CIA drug trafficking

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It has been alleged that the CIA was involved in drug smuggling in three significant periods.

Contents

[edit] Vietnam Era

Western Vietnam and Eastern Cambodia had some opium fields. It was widely alleged among various soldiers-turned-antiwar protesters that the CIA was involved in smuggling this opium to heroin producers in the United States at considerable profit. The book The Politics of Heroin in Southeast Asia written by Alfred W. McCoy, a professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison claims to provide evidence of the proported drug trafficking. The book discusses the alleged use of opium to fund covert operations done by the CIA in Vietnam. According to Dr. McCoy, the agency also intimidated his sources and tried to keep the book from being published, citing national security concerns.[citations needed] See also Air America.

Speculation on this matter did play a role in the Steven Seagal film Above the Law, as well as in the Mel Gibson film, Air America.

[edit] Soviet Afghanistan

It was alleged by the Soviets on multiple occasions that American CIA agents were helping smuggle opium out of Afghanistan, either into the West, in order to raise money for the Afghan resistance or into the Soviet Union in order to weaken it through drug addiction. Nothing beyond Soviet and Afghan accusations has emerged out of several media and UN investigations into these proported actions.

[edit] Iran Contra Affair

Released on April 13, 1989, the Kerry Committee report concluded that members of the U.S. State Department "who provided support for the Contras were involved in drug trafficking...and elements of the Contras themselves knowingly received financial and material assistance from drug traffickers."

[edit] Reading List

  • Cockburn, Alexander St. Clair, Jeffrey (1999). White-out: CIA, Drugs and the Press. Verso Books. ISBN 1-85984-258-5. 
  • Dale-Scott, Peter Marshall, Jonathan (1998). Cocaine Politics: Drugs, Armies, and the CIA in Central America. University of California Press. ISBN 0-520-21449-8. 
  • McCoy, Alfred W. (2003). The Politics of Heroin: CIA Complicity in the Global Drug Trade, Afghanistan, Southeast Asia, Central America, Columbia. Lawrence Hill & Co.. ISBN 1-55652-483-8. 
  • Webb, Gary (1999). Dark Alliance: CIA, the Contras and the Crack Cocaine Explosion. Seven Stories Press,U.S.. ISBN 1-888363-93-2. 
  • Ruppert, Michael (2004). Crossing the Rubicon: The Decline of the American Empire at the End of the Age of Oil. New Society Publishers. ISBN 0-86571-540-8. 

[edit] See also

[edit] External links

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