By Harry Pasha:

Today is National Global Human Trafficking Awareness Day (NGHTAD), a a day of awareness and vigilance for the countless victims of human trafficking across the globe. Yet President Obama announced that this year, and every year hence forth, January will be known as National Slavery and Human Trafficking Prevention Month (White House).

Therefore use this day and month to take action, promote awareness, and support those who have been victimized by modern slavery.  Make this the day that you fight to end a global plague that has stolen the freedoms of some 27 million men, women and children.  Be it via the internet or in your own city/town/village across the world, make today a day to remember those who have been victimized by modern slavery and who are unable to govern their own lives. We have it in our power to see that future generations of children are no longer at risk for exploration and slavery. Let us unite to end slavery  in our lifetime.

 

• There are some 27 million people held in slavery today across the globe.
• According to 2009 State Department Trafficking in Persons Report over 80% of those trans-nationally trafficked are women and children.
• The U.S. State department estimates that some 800,000 people are trafficked across international borders each year and about 80 percent of them are female and at least 50% are children.
• In 1850 a slave in the Southern United States cost the equivalent of $40,000 today. According to Free the Slaves, a slave today costs an average of $90.

If you suspect a situation or a potential victim, please call the National Human Trafficking Resource Center hotline at 1-888-3737-888 now!  We highly recommend you take a moment to place this number in your mobile phones now.

*The awareness poster is available for free download via Bridge to Freedom Foundation, please see there site to download this poster as well as their two other awareness posters.

By Nida Khan for The Huffington Post

While many Muslims (and people outside the faith for that matter) were heavily embedded in a debate over the controversy surrounding hardware store Lowe’s and its recent decision to remove ads from TLC’s reality show All American Muslim, a more detrimental attack against their future was all but finalized. Reversing an earlier decision to veto provisions of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for 2012, President Obama made the disturbing announcement that he would sign this legislation into law and thereby solidify the ability of the military and other factions to indefinitely detain anyone they deem an enemy of the state. And on New Year’s Eve, the President unfortunately made good on this promise with the stroke of his pen. At a time when the United States is grossly engaged in both active combat and covert drone campaigns in a multitude of Muslim nations, and when loosely defined terms like ‘terrorist’ can be arbitrarily thrown about, Muslims specifically — and all of society generally — shouldn’t take this disturbing development lightly.

In post-9/11 America, many have sadly grown accustomed and tolerant to routine practices of racial profiling, bias and even attacks against Muslims and those perceived to be Muslim. But in addition to blatant violence, workplace discrimination and subliminal acts of racism, Muslims have also become aware of another nuance that other Americans may not even realize exists — hesitation to give to charity. Because of fear that any charitable Muslim organization or mosque could suddenly be called out for links to a lone extremist faction (whether it’s justified or not), many pulled their money and cut back on donations to the extent that long-established charities found it virtually impossible to survive. Usually without any valid reason, many stopped supporting Muslim aide groups for the simple notion that anyone, anywhere could at any moment single out that organization and in turn put all those who gave money out of goodwill at risk for associating with them. The victims in all this? The impoverished and destitute in many “third world” countries.

At the same time, tragically, other active Muslims who were entrenched in the community or worked in an organizing capacity (much like our president once did for the disenfranchised), ceased their activities over trepidation as to how their efforts towards equality could one day be misconstrued for something nefarious. The climate of society forced many followers of the Islamic faith to alter their involvement on a plethora of levels. Even today, as forces like the NYPD keep Muslims under intrusive surveillance and continued cases of FBI entrapment emerge, many have stopped attending mosques or interacting too much within the community out of sheer apprehension over unwarranted government action. It is an unfortunate reflection of how marginalized groups often times suffer under the radar without a representative voice in government and in the mainstream.

Throughout modern history, we’ve had other instances of outrageous fear mongering, bias and injustice against those whose patriotism we questioned. Though it is rarely covered in classrooms, the internment of hundreds of thousands of Japanese and those of Japanese ancestry during WWII is a perfect example. Literally rounded up and “excluded” from living in the cities and towns they resided in, these “suspicious” individuals were interned in camps because their allegiance to the country “could not be determined.”

In 1950, at the height of the great red scare, Congress passed the Internal Security Act which required the American Communist Party, affiliated organizations and all ‘subversives’ to get fingerprinted and officially register with the Attorney General. This draconian law was so outrageous that then-President Harry Truman even vetoed it (though Congress overruled his veto in the end). The truly tragic and troubling thing about today’s NDAA is that President Obama isn’t even attempting to veto it anymore; he is instead giving it his stamp of approval. Even though the president stated that he has “serious reservations” regarding the detention, interrogation and prosecution of suspected terrorists, and even though he emphasizes that his administration will not indefinitely militarily detain American citizens without trial, what happens after he is no longer in office? Future leaders of the free world, after all, have absolutely no obligation to honor Obama’s signing statement, nor follow in his footsteps.

Yes, our first African American president has changed much of the vitriolic language used when covering the topic of terrorism, and yes he has taken great caution to ensure that Muslims and terror itself are not juxtaposed together. For that, he should be commended. But by finalizing the ability of any president to deem persons — including U.S. citizens (if they so interpret this bill) — an enemy that could then be indefinitely detained without charge or without trial, he sets into motion a frightening precedent. As a former constitutional law professor, President Obama should be inherently aware of the impending ramifications.

During the struggle for civil rights, many journalists, activists and those vocal citizens working alongside Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X and other leaders suddenly found themselves targeted for their activities. Countless advocates became political prisoners and others saw their careers and lives ruined. Now at a time when we already have legislation like the Patriot Act renewed, and warrantless wiretapping is openly put into practice, this defense act not only indoctrinates AUMF (2001 Authorization for use of Military Force) and many activities that were previously in existence, but it also leaves open the possibility of silencing anyone on a level with which we never even imagined.

As American Muslims, we’re happy that some are starting to ease the negative imaging and stereotyping against us, and are instead open to learning more about what the Islamic faith truly stands for. As a routinely alienated group, we’re overly ecstatic when a program like All American Muslim actually portrays us in a light other than that of some extremist radical. But while we should embrace the boycott of Lowe’s for its open bigotry, and praise folks like Russell Simmons for stepping up to the plate to purchase ads for the program, we should put just as much focus into the potential of someone like a Newt Gingrich or Rick Santorum taking over the White House and having full reign to detain whomever he pleases. Just remember the Bush-era verbiage of “you’re either with us or against us” and the atmosphere of intolerance that permeated under his presidency, and couple that with the ability of someone with his mentality being able to willfully determine any one of us a “traitor,” lock us up and throw away the key.

If Muslims scaled back their activities in the community and their charitable donations out of paranoia over the unrealistic possibility of being tied to something suspicious, just imagine the fear that will ensue if anyone can be instantly and militarily detained over accusations where the burden of proof won’t even be on the accuser. It is indeed an alarming scenario that can (and in all likelihood will) give new meaning to the term reality — no TV required.

Nida Khan is an independent journalist and producer working in print, radio and TV. As a news correspondent for WRKS 98.7 Kiss FM NY, she has covered everything from Barack Obama’s presidential campaign to protests for the defense of Sean Bell.

Filed under: American Muslims, Democracy, Freedoms, Islam, Muslims, President Obama, United States, US Commission on International Religious Freedom Tagged: All American Muslims, American Muslims, Civil Rights, George W. Bush, Islamophobia, Lowe’s, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King Jr, Muslim Americans, Muslim Charities, National Defense Authorization Act, Newt Gingrich, NYPD, Patriot Act, President Obama, Racial Discrimination, Rick Santorum, TLC

By Len Hart

In our lifetimes, the best and brightest have been snuffed before our very eyes by the cowardly, unseen, shadowy exercise of pure evil and rotten ambition. The most prominent victims are John F. Kennedy who was, at the time, President of the United States, Robert Kennedy, a former U.S. Attorney General and candidate for his party’s Presidential nomination, Dr,. Martin Luther Kr whose ‘dream’ while liberating to right thinking persons was, in fact, a gauntlet thrown down in front of those who dare to enslave us. Those benefiting most from JFKs murder are most certainly guilty of it. It’s a question of motive, method and opportunity. The American right wing had all three. An analysis of the motives reveal a pattern, a constituency supporting murder as a means of achieving ‘regime change’.

JFK tried to strip the power of the FED, abolish the Oil Depletion Allowance, and ‘smash the CIA into a thousand pieces’. No President since has dared piss off so many powerful and ruthless people.

JFK tried to strip the Federal Reserve Bank of its power to loan money to the government at interest. The move would have by passed the Fed by restoring to the government the power and authority to issue currency. Executive Order 11110 gave the US government the ability to create its own money –backed by silver! It just might have put the FED out of business.

Some background and basic economics: to pay it’s bills, the US government borrows money from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. The Federal Reserve Notes are not backed up by anything. ‘Silver certificates’ issued under the authority of JFKs order would have been backed up by government owned silver. The government would no longer borrow from the FED to pay its obligations. It would have done so with ‘silver certificates’ issued by the government itself.

Like any commodity, Federal Reserve notes are subject to the laws of supply and demand. The demand for Federal Reserve notes might have collapsed altogether and the FED itself might have been forced out of business.

Executive Order 11110 could have prevented the national debt from reaching its current level. It would have would have made it possible for the government to repay its debt without having to borrow worthless ‘notes’ from the Fed and having to repay them later at interest.

Executive Order 11110 was never repealed. One wonders why no other President ever bothered to utilize it. Could it have had anything to do with the fact that JFKs order made him very, very unpopular throughout the banking establishment? In fact, JFK was brutally murdered in Dallas just five months after issuing the order. No more silver certificates were issued. The FED’s gravy train was still intact.

The ‘scheme’ preferred by the Fed allows the Fed to create money which it loans to the government at interest. The private Federal Reserve owners don’t have a trillion dollars to lend the Government, nor do they need it. All they do is create it, via a bookkeeping entry, and write a check to the U.S. Government as the loan in exchange for the U.S. Bonds. The U.S. Government banks at the Federal Reserve Bank so cashing this check is very easy.

It’s a scheme, possibly a scam. Certainly –no hard currency is exchanged. Government agents are never seen walking out of the FED offices –under armed guard –carrying bullion, coins, or, indeed, anything of real value. The Fed makes an ‘entry’ in the books! The government makes an entry in its books! And you thought you had to work hard to make money!

"If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around them will deprive the people of all property until their children wake up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered."
–Thomas Jefferson

JFK Threatened to Repeal the ‘Oil Depletion Allowance’!

It’s always been about the ‘price of oil’ at the wellhead and the profits that accrue to ‘big oil’! Having grown up in Texas, I can vouch for the following very short, illustrative history: "Ross Sterling, the former owner of Humble Oil, was elected governor of Texas and took office on 20th January, 1931. The Texas Railroad Commission, under the control of the large oil producers, attempted to limit the production of oil (prorationing) in the new fields of East Texas. On 31st July, 1931, the federal court in Houston sided with a group of independent oil producers and ruled that the Texas Railroad Commission had no right to impose prorationing."

Large oil companies in Texas such as Humble Oil were in favour of prorationing and Sterling came under great pressure to intervene. On 16th August, 1931, Sterling declared martial law in Rusk, Upshur, Gregg and Smith counties. In his proclamation Sterling declared that the independent oil producers in these counties were "in a state of insurrection" and that the "reckless and illegal exploitation of (oil) must be stopped until such time as the said resources may be properly conserved and developed under the protection of the civil authorities".
Sterling now ordered the commander of the Texas National Guard, Jacob F. Wolters, to "without delay shut down each and every producing crude oil well and/or producing well of natural gas". Wolters who was the chief lobbyist of several major oil companies in Texas, readily agreed to this action. Wolters used more than a thousand troops to make sure that the oil wells in East Texas ceased production. The Texas Railroad Commission was now in firm control of the world’s most prolific oil fields. It now controlled the supply of the oil in the United States. As a result, the price of oil began to increase." –Texas Oil Industry and the Assassination of JFK

Humble later became "Exxon". It is not only prices but profits. Big oil was literally guaranteed huge profits by another bit of accounting legerdemain: the oil depletion allowance. the ‘oil depletion allowance’ is like depreciation but more abstract. Depreciation is often visible. Machines wear out, the loss of utility is real. From an accounting standpoint, the ‘oil depletion allowance’ is just a whopping write off, literally a pay off for the oil you will not find later! Now –how would like to be paid now for the money you won’t make later when the business you’re in now is no longer profitable?

Sweet deal, perhaps even better than the ‘sweet deal’ the FED got. I can think of no other industry that has managed to so effectively shake down the government. I can think of few businesses in which you are paid upfront the money you will not make at some point in the future.

By 1962, JFK sealed his fate. He decided to take on the Texas oil industry. He persuaded Congress to ‘remove the distinction between repatriated profits and profits reinvested abroad’. The law applied to all industries but seemed to affect the oil industry particularly. Texas oil fat cats watched earnings from foreign investments fall by one half –or from 30 per cent to 15 per cent.

As President, LBJ, abandoned plans to abolish the oil industry’s sacred cow, the cow it regularly milked. The oil depletion allowance was not disallowed until the Presidency of Jimmy Carter who is still reviled in Texas. One would never suspect that Carter is among the TOP Presidents in terms of economic performance. At that, Carter is among the fortunate; it is only his ‘record’ that has been assassinated.

JFK Threatend to ‘smash the CIA into a thousand pieces’

We know that the CIA had conspired with ‘cuban exiles’ in Florida to assist in the invasion of Cuba. Both entities acted without authorization from the government, without a declaration of war from Congress which alone has the power to declare war –or so says that ‘goddamned piece of paper’, the US constitution.

Certainly, because of Cuba, the CIA was more motivated to murder JFK than was Lee Harvey Oswald. The CIA saw Kennedy as a threat to "national security" and, from the CIA/Cuban exile perspective, he proved it when he refused to order air support during the Bay of Pigs invasion. The axis of CIA/Cuban exiles never forgave JFK this ‘act of betrayal’.

It is at this time in our history that the name George Bush comes up. It was in 1959 –the year that Fidel Castro seized power in Cuba–that George Bush set up Zapata Offshore in a Houston headquarters.

George must have been a frequent visitor to New Orleans. Because of his family’s estate on Jupiter Island, he would also have been a frequent visitor to the Hobe Sound area. And then, there were Zapata Offshore drilling operations in the Florida Strait. On all of these activities, the official "red Studebaker" biographical material and the Zapata Offshore annual reports are extremely cryptic.
…

According to Joseph McBride of The Nation, "a source with close connections to the intelligence community confirms that Bush started working for the agency in 1960 or 1961, using his oil business as a cover for clandestine activities." 1 By the time of the Kennedy assassination, we have an official FBI document which refers to "Mr. George Bush of the Central Intelligence Agency," and despite official disclaimers there is every reason to think that this is indeed the man in the White House today. The mystery of George Bush as a possible covert operator hinges on four points, each one of which represents one of the great political and espionage scandals of postwar American history. These four cardinal points are:

The abortive Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba, launched on April 16-17, 1961, prepared with the assistance of the CIA’s "Miami Station" (also known under the code name JM/WAVE). After the failure of the amphibious landings of Brigade 2506, Miami station, under the leadership of Theodore Shackley, became the focus for Operation Mongoose, a series of covert operations directed against Castro, Cuba, and possibly other targets.

The assassination of President John F. Kennedy in Dallas on November 22, 1963, and the coverup of those responsible for this crime. The Watergate scandal, beginning with an April, 1971 visit to Miami, Florida by E. Howard Hunt on the tenth anniversary of the Bay of Pigs invasion to recruit operatives for the White House Special Investigations Unit (the "Plumbers" and later Watergate burglars) from among Cuban-American Bay of Pigs veterans.
The Iran-contra affair, which became a public scandal during October-November 1986, several of whose central figures, such as Felix Rodriguez, were also veterans of the Bay of Pigs.

George Bush’s role in both Watergate and the October surprise/Iran-contra complex will be treated in detail at later points in this book. Right now it is important to see that thirty years of covert operations, in many respects, form a single continuous whole. This is especially true in regard to the dramatis personae. Georgie Anne Geyer points to the obvious in a recent book: "…an entire new Cuban cadre now emerged from the Bay of Pigs.

The names Howard Hunt, Bernard Barker, Rolando Martinez, Felix Rodriguez and Eugenio Martinez would, in the next quarter century, pop up, often decisively, over and over again in the most dangerous American foreign policy crises.

There were Cubans flying missions for the CIA in the Congo and even for the Portuguese in Africa; Cubans were the burglars of Watergate; Cubans played key roles in Nicaragua, in Irangate, in the American move into the Persian Gulf." 2 Felix Rodriguez tells us that he was infiltrated into Cuba with the other members of the "Grey Team" in conjunction with the Bay of Pigs landings; this is the same man we will find directing the contra supply effort in central American during the 1980′s, working under the direct supervision of Don Gregg and George Bush. 3 Theodore Shackley, the JM/WAVE station chief, will later show up in Bush’s 1979-80 presidential campaign.
…
This FBI document identifying George Bush as a CIA agent in November, 1963 was first published by Joseph McBride in The Nation in July, 1988, just before Bush received the Republican nomination for president. McBride’s source observed: "I know [Bush] was involved in the Caribbean. I know he was involved in the suppression of things after the Kennedy assassination. There was a very definite worry that some Cuban groups were going to move against Castro and attempt to blame it on the CIA."
–Webster G. Tarpley & Anton Chaitkin, George Bush: The Unauthorized Biography — by Webster G. Tarpley & Anton Chaitkin, CHAPTER VIII-b – THE BAY OF PIGS AND THE KENNEDY ASSASSINATION

I recently quoted Albert Speer’s summation of the Third Reich which, for so long, he served admirably with the best fascist architecture Reichsmarks could buy! Speer summed up the Third Reich. He said that it had been built upon hollow, meaningless platitudes. The same can be said of the GOP in America: "George Bush’s inaugural address of January 21, 1989, was on the whole an eminently colorless and forgettable oration. The speech was for the most part a rehash of the tired demagogy of Bush’s election campaign, with the ritual references to "a thousand points of light" and the hollow pledge that when it came to the drug inundation which Bush had supposedly been fighting for most of the decade…
Bush’s performance during the Panama crisis was especially ominous because of the president’s clearly emerging mental imbalance. Several outbursts during the Noriega press conferences had resembled genuine public fits. Racist and sexual obsessions were reaching critical mass in Bush’s subconscious. These gross phenomena did not receive the attention they would have merited from journalists, television commentators, and pundits, who rather preferred studiously to ignore them. It was during these waning days of 1989 that Bush’s mental disintegration became unmistakeable, foreshadowing the greater furors yet to come." — Chapter XXIII, The End of History

How will we remember the ‘presidency’ since the murder of JFK? I will remember these years for what was not accomplished because JFK was murdered –the dreams that are still unfulfilled, the hopes that were dashed! I will remember an era of GOP dominance distinguished by its celebration of mediocrity. I will remember a GOP that rewarded crookery and made of evil a banality. It took a horrible war and millions of deaths to crush the Third Reich! What will it take to crush the oppressive GOP dominion of some fifty years? Please tell me! We have work to do.

By Ghazala Akbar:

Sonia Gandhi once imperiously remarked that the Indians need not bother going to war with Pakistan anymore, the invasion of Indian TV was enough. She had a point. For a while, the murderous machinations and dynastic power- struggles of Indian soaps had people hooked.  Not anymore. Indian soaps are passé. The gripping political drama unfolding daily on our TV screens is a serious challenge not just to Bollywood but Hollywood too. Over the past year, every genre has been represented: tragedy, high comedy, farce, buffoonery, drama, action, war, murder, spy thrillers, musical extravaganzas and a bit of soft porn too.

Such is the quality of live political theatre that I cannot remember the last time I watched a film on television. Who needs expensive blockbusters from across the border to feed our fantasies? Why would anyone go channel surfacing — when our rulers, allies, security forces, politicians, cricketers and celebrities provide non – stop 24/7 entertainment? Who needs a burger when we can all have steak at home!

2011 began tragically with murder most foul — the death of the Punjab Governor, Salmaan Taseer, heroically championing the cause of a poor Christian woman, sentenced for blasphemy. If that wasn’t maudlin enough, what followed was a worse tear- jerker. Clerics — usually in surplus in Pakistan suddenly became scarce – too scared to lead the funeral prayers for the slain Governor.

The final dénouement in the sorry tale was the odious spectacle of the self- confessed smiling assassin showered with rose petals by Lawyers — the very same that had marched up and down Constitution Avenue in support of the Rule of Law. Thankfully, a judge had the courage of his convictions to sentence the killer. The long-awaited decision of the Appeal Court is another story.

February brought us an international spy thriller complete with a car chase, shootings and carnage in the streets of Lahore. Footage of the arrest and interrogation of Raymond Davis by the ‘Keystone Cops’ of the Punjab Police went viral. Intriguingly, a miniature camera located between the suspect’s feet activated the filming. A support car coming to his ‘rescue’ also ran over a couple of bystanders adding to the body count. And just who was this trigger – happy, gun – toting suspect? A ‘diplomat’ allegedly fleeing armed motor- cycled muggers at a busy intersection in Lahore who just had to shoot in self- defence. Naturally.

No less a personage than the US President vouched for his credentials. And since we are a hospitable, law- abiding people who honour diplomatic immunity, we bent over backwards to find ways to absolve him of guilt. Shariah law ironically came to the rescue. A clause was invoked and Davis ‘forgiven’ after the payment of blood money to the victims’ families– but– not before another sad twist : the young wife of one of the ‘alleged robbers’ overcome with grief, ended her own life. End of story.

The ides of March claimed yet another fatality. Poor Shahbaz Bhatti, the outspoken Minister for Minority Affairs was gunned down for having the temerity to remind the Majority about the rights of Minorities! The brave man should have read George Orwell and learnt not to speak out of turn. In the State of Pakistan, all men are created equal but some are more equal!

Riveting as these episodes were, they were a mere trailer for May Day’s mega blockbuster: the Death of Osama Bin Laden. Without our censor’s knowledge, this film played to packed houses globally. Audacious US Navy seals  swooping down in helicopters, shooting their way to bag and bin the world’s most wanted terrorist in his ‘luxury pad’, was an instant hit worldwide.

Our US allies in the War on Terror, didn’t think it worth their while to give us a role to play. Not even as an extra. While champagne corks popped at the White House in an orgy of self- congratulation, we had to eat humble pie and suffer the additional agony of our picturesque garrison town continually mispronounced as A – BBOT- A- BAD! Surely, the BBC ought to have known better!

As if things were not bad enough when another scary episode sent us cringing for cover. Masked terrorists disguised in ‘Star Wars’ attire sneaked into a naval airbase in the heart of Karachi. Only the bravery of our security forces foiled their evil intent after a tense gun – battle lasting several hours. Reassuringly all through the crisis, the Minister of the Interior provided a running commentary soothing shattered nerves.

Soon after, another jolt shook our equanimity: the mysterious murder of a journalist, Salim Shahzad. Nudged gently but firmly not to poke his nose in sensitive matters relating to state or non – state actors, he did not take the hint. Neither did the unfortunate Wali Babar in Karachi. After too many questions about ‘target killings’ the TV Reporter became a target himself –confirming our prime position as a dangerous place for journalists.

In July, the citizens of Karachi decided to steal the show with a gory episode of their own: the killing fields of Karachi. More mayhem, more body bags and even more confused incoherence from the Interior Ministry were the main themes of this sordid drama. Not to be outdone, trigger- happy Rangers started their own sideshow. A petty thief, pleading for mercy was shot at point blank range, in full view of the camera in a public park.

Meanwhile in the badlands of Baluchistan, some unlucky Chechen men and women were mistakenly ‘taken out’ as terrorists by the Constabulary. In other areas, members of the minority Hazaras and ‘dissidents’ were being systematically decimated. Exactly who was killing who and why is of little consequence in this perplexing plot. In Khyber- Pakhtoonwa, the Taliban regularly reminded us of their explosive presence. Drones continued to strike ‘terror’ in South Waziristan adding to a continuous supply of new recruits to their cause.

The festival of Eid released Pandora’s Box, a brilliant, virtuoso, unrestrained performance by the former Home Minister of Sindh. His remarkable presentation received extremely high TV ratings – the dramatic use of the Holy Book as prop was an unforgettable highlight of the two- hour soliloquy. Several weeks later, a London production house came out with a four – hour epic. A vintage rendition of a golden oldie rang the curtain down on this superlative show that ran to packed houses nationwide.

Not shy of being in the spotlight, the perpetual drama queens, our star cricketers entered the limelight with a courtroom drama of their own.  Sadly, their coached appearances at Southwark Crown Court, UK were as unconvincing as their play-acting during the Oval Test in England last year. The show flopped miserably with Messrs. Butt, Asif and Amir reduced from fallen heroes to zeroes.

Come September, Admirable Mike Mullen took us all by surprise with his own version of ‘Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy.’ Mullen’s muddled story – line brazenly accused our security services of sponsoring a network of non – state actors and re-writing a counter script for the end – game in Afghanistan. It backfired. In a remarkable show of unity, the civilian government, raucous TV Anchors, politicians, ghairat brigades and the public booed and hissed in unison. Flying in to soothe ruffled feathers, Mrs. Clinton was publicly but politely accused of acting like a nit-picking Mother-in-law.

Mullen’s story however would not go away. It sprung back with a vicious new twist at the end of October. A rejuvenated and revamped Khan tweaked the tail of the Lions in Lahore with a spectacular televised musical extravaganza. Not only did fans dance in the aisles, his revelations rocked the boat, setting the scene for yet another blockbuster: Memo gate. A 007 wannabe got star- billing in this US- Pakistan joint production. Our Ambassador to the US has a dubious supporting role.

As we grappled with at the turns and twists of this complex saga, a brief exposition of Ms Veena Malik provided us with a moment of light relief. Then all hell broke loose. NATO helicopter in an incident of ‘friendly fire’ picked off our soldiers at the Afghan border, martyring 28 and wounding countless others. With friends like these, who needs enemies!

All this flak was too much for the beleaguered President who suddenly took to his bed. His unidentified ailment and dash to Dubai fuelled yet another mystery: the curious case of the missing President. Was his illness genuine, a reaction to the strain of the on-going Memo gate saga or something entirely unrelated? Who knows! Anyhow, it was short and sweet with a happy ending when the President returned to Islamabad with his customary grin. Who will have the last laugh is a moot question.

Finally, as the holiday season approached we settled in front of the box in anticipation of yet another extravaganza. (The Information Minister’s impromptu crying act on the morning of the holiday was a dampener but did not deter us from making merry). Billed as the greatest show on earth, the Tehreek- i- Insaaf spectacle promised to be like no other. For weeks, we had watched in bemused incredulity as self- proclaimed rebels and all the King’s men of yesteryears, shaved, showered and applied fresh make-up in preparation for supporting roles to the Rising Star, the man of the moment, Imran Khan.

Could he walk where angels fear to tread? Would the cast of thousands rally to his call? On the founder’s birthday, in the city of lights, by the dramatic setting of the Quaid’s Mazar, the Hero finally took centre stage. Amidst a glow and a roar, He came. They saw. He conquered.  Move over Shahrukh, Saif, Salman and Amir. We have the real thing, our very own King Khan.

Come December 27, we remembered Shaheed Mohartama Benazir and other fallen comrades. The cameras panned towards the dusty plains of Ghari Khuda Bukhsh and the graveyard of the martyrs in the towering tomb of the Bhuttos. There was pathos, passion, poetry and the evolving script of a new work- in – progress: the son also rises.

And so we come to The End. As we usher in the New Year, book your seats early for the next episode of Pakistan: 2012. It is still a working title and your guess is as good as mine. Will it be Great Expectations, Gone with the Wind or the Night of the Generals? Whatever we choose to call it, you can be sure it will be a sensational international box- office hit!  As Larry King used to say on CNN, Don’t go away!

Vice President Joseph Biden said on Monday that the Taliban are not United States’ (US) enemy — a statement later backed by the White House.       “Look, the Taliban per se is not our enemy. That’s critical. There is not a single statement that the president has ever made in any of our policy assertions [...]

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President Barack Obama is pressing his request that Iran return the U.S. surveillance drone captured by the country’s armed forces.

Obama said he wouldn’t comment “on intelligence matters that are classified.” But, he said during a White House news conference with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki that the U.S. wants the top-secret aircraft back. “We have asked for it back. We’ll see how the Iranians respond,” Obama said.

Iran TV reported earlier Monday that Iranian experts were in the final stages of recovering data from the RQ-170 Sentinel, which went down in Iran earlier this month. Tehran has cited the capture as a victory for Iran and displayed the nearly intact drone on state TV  U. S officials say the aircraft malfunctioned and was not brought down by Iran.

 

As the 2012 election nears, Democrats and Republicans are both courting the American Jewish community, although the process is inherently an antithesis to one of their key talking points.

Earlier this week, six GOP presidential candidates attended a forum by the Republican Jewish Coalition, condemning President Obama for what they say is a lackluster response to the Iranian nuclear threat and an alienation of Israel, the only democracy in the Middle East and one of our closest allies. That criticism is coupled with contentions that calling for the ouster of former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, likely leading to the rise of an Islamic fundamentalist Egypt, and tepid opposition to Syrian dictator Basher al-Assad are also main talking points to paint President Obama as anti-Israel, thereby attempting to entice many members of the traditionally pro-Israel Jewish community to help oust President Obama from the White House.

Meanwhile, President Obama has also embarked on his own courting ritual, regularly celebrating Jewish holidays with staff throughout his tenure in office and previously on the campaign. His annual Passover Seder’s began on the campaign and continued in the White House, becoming a highly written about event. Today, Obama also decided to celebrate Hanukkah … although the Festival of Lights doesn’t begin for another 12 days.

It’s unclear whether the White House’s Hanukkah celebration has been on the schedule for months or weeks. But one thing is clear — holding the celebration this week helps to tie President Obama with the Jewish community at a time when Republicans are trying to drive a wedge into that relationship and, as some reports indicate, Jewish support for Obama dwindles.

The fight over American Jewish support in some, but not all, respects hinges on a candidates stance on Israel. Comments at the Republican Jewish Coalition reflect that fact, as do remarks from President Obama at the Hanukkah candle lighting ceremony, where he mentioned the United States’ commitment to the security of Israel.

I’ll take the GOP candidates and President Obama for their word, that they actually do have Israel’s best interests at heart and are only focusing on their alleged differences to create the perception of being stronger allies to the only democracy in the Middle East, even though the true difference is minimal.

Support for Israel has historically been bipartisan, with many Democrats and Republicans touting their backing of Israel as main tenets of their foreign policy goals. Some presidents — such as George H. W. Bush — did not focus as much on this relationship, but our most recent presidents have made their support very clear.

The utilization of Israel, though, as a political pinball to score votes come November is antithetical to the parties’ supposed true desires — a safe, secure and prosperous Israel that remains one of the United States’ closest allies.

Israel’s interests, which are shared with the United States, hinge on the Jewish state obtaining support from both parties on Capitol Hill and the administration. That support can come in appropriations, U.S. stances at the historically anti-Israel United Nations, diplomatic leverage over some countries in the Arab world, and defense against Israel’s enemies. Generating political tension over any one of those issues could lead either party to take a stance that is not in Israel’s best interest for fear of appearing to cave to the other party, a distinct possibility in an election year when candidates attempt to distinguish themselves on as many issues as possible. However, jeopardizing any one of those avenues of support would undermine the claimed goals of both Republicans and Democrats to foster a safe and secure Israel.

Support for Israel should continue to be bipartisan, and Jewish American organizations courted by presidential candidates and Israeli officials should make it crystal clear that the political polarization of Israel must be ceased immediately.

Instead, while Democrats and Republicans haven’t agreed on much in the past few years, they should prove to Americans that Washington can work by cooperating to promulgate pro-Israel policies. That kind of bipartisan effort would foster the United States’ interest in the Middle East and keep Israel out of political cross-hairs. Both parties would benefit by proving to constituents that they can govern, while the United States and Israel would have their shared interests safe from election-year politics.

 

 

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The mainstream media gets it wrong again…after all I’ve written about spin, diversion, and just plain sloppy reporting on Fast and Furious, New York Times reporter Ginger Thompson lands on page A1 with a claim that DEA agents are ‘walking’ narco-dollars into Mexico and back to the cartels the same way ATF, we now know, has been ‘walking’ lethal, military-grade weapons across the US-Mexico border into the hands of cartel killers.

Bunkum.

US Drug Agents Launder Profits for Mexican Cartels isn’t true or fair or even journalism.

What it is, instead, is public relations, a business that, unlike old-fashioned reporting, is safe, simple, and sure to enhance the bottomline for all concerned–corporate owners, editors, and reporters. PR is the new news, the art of pitching client-friendly narratives by pinning them to the general assumptions and limited fact set of the audience. The New York Times is not the first to go, nor will it be the last.

The point is–it’s working.

Thompson’s ‘revelations’ are reverberating through mediaville–even Fox News is dancing to her tune–and Congress, the House Oversight Committee, no less (which has done a reasonable job so far of keeping its eye on the ball) is tapping its toes as well, its spokespeople rushing to substantiate the NYT report via a pledge to include DEA’s money laundering tactics as a corollary to the investigation of Fast and Furious.

Puh-leeze, Mr. Chairman, tell me it isn’t so.

Facts one might want to consider: Carlos Slim Helu, the Mexican billionaire seemingly bent on acquiring every media outlet Warren Buffet misses, increased his share holdings in the New York Times less than a week before Thompson’s front-page article hit the stands.

A staunch Calderon/PRI supporter and Forbes’ ‘richest man in the world,’ Slim, I’m guessing, is not displeased: not only does Thompson’s article reinforce the welcome (to DOJ) notion that Fast and Furious was a ‘botched operation’ (translation–inept and intrusive attempts by US law enforcement to wage ‘the war on drugs’ succeeded only in arming cartel militias), the piece also posits a direct correspondence between the tactics used by ATF in the ‘implementation’ of Fast and Furious and the tactics used by US enforcement agencies engaged in undercover money laundering investigations.

Message from Mexico

Note to USA–lay off those Bozo ploys to make Mexico look bad and admit, already, that the drug violence, the corruption, the decapitations, mass graves, the muzzling, mutilation and murders of Mexican journalists, the 40,000 citizens gunned down (including US Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry slain on US soil) on both sides of the border–all of it is your fault.

Yeah.

What Thompson has served up is an easy and false comparison, an apology for policies Mexico continues to endorse as alternatives to what it likes to call an ‘unsuccessful war on drugs,’ a slick argument that engages a lot of well-meaning citizens in this country, and that, thanks to reports like Thompson’s and the endorsement of such eminent vehicles as the New York Times, seem to be gaining purchase.

But superficial claims and specious comparisons deserve closer reading than Ginger Thompson provides, because the NYT article that ran December 4th, its subtext and its aim, is not to explain, but to persuade, to sell us—lock, stock and barrel—on a policy shift of someone else’s making that works to someone else’s advantage.

There is, you see, another view, a close-hold perspective that mostly belongs to the men and women who work in law enforcement—that it is not the law that’s failing the citizens of this country and of many others, but the people capable of determining the ways and extent to which our laws are enforced: politicians, political appointees and bureaucrats whose take on who’s right and who’s wrong, who should be investigated and who should not, is too often determined by political expedience and self-interest.

Let’s call it a case of conflicting priorities–not a new problem, right?

Politics versus the law

So, Ginger Thompson and the New York Times does us a disservice, not just because they play to our concern for the 40,000 men, women and children already lost to political corruption and criminal greed, but because they portray the commitment of the American people to the rule of law as naïve, misplaced, and unattainable.

Indeed, what the reporter suggests (Is this her aim or just bad research?) is that US law enforcement has proved it is unable to make a difference, that federal agents are bunglers or miscreants, and that, if we aren’t careful, the ‘good guys’ sent in to solve the problem may instead become the worst part of it.

Back up, Ginger.

Let’s consider the parallel drawn between DEA’s money laundering tactics and Fast and Furious: the latter, a ‘secret’ ATF operation under investigation by two House Committees and the Senate Judiciary Committee belongs to Eric Holder’s Department of Justice—Holder will be back testifying before Issa-Grassley investigators again this week about ATF’s ‘withdrawal’ of a February 4th letter his office sent to Congress disavowing any ‘gun walking’ on the part of ATF, a letter Holder now says contained ‘inaccuracies.’

Fast and Furious not a by-the-book operation

ATF’s Operation Fast and Furious facilitated the illegal sale and cross-border trafficking of more than 2000 lethal, military-grade weapons to Mexican cartels—an AK-47 used to gun down Brian Terry, a US Border Patrol Agent, on US soil has been identified as one of the weapons ATF allowed ‘to walk.’

The existence of Operation Fast and Furious only came to light via the testimony of ATF Agent John Dodson, a whistleblower who questioned the seeming lack of an operational rationale for the undertaking, and for whom Terry’s death was the final straw—as Dodson told Congress, ‘We were killing our own guys.”

Dodson testified that, contrary to prior ATF protocol, in the case of Fast and Furious, there was no plan in place at any time to trace the weapons ATF agents pressured US gun dealers to sell to ‘straw buyers,’ nor were there plans in place to interdict the weapons before they went missing in Mexico.

The weapons, whose serial numbers ATF did record in its eTrace database (imagine), would only be recovered after they had been used to commit a crime (generally a homicide), and Mexican authorities returned them to ATF for short ‘time to crime’ identification as weapons purchased illegally in the US.

ATF’s part in the sale and smuggling of these weapons would never be mentioned—that part of the plan was, in fact, in place from the beginning.

The Department of Justice and administration spokespeople continue to characterize Fast and Furious as a ‘botched operation,’—a description the NYT reiterates.

Whether Fast and Furious was, in fact, a ‘botched operation’ (just an ‘accident’), or a deliberate attempt (inspired by anti-gun ideologues) to use a federal law enforcement agency to supply evidence in support of Mexico’s allegation that the violence in its streets has been fueled by the criminal actions of US arms dealers is, of course, the question that could set the Department of Justice and the administration on its ear. While this kind of upset might be exactly what justice demands, beating the administration bushes for bigger game could boomerang, throwing a wrench into the best-laid plans of both parties to beat the opposition in 2012.

Don’t think this kind of conversation isn’t happening on Capitol Hill.

Politics versus the law

Again.

As a result, we have right now a bi-partisan chorus bleating for Eric Holder’s resignation, a move that might offer consolation (some hope) to the family of Brian Terry while at the same time preempting the need for a genuine investigation into a federal law enforcement operation in which administration actors, according to Representative Connie Mack (R-Fla), have almost certainly violated US law (the Arms Export Control Act) and made themselves vulnerable to criminal indictments and serious prison sentences—think Iran Contra.

Let me tell you what the New York Times doesn’t explain—the difference between a legitimate, ground-up, approved, supervised and outcome-driven undercover money laundering investigation and a top-down, unapproved, unsupervised and aimless ‘gun tracking’ investigation (linked to the murder of a US agent) no one in Washington, DC seems to have known existed before they heard about it ‘in the press.’

It blows the comparison, and the paper’s pitch, to pieces.

A legitimate undercover investigation belonging to any enforcement agency doesn’t just happen: its proponents typically jump through a series of hoops designed to guarantee that the ‘good guys’ remain at all times on the right side of the law. If they don’t, they go to jail. No passing go.

DEA and US Customs, formerly an agency belonging to the US Department of the Treasury, have been in the money laundering investigation business for a long time: today, DEA, under the aegis of Justice, and ICE, now a part of DHS, retain jurisdiction for money laundering investigations.

Here’s now it generally works, regardless of which agency is involved: an idea is born, usually out of real-time and real-world encounters with a criminal enterprise in a certain district or region (money laundering—LA, Miami, Houston, etc).

The enforcement architects of a counter-plan, an investigation designed to eliminate the criminal threat, take a proposal to a district or regional director (the Special-Agent-in-Charge, for example).

They get sign-off, and the plan goes to the next level—to Headquarters. Again, the plan’s supporters lobby for sign-off, and if HQ approves the plan, the request goes to the Bureau, to Homeland Security, or to Justice, for example, where it is scrutinized, criticized, and torn apart by an assembly of bureaucrats and high-ups—department directors, assistant secretaries, and the heads of relevant organizations (Holder, Napolitano, and such).

If the plan makes it through this obstacle course, it proceeds to a Joint Undercover Investigation Committee in DC, a panel of representatives from each and every agency that might have a dog in the fight. If ATF had brought the plans for Fast and Furious, for example, to this committee, DOJ and ATF officials would no doubt have been grilled by reps from ICE/DHS, the FBI, State, deputy US attorneys from relevant districts, and perhaps DOD. The list of players is flexible.

Armed with a detailed presentation, the architects of Fast and Furious would have had to reassure departments and agencies with shared interests and overlapping jurisdictions that the plan was legal, workable, well-planned, well-managed, and larded with deadline-driven, concrete objectives and measurable outcomes.

If the Joint Committee gives the plan a green light, the team of agents who ‘own’ the operation begin implementation, but that’s not the end. Every few months, the team has to go back to the oversight committee for subsequent reviews and authorization.

There is a rigorous uniform structure, a recertification process rooted in codified law and statutory authority, which makes it impossible for any agency or group of agents to abandon the reservation or to act without the knowledge of their superiors and the approval of agency, bureau and department heads.

Big questions

We know, from congressonal testimony, that this isn’t the way Fast and Furious evolved. So how is it that an undertaking which never passed through Committee review, and whose executors never applied for recertification, managed to stay up-and-running long enough to send thousands of weapons, illegally, across the US border? How could this happen without top-down guidance and support?

But that’s not all. Trafficking weapons across the US-Mexico border, even as part of a federal undercover investigation, requires exemptions to the Arms Export Control Act, waivers which would most logically be requested by ICE (the agency with jurisdiction for this type of investigation) or by DOJ from State (which issues the waivers).

But both Janet Napolitano, Secretary of Homeland Security, and Hillary Clinton, Secretary of State, have told Congress they were never briefed in regard to the existence or operational status of Fast and Furious.

What does this suggest? DHS knows nothing. State knows nothing. Congress, which the law says must be informed of any operational decision to traffick weapons valued in excess of $1 million, knows nothing.

But ATF agents in the field were told by superiors that orders to ‘stand down’–not to interdict–came from ‘the top.’

Think about it.

Then consider the DEA operations that Thompson attempts to explain in her NYT article.

DEA–sheep, not wolves

DEA undercover money laundering investigations are by-the-book stings duly authorized to trace narco-dollars back to their ultimate beneficiaries–or, in the case of ‘system-based’ money laundering investigations (which no one does anymore), to identify and dismantle the infrastructure on which the criminal enterprise depends. Agents jump through all the hoops, and believe me, Justice knows how to crack the whip.

Unlike Fast and Furious, which critics suggest was triggered, as opposed to impeded, by politics, money laundering and other undercover investigations can be aborted on short notice when they run counter to political or trade agendas too ‘strategically vital’ to disturb.

In other words,the political ‘overseers’ for undercover money laundering investigations (in the case of DEA, that’s the Attorney General of the United States, who take his counsel from the President) can pull the plug if an investigation ‘gets too hot’ politically and threatens the relationship between the US or the current US administration and a geopolitical ally.

The US is in the business of protecting its relationships with allies, especially Mexico, our 2nd largest trading partner, not jeopardizing those relationships. If DEA’s money laundering operations are on the up-and-up (and the strings DOJ imposes on the DEA ops, the $10 million limit on money laundered, the $500k limit on individual pickups, the six-month time limit, guarantee Holder’s office never drops the operational or political reins, so you can trust me on this) then Thompson’s theory about US agents laundering narco-dollars for cartel thugs falls apart.

The truth is that DOJ policy (and DEA is part of Justice) regarding the implementation of undercover money laundering investigations is so stringent that DEA’s efforts in this area are virtually meaningless, ‘baby operations’ capable of generating occasional headlines about US efforts to curb cartel money laundering (similar to the empty ‘drug tunnel’ stories that periodically surface).

Thompson’s article references a DEA agent who describes the dilemma when he asks what an agent is supposed to do when a trafficker approaches an undercover agent with a request to launder more money than the agent is authorized to handle.

“You have to do it,” says the DEA spokesperson.”Or they kill you.”

Such are the operational conundrums faced by DEA agents tasked with ‘laundering’ criminal money. Sure, there may be rare and unappreciated exceptions if an agent is staring death in the face, but DEA, given its current rules and regulations, runs money laundering ops deliberately designed to net mid-level traffickers, relatively small fish that ensure continuing congressional appropriations at budget time and decent press. Nothing more.

Ginger’s molehill-into-a-mountain narrative misses the mark.

Interestingly enough, the NYT reporter does allude to a Customs money laundering operation in play from 1995 to 1998, suggesting it was a watershed event in the history of federal money laundering investigations, and, in this case, she’s got it right.

But not for the reasons she thinks.

What Thompson doesn’t seem to understand is that this particular Customs (not DEA) investigation, tagged Operation Casablanca, stands to this day as a perfect example of the way politics has and continues to undermine the effective enforcement of US law, and the ways in which the advocates of realpolitik try to shield the public from this fact.

Casablanca was a huge success (which insiders say accounted for its early demise), and one reason was that money laundering policies within Treasury did not limit the amount agents could accept or launder to $10 million or less. Customs agents running Casablanca could accept up to $100 million, with long and renewable timelines, policies to which DOJ objected from the beginning.

Unanticipated victory

Here’s some background: Customs’ Operation Casablanca was a response to the misuse of Mexican bank drafts. Money launderers linked to the Juarez cartel were using Mexico’s banking system to clean up their drug dollars. The operation itself represented five years of work, two years of bureaucratic infighting (with DOJ trying to impose its own restrictive policies, $10 million limits, etc. on Treasury/Customs), and three years devoted to actual implementation.

Undercover agents first ingratiated themselves to black-market brokers based in Cali; these were guys who worked for roughly 20 percent of the 60 percent the Colombians retrieved after the laundering process was over. The brokers, who tried to move at least $1 million per day, managed smuggling and laundering for the Cali and Medellin cartels, using organized crime syndicates in Mexico to do the heavy lifting.

At this point, in the mid-90s, the Mexicans were still only intermediary players, but they were moving up fast, building powerful infrastructure in LA, Chicago, Houston, Miami and NYC, alliances still going strong today.

Here’s how the Mexican bank draft worked, a process Thompson alludes to in her NYT article: before Customs penetrated the operation via Operation Casablanca, traffickers were smuggling bags of dirty money across the SW border any way they could, and smuggling bulk cash is a bad proposition—the weakest point in the process.

Once the drug money reached Mexico, eager Mexican bankers stood willing and able to take millions in narco-dollars and deposit them into any kind of account, shell company, corporation or devise any kind of financial construct that might hide the origin of these criminal deposits.

What the Cali and Medillin cartels didn’t know was that the new best friends of the brokers they employed in Colombia were really undercover agents working for US Customs, and that when these agents volunteered to collect the drug dollars right off the streets in LA and other US cities, deposit it into their own ‘special’ accounts in the US (eliminating the need for smuggling bulk cash), and then transfer the funds electronically to bankers in Mexico, it was the beginning of the end.

After US agents wired cartel funds to banks to Mexico, bank drafts drawn on the US accounts of those Mexican banks were delivered back to the same undercover agents in the United States, who made copies of the drafts as evidence before sending the funds out across the world again.

When the money traveled, during this final laundering cycle, to accounts in Colombia, it was available to the cartels in pesos. When it went to the Caribbean, to Europe, to Asia, it materialized in any form and in any currency the cartels and their brokers specified.

When Operation Casablanca concluded in 1998, Customs had evidence that every bank in Mexico and several financial institutions in Venezuela were actively competing for cartel business, for billions in drug dollars.

Agents had over 3000 hours of videotape documenting criminal activity in LA, Miami, New York, Chicago, Italy, Venezuela and Mexico. All that was left was to make the arrests and seize the money, simultaneously if possible, to prevent the suspects from fleeing and the evidence from disappearing.

The take-down plan was implemented over a three-day period in LA, Chicago, New York, San Diego, Las Vegas, Milan, Aruba and Bogota. More than 200 agents from Customs and partner agencies were in place on four different continents, waiting to make the arrests and seize the cash. In every location, meetings were scheduled between undercover agents and the bankers, brokers and traffickers who had engineered the Mexican bank draft scheme.

In the end, Customs agents running the operation had evidence implicating every Mexican bank operating in that country at that time, 16 total, in the money laundering scheme. 193 suspects were under arrest for money laundering, conspiracy and other criminal violations. Agents seized more than $100 million in cash during its ‘seize and freeze’ campaign; the Federal Reserve issued cease and desist orders for 6 Mexican banks, and three of these banks were indicted and convicted.

Why only three?

Yes, there is a backstory here.

Six months into this particular undercover operation, the team running the investigation out of LA started to feel pushback from Washington, especially from the Department of Justice, which had battled to take control of the operation or at least to persuade Treasury to impose restrictions similar to its own on the Customs money laundering investigation.

As the evidence started piling up, as the list of suspects grew, and the number of Mexican banks possibly involved in the criminal scheme increased, so did the ‘noise’ coming down Pennsylvania Avenue.

During periodic reviews–those rigorous recertification reviews that ATF’s Fast and Furious somehow circumvented–the joint undercover team challenged the ability of the Casablanca team to acquire enough evidence to indict more than a few Mexican banks.

There was also concern about the amount the team was laundering (note: the cartels were paying the undercover team a 12 percent commission on the dollars laundered which went back onto the US government’s books).

And then, of course, there were questions about whether the undercover team had fully briefed our Mexican counterparts.

The answer, despite a NYT report by Tim Golden published soon after the operation shut down, was ‘yes.’

Customs insiders confirm that an agent leading the operation traveled to Mexico City to brief the US Ambassador, and he also visited, per the instruction of the US Ambassador, Mexico’s Hacienda to brief the Attorney General and the Deputy Attorney General for Enforcement.

The Mexican official, according to law enforcement sources, had only one question: How can we help?

The Customs undercover team told the Attorney General of Mexico that they would let them know as the operation drew to a close.

At one point in the operation, during the summer of 1996, the pressure to close the effort down (administration appointees continued to dog the investigation) led to a meeting with Robert Rubin, Secretary of the Treasury.

Rubin, who had been advised to join in the call to terminate Casablanca, listened to the team leader outline the operational successes to date, and suddenly he was onboard. Enthusiastic. And determined to protect the operation from outside and inside interference.

According to the agent tasked with briefing the Treasury Secretary about the operation, Rubin asked how many Mexican banks appeared to be implicated in the money laundering scheme. When the reply was “All of them,” the Treasury Secretary’s response was “We’ll end this when we put the last Mexican involved in the paddy wagon!”

More telling, says the Customs operation leader, was Rubin’s follow-up orders to the people in his office that day: “I don’t want anything said here today shared with anyone outside the group in this office now. Not with the White House, not with the National Security advisor, not with the Drug Czar’s office and not with State.”

Now, I may be wrong, but it sounds a lot like Rubin was concerned about avoiding political ambushes. What do you think?

As Casablanca drew to a close, however, in 1998, word of its operational details were in fact leaked to the White House, as was the startling information that undercover agents running the op from LA had been approached by a Mexican banker and a Juarez cartel representative who told the agents he needed $1.15 billion dollars belonging to a high-place Mexican official laundered as well.

That official, said the cartel’s man, was Enrique Cervantes, Mexico’s Minister of Defense.

When undercover agents sent that information back to higher-ups in Washington, the game was over.

While the evidence implicating all 16 Mexican banks was identical to the evidence that resulted in the indictment of the three targeted by the US Attorney’s office (Bancomer, which was shortly thereafter acquired by Citicorp for 12.5b; Banomex, and Banco Serfin), the US Attorney and Department of Justice officials declined to prosecute the remaining 13 banks.

The undercover team was told to step away from any request to launder funds belonging to a member of the Mexican Cabinet, and the allegation that a cartel rep had even made such a request was soon discounted, pushed into the background, and forgotten. One senior law enforcement official told reporters that the cartel rep had probably been ‘puffing,’ or exaggerating. The fact is that the admininstration never tried, or wanted to test that theory: Casablanca was shut down before agents had a chance to transform an allegation into concrete evidence.

President Zedillo, tipped off to the allegations implicating his Cabinet, claimed the Mexican government had never been briefed on Casablanca, that Customs agents had violated Mexico’s sovereignty, and demanded that the agent in charge of the operation be extradicted to Mexico for prosecution (an eventuality prevented only by a special act of the US Congress).

The Clinton administration, in an effort to placate our Nafta-partner, sent Attorney General Janet Reno to Texas where she met with her Mexican counterpart to sign what has become known as ‘the Brownsville Agreement,’ a document that prohibits the US from opening an undercover investigation into any enterprise involving Mexico without fully briefing the Mexican government in advance.

The upshot, of course, is that advanced briefings offer Mexican officials who may be involved in any criminal or corrupt enterprise the opportunity to elude investigators when the operation finally gets underway.

There are a number of principals who were close to Casablanca and the blowback it provoked who will tell you that the Customs operation was one of the last real opportunities this country had, not just to follow the money to its headwaters in Mexico, but also to dismantle the global infrastructure used by organized crime in Mexico and elsewhere to launder billions in criminal proceeds from every kind of underworld enterprise.

Unlike current DEA money laundering investigations, which attempt to follow dirty money backwards to its source, Casablanca was ‘system-based,’ meaning it targeted the Colombian brokers who acted as trafficking/laundering ’roundabouts’ or hubs for the Cali cartel, and who, as a result, could lead agents deep into the complex infrastructure that made the process possible.The idea is that destroying actors without dissembling the infrastructure is ineffective.

Enforcement insiders will tell you as well that it was politics that trumped law enforcement in the case of Casablanca, that neither the US admininstration nor the Department of Justice (which critics claim is invariably, then as now, a political handmaiden to the Executive) was ever willing ‘to go the distance’ with this particular money laundering investigation, and that after the transfer of Customs from Treasury to Homeland Security, DOJ’s restrictive policies, which replaced the rules governing Casablanca, have rendered money laundering investigations by DEA and other agencies ineffective in the genuine pursuit of high-level targets and infrastructure.

Congress should be asking DOJ why DEA’s money laundering investigations produce so little in the way of outcome. Issa should be asking DOJ how we can expect US law enforcement to uphold the law when the Attorney General has a chokehold on the agents who want to do it.

So, Ms. Thompson, are we straight on this?

Bad news: US Agents Launder Profits for Mexican Cartels is great PR but not much in the way of investigative journalism. The comparison between the operational tactics used in Fast and Furious and the tactics used today by DEA (not the wolves you warn us about, but sheep…) doesn’t hold up.

Good news: as a diversionary tactic, especially since Holder meets with the Oversight Committee tomorrow about Fast and Furious, it’s working. Good job. We can only hope that investigators (with prodding from Rep. Connie Mack (R-Fla) keep their eyes fixed on the real–and the real big–crime underlying Fast and Furious, multiple violations of the Arms Export Control Act.

Breaking news: The New York Times, one of America’s most venerable and respected newspapers, has published a front page article designed to convince readers that US law enforcement is aiding Mexico’s cartels in their drug-driven campaign of corruption and violence.

Why? Now, this is a story…

Why would a paper as influential as the New York Times blunder into this kind of FUBAR reportage?

The day DEA becomes “the world’s largest money launderer” is the day the Office of the Attorney General becomes an elective office and the AG answers directly to the people of the United States.

Truth? The facts in Thompson’s report are skewed, the sources selected to support a pro-Calderon, anti-law-enforcement perspective, and the processes outlined by the Times reporter are sketchy and misleading.

In spite of this, the message is traveling fast, distracting the public and Congress from the hunt for the primary architects of Fast and Furious, a DOJ undercover investigation that Representative Connie Mack says involved the violation of the Arms Export Control Act, and which may have been triggered, like Iran Contra, by the ideological fervor of political appointees at the highest levels of the US government.