SPECIAL OPINION “Continued”: Radical Fronts, the Drug Trade and Greenies

The Growing Threat to American Sovereignty- Part II

Originally published February 25, 2004 — Pioneer Press

Switch cocaine for pot, Marxist for environmentalist and the Andes for the Klamath Corridor and its difficult to tell these two regions apart.  Whoever controls the invaluable resources in the Klamath will dictate California’s economic future and our nation’s economy. The Klamath, as explained in earlier articles, is an economic resource for the future and wealth of our nation. As the Klamath is paramount to our security interests, there are groups “operating” within the Klamath Basin and the North Coast that have ties to Latin American movements, the drug trade and elected officials. This assertion, as outrageous as it may seem, is one that demands our local authorities investigate thoroughly.

Even the remotest possibility of any national criminal or foreign, semi-sponsored interests manipulating resource policy in the Klamath from behind faceless entities, needs immediate attention.

The Andes & the Klamath Corridor: A Red Green Connection?

Bolivian President Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada was ousted by coca growers and cocaine interests in the La Paz region. Evo Morales could become the first indigenous president of the failed government. A self-described “Marxist” who supports drugs and chaos, movements in the Andes operating within Mexico look to Evo Morales as a model for waging war on American interests. These movements may already have a presence here.

This is the theory of thought that would try and control everything. The thought that lead to the rise and the Stalinist regime. A theory of revolutionary war that was developed in China advocates a rural-based insurgency. Simplistically, it is a theory that strangles the cities by cutting natural resources. I stated several months ago, in my article, Indigenous Maoism and Narco-trafficking will become a cut and dry US national security issue. The challenge from Latin American movements or those that are akin to them may already be operating within US territory. The increase in arrest of foreign nationals with ties to transnational criminal organizations is exploding.

In fact, our nation’s sovereignty may come under direct challenge from transnational terrorist organizations with operational linkages to Latin American Marxist movements. All of which want to end our way of life and our nation through destroying the underlying foundation of our economy.

The Andes, a mountainous region in South America, is in great conflict. The Andean region has tremendous natural resource wealth yet the people are desperately poor. Marxist insurgencies operating within the Andean region place blame with the United States for the poverty and misery. However, the Marxist movements are themselves to blame for the human misery.

What the Marxists Want

The goal of the Marxist is to destroy private enterprise and freedom by any means necessary. Destabilization of democracies is a Marxist strategy that reduces private investment, reduces employment and increases despair and misery that ultimately breeds rebellion against the authority structure. Their goal in Latin America is to destabilize regions, create doubt in governing institutions and then collapse regional democracies under the weight of government over regulation. Does this not sound similar to a green strategy for the Klamath corridor?

Poverty in the Andean region is due mainly to over regulation, burdensome taxation and radical Marxist movements that have reduced the investment climate. Business interests would like to develop the Andes and thereby create jobs and wealth. However, the Marxists do not want stability that leads to investments which ultimately creates jobs. The Marxists operating in the Andes only want strife, rebellion and revolution.

The Marxist insurgencies are pursuing a religious ideology rather than what is best for the inhabitants. As such, the local people are forced into poverty due to ideological fanatics that see business investment and resource development as a threat to Marxist ideology and control. Does this not sound familiar to the green movement that is operating throughout our nation?

Drugs & Money: Compounding the Problem

The problem of widespread poverty caused by Marxist revolutionary tactics is the growing drug trade. The Andes is where the coca plant thrives. Coca is the plant from which cocaine is made. The Marxist insurgencies are using the drug trade to finance their war against local governments and the greater cause to limit the US economy. Does this not sound familiar to our local area?

A poor economy forces people into the drug trade and that alternatively finances the Marxist revolutions in Latin America. So, by keeping people poor and destabilizing the political situation the region gets no investment — investment that creates jobs that allows people to opt out of the drug trade.

According to James Carafano, Ph.D. in his article “Strengthening America’s Southern Flank Requires a Better Effort” states that “For one thing, regional troublemakers like Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez have reportedly been fanning the flames of social unrest by encouraging indigenous activists in Bolivia and Ecuador to rise up against elected leaders.” He claims that Chavez’ government is supporting the Castro regime.

Substitute President Chavez for one of our own radical environmentalist troublemakers and you have a pretty good fit.

Like in the Andes, the drug trade in the Emerald Triangle is the single greatest economic engine. The billions of dollars that originate each year from the Emerald Triangle must influence certain levels and layers of our public life.

Given the compression of time and space due to modern communications and illegal money transfers, it may be possible that local interests are closely associated with a broader movement in Latin America.

The Klamath Basin, in many respects, shares similarities to the Andes. The Klamath Basin and the entire Klamath region sit atop a natural resource base that is one of the richest in the world.

The resource base is one that can fuel regional economic wealth and help support California’s growing economy. On the other hand, shutting down the resource will lead to regional strife, reduce the inflow of valuable resources to California’s economy and have negative impacts upon the national economy over time.

The green movement has dismantled our economic infrastructure by attacking timber, mining and now agriculture. Through “false science” and “religious-based” environmental analysis we no longer are able to create wealth from our rich natural resource base. The green strategy resembles South American Marxist movements in that they are attempting to destabilize through destruction of the economy.

Even though our poverty is less miserable here than in the Andes, the greens have created tremendous suffering nonetheless. As a result of our inability to create wealth, we too are becoming increasingly poor and many have understandably turned to the drug trade to feed their children.

So, the environmental movement was instrumental in shutting down our economy through policy changes and now major environmentalists themselves may be the ones operating at the other levels of the drug trade. Are the greens providing financial support to radical anti-American insurgency using the narcotics trade? By destroying the underlying economy, the greens have created the conditions for the region known as the Emerald Triangle to flourish. Within this region the greens have all but stopped logging, mining and now farming. There the underground economy starts and the legitimate economy ends is anyone’s guess.

Locally, a group calling itself the Healthy Forest Militia, with links to Earth Liberation Front, was operating on the Salmon River. According to the group’s own press release, “We contest the legitimacy of the State and the Forest Service in particular, as well as other centralized systems of power.” In a San Diego Channel 10 report ex-ELF member James Pickering stated of ELF, “They’re only part of a larger building revolutionary movement that won’t stop until it has successfully overthrown this country.” FBI agent Randy Parsalated in the same San Diego Channel 10 report that ELF is similar to al-Qaida and the group shows new members tapes that teach them how to set up cells and create bombs.

A Protected Force

How have these groups been able to operate with relative impunity? We have become accustomed to and accept as fact that massive political corruption in Latin America stems from the drug trade. We see banking laws manipulated, state level police agencies tainted and major politicians supporting policy that empowers the drug trade. The corrupting influence of the drug trade in Latin America threatens the viability of democracy and regional stability.

Like in the Andes, the drug trade in the Emerald Triangle is the single greatest economic engine. The billions of dollars that originate each year from the Emerald Triangle must influence certain levels and layers of our public life. Narco-related public corruption, no matter how slight, reinforces the drug trade and allows it to grow its tentacles deeper into the fabric of our communities.

Who are the movers and shakers behind the anti-logging, anti-mining and anti-farming movements? The movers and shakers are right here in Siskiyou and Humboldt counties. Their movements, closely aligned with the drug trade, have an ideological basis strongly rooted in anti-American sentiment and Marxism. Whether or not drug money from the green movement is making its way to high level state officials that influence policy is a question for the federal authorities. If monies are reaching their way to the state house and influencing policy, then we may have a national security problem similar to Bolivia, Ecuador, Peru and Colombia.

I have often wondered if protestors, tree sitters, land conservation trusts and other green groups receive laundered money — knowingly and not caring as they are as ideologically committed to destroying the U.S. economy as are Latin American Marxists. Perhaps many people will think that is a stretch or at least a good imagination. However, given the religious fervor of the green movement and the parallels between green philosophy and Marxism it may be worth some additional inquiry.

Earth Liberation Front

How serious a problem would it be if dozens of front companies existed that laundered drug money simply to influence public policy? Drug money cleaned by regional or local banking facilities and then used as legitimate monies to influence and corrupt our political system. This was a problem during prohibition, so is it such a stretch that local drug barons are financing left-wing policymakers?

Once the drug money is cleaned it then goes to advocate for continued road decommissioning, water restrictions and other policies that facilitate the regional drug trade. The money goes to political campaigns or gets invested into businesses owned by politicians’ friends. The politician then advocates policy, knowingly or unknowingly, that helps the drug trade.

The people close to the politicians convince the politician to lobby this way or that way. Maybe we should all take a close look at politicians that have Marxist bents and that have advocated policy and law that facilitates the regional drug economy.

Given the irrefutable fact that Latin American narcotics groups are established within our borders, what is the likelihood that radical greens are somehow linked with them? Worse yet, how do we know that the Latin American Marxist movements are not influencing public policy with proceeds originating from the regional drug trade?

Next week, we look specifically at the danger of gangs within the US organizing around separatist ideology rather than drug turf as an operating paradigm.

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