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Recent world events had left me as confused as everyone else, so I called my favorite inside source, Ananias Ziegler, media relations director for the Committee That Really Runs America.
What you're seeing,
he explained, is a major
shift in the goals of U.S. foreign policy. During the 50s,
it was containment. In the 60s, we tried to keep dominoes
from falling in southeast Asia. The 70s first brought
detente, followed by Jimmy Carter's human rights. In the
80s, the idea was to put pressure on the Evil Empire. But
all that has changed.
How so?
I wondered.
In all that time, our policy was to support anybody
who wasn't a communist, and we didn't care a fig about
drugs. A lot of those brave Afghan rebels grew poppies to
enslave American youth, but that didn't stop us from
sending them Stinger missiles to fight the Russians.
In southeast Asia, we did even better by drug
suppliers. The CIA set up and operated an airline, Air
America, so that anti-communist tribes could export their
opium. They used our tax money to increase the supply, and
then used our tax money to combat the inflow of drugs. Neat
way to spend money, right?
If you say so,
I agreed. But I suppose that it
was necessary to fight communism.
Actually, it started even before Karl Marx wrote Das
Kapital. During the Civil War, both the Union and the
Confederacy worked desperately to get England on their
side, and England was a major pusher in those days.
I thought that was just some LaRouche fantasy, all
that drivel about the Queen of England being the biggest
drug dealer in the world.
Those loonies were wrong about Elizabeth, but right
about dear old Victoria,
Ziegler sighed. In the 19th
century, China did not want its people smoking opium. But
England needed to sell something in China to pay for all
the tea it imported. So England went to war twice -- in
1839 and again in 1856 -- to force the Chinese government
to allow English traders to sell opium in China.
I mulled on that. So you're telling me that, up until
recently, the U.S. has been more than willing to do
business with drug dealers, as long as it met other
goals.
Precisely,
he complimented. Our major goal has
been anti-communism. Gen. Noriega was anti-communist -- in
fact, he amassed wealth like any good capitalist -- so we
ignored his cocaine trafficking. Our CIA, while George Bush
ran it, was even paying Noriega $200,000 a year.
Everything began to come clear to me. But with the
relaxation of tensions with the Soviet Union, President
Bush doesn't need to care whether a leader leans toward
Moscow or not. So he felt free to go after Noriega.
Ziegler chuckled. And it explains why Bush wants to
cozy up to the regime in China, despite its policy of
killing anyone who espouses American political values. He
admires their drug policy -- shoot on sight.
I started to thank him, but then a question arose.
Suppose other countries adopt a pharmaceutical foreign
policy like ours. For instance, some nation could get
justifiably angry about how the U.S. promotes cigarette
exports in order to addict, impoverish and sicken its
population. They could indict one of our pro-tobacco
leaders, then launch an invasion on the grounds that they
wanted to bring him to trial.
Ziegler laughed. At the Committee, we've considered
that. There is an excellent chance that it might happen,
that an American statesman who promotes the tobacco
interests might suffer Noriega's fate.
But aren't you worried?
I don't know about you, Quillen, but I plan to be one
of those people out dancing in the streets on the day that
they take Jesse Helms into custody and fly him off to be
tried in a foreign country.
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