselves apart from our parents and the dominant culture. These trinkets we adopted, the lewd comedy of Lenny Bruce and George Carlin, the lyrics of Frank Zappa and the Mothers, long hair, communal living, all were grotesquely abhorrent to the dominant culture. Again why? Because the message wasn’t FOR them. They were MEANT to not get it, even more, to be repelled by it. The same goes for rap, the gestures, the obscenity, same exact thing. Their message isn’t being broadcast to you. Doesn’t mean you can’t learn to listen, and it also doesn’t mean you can’t step outside your comfort zone and enjoy. Frankly, I agree a lot, if not the majority of rap is garbage. Same went for a good bit of the rock we listened to. The good stuff has stood the test of time, the bad stuff was forgotten and we moved on. Same goes for Rap and Hip Hop. Just a suggestion…the new Quincy Jones album has a variety of stuff, from old-time Quincy Jones jazzy stuff to some collaborations with rap and soul artists of today. Including Snoop, Luda-Chris, and an absolutely killer piece with Amy Winehouse. It’s worth the listen, IMHO.

  12. malcolm kyle says:

    If there’s still anybody out there who doubts the Government’s involvement in drug-running then they should watch “Mike Ruppert – CIA and Drug Running (1997)”
    http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-7009998324250484369#

    And if you really want to know how deep prohibition engendered corruption runs in America, then watch the following:
    Part 1 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OKHpVw4yTb4
    There are another 5 parts.

    or check this out : http://www.ciadrugs.com/

    • DdC says:

      What is the point? I’ve posted this as much as the other repeated info and no one of importance has the cognizant ability to rationalize it. It’s clear the citizens of the US are bound for slave markets. Jerk that flag, lift that bail. March off to another police action and watch as your fellow citizens go to jail. Americans don’t deserve Ganja.

      Cover-Ups, Prevarications, Subversions & Sabotage

      Kathmandu and the Black Prince

      The Heroin Challenge
      CIA AND DRUGS READING LIST

      1. The Politics of Heroin by Alfred W. McCoy (1972, 1991)
      Lawrence Hill Books – ISBN 1-55652-125-1
      2. Cocaine Politics by Peter Dale Scott & Johnathan Marshall (1991)
      U.C. Press – ISBN 0-520-07781-4
      3. The Iran-Contra Connection by Scott, Marshall, and Hunter (1987)
      South End Press – ISBN 0-89608-291-1
      4. The Big White Lie by Mike Levine (1993)
      Thunder’s Mouth Press – ISBN 1-56025-064
      5. Compromised by Terry Reed (1995)
      Penmarin Books – ISBN 1-883955-02-5
      6. Powder Burns by Clerino Castillo (1994)
      Mosaic Press – ISBN 0-88962-578-6
      7. The Underground Empire by James Mills (1974, 1978)
      Doubleday – ISBN 0-385-17535-3
      8. Inside The Shadow Government by the Christic Institute (1987)
      Declaration of Plantiff’s Counsel Filed by the Christic Institute –
      U.S. District Court, Miami, FL.
      9. Kiss The Boys Goodbye by Monika Jensen-Stevenson and Wm
      Stevenson (1990)
      Dutton – ISBN 0-525-24934-6
      10. Defrauding America by Rodney Stich (1994)
      Diablo Western Press – ISBN 0-932438-08-3
      11. Desperados: Latin Drug Lords, U.S. Lawmen, and the War America Can’t Win
      – by Elaine Shannon (1988)
      Viking Press

      THESE BOOKS NAME NAMES, DATES AND PLACES WHERE THE CIA DEALT DRUGS. NOT ONE OF THE ABOVE AUTHORS HAS BEEN SUED FOR LIBEL — EVER!
      Almost all of these books are available by mail or phone order from:
      THE CENTER FOR THE PRESERVATION OF MODERN HISTORY
      (805) 899-3433

      HOW THE NARCS CREATED CRACK by Richard C. Cowan – 03/14/00
      More than seventy years after the Harrison Act began the federal prohibition of cocaine and opiates; almost fifty years since the beginning of federal marijuana prohibition; and almost six years into the Reagan Administration, America finds itself in the grip of a frenzy over the “drug crisis.” How can this be, with all that has been done? Some blame the “pushers.” Others rightly point out that there is demand as well as supply, and also blame the users. In fact, there is good reason to believe that the government itself, for all that it has proclaimed yet another war on drugs, has been one of the most potent causes of the current crisis.

  13. Chris says:

    http://www.pressandguide.com/articles/2011/04/09/news/doc4d9f557b8ab37805648033.txt

    The city’s chief judge last month made a ruling that could have big implications for the state’s two-year-old medical marijuana law.

    Oh man, this is exciting. What could it be?

    Judge Mark Somers wrote, “This court finds that in consequence of the lawful designation of marijuana as a Schedule I narcotic under the Controlled Substances Act, the Michigan Medical Marihuana Act is rendered unconstitutional and void in its entirety by operation of the Supremacy Clause of the United States Constitution.”

    Oh. Yeah, I hope he feels really smart about this. Like if no judge has ever thought of this before.

    The case stems from a traffic stop in January 2010. Dearborn police cited the defendant, Robert Brandon, for illegal possession of marijuana and contributing to the delinquency of a minor, according to court documents.

    Brandon tried to have the case dismissed four months later based on the grounds that, after he was ticketed, he saw a doctor who issued him a “physician’s certification” for medical marijuana to treat chronic back pain. Doctor’s can’t legally prescribe medical marijuana so, under the Michigan law, a physician’s certification is the terminology used.

    Somers questioned the legitimacy of the claim, however, noting that Brandon’s doctor only met with Brandon for about 20 minutes before writing the certification, did not perform any physical examination, and had no previous patient-doctor relationship, which is part of the criteria for medical marijuana certification.

    Moreover, Somers wrote, Brandon’s certification came after the traffic stop, meaning that it couldn’t be used as a defense.

    It just doesn’t seem like this guy wants to be a criminal. I mean really, why is it such a bad thing to imagine that this guy doesn’t need to be arrested for this?

  14. Malcolm Kyle says:

    Lawyers for Ismael “El Vicentillo” Zambada Niebla, son of the infamous Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada García, claim U.S. agents not only encouraged his illegal activities in an effort to entrap him, but in some cases even aided the Sinaloa drug cartel in its operations.

    In a short court brief filed March 15, Zambada Niebla’s attorneys claim U.S. agents from the DEA, FBI, Department of Homeland Security and Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency promoted his criminal activities from January 1, 2004, until March 2009.

    http://neglectedwar.com/blog/archives/4157

  15. darkcycle says:

    “There’s too much money in it to legalize it.” -Hillary Clinton. Everybody get what she meant?

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