Dankdude
Well-Known Member
By Scott Thill, AlterNet. Posted August 29, 2007.
Last time we checked in on the bizarro nexus between cannabis and terrorism, it was none other than actor/director Tommy Chong who was feeling the Bush administration's post-9/11 wrath. In fact, the stoner icon, whose fabled act was concurrently resuscitated for Fox's drugged and confused comedy hit That 70's Show, was being slapped by John Ashcroft with a nine-month prison bid, a $20,000 fine and over $100,000 in seized assets for selling bongs. The terrorism connection? He was sentenced on Sept. 11, 2003. And if you think that's a specious connection, it's only gotten worse since. In fact, over the last few years, "terrorist" has become an epithet for all seasons.
In 2003, Iraq occupation architect Richard Perle slapped investigative journalist Seymour Hersh with the term, saying, "Look, Sy Hersh is the closest thing American journalism has to a terrorist, frankly." As if filing a story about the doomed occupation of a sovereign state in the pages of the New Yorker was the same thing as flying a 747 into the World Trade Center.
In 2004, Secretary of Education Rod Paige called the National Education Association, the country's largest teachers union, "a terrorist organization" because of what Paige defined as the "obstructionist scare tactics" used by its lobbyists. Because we all know it's every educator's dream to buck the system systemby blowing themselves up in front of their students.
And just this month, the Bush administration decided to employ the term to legally target the entire Iranian Revolutionary Guard, a sovereign nation's standing army numbering in the hundreds of thousands. When you want a war that badly, you'll pretty much do or say anything to get it.
So how does the Bush administration get away with crying terrorist at every opportunity? Say hello to the Military Commissions Act. Thanks to this 2006 piece of legislation, terrorism has become the basis of American foreign and domestic policy. Yes, the term has become equivalent to everything from ideologically driven violence to petty theft, and can be used to incarcerate, exterminate or character assassinate anything in sight.
It's no wonder then that federal officials are now revisiting their previously failed effort to link terrorism to cannabis, the only real cash cow in the government's so-called War on Drugs. Only difference is, this time, they don't have Tommy Chong as a scapegoat.
Unable or unwilling to solve the nation's crippling meth addiction or its hypocritical dependency on prescribed narcotics like oxycontin, the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) recently rang the terrorism alarm to nail
pot growers in Redding's Shasta-Trinity National Forest in California. Along the way, ONDCP "czar" John Walters showed off not only the Bush administration's love of twisted terminology but also its subcultural savvy by coining a memorable phrase of his own.
"We have kind of a reefer blindness," Walters explained during a Redding press conference on the ONDCP's Operation Alesia, a cannabis-eradication program coordinated by the California National Guard's Counterdrug Taskforce and the Shasta County Sheriff's Office. Walters followed that clever turn of phrase with the reliable terrorist designation to describe the armed growers cultivating cannabis in Shasta County. "These people are armed; they're dangerous. [They're] violent criminal terrorists." He even went so far to argue that the "terrorists" growing weed in Shasta County, as the Redding Record Searchlight reported, "wouldn't hesitate to help other terrorists get into the country with the aim of causing mass casualties."
Except there seem to be a couple major problems with Walters' characterizations. For one, Walters declined to explain during the press conference what Operation Alesia's specific goals were. More importantly, he didn't offer up any concrete names of the terrorists or their ideological objectives. What legalization advocates and law enforcement authorities alike were left with was yet another hazy strategy based on loose terminology whose only purpose it seems is to confiscate as much pot as possible from Shasta County's public lands.
Along the way, ONDCP "czar" John Walters showed off not only the Bush administration's love of twisted terminology but also its subcultural savvy by coining a memorable phrase of his own.
A noble pursuit to be sure, but counterterrorism? Hardly.
Especially when rural Shasta County's biggest problem is meth, not marijuana, addiction. Further, Walters' coded terminology, when unmasked, is not employed to raise awareness of al Qaeda's grand cannabis cultivation strategy to destabilize the American government, but rather to inflame regional biases against, you guessed it, Mexicans. Especially the undocumented variety, who are "the other terrorists" Walters mentioned looking to get into the country and, what again? I asked Mike Odle, public affairs and communications officer for Shasta-Trinity National Forest's Northern California Coordination Center to elaborate on what was behind the increase in cultivated cannabis on Shasta's public lands.
"Most of the increase can be attributed to the proliferation of foreign Drug Trafficking Organizations (DTOs), mostly Mexican in origin, which operate in the Shasta-Trinity National Forest and throughout California and much of the United States," Odle explained to me by email. "Frequently using illegal aliens residing outside the United States, or recently smuggled across the [sic] boarder, these Mexican criminal groups establish, maintain and protect an increasing number of clandestine operations."
Yet, predictably, Odle couldn't explain what made them terrorists.
"Some DTOs have been linked by law enforcement and investigations to terrorist organizations and pose a substantial and increasing threat to national security," he added in a subsequent email. "Our primary concern here on the Shasta-Trinity National Forest is the safety of our forest visitors and agency employees and the negative impacts marijuana has on the environment and natural resources, no matter what name is given to the DTOs that are illegally growing marijuana on America's public lands."
No matter what name is given? Easy enough if you're the one doing the naming. If you're the one being flippantly tagged a terrorist? Not so much.
Plus, there are enough holes in the argument to plant your own cannabis seeds. To start with, cannabis may be many things, but it is far from an environmental negative. It has been used for medicinal purposes for thousands of years, can grow in almost any climate, and is a naturally occurring dioecious perennial. (In other words, it's not fossil fuel.) Further, Odle's claim that safety is Shasta's first concern is understandable, but he offered no examples of violent activity by any of the area growers to legitimize the ONDCP's inflammatory language. Sure, the fact that "some" DTOs have been linked to terrorist organizations is educational, but as with everything the ONDCP touches, specifics are elusive and generalizations are everywhere.
I pressed Odle for further clarification on the terrorism question. But instead of al Qaeda, all I got was more obfuscation. And more Mexicans.
"Do [sic] to ongoing investigations, I am limited in what I can share," Odle explained in another email. "When we do the investigations we try to get up as far as we can into the food chain. We work closely with the DEA, FBI, ICE and other law enforcement agencies that have the capabilities to identify who these folks are and what links they may or may not have."
Fair enough. It's out of his hands. Any concrete local examples?
"I can [sic] site an example in a case we are now finished investigating. The Forest Service was heavily involved with the eradication of marijuana gardens associated with the Magana drug cartel. The Magana drug cartel operation and investigation occurred throughout National Forests in California, Utah and Arkansas, with direct ties to Mexico. Investigators in the Magana case said cartel leaders brought in illegal workers from the Mexican states of Michoacan and Jalisco."
In short, terrorism isn't the real problem here, it's illegal immigration. Not convinced? When you get a chance, search Google for "Magana drug cartel" and let me know if you can find anything. Even better, try the ONDCP, and let me know if anything unrelated to cocaine shows up. Even if you give Walters, Odle and other so-called counterterrorism experts their due on the Magana drug cartel or other so-called terrorist organizations who the ONDCP cannot actually name (making sure to look up the definition of "cartel" in the process, if you want to be exhaustive about it), what you end up with are cannabis traffickers and cultivators operating illegally on public lands using undocumented immigrants.
Under Bush, terror has become a justification for any and every abuse of power.
Last time we checked in on the bizarro nexus between cannabis and terrorism, it was none other than actor/director Tommy Chong who was feeling the Bush administration's post-9/11 wrath. In fact, the stoner icon, whose fabled act was concurrently resuscitated for Fox's drugged and confused comedy hit That 70's Show, was being slapped by John Ashcroft with a nine-month prison bid, a $20,000 fine and over $100,000 in seized assets for selling bongs. The terrorism connection? He was sentenced on Sept. 11, 2003. And if you think that's a specious connection, it's only gotten worse since. In fact, over the last few years, "terrorist" has become an epithet for all seasons.
In 2003, Iraq occupation architect Richard Perle slapped investigative journalist Seymour Hersh with the term, saying, "Look, Sy Hersh is the closest thing American journalism has to a terrorist, frankly." As if filing a story about the doomed occupation of a sovereign state in the pages of the New Yorker was the same thing as flying a 747 into the World Trade Center.
In 2004, Secretary of Education Rod Paige called the National Education Association, the country's largest teachers union, "a terrorist organization" because of what Paige defined as the "obstructionist scare tactics" used by its lobbyists. Because we all know it's every educator's dream to buck the system systemby blowing themselves up in front of their students.
And just this month, the Bush administration decided to employ the term to legally target the entire Iranian Revolutionary Guard, a sovereign nation's standing army numbering in the hundreds of thousands. When you want a war that badly, you'll pretty much do or say anything to get it.
So how does the Bush administration get away with crying terrorist at every opportunity? Say hello to the Military Commissions Act. Thanks to this 2006 piece of legislation, terrorism has become the basis of American foreign and domestic policy. Yes, the term has become equivalent to everything from ideologically driven violence to petty theft, and can be used to incarcerate, exterminate or character assassinate anything in sight.
It's no wonder then that federal officials are now revisiting their previously failed effort to link terrorism to cannabis, the only real cash cow in the government's so-called War on Drugs. Only difference is, this time, they don't have Tommy Chong as a scapegoat.
Unable or unwilling to solve the nation's crippling meth addiction or its hypocritical dependency on prescribed narcotics like oxycontin, the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) recently rang the terrorism alarm to nail
pot growers in Redding's Shasta-Trinity National Forest in California. Along the way, ONDCP "czar" John Walters showed off not only the Bush administration's love of twisted terminology but also its subcultural savvy by coining a memorable phrase of his own.
"We have kind of a reefer blindness," Walters explained during a Redding press conference on the ONDCP's Operation Alesia, a cannabis-eradication program coordinated by the California National Guard's Counterdrug Taskforce and the Shasta County Sheriff's Office. Walters followed that clever turn of phrase with the reliable terrorist designation to describe the armed growers cultivating cannabis in Shasta County. "These people are armed; they're dangerous. [They're] violent criminal terrorists." He even went so far to argue that the "terrorists" growing weed in Shasta County, as the Redding Record Searchlight reported, "wouldn't hesitate to help other terrorists get into the country with the aim of causing mass casualties."
Except there seem to be a couple major problems with Walters' characterizations. For one, Walters declined to explain during the press conference what Operation Alesia's specific goals were. More importantly, he didn't offer up any concrete names of the terrorists or their ideological objectives. What legalization advocates and law enforcement authorities alike were left with was yet another hazy strategy based on loose terminology whose only purpose it seems is to confiscate as much pot as possible from Shasta County's public lands.
Along the way, ONDCP "czar" John Walters showed off not only the Bush administration's love of twisted terminology but also its subcultural savvy by coining a memorable phrase of his own.
A noble pursuit to be sure, but counterterrorism? Hardly.
Especially when rural Shasta County's biggest problem is meth, not marijuana, addiction. Further, Walters' coded terminology, when unmasked, is not employed to raise awareness of al Qaeda's grand cannabis cultivation strategy to destabilize the American government, but rather to inflame regional biases against, you guessed it, Mexicans. Especially the undocumented variety, who are "the other terrorists" Walters mentioned looking to get into the country and, what again? I asked Mike Odle, public affairs and communications officer for Shasta-Trinity National Forest's Northern California Coordination Center to elaborate on what was behind the increase in cultivated cannabis on Shasta's public lands.
"Most of the increase can be attributed to the proliferation of foreign Drug Trafficking Organizations (DTOs), mostly Mexican in origin, which operate in the Shasta-Trinity National Forest and throughout California and much of the United States," Odle explained to me by email. "Frequently using illegal aliens residing outside the United States, or recently smuggled across the [sic] boarder, these Mexican criminal groups establish, maintain and protect an increasing number of clandestine operations."
Yet, predictably, Odle couldn't explain what made them terrorists.
"Some DTOs have been linked by law enforcement and investigations to terrorist organizations and pose a substantial and increasing threat to national security," he added in a subsequent email. "Our primary concern here on the Shasta-Trinity National Forest is the safety of our forest visitors and agency employees and the negative impacts marijuana has on the environment and natural resources, no matter what name is given to the DTOs that are illegally growing marijuana on America's public lands."
No matter what name is given? Easy enough if you're the one doing the naming. If you're the one being flippantly tagged a terrorist? Not so much.
Plus, there are enough holes in the argument to plant your own cannabis seeds. To start with, cannabis may be many things, but it is far from an environmental negative. It has been used for medicinal purposes for thousands of years, can grow in almost any climate, and is a naturally occurring dioecious perennial. (In other words, it's not fossil fuel.) Further, Odle's claim that safety is Shasta's first concern is understandable, but he offered no examples of violent activity by any of the area growers to legitimize the ONDCP's inflammatory language. Sure, the fact that "some" DTOs have been linked to terrorist organizations is educational, but as with everything the ONDCP touches, specifics are elusive and generalizations are everywhere.
I pressed Odle for further clarification on the terrorism question. But instead of al Qaeda, all I got was more obfuscation. And more Mexicans.
"Do [sic] to ongoing investigations, I am limited in what I can share," Odle explained in another email. "When we do the investigations we try to get up as far as we can into the food chain. We work closely with the DEA, FBI, ICE and other law enforcement agencies that have the capabilities to identify who these folks are and what links they may or may not have."
Fair enough. It's out of his hands. Any concrete local examples?
"I can [sic] site an example in a case we are now finished investigating. The Forest Service was heavily involved with the eradication of marijuana gardens associated with the Magana drug cartel. The Magana drug cartel operation and investigation occurred throughout National Forests in California, Utah and Arkansas, with direct ties to Mexico. Investigators in the Magana case said cartel leaders brought in illegal workers from the Mexican states of Michoacan and Jalisco."
In short, terrorism isn't the real problem here, it's illegal immigration. Not convinced? When you get a chance, search Google for "Magana drug cartel" and let me know if you can find anything. Even better, try the ONDCP, and let me know if anything unrelated to cocaine shows up. Even if you give Walters, Odle and other so-called counterterrorism experts their due on the Magana drug cartel or other so-called terrorist organizations who the ONDCP cannot actually name (making sure to look up the definition of "cartel" in the process, if you want to be exhaustive about it), what you end up with are cannabis traffickers and cultivators operating illegally on public lands using undocumented immigrants.
