Introduction
It has been posited that the U.S. international drug policies are not merely about protecting people from the harmful effects of drugs; from that stipulation it must then be asked what are these policies about? With a critical and objective view of this supposition, can such a conclusion be drawn to prove the existence of any such ulterior motives? The data below will answer the questions that arise in such a discourse, exposing in U.S. drug policies a full range of ulterior motives that have little or nothing to do with the actual properties of the drugs themselves. The same data will also help determine the exact motives and nature these policies adopt.
A good a place to begin this discourse is to with William B. McAllister's article, "The International Nexus: Where Worlds Collide:"
These [international drug] treaties make no attempt to impose a rational system of controls over drugs according to the dangers they pose to humans. Rather, the treaties are indicative of the power relationships extant at the time of their negotiation. Weaker states have to put up with stricter controls on substances indigenous to their societies. Stronger nations have avoided substantive controls on drugs the find unobjectionable or profitable (pg. 521-522).
This passage is a good departing point from which to begin looking at American drug policy. McAllister's assertion immediately casts doubt about the sincerity of the drug war. If one allows this supposition to be posed as a hypothesis, then the initial assertion must be that international drug policy is about power, but what kinds of power and why? More importantly, can this hypothesis be backed up further with fact? The answer is yes. As for the kind of power and why, beyond this initial hypothesis, I would posit that the power negotiated is one of the many pieces necessary for global hegemony: a power to control others by political, economic, and cultural means. As McAlister notes:
The available evidence indicates that Western industrialized nations, and particularly the United States, have had paramount influence in the creation and operation of the international drug control regime (pg. 523).
Given this stipulation, let the focus of this study fall solely on the United States, as they are the major pusher of international drug policy. The area in which the United States has had the most impact on directly is in Central and South America, so there too, will this work focus.
The book, Drug Trafficking in the Americas, edited by Bruce Bagley and William O. Walker III, supports the above hypothesis. According to them: "U.S. policy makers realized that programs to control the traffic in illegal drugs could help maintain U.S. hegemony over Latin America (pg. 9)." Seemingly, this is another piece of evidence against America’s claims. Yet before continuing with the full extent of the ultimate hypothesis, a better foundation must be built. In particular, for those who still believe the War on Drugs is sincere, the very roots and foundations of the American drug policy must be examined to expose its current charade.
The
Approach of U.S. Drug Policy
Government rhetoric would have its people believe that U.S. drug policy is transparent and sincere and always had been, but the facts hardly support this assertion. The first commissioner of the U.S. Federal Bureau of Narcotics, Harry J. Anslinger had this to say about drugs in his article, "The War Against the Murderers:" "I have been engaged in the war against the murderers. These are the men who control and direct the international traffic in narcotics (pg. 46)." Anslinger also used terms such as "narcotic agony (pg. 46)" when discussing his hatred for drugs. In another of his articles, "The Origins of Inter-American Drug Control," he says that:
The Government of the United States finally, in the autumn of 1906, approached several of the Powers more particularly interested in the question to see if there could not be assembled an International Commission of Inquiry to study the moral, scientific, economic and diplomatic aspects of the Opium problem (pg. 51).
Perhaps Anslinger was not aware that besides Britain, America was the biggest importer of Opium into China. As John Helmer notes in his work, Drugs and Minority Oppression: "Trade pressures [of opium] were primarily from the British, who were the suppliers, and secondarily from the Americans, who were among the shippers and go-betweens." This exposes an obvious disparity between U.S. rhetoric and reality. This gap between public policy and clandestine policy is a reality which has continued right into the present. In 1989, The National Drug Control Strategy, written by William Bennett, stated that: "Drugs represent the gravest present threat to our national well-being (pg. 1)." Bennett went on to state the detrimental effects of drugs on our nation on and including: "Crime," "Health," The Economy," and "Overseas . . . concerns (pg. 1-2)," as well as also being worried about the great "availability" of narcotic substances to Americans. Apparently this was indeed a very pervasive problem, one which sounds near-crippling.
Yet President Bush was not the first president to deal with this subject. President Nixon also made it a high priority, as cited in Charles W. Lidz and Andrew Walker's book, Heroin, Deviance, and Morality:
The habit of the narcotics addict is not only a danger to himself, but a threat to the community where he lives. Narcotics have been cited as the primary cause of the enormous increase in street crimes over the last decade . . . It is doubtful that an American parent can send a son or daughter to college today without exposing the young man or woman to drug abuse. Parents must also be concerned about the availability and use of such drugs in our high schools and junior high schools (pg. 58).
If Americans had only government interlocution such as this to go by, the drug issue would be very simple; everything would be very black and white. Yet it is far from that; the international drug policies instituted by the American government are notoriously inconsistent and are flouted by their own clandestine operations. The American government says that it is worried about drug availability, yet has always been either involved with the drug trade or looked the other way (which will be shown below) when it was expedient or profitable. These activities have since been blown wide open, yet are still not highly publicized. Perhaps for every article such as this, the American people will be that much closer to knowing their own truths. But I get ahead of myself; the issue at hand is the U.S. clandestine drug affiliations.
Nixon's presidency took place largely within the time of the Vietnam War and it is through this conflict that the discrepancies in American drug policy are exposed. Travner and Gaylord's book, Drugs, Law and the State, notes that:
U.S Law did not permit the CIA or any of its agents to engage in the smuggling of opium. The agency officially denied involvement even in the face of overwhelming evidence of its involvement. Thus the U.S. was implicated in the perpetuation of a form of state-organized crime . . . the necessity to curtail competition through violence, which characterizes the smuggling of opium, also implicated the United States in murder and assassination, as different groups competed for control of the profits and territory (pg. 20).
Not only did the United States engage in the active smuggling of drugs during the Vietnam War, but there was much more to its underhandedness, as the same work details:
In 1969, Michael Hand, one of the agents stationed at Long Cheng during the time when Air America was shipping Opium, moved to Australia . . . he entered into a business partnership with an Australian national, Frank Nugan. In 1976, they established the Nugan Hand Bank in Sydney (New South Wales, 1982, 1983; Nihill, 1982). The Nugan Hand Bank began as a storefront operation with minimal investment of capital but almost immediately boasted deposits of over US$25 million. This rapid growth of the bank resulted from large deposits of secret funds, including funds from the CIA, belonging to narcotics and arms smugglers (pg. 20).
This is a matter of record, an economic truth: a piece of history which should serve to alleviate any naive concerns that the American government is in the business of altruism. The U.S. government has been from its inception one of the primary traffickers of narcotics and it still is. Yet at the same time, publicly, it has waged an ardent campaign against drugs. The only logical conclusion is that the stated reasons notwithstanding, the other benefits of waging a war on drugs must have outweighed the costs of doing so.
Christina Johns speaks to this type of cost analysis regarding the war on drugs in her book, Power, Ideology, and the War on Drugs: Nothing Succeeds Like Failure, especially in her chapter, "Latin American 'Democracies in Jeopardy:'"
Reagan and Bush administration officials have been fond of talking about Latin American 'democracies in jeopardy' due to drug trafficking and 'narco-terrorism.' In doing so, they have attempted to legitimate the War on Drugs by claiming that part of the goal of fighting the war is to protect democracy in Latin American. However, the 'democracies' referred to are only those designated as such by the administration, and the designation of particular countries as democracies has little to do with political reality . . . In fact, the shallowness of drug war rhetoric and the way in which it is used to advance rollback goals in Latin America can be seen nowhere more clearly than in the selectivity of its application . . . As noted in the recently issued report by the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on Narcotics, Terrorism, and International Relations, the administration has been entirely willing to Ignore drug involvement by friendly military and political leaders as long as these leaders support the administration's agenda (pg. 131, 149).
Thus Johns continues to expose U.S. foreign policy as incongruent from its manifest intent regarding the illegal drug trade. This leads an objective viewer to several conclusions and possibilities. First of all, there is a blatant duality to U.S. drug policy. Second, there is obviously an underhanded motivation behind the public facade. This front is something that must be stripped away and explained so the actual aims of the policy can analyzed and examined. The broad answer involves the imposing of American agendas on Latin America, but what agendas and why? Also, what impact do these policies have on Latin America? For all the millions of dollars America invests in their southern allies, what are the problems keeping Latin American nations from developing? Does the U.S. have any involvement in this issue? The below sections will answer these questions.
Dependency
and Policy
To aid this investigation, it will be useful to discuss the concept of dependency. This is the concept that the world is divided into a center and a periphery, in which the center holds economic, political, and cultural sway over the periphery, perhaps even dominating and subjugating it. This is a form of imperialism without actually conquering another country, but exerting one nations' will over another. In modern models, this usually draws upon the nations of the North versus those of the South; the North being the richer and more developed, the South being less so. To align with the focus of this article, this work shall concentrate on the United States as a central power and as an example of the periphery, Latin America. Cardoso et al. have laid down a good definition of this scenario in their work, Dependency and Development in Latin America:
"The New Dependency." By means of this analysis it was foreseen how a general trend (industrial capitalism) creates concrete situations of dependency with features distinct from those of advanced capitalist societies. So, peripheral industrialization is based on products which in the center are mass consumed, but which are typically luxurious consumption in dependent societies . . . A real process of dependent development does exist in some Latin American countries. By development, in this context, we mean capitalist development.' This form of development, in the periphery as well as in the center, produces as it evolves, in a cyclical way, wealth and poverty, accumulation and shortage of capital, employment for some and unemployment for others. So, we do not mean by the notion of development the achievement of a more egalitarian or more just society. These are not consequences expected from capitalist development, especially in peripheral economies (pg. xxii-xxiii).
What remains, then, is to see if this model holds true for the United States and Latin America, and if so, to what ends? Undeniably, the question has been asked before and has yet to be answered. To find those answers, the nations and economies of South and Central America must be looked at more closely. Citing Johns again, there is a clear delineation of the exact problems plagueing these nations:
It is not really possible, therefore, to argue that democracy in Latin America is in jeopardy due to drug trafficking or narco-terrorism. It is more accurate to talk about obstacles to democratic development . . . The major threats to the development of democratic institutions in Latin America are poverty, widening disparities between the rich and the poor, the external debt, oligarchic control, reliance on export agriculture, and U.S. foreign policy (pg. 134).
Again we are given evidence that American rhetoric involving drug trafficking is deceptive and the U.S. involvement in these nations is less than noble. Even worse, is the discovery that U.S. foreign policy is detrimental to these countries. Johns implies a significant link between the two and backs it up later in her work. She claims also that the United States undoubtedly knows all about these nations' other problems and does little or nothing to aid them in these regards. Still though, the final judgment on U.S. policy must wait.
Looking deeper into the Latin American economies, Johns also explains their fragility through the dependency model: "The agro-export model makes Latin American economies dependent on a small number of agricultural exports, and therefore they are extremely vulnerable to fluctuations in international demand and prices (pg. 137)." This passage offers a view at the sad state of the weak, perhaps dominated, economies of Latin American nations. (Keep in mind that the international economy, which they are so subject to, is more dependent on the United States than any other single nation.) The few agricultural exports they have are barely enough to keep them subsiding, economically or individually. So is it any wonder they turn to anything profitable to insure their national solvency? The U.S. has been known to turn to drug trafficking, or at least the tolerance of it, if it was necessary for their own self-interests: most notably to stop the spread of communism: Richard Kunnes, M.D., in The American Heroin Empire: Power, Profits, and Politics, notes:
The United States, fearing two, three, many Vietnams, wishes to suppress these rebellions . . . Asian mercenaries are being hired and supported primarily by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), and to a lesser degree by the U.S. Agency for International Development (AID). Unfortunately, many of the mercenaries hired such as the Meo tribes in Laos, have been and are a major international source of the world's opium.
This is what America does to stop threats to its "national security" half way around the world? What might it do to protect foreign interests much closer to the United States, then? Or returning to economics, what might it do to prevent its own insolvency? Undoubtedly, in such a situation, America would go to lengths greater than the stretch of drug trafficking.
Yet, in light of these dire situations, may not such actions be necessary, if not acceptable? Especially if one was to argue the intrinsic innocence of the drugs themselves, taking into account the philosophies of many, in particular John Stuart Mill, who in his work, On Liberty, said that "The individual is not accountable to society for his actions, in so far as these concern the interests of no person but himself." What many people consider nothing more than an extension of their own free will or simply having a good time, the establishment of America deems as a moral wrong. Why would America support something they have worked hard to classify as a moral wrong? Is it merely the choice of the lesser of two evils? Perhaps, but beyond that intrinsic judging of right and wrong and issues of national security, what right does any nation—even America—to push its own cultural mores upon another (keeping in mind also that not all cultures are so virulently anti-drug)? To understand, if not to condone, this behavior it may be useful to reference Melvyn P. Leffler, who makes the association between culture and national security, in his article "National Security." He says that "[b]y relating foreign threats to internal core values, the national security approach facilitates such assessments." He further goes on to say:
The chief characteristic of twentieth-century American foreign policy has been the willingness and capacity of the United States to develop and exert its power beyond its nineteenth-century range to influence the economic, political, and military affairs of Europe and Asia. This trend has manifested itself in the evolution of the Open Door policy, in the aid to the Allies in both world wars, in the wielding of American financial leverage, in the assumption of strategic obligations, in the deployment of troops overseas, in the provision of economic and military assistance, and in the growth of American multinational corporations. The national security approach helps to make sense out of these developments (pg. 147).
This approach makes sense of these developments, but it does not justify them. It is still one culture imposing its will upon another; it is still imperialism: something which supposedly has always been an anathema to American culture, to the "land of the free." Yet, this too proves false when one looks objectively at the evidence.
Looking back at the Latin American economies, one should examine exactly what drug trafficking does for these nations. Having already discussed the sad state of the Latin American economies and perhaps the need to sell narcotics or any high-profit product, one might ask exactly what benefits they reap from this commerce. In the article, "Coca and the Peruvian Indians, 1932," the Peruvian Narcotics Office of the Bureau of Health of the ministry of Public Works had this to say (and the following commentary of the article):
In Peru the present is not a favorable time to suggest curtailing any industry which shows a profit, regardless of its nature.
The above statement represented the current official Peruvian attitude: that they will not interfere with domestic consumption of coca leaves but wish to encourage cocaine manufacture for export with a close control over manufacture and shipment (pg. 110).
If this example of the need for exporting narcotics to aid a struggling economy is not convincing, look at a more modern example, again gleaned from Christina Johns' work:
In Bolivia, for example, it is estimated that coca production brings in $500 million a year (Kerr, 4/17/88). Penny Lernoux (2/13/89) has estimated the earnings in Bolivia at $3 Billion a year. This figure is six times the total value of Bolivia's legal exports. Lernoux, in fact has maintained that the economy of Bolivia would "collapse without cocaine income" (pg. 145).
If one was to put themselves in the Latin Americans' shoes, how could one suggest that they are doing something wrong? There is merely a demand for a product which they are supplying: fulfilling a fundamental tenet of capitalism. Moreover, are Americans not again judging these peoples by their own ethos, ignoring the native cultures at work? As Enrique Dussell says, in his work, Philosophy of Liberation:
The difficulty in my presentation is not due only to language; it is much more due to the different points of view of the philosophical thinking of North Americans and Latin Americans, the daily realities of the two being so far apart (pg. 180).
Sometimes one’s own culture becomes so natural that he or she may forget that there are other, different, and sometimes opposing viewpoints across the world. Dussell’s work illuminates these two viewpoints, one undeniably from a rich central power in the world economy, the other from a poor periphery player. The question that this leads one directly to is, how does this central power affect the periphery? Jack Nelson-Pallmeyer has an answer, as cited by Johns:
In War against the Poor (1989:1), Jack Nelson-Pallmeyer characterized the United States as a "counterrevolutionary super-power in a world of massive structural inequalities." The United States, he argued, "is actively engaged in a global war against the poor." Nelson-Pallmeyer cites General Maxwell Taylor's warning at the close of the Vietnam War that the "haves" will have to fight against the demands of the jealous "have-nots" in order to perpetuate themselves and their standard of living (1989:2) (pg. 142).
This proposes that America is willing to keep the poor nations down in order to keep itself on top of the social ladder, creating a sort of artificial Darwinism by stacking the deck in their favor. What remains, then, is to prove this assertion.
Many points of view on drug policy have been argued herre, as presented by opposing structures in the world economy, however, let these truths stand against the other and see what happens, beginning with this quote from "Democracies in Jeopardy:"
Economists and policymakers want to argue at one and the same time enormous profits and negative economic effects. Robert B. Reich, a political economist at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, has argued: "unlike our other major industries . . . the narcotics industry doesn't have a net effect of creating wealth. It makes us all substantially poorer. In fact, it is like a reverse industry, tearing things down rather than producing anything" (Labaton, 12/6/89) (pg. 148).
This creates a powerful argument, for it has been stated that perhaps the Latin American economies need this drug income to survive. Yet this survival does no good if it only encourages a "reverse industry," one that will ultimately "tear down" these economies. If this is true the Americans pose a powerful point. Yet as a counter-point, Johns says,
The arguments of the economists about the negative effects of drug profits do not bear scrutiny . . . capital flight in producer countries can be attributed to political instability and U.S. seizure policies. If these policies were not in place, or if drugs were decriminalized, more of the profits would return and they would more than likely be invested more productively (pg. 148).
Viewing both sides, it appears that the America's so-called truths begin to pale under the ember of enlightenment stoked by the full picture: the American version leaves out crucial evidences, which is important in itself, for this presents a sort of deception by the American government, a manipulation of half-truths and certain points of views. America has managed to work the system to not only fool the center into their righteousness, but their own people—which is an important issue, but one that must be saved for later.
This deception and war of information is a serious charge, one not brought lightly. Yet here is another critic of American policy—focusing again on a model of the dependency theory—Louis A. Perez Jr., who explains in "Dependency," that
[u]nderdevelopment is seen as a function of the expansion of capitalism, not as a natural state through which all economic systems evolve. Conditions of underdevelopment, hence, cannot be examined solely in a national context, for development and underdevelopment represent two aspects of a single and simultaneous international process that are linked together structurally and organically. "By dependence," posited Theotonio dos Santos in 1970, "we mean a situation in which the economy of certain countries is conditioned by the development and expansion of another economy to which the former is subjected (pg. 135).
To put it even more simply, Perez also states in this article that "[i]t is not realistic to imagine that capitalist development will solve basic problems for the majority of the population (pg. xxiv)." Taking these added pieces of the puzzle and placing them with the larger image, we have yet another pair of articles which suggest the imperialism of nations through economics, not warfare. This mode of conquest for the United States has been judged acceptable in international waters, as well as along domestic currents; the losers of this war are far from the United States or their allies and are often incapable of speaking out, or at least not loud enough.
It is precisely this kind of uncaring for the Other which is detestable in U.S. foreign policy. It harkens back to the work John Stuart Mill, who stated in On Liberty:
In many cases, an individual, in pursuing a legitimate object, necessarily and therefore legitimately causes pain or loss to others, or intercepts a good which they had a reasonable hope of obtaining . . . Whoever succeeds in an overcrowded profession, or in a competitive examination; whoever is preferred to another in any contest for an object which both desire, reaps benefit from the loss of others, from their wasted exertion and their disappointment . . . In other words, society admits no right, either legal or moral, in the disappointed competitors, to immunity from this kind of suffering; and feels called on to interfere, only when means of success have been employed which it is contrary to the general interest to permit—namely, fraud or treachery, and force (pg. 95).
Complacent with its legal domination and coercion of Latin American countries, America has forgotten this last piece of Mill's wisdom: the negative affects of the use of force. There is unfortunately much one can do to oppress another and get away with it—which is intrinsically wrong in itself—but hubris has surfaced in the U.S. foreign policy. For all the potence of the American military, its political structure, and its public relations cabals and the threat and leverage this gives the nation, America has gone too far in its relations with Latin America. Worse still is the fact that most Americans do not see what they have done as a nation, so blinded are they by their sense of self-righteousness and invulnerability. America believes that all of its causes are self-evident and good. Yet, this is not always true. As with any hegemon, there are places in the power apparatuses where this lies becomes exposed.
Imperialism, Representation, and the Example of Panama
The U.S. foreign policy transgressions have been evident no more than in the American invasion of Panama. The United States claims that it went to get one man: drug trafficker, Manuel Noriega. They say that the people applauded the American arrival, happy to greet those benevolent foreigners who would institute democracy to a people who had been oppressed by an overbearing dictator. This is what CNN showed during the invasion. What do the Panamanians say, though? Read for yourself the statements of several different Panamanians.
Here is an excerpt from a speech by the Panamanian General Secretary of the National Federation of Civil Service employees, Hector Aleman:
It is important that you know that long before the invasion the workers had been waging and intense struggle as a result of the many forms of U.S. aggression against our economy . . . I want to say in the name of my fellow workers in my country; of those who were doubly massacred—who lost their jobs before the invasion and were then murdered during the military assault; and those of us who survived the invasion but today are subject to persecution: We ask the North American people, the working people of this country, to take on the responsibility today to make the truth about Panama known and understood by all the people of the United States (pg. 72-73).
These are heavy words, indeed, ones that state very clearly both the Panamanian position and the ignorance of the populace of the United States to the truths which exist beyond their immediate perception. Note his words, "U.S. aggression against our economy," “murdered," and "persecution." Loaded words, perhaps; yet one cannot deny the strength behind the phrases of this man, indigenous to the actual country invaded.
As for any discourse, however, one source is never enough to prove a point. Mario Rogoni, the Former Minister of Commerce and Industry, and Presently the opposition leader in the Panamanian National Assembly had this to say:
They didn't go to Panama on December 20 to capture one man, as they have claimed. They went out to destroy every military installation we had. They went out and took back the four bases they had given us through the treaties. Right now Cimarron is back in U.S. Army hands, Rio Hato is back in U.S. Army hands. Every base they wanted they got back, including the School of the Americas. They took it back forgetting about the treaties (pg. 75).
This speech directly contradicts the American report of the Invasion and explicitly supports the hypotheses of this work.
Yet, let one more piece of evidence further deconstruct the American representation before its purposes are addressed. These are the words of Graciela Dixon, an attorney for the El Chorrillo refugees.
We know that all of you may have a question. This question arises from the propaganda in the U.S. establishment-controlled media. I know your question will be, how come the people of Panama applauded the Invasion? It was presented to you that way, but the truth hasn't been said . . . those so-called Panamanians who said welcome didn't live in El Chorrillo, didn't live in San Miguelito, or in Colon, my home town, or in Rio Hato [cities attacked during the invasion]. Those people who welcomed the soldiers are from the rich, the ruling class in Panama (pg. 79).
Simply put, the U.S. did not go to Panama to do what they told the American people they were there to do, and its relations with Panama were not as amicable as it would have the American people believe. It must be reiterated that this, as in other American policies towards Latin American nations, is tantamount to an act of Imperialism, and it is an imperialism which they have dilligently kept secret.
Regarding the invasion of Panama, General Noriega had this to say:
The U.S. government officials who are functioning, physically, within the offices of the government in Panama imposed by the United States are a demonstration of the domination of the weak by the strong, as well as of its true interest in keeping Panama as a robot obeying the orders of Washington (pg. 123).
The words of all these Panamanians speak testament to the lies of the American government, and one cannot doubt that in this example, as well as others, that American Foreign policy is anything but imperialistic and self-serving; the arras they paint and hide behind is easily punctured, and once this is done, let the truth be found to see the American government for what it is.
The United States has abused its great power, instead of using it to help others, is rash in its audacity, and intrudes on the sovereignty of other states by invoking this power regardless of other nations’ individual wills. Even the words of American politicians themselves are overbearingly arrogant in their imperialistic aims. Here are excerpts of a letter written by Ronald Reagan shortly before his two terms of presidency:
I've read this treaty carefully from cover to cover. And in my honest opinion, it's a line by line blueprint for potential disaster for our country . . . 1) Once the treaty is ratified, the U.S. can't build a new sea-level canal in or out of Panama without the express written permission of the Panamanian Government. In the process of giving up our canal, Mr. Carter has also surrendered our rights to build a new one if needed.
2) Once ratified, there's no guarantee our Naval Fleet will have the right of priority passage in time of war. Our Navy depends on safe, secure, unrestricted passage through the Canal. But if we lose this short-cut from the Atlantic to the Pacific, we'll lose the flexibility and quick response we need to protect out country and our holdings.
3) Once ratified, there is no guarantee the U.S. can intervene to protect and defend the neutrality of the Canal. Despite the way Mr. Carter "interprets" the treaty, Panamanian's [sic] chief negotiator, Mr. Betancourt [sic], says, flat out, "The U.S. does NOT have the right to intervene to defend the Canal."
4) Once ratified, we must close down 10 of our military bases, Americans in the Zone will be under Panamanian rule, and we must pay [General] Torrijos millions more each year for the Canal (pg. 129).
It may be believable, from the American point of view to justify these kinds of statements. Indeed, if one looked only from America’s point of view, one might see nothing wrong such beliefs, as they are in fact, actions in America's best interests. However, this is not a workable model for foreign policy because it completely ignores the rights of the other nation involved. Mr. Reagan sounds as if he was talking about an American colony, not another sovereign nation: to an objective observer, this is simply not acceptable. It is as Mill said (paraphrased), that a person's right to swing his fist ends where his neighbor's nose begins. Just as one is personally responsible to his or her individual neighbors, all nations must take responsibility for the effects their actions have on others. The United States, if it were ignorant of the situation inwhich it has placed itself, might be judged differently. Yet, it is nearly impossible to suppose that U.S. policymakers simply forget to include the welfare of other nations in their policy analyses. They know what they do and how it affects these other nations; they know it is selfish and they choose to make these policies regardless.
Returning to Johns', "Democracies in Jeopardy," one can see the working of these policies:
Panama is an especially good example of how the rollback strategy involves subverting or overthrowing the government of any country that seeks "full independence from the economic, political, or military influence of the United States," not only governments that are socialist or left wing (Bodenheimer and Gould, 1989:3). The "new world order" the Bush administration is touting is nothing more than a vision of successful rollback with the United States in control (pg. 141).
By rollback, Johns refers to the rolling back of communism, yet that is not what it really is. The above passage makes that clear, especially in the last line. American dominance is what this rollback is about.
Evil Empires and Scapegoatism
Whether they are conscious of it or not, Americans are haunted by the incredulousness of their nation being able to justify oppression and imperialism. The answer is the same one Adolf Hitler came up with: only his blatancy in conquering was evident in his use of military force as a tool of subjugation; America has learned its lessons well, conquering instead through economic force and cultural hegemony, a much more subtle subjugation. And just as Nazi Germany did, America uses an immense public relations machine to spin its aggression off as something more positive to the public's palate and conveniently utilizes the tactics of scapegoatism. This strategy is highlighted in "Democracies in Jeopardy:"
'Global communist expansion' has historically been the most important part of the mythology that has legitimated U.S. expansionism . . . Narco-terrorism is now being presented in the same way, that is, as a grave external threat that the United States has a moral imperative to fight, a moral imperative that legitimates intervening in some Latin American countries and propping up puppet or reactionary governments in others (pg. 141).
If it is not the Soviet "evil empire," it is the "evil empire" of heroin, or of drugs in general (or whatever threat eclipses the war on drugs). This term ‘evil empire’ has surfaced in many government policy statements and speeches and when one looks to the lengths America went to stand up to Communism, with the Korean and Vietnam conflicts, the Berlin airlifts, the Cuban Missile Crisis, nuclear arms races, CIA assassinations, the space race, military involvement throughout Latin America, U.S. bases in over sixty nations, and so on, (one could detail this process through entire books) one must ask what lengths it will go to to win this "war" on drugs. If the U.S. is willing to invoke this sort of imagery, comparing these two struggles, to what lengths will they go to now? What won't the United States do under the rubric of stopping the trafficking of narcotics? Perhaps the war on communism was sincere—who can say? But the crime that the United States commits in its so-called war on drugs is its insincerity, the knowledge that the entire campaign being fought is nothing more than a front for a hidden shadow war, fought in the periphery of the American consciousness.
The two "evil empires" can also be tied together, inversely as the U.S. would, demonstrating yet again American insincerity towards the war on drugs. The U.S. has long claimed that there was an alliance between the drug cartels and the leftist communist movements in Latin American nations, thus investing one evil upon the other, creating a doubly strong moral imperative for the United States to act, to prevent the "evils" of both communism and narcotics. Authors such as Johns say differently:
While ignoring the involvement of government and military officials in drug trafficking in client states, the administration has continually attempted to create the appearance of an alliance between the left and the drug cartels. The drug cartels, however, have nothing to gain and everything to lose by a triumph of left-wing power in any Latin American country. The drug business is the epitome of private enterprise capitalism. And its natural alliance is with the right, not with the left (pg. 152).
Johns’ logic is undeniable. It is clear that America acts only for itself, proving only that what sounds good will be believed by the public.
If the United States was sincere about helping Latin America develop it would address the real concerns facing these nations, as cited earlier in a quote by Johns, or it would simply leave these nations alone. As Mario Rogoni puts it:
We want to make clear that we believe that nations need time to develop their own political systems. The United States took over 200 years to get to where they are. You went through slavery, you went through women without the vote, you went through assassinations of presidents, you went through everything getting here. You cannot expect another country simply to draft a constitution and apply it. You have to grow into that. Our people have to grow into the political system that best fits us. And when we get that democracy, we will cherish it because it's ours. It hasn't been imposed, it hasn't been forced (pg. 76).
Yet America cannot take this approach, because it does not enable it to achieve its policy goals. As each piece of evidence is composed, it becomes clear that America is implicated in a mode of behavior about which it has been very clandestine. The United States is a functioning imperial power that acts only for the benefit of itself, and at the expense of others. Its international drug policy is a key example of this, especially as studied through a model of dependency economics.
Freedom and Hypocrisy
The only question left remaining, which has thus far been unanswered, is how they were able to do this without such an image being transparent. Christina Johns quotes Thomas Bodenheimer and Robert Gould for the beginnings of an answer:
Never before in history has a great imperial power been as self-deluded about its political identity . . . The essence of this self-delusion is the insistence of American leadership on portraying this country as playing an essentially defensive and selfless role in world affairs during a period when the reality was one of unprecedented ambition and global commitment. (1989:ix) (pg. 148).
This delineates the front of the deception, but still avoids the nature of the ruse. They have the beginnings of an answer for this too:
The political culture of the United States lends itself to this kind of disguised aggressiveness. Many Americans want to nurture an image of innocence and decency, and yet most Americans want most of all to stay on top and continue to applaud clear victories in the Third World however achieved. (1989:xiv) (pg. 148-149).
This passage strikes home at the nature of this deception and in many respects the how of it. Americans are not taught a world perspective, perhaps no one from any country is; perhaps all peoples are taught biased versions of their own doctored histories and then expected to be patriotic to the cause and purpose of their birth nation. Arguably, it is little different between the blood bond between mother and child or father and child: in such a relationship there is blind love and trust. Yet if those parents are different than their children, are not the children allowed to be different? If one’s mother or father acted immorally, is not that child allowed to chastise them, change them, or even hate or leave them? And in individualistics are people not expected to show respect for others’ rights—or rather forced by law to do so—whether one wants to or not, whether it benefits one or not? Yet the U.S. government does not follow the same credos that any individual would be forced to obey.
As a preeminent world power, America should strive to learn a world perspective, certainly its educational apparatuses are efficacious enough to do so, yet for the most part, Americans learn only their own. As far as the aforementioned desire to be on top, regardless of how it is done, this to goes to also referenced American self-delusion. It is no better than Sophocles' Oedipus when it comes to American eyes; we pluck them out so to better stomach the world. When the older generations decry the apathy exhibited by today's society, as they are "desensitized" by crime, violence, and death, they say modern society doesn't care—and perhaps they do turn their eyes, perhaps they do blind themselves to the harsh reality of the world. Yet before one generation speaks too loudly, before they cast the first stones, they should examine themselves: what these people do is just as apathetic, for it is they who build the foundations of modern policy and cultural mores; it is their actions to which Americans blind themselves.
Sadly, there are few that do not turn from the evidence of American guilt in international affairs, ignoring or doubting the truth of what they read. Yet these truths have existed since the origins of the American nation. Herman Melville, in his novel, Israel Potter: His Fifty Years of Exile, writes a scathing satire of American policy following the American Revolution, which includes the view of how America thrives—or appears to—on democracy, independence, creativity, and freedom from tyranny, at the expense of those that made it happen. Nathaniel Hawthorne wrote The House of the Seven Gables on the misinterpretation and the facade of a monumentalized Puritan heritage, long secularized and integrated into American culture. Yet these works, written so long ago, have seen their messages ebb to all but a select few; partly this is because these authors are monumentalized not for their dissent, but for their conformity—or seemingly so. It is Moby Dick and The Scarlet Letter, books which despite their authors' intentions, can be used to form young Americans in the ideallic fashion. Educators choose these works and not the other two, because they fit into the image of America that people would rather see. Just the same, the articles presented here have been written and circulated, but still people do not know—or admit—the truth of what is happening around them. One must then ask why this can possibly occur, yet the data spoken to thus far does not suffice. Therefore I must suggest that there is one single reason—one reason that no article here has mentioned—that lies behind the cause of this farce: the Freedom of Speech.
Perhaps it was the seemingly nonsequitur defense of this subject in James A. Baker's speech, "The U.S. Fight Against International Drug Cartels Is Sincere," that invoked this line of questioning. The then-Secretary of State stated in that speech that: "[t]he drug pirates and profiteers attack the central nervous system and vital organs of democracy: the administration of justice; the integrity of government; the right of free speech (pg. 144)." This passage is indicative of the arrogance of the U.S. government—or possibly more so Baker's unfortunate, if not awkward, association. Regardless, this statement can and will be interpreted, if not from Baker's view, then from those members of the government who act in the way that this work has exposed. This statement hides in punctuation the key phrase, which is the last one: "the right of free speech." This is what the drug cartels strike against, and not because they hamper it, but because they expand it to the people and offer the public an alternative to governmentally-spewed truths. Note the tendency of people to take other people's words as gospel, and just anyone, not even an authority on the subject. If one man told another that 80% of people try drugs, more often than not, the other man will accept this as truth, and perhaps has no reason not to. Yet regardless of the veracity of any such statements, the mere utterance should not give reason to believe it: the same should be said about the government—which incidentally, carries infinitely more weight than just anyone—yes, they have the credence of legitimacy, professionalism, authority, and deliberation, but not the ownership of the truth. Too many people take the government’s words as truth and do not think about it, so when alternative thoughts and sentiments are expressed contrary to these governmental statements, they are seen as threats, attacks on the very authority of the government.
However, it is the U.S. tactic of dealing with these threats that makes them so impervious to immediate criticism. While nations like the former Soviet Union and other repressive societies silence, imprison, and assassinate dissenters, the U.S. lets them speak freely. While Argentina drives intelligent critics like Enrique Dussell out of their country, America will not. In these other nations, these men and women become martyrs and symbols behind which other oppressed people can rally; they become objects of sympathy from other nations and other voices still within their own borders. The United States has learned from this and allows its dissenters to speak. For all the time and resources any critic of the government may muster, the U.S. government can rustle up that and a hundred-fold more. The U.S. government uses its free speech to manipulate the tellings of its own deeds and spins them off in positive lights. Through the media, the American government is able to create the image it desires in the mirror of the American public. Readers here may notice that any author from which I have made reference to that speaks out against the U.S. drug policy as a facade or false, is available only in limited intellectual circles and not read in high school classes or the inside of TV guide; it is not these reports that are published in the newspaper, but the evils of the drug empire, and the moral imperative to stop it. The White House gets press conferences and almost any governmental officer has the ability to make his other words heard. What agency do single philosophers have? They have only a few pieces of paper (or kilobytes on a server) that they have not the resources to distribute or advertise properly, and even allowing that, not the authority to dispel the word of their government.
Do not forget also, that the freedom of speech includes the freedom to lie. In this freedom, moral imperatives are irrelevant in the base deduction: persons have the right to lie. Just as any anti-government rallier may lie, so can the government; and even more effectively, the U.S. has the right to accuse others of lying. Going back to Lidz and Walker's Heroin, Deviance and Morality, they highlight an example of how the government is able to discredit its detractors through manipulation of facts:
While expressive passivists had been relatively effective in claiming that they were the 'free' individuals in this society and thus heir to the great romantic tradition of the cowboy and the rebel, this issue seemed to put the shoe on the other foot. Instead of being free from the chains of convention, the counter culture was shown to be enslaved by drug addiction (pg. 72).
This was done during Nixon's presidency. Anyone who watches television sees it in anti-drug commercials and knows that this representation is still reinforced today.
I have presented a great deal of information as evidence to the fact that the U.S. has been misleading its public; I also believe that I have shown demonstratively that it has been enabled to do this through the institution of free speech. Whether one agrees with the content of this work or not is within the conscience of each reader, but if nothing else one should consider the enormous amount of resources and power that is being drawn up against the American people. Even if one does not agree this argument, one should awaken to the fact that the United States has the power to do this.
Individual Will vs. economic Will: Closing Thoughts
This work has explored current international drug policies, which are largely based on the philosophies of Immanuel Kant. Much of the here so far undiscussed legalization arguments are based on the work of a philosopher that has been touched upon: Mill. Yet neither of these men have the words to address the structural inequalities of power adequately. Therefore the possibility of drug policy informed by either Karl Marx or Enrique Dussell should be examined, as both are radically different from Kant and Mill and, indeed, pointedly divert from them at certain junctures. In particular, one interesting difference is that while Kant and Mill focused on individual rights and wrongs, Marx and Dussell work through classes as a whole.
Marx's work was focused on the worker and his alienation from society by the capitalist, the emancipation of the working classes from the tyranny of the elite, and global revolution; yet there might be something from his work which can apply to drug policy. An appropriate starting point, from the Reader in Marxist Philosophy, is the following:
In the social production which men carry on they enter into definite relations that are indispensable and independent of their will; these relations of production correspond to a definite state of development of their material powers of production. The sum total of these relations of production constitutes the economic structure of society -- the real foundation on which rise legal and political superstructures and to which correspond definite forms of social consciousness (186).
This statement directly refutes Kant, suggesting that men act not according to their individual will, but more by economic viability. This sets up a different context of looking at drug trafficking. If people are acting not on will, but on the sustenance of economics, then perhaps this supports a pro-drug policy, for as has been already stated, the drug industry is an important source of economic power for Latin American nations. By contrast, it also demonstrates precisely why a hegemonic power like the United States would be opposed to this power.
Marx also said that
[m]ankind always takes up only such problems as it can solve; since, looking at the matter more closely, we will always find that the problem itself arises only when the material conditions necessary for its solution already exist or are at least in the process of formation (pg. 187).
This maxim necessarily takes one back to the debacle of Prohibition and the negative consequences of America attempting to do something with which it was not truly prepared to deal. If drug policy-making was based on this theory, then the United States would most likely repeal anti-narcotic laws as they did anti-alcohol laws, for the unflagging U.S. demand for drugs seems to be what keeps the trade alive. Although, for these views to take hold and to allow drugs into society, the upper classes would have to believe these theories and see them from their point of view, for according to Marx: "The ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas; i.e. the class, which is the ruling material force of society, is at the same time its ruling intellectual force (pg. 199)." This gives one a base to work with, yet the determination of policy needs a better-structured philosophy before it can be adopted as an actual policy.
In another rebuttal of sorts against Kant, Marx says:
Therefore, man (the worker) no longer feels himself to be freely active in any but his most animal functions -- eating, drinking, procreating, or at most in his dwelling and dressing-up, etc. (pg. 299)
At first this seems to be derogatory, but he qualifies the term "animal," by following with:
Certainly eating, drinking, procreating, etc., are also genuinely human functions. But in the abstraction which separates them from the sphere of all other human activity and turns them into sole and ultimate ends, they are animal (pg. 299).
This is a very important passage. Firstly, the etceteras of either could certainly be interpreted to apply to drug usage, as they would certainly not be out of place in the above groupings. Examining the second sentence in the last passage, Marx says that these functions are animal when separated from other human activity -- thus implying that they are all acceptable when used in social senses (which suddenly is not so different from Kant). Narcotic use can also be seen this way, as many recreational users tend to do so in groups. It is only when the drugs become "sole and ultimate ends," does it become wrong. This is simply a different way to name addiction. Interpreted thusly, Marx would allow drug use as long as it is done socially, and does not lead to addiction, especially if it empowers weaker governments. Marx further backs this up by saying:
It [an animal] produces only under the dominion of immediate physical need, whilst man produces even when he is free from physical need and only truly produces in freedom therefrom. An animal produces only itself, whilst man reproduces the whole of nature (pg. 300).
Marx, it seems, is speaking of a great many things in this passage, but this may as well as include drugs. He speaks of items beyond physical need, producing freedom, and reproducing the whole of nature: these all could speak to drug usage. And to make his conclusion, he adds:
Only political superstition today imagines that social life must be held together by the state whereas in reality the state is held together by civil life (pg. 311).
That sums it up: if the people will want to use drugs, no amount of state intervention will ever stop that. The intrinsic value of drugs holds nothing heinous or reprehensible, it is the misuse of them—as is with anything—that is immoral. People must be allowed to choose for themselves and make their own correct decisions, not have their lives made up for them. Marx knows this.
And if Kant and Marx and the litany of other philosophers is not enough, let us return to the writings of Enrique Dussell. He is extremely critical of the current state of global dependency, and especially of what he believes to be the philosophic roots behind it, saying so in his work, Philosophy of Liberation:
From the point of view of a practical option, the world (Welt) for Wittgenstein, comes to be identified with "the sum total of reality" (Die gesamte Wirklichkeit) so that he says later on that the "feeling (Gefuhl) [of] the world as a limited whole -- it is this that is mystical." For this reason beyond the world "it is impossible to speak about the will insofar as it is the subject of ethical attributes." With this idea philosophical ethics is impossible: if "the sense of the world must lie outside the world" as that about which nothing can be said, one has to keep quiet on these topics.
All these antidialectical, antiholistic thoughts are perfectly coherent to a praxis that reproduces the system. They are the philosophy of domination or of justification of oppression because they are anti-utopian -- utopia here understood as the projected undertaking of liberation of the oppressed in the present system. It is a perfectly ideological scientific objectivity (pg. 186).
Right away, Dussell takes a stand against classic philosophers who in his belief encourage only oppression and a stasis of such oppression. Certainly, current drug laws as they are apply to this category, so it can be seen right away that Dussell takes a stand against this and any form of oppression.
To get perfectly specific to the topic which he is addressing directly, he adds:
In the United States it is possible to work out a philosophy of liberation from the experience of the oppression of the people by a system of consumption where the rationality of profit-making is beginning to show its true irrationality; from the suffering of the black and Hispanic minorities; from the humiliation of women not yet liberated; and specially from the ideological manipulation that conceals from the public what "the empire" does outside its boundaries to poor peoples that it impoverishes even more (pg. 195-196).
This statement backs up everything that has been hypothesized by this work and specifically addresses the concealment of foreign exploitation of the poorer nations. This "ideological manipulation," harkens directly to the subterfuge engaged through the freedom of speech discussed earlier, and this too Dussell would support in his own way:
On the international or worldwide level, alienation of peripheral peoples results from imperialism. Philosophically it is the founded on North American ontology. Militarily it is the control of the oceans and continents by means of armed forces and satellites that police the skies. Culturally it is the ideology of the communications media (pg. 71).
Dussell does not buy into the empty rhetoric of America, and if it were his to propose, he would not have it as such. He too sees the power of words through media representation. He too knows that the people of the periphery need to be liberated from the control of the central powers.
Regarding this he says:
Only in the liberation of the periphery, within the peoples of the periphery, in its oppressed working classes and rural groupings, is there the possibility of a future world culture that can bring about a qualitative leap to originality, newness. If instead the biological or cultural genocide of peripheral peoples takes place, the center will feed itself on the sameness it has ingrained within itself (pg. 75).
Dussell further clarifies this type of revolution:
This will demand the dismantling of the structures that anchor the distortion and dissymmetry of the present economic order, which permits and promotes the system whereby some derive benefits through the purchase of the labor of others, sold to the highest bidder (pg. 151).
Dussell has stated what he believes must be done, but he knows that there is a difficulty in overcoming the askew vision that the center casts on their actions: "Philosophies can be very humanistic (within a dominating totality) but, like that of Aristotle or Hegel, they justify the status quo of their own social structure (pg. 72)."
Dussell knows that these powers have ways of justifying their imperialism, and as such, they are immensely powerful. Not only that, but Dussell has the wisdom to realize that this manipulation is not universal amongst governmental or civic leaders, but that its effects are self-replicating:
Within the essence of the ethos of imperialist domination can be found the disciplined certainty of the bureaucrats of fanatics (more dangerous, because of their good and even virtuous consciences, than liars) who are faithful to their daily patriotic and religious duties with the unshakable conviction that they are advancing the cause of civilization, culture, democracy, and freedom by means of blackmail, corruption, exploitation, hunger, assassination—all the suffering of the periphery (pg. 72).
This is an accurate depiction of the fanaticism of the drug crusade in America: especially as it includes those innocents tainted by manipulation. Dussell is less concerned with drug use itself than with exploitation of the periphery. Yet it is for that reason that he would most certainly be against this so-called War on Drugs; not for any intrinsic immorality, but for the negative, imperialistic effects it has on the periphery.
However, would either Marx's or Dussell's models serve as good foundations on which to base policy? The answer is two-fold. Yes, they would both serve as excellent models if taken in faith, but I believe that this could not be done in today's society. America is already too ingrained with its own self-worth and self-righteousness; it is not going to change for anyone short of the next Messiah. Marx's words are easily construed to mean what one wants—not to mention the obvious biases that would follow his historical links to communism—as are Immanuel Kant's words, which the America Drug Czar, William Bennett, managed to twist. Both men speak in complex language that is easily distorted when it is taken out of context and fed to the masses. As I have stated in my article, "The Misrepresentation of Immanuel Kant Regarding the Use of Drugs," the U.S. government is using the monumentalization of Kant as a shroud with which to cover its real intents; I have no doubts that the same thing would be (or would have been) done with Marx had he possessed the same stature in American culture. As for Dussell? Of course any moral person, in America or elsewhere, would be willing to support the liberation of oppressed peoples, however, few believe America responsible for this oppression—largely due to the government's ability to discredit and play down such claims—and even if they did, most are not willing to act on such transgressions, as it is easier not to, but rather blind themselves like Oedipus.
Neither man can offer a solution to the woes of a country which has deluded its people into buying the innocence of imperialism even as it is cloaked and shadowed in the wings of righteousness: all the while the American government falls back upon red, white, and blue, and rides the amber waves of freedoms into the utter pits of oppression and manipulation, even amongst its own people, much less those of other nations. Today America’s global hegemony is centered on the illegal drug trade. But what excuse will they use tomorrow? As long as politicians can convince Americans to put their country first and turn a blind eye to the rest of the world, it will not matter what the excuse is, they will find something with which to control the world, no matter who they have to trample over to get that power.
WORKS CITED:
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All rights reserved © 05/16/1997 |
Michael T. Wawrzycki
Copyright © 08/20/2006
michael@verve.name