Category Archives: War On Drugs

[imagesource: Silvia Izquierdo / AP]

In 2018, as he geared up to run for the Brazilian presidency, Jair Bolsonaro was dubbed the Trump of the Tropics.

He won and is in with a decent shot at reelection ahead of Brazils October election. Former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva is slightly ahead in the polls but his lead has narrowed.

The list of Bolsonaros failings is too long to run through in full (Brazil has in excess of 645 000 COVID-19 deaths for a start), and his strongman rhetoric has actually backfired when it comes to fighting crime.

A case in point is the countrys war on drugs. The president has signed multiple decrees promising to crack down on the scourge with little to no success.

VICE is on the case:

This is how Brazils deadly drug wars have been fuelled by a president who thinks the solution is to throw more guns at the problem.

Who would have thought, hey?

After watching the video below I suddenly feel inclined to watchCity of Godagain.

[source:vice]

Read more:

From Bad To Worse In Brazil's Drug Wars [Video] - 2oceansvibe News

Snowfall

Comet/Commitment

Season 5 Episodes 1 and 2

Editors Rating 4 stars ****

Photo: Ray Michshaw/FX

The season-five premiere ofSnowfallbegins with the fall of a star on the rise. Opening up to a scene at the University of Maryland, a group of young college athletes is doing lines of cocaine. One of the bunch is identified to be none other than Len Bias the first-team All-American college-basketball player who the Boston Celtics selected as the second overall NBA draft pick in 1986. A bright future ahead of him, a 22-year-old Bias holds his green jersey up to his chest and saunters before his teammates with pride. After a few more lines, he grows quiet and grabs his chest. Panic washes over the scene as his friends scramble for help. Soon it is announced: Len Bias has died of cocaine-induced tachycardia on June 19, 1986, just two days after his draft selection.Snowfallpulls from this cultural archive of the 80s and situates the death of Bias within a larger story of shifting geopolitics, crime syndicates, and the War on Drugs as they facilitate the increased accessibility of cocaine within the U.S. The tragedy of Biass premature death reveals the tensions that heighten the seasons stakes: Last seasons drug game is not this seasons drug game.

The entire landscape for the drug trade has changed. With the opening of the southern border, the price of cocaine has decreased drastically. What the show argues once began asan operation intended to fund the overthrow of the Nicaraguan governmentis at risk of jeopardizing its viability. The flow of arms to Nicaragua has slowed, and as a result, the Sandinistas, also known as El Frente Sandinista de Liberacin Nacional, have been holding their own against the U.S.-backed Contras rebel group. In the first two episodes of the season, Comet and Commitment, we see how the shows most beloved (and loathed) characters have been holding up under these circumstances and across a varied spectrum of allegiances to the state and one another.

First things first, we have to talk about Franklin Saint. At the end of season four, Franklin must stand on his own two feet, literally and figuratively. For starters, he begins to walk without his cane, an accessory and aid that he acquired after being shot back in season three. And once his parents, Cissy and Alton, flee to Cuba to avoid retaliation for Altons whistleblowing, Franklin ends season four without a stable support system in place. And yet, as he has done time and time again, Franklin rebounds. At the start of season five, we see that our boy Franklin has moved up in the world, having established a few legitimate shell companies in real estate, bought a new home, and earned his pilots license. The infamous Family man has even begun to build a family of his own thanks toa new addition to the cast(!): his current boo, Veronique, a charismatic woman with a law degree who runs the real-estate operations for Franklins company and is revealed to be pregnant with their first child.

Now, we know that Franklin hasnt had much luck in the past with lovers. If there was ever a Franklin Saint edition ofGhost of Girlfriends Past,I would be tuned in but also very afraid (Melody shot him in the back, so shed undoubtedly be the final boss hed have to face at the end). Still, I am hopeful that Veronique will break the curse. What we know about her so far is promising: Shes a planner (Veronique has meticulously organized their lives in preparation for the baby, even color-coding their calendar!), and shes got a strong sense of self. When discussing Franklins fidelity to the promises he makes, she states that a man worth his word is a man worth me. Bonus points: Shes pretty funny. They just canceledDiffrent Strokes; Im really sensitive right now, she exclaims when Franklin springs some big news on her. Overall, Veronique seems like a safe bet. Fingers crossed Franklin will do right by her and I wont have to eat my words.

As for the state of the most stable couple on the show, Aunt Louie and Jerome, things seem to be going strong. In Comet, Jerome buys himself and Louie their own personal horses to support her growing passion for equestrianism. Flirtatious as ever, throughout the premier episodes we see moments of tenderness and desire between them, which suggests that the flame between them is still lit. Their love has survived a lot throughout the shows run, and chances are it will endure whatever comes to pass this season as well. Still, its hard not to worry, given Franklins assessment that nothing tears a family apart like money.

Speaking of family: In the premiere we also reconnect with Wanda, Leons ex, who finally got clean after being shot and hospitalized in season four. Despite the odds, she has maintained her sobriety and is still following the rules of her recovery. Though committed to honesty, she has found transparency with employers to be an obstacle to employment. Wandas saving grace, as it turns out, is a gig as a phone-sex operator. Forced to manage her financial frustrations and the sexual frustrations of her clientele, Wanda spends her days fielding horny calls that end too quickly and managing kinky requests that shock her (one caller asks her to step on his balls!). Her boss offers her a word of advice on teasing callers to keep them on the line: Hold the cream to make the green (OMG!). Later, when he cuts her checks to cover FCC fines and attempts to coerce her into a sexual relationship for her missing pay, she quits, frustrated by the way her life has become increasingly vulnerable to the judgments, grace, and desires of others.

Among the many recurring characters who returned for season five, a few familiar faces from Franklins past show up unexpectedly. Rob Volpe, a former classmate of Franklins who introduced him to Avi and helped his crew move product, reemerges this season in crisis. Rob witnesses a mutual friend of theirs, Thad Brenner, shoot and kill a teenager at a party in North Hollywood after the kid tries their cocaine without asking. As a statewide search for the young murderer ensues, Peaches and Franklin set out looking for Thad and pick up Rob to aid in the manhunt. Their reunion is cut short by Franklins realization that Rob has been using. Unwilling to trust him going forward, Franklin and Peaches go with Rob to confront (read kill) Thad, who is hiding in Palm Springs and knows more about their CIA affiliations than they previously thought. In the end, after Rob smokes from a crack pipe during Thads burial, Franklin decides to kill his old friend, who has become a liability. In a scene reminiscent of the look at the flowers moment inThe Walking Dead, Franklin urges Rob to look up at the sky to see Halleys comet (which last appeared in 1986)before he shoots him. R.I.P. Rob!

This season also sees the return of Teddy/Reed, the shows resident CIA operative and the guy that almost went down with the ship at the end of season four. After having his identity revealed by Alton, Teddy walks away from the agency only to be promptly replaced, leaving behind Franklin and Gustavo to interface with a new supplier. However, once new agent Grady Williamson is brought in to replace him, Teddy becomes restless and eager to get his job back. Armed with a bad wig and a new alias, Teddy goes back to L.A. disguised as a worker for the citys Water and Power Department (LADWP) so that he can check out his replacements new digs without arousing suspicion. As he discovers, Grady has been skimming money off the sales, causing discrepancies in supply and profit which have had major geopolitical consequences. Making matters worse, Teddy learns that Grady has been crossing boundaries with Franklin and his team, immersing himself in inappropriate ways. Teddy goes as far as to declare Grady has gone native (Note: this phrase carries weight and must be situated within the broader history ofU.S. settler colonialism and Indigenous sovereignty).

Amongst the many breaches of conduct that characterize Gradys lax approach to engaging with assets, there is perhaps none quite as staggering as his relationship with Black Diamond one part of the duo Black Diamond and Dallas, the strippers turned mercenaries who switched sides (remember when they set up Khadijah after Franklin offered them more money and job security?) last season. If Black Diamonds relationship with Grady suggests anything, it is that the girls have been wholly integrated into Franklins affairs. As promised, the pair are now gainfully employed and find themselves interwoven into the well-oiled machine of Franklins crew. Ultimately, this intimacy proves deadly for Grady, who, upon being confronted by Teddy, is killed for his extravagance and poor judgment so that Teddy can resume his role.

Throughout the premier episodes, the issue of drug pricing is a crucial one. As the market has become oversaturated, the need to stay competitive has intensified. Franklin negotiates with Grady to get the price down and increase the buy, which Grady agrees to in exchange for a joyride in Franklins private plane. However, in his first act of duty as the returning supplier, Teddy visits Franklin and lays out the new stakes, overturning Gradys agreement: Now that there is no more Grady, there will be no more price cuts and no more tolerance for loose ends. Franklin has no choice but to abide. Its your world, man; I just sell dope in it, Franklin retorts. Will there be any limits to Teddys flexing this season?

Drip Alert: Shoutout to one of Big Deon and Leons low-level runners who stole a pair of sneakers from them and, even after they teach him a lesson by bludgeoning one of his feet, boldly opts to wear the shoe opposite his cast-bound foot. He had to get his fit off by any means necessary!!!

Sunny in Suburbia: Even though he finally received that long-awaited file on Lucia in season four, Gustavo a.k.a. El Oso is certainly not out searching for his lost love. Apparently, hes been hanging out in the L.A. suburbs and cozying up with Xiamara, the sister-in-law of his deceased brother, and their nephews Carlo, Ernesto, and Cedro. I guess Franklin aint the only one playing house this season. (El Oso for PTA President has a nice ring to it, dont you think?)

Storms Ahead: At Louies club, we see her talk to a cop who explains that the police are in a frenzy these days. He agrees to protect Louie and her girls from the barrage in exchange for a scapegoat to serve up to the cops who are hungry for fresh meat. More busts, more arrests, more headlines, he explains is the new LAPD motto. Who will Louie sacrifice for safety?

Cold Front: At the end of season four, we see Teddy follow Alton and Cissy to Cuba despite agreeing to leave them be if they left the country. It has not yet been confirmed if he killed Alton or not. Franklin has had a difficult time communicating with his mom internationally, so he may not know the situation just yet. Did Teddy kill Alton? How will Franklin react if he finds out Teddy killed his father? Can he even afford to retaliate with so much at stake?

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'Snowfall' season 5 episode 1 and 2 premiere recap - Vulture

In early February, Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Menendez (and the ranking Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee for the Western Hemisphere, Marco Rubio), introduced legislation designed to counter the growing meddling of Russia and China in Latin America and the Caribbean. Unfortunately, beyond some language on human rights and civilian defense management, the Western Hemisphere Security Strategy Act strikingly resembles the U.S. approach during the Cold War, the last time that great-power competition guided U.S. foreign policy in the Western Hemisphere. The bills response to the harmful and malign influence of China and Russia hinges on bolstering longstanding State and Defense Department military and police aid programs. Making no mention of economic assistance, trade ties, civil society, or democracy promotion, the bill covers only a small piece of what renewed engagement should entail. A security first response was insufficient and harmful during the Cold War, and it is absolutely not enough today.

As the senators bill language makes clear, competition with China, Russia, and other powers has supplanted the Global War on Terror (and, in Latin America, the war on drugs) as the top-tier foreign policy frame. Todays reality, though, is not quite a new Cold War. The influence of a less stable, polarized United States isnt what it was, and the Soviets werent making Americans phones, computers, and other consumer goods like the Chinese do today. Still, the senators arent alone in their view: The Cold War urge remains strong across Washington. It would be unfortunate for U.S. diplomats and defense planners to slip into a familiar rut of backing friendly dictators and militaries in a misguided effort to preserve access and influence in this hemisphere.

That Cold War rut may offer comfort as authoritarianism, social unrest, and mass migration rise in Latin America, but it should be resisted. This time, the United States ought to contend with China, Russia, and other extra-regional dictatorships in a way that upholds Latin Americas brave reformers and insists on democratic norms. That would require a degree of creativity, courage, and coherence that have been scarce lately in U.S. politics.

The Lure of the Familiar

The turn to great-power rivalry in U.S. security policy toward Latin America has been sudden.

Every three years or so, the Defense Department sends the Senate a nominee to head U.S. Southern Command, the combatant command responsible for military operations in most of Latin America and the Caribbean. The Senate Armed Services Committee then sends that nominee, a four-star officer, a questionnaire. The 2015 nominee, Adm. Kurt Tidd, filled out the questionnaire mentioning the word China or Chinese three times. In 2018 the nominee, Adm. Craig Faller, mentioned China or Chinese 15 times. In 2021, Gen. Laura Richardson did it 33 times.

Longtime concerns like drugs, organized crime, and terrorism the former two having dominated security planning in the 2000s, since the hemisphere was never a central theater of the war on terror still appear in nominees answers but get less emphasis than before. Instead, China, Russia, and Iran (in descending order of importance) are a dominant theme in defense officials public remarks about Latin America. Legislators of both parties voice concern about those countries in congressional hearings. These malign external actors are regular fixtures on the website of Dilogo, Southern Commands online magazine.

The quick shift follows the U.S. defense establishments new worldwide priorities: The 2018 National Defense Strategy put great-power competition at the top of its list. Latin America is not a central theater of this competition, although rival powers have become more active in the past 20 years.

China is increasing its economic investments, trade, and grants for big-ticket items like infrastructure projects, as well as competing on 5G network hardware and on access to lithium and other strategic raw materials. Russia, with a much smaller economy (today the size of South Koreas), exercises influence more through targeted military aid programs, hacking, and propaganda and misinformation. Irans activities are marginal, but examples of its outreach to Latin American authoritarians do exist. All three relate most deeply to the hemispheres three most dictatorial regimes Venezuela, Cuba, and Nicaragua though China has major investments, and Russia is a top arms vendor, in numerous other countries.

These states activities challenge the quality of democracy and human rights in Latin America. The Chinese model of surveillance-state totalitarianism, the Russian brand of hyper-nationalist kleptocracy, and Teherans intolerant theocracy would cause human misery and harm civic life if they were to replicate across the continent. They could accelerate an ongoing reversal of nearly four decades of transition to democracy a transition that followed a period of brutal military dictatorships in most of the hemisphere. Most of these dictatorships, its important to recall, got important U.S. backing during the Cold War.

The Kirkpatrick Reflex

While concern about extra-regional powers behavior is not misplaced, neither are concerns about a repeat of big Cold War mistakes. In a 1979 essay that influenced Ronald Reagan, Jeane Kirkpatrick warned against alienating authoritarians by pushing them too hard to liberalize and respect human rights, as she believed Jimmy Carter did with the Somoza regime in Nicaragua. Weakening pro-U.S. dictatorships, she argued, could work to the advantage of totalitarian great-power rivals. It would mean losing access to friendly territory.

Many in Washington still believe this mis-learned lesson of the Cold War. When the stakes shift to great-power competition, this view holds, protecting democracy can become a luxury. States that offer access and cooperation deserve U.S. assistance including military aid regardless of their adherence to liberal norms.

It was in that vein that the Heritage Foundation hosted Guatemalas president in December 2021 when the Biden administration refused to invite him to its Democracy Summit that same week. Heritage argued that Alejandro Giammattei was a critical U.S. partner against the rising threat of China. Heritage portrayed the Guatemalan president as leading one of the regions remaining democracies even as he faces serious corruption allegations, and as he presides over attacks on the judiciary and anti-corruption reformers, driving many into arrest and exile.

Though Giammatteis absence from the December summit was appropriate, the Biden administration did include Brazils President Jair Bolsonaro, despite his persistent efforts to politicize the armed forces and growing concerns about the integrity of the countrys October elections (the results of which Bolsonaro has said hed reject if he lost). That invitation, which raised eyebrows at the time because it seemed so incongruous, likely resulted from a desire not to alienate Brazil, which has an economy 20 times the size of Guatemalas and is entering a tense election campaign. Still, Bolsonaro, who hasnt had a bilateral conversation with Joe Biden, ended up visiting Moscow the week of Feb. 14.

A corollary to this view is that regimes on the political right are more likely to offer access and cooperation to the United States than are left-of-center governments. The prior behavior of the democratic left in Latin America, writes U.S. Army War College Professor Evan Ellis in a January report for Center for Strategic and International Studies, suggests that they will be more resistant to work with the United States in multilateral forums against populist regimes who are also left-oriented and more likely to work with China and other extra-hemispheric actors of concern to the United States.

Dont Repeat This Mistake

The idea that the United States should go easy on authoritarian-trending regimes of the right that offer access, while viewing the democratic left as suspect, led policymakers to commit some historic mistakes. During the 45-year struggle against the Soviet Union, administrations of both parties aided coups and dictators because they were anti-communist and open to cooperating.

U.S.-backed leaders like Chiles Gen. Augusto Pinochet, Paraguays Gen. Alfredo Stroessner, Haitis Francois and Jean-Claude Duvalier, and juntas from Brazil to Guatemala to Argentina carried out systematic torture, disappeared tens of thousands, and sacked treasuries. They eliminated their political opponents, including human-rights defenders, reporters, and jurists. As a result, countries that were already among the worlds most unequal, with tiny, unaccountable economic and racial elites who refused to invest in their societies, lost decades in which they could have been building functioning, accountable institutions, and establishing strong civil societies.

When states finally transitioned to democracy in the late 1980s and 90s, many were missing a generation of civic and political reformers, who had been murdered or driven into exile. Hollowed-out, under-resourced governments could not control organized crime or move national economies away from commodity dependence. They lacked the wherewithal to bring basic services to vast sectors of the population. Impunity for corruption remained the norm. Illicit economies flourished. Racial and ethnic minorities remain marginalized. Despite some progress, these problems persist, and polling today shows broad skepticism about democracys ability to deliver.

The decades lost to Cold War-era misrule arent the only reason that Latin America is today the most violent region in the world, experiencing about a third of the worlds homicides. This periods hangover isnt the only reason why two million or more people migrated last year away from, or around, the region. The Cold War legacy, though, is an important factor. To repeat even a faint echo of it, in the name of renewed great-power competition, would do grave harm.

Rising Authoritarianism Adds to the Risk

As recently as 15 years ago, authoritarian-trending governments were still a rarity in Latin America. Those that existed (mainly Cuba and Venezuela) were on the left, and not interested in U.S. collaboration. Venezuelas Hugo Chvez (19982013) drafted a blueprint for coming to power through the electoral process, remaining popular through populist rhetoric and handouts, courting the armed forces, and all the while steadily dismantling democratic checks and balances as well as choking opposition parties, the free press, and civil society.

Elements of that blueprint would show up in the programs of leaders across the political spectrum worldwide, from Hungary to the Philippines. In Latin America, theyve been on the left, like Ecuadors Rafael Correa and Nicaraguas Daniel Ortega, and on the right, like Brazils Bolsonaro and Honduras Juan Orlando Hernndez, now awaiting extradition to the United States to face drug-trafficking charges. Still others have cast themselves as centrist or beyond ideology, like Nayib Bukele in El Salvador. Leaders in Mexico (left-ish), Colombia (right), Bolivia (left), Guatemala (right), and elsewhere have shown worrying strongman and anti-institutionalist tendencies. All have shrunk civic space, attacked the media, and sought to politicize the military.

Donald Trump also showed these authoritarian tendencies, and his administration courted populist regimes of the center and right. Bolsonaros Brazil became a major non-NATO ally, a status established by the Arms Export Control Act to ease some forms of weapons transfers. U.S. support for anti-corruption reform and clean elections in Honduras and Guatemala disappeared, as pro-U.S. populists received lavish praise for their modest efforts to halt U.S.-bound migration. Relations became so close with the now-ruling rightist party of Colombian ex-president lvaro Uribe (who, later in his 20022010 presidency, would seek a third term and speak often of a rule of [popular] opinion instead of a rule of law) that Biden backers would call out the partys members for campaigning for Trump in Florida in 2020.

How to Engage Without Renewing Cold War Errors

Neo-cold warriors are correct that the U.S. government needs to be engaging more, and more audaciously, with the nations to its south. But it needs to do so on a much different set of terms, and in a much more coherent and comprehensive way. Here are some principles and actions that should guide future diplomatic, security, economic, judicial, and social engagement.

First, U.S. policymakers need to stop fixating on the right-left axis and focus instead on the authoritarian-democratic axis. Authoritarians on the left are not friends of the United States. Authoritarians on the right are not either, regardless of the access they might transactionally offer.

Fortunately, the region offers examples of rules-respecting democratic leaders across the spectrum. Few accuse the conservative leaders of Ecuador and Uruguay of dismantling liberal democratic traditions. There is, meanwhile, a wavelet of left-of-center leaders who show few authoritarian inclinations. Two won elections in recent months: Xiomara Castro in Honduras and Gabriel Boric in Chile. In Brazil, ex-president Luis Incio Lula da Silva, who is trouncing Bolsonaro in polls for the October elections, left institutions intact when his eight years ended in 2010. In Peru, leftist Pedro Castillo has been governing haphazardly and is unpopular, but he has also criticized leftist authoritarians in Nicaragua and Venezuela.

Now, 40 years after its transitions to democracy, Latin America has a robust democratic left, often with deep roots in social movements. A second guideline, then, is that when this democratic left does well at the ballot box, Washington needs to stop viewing it as a setback. This means ditching the old reflex of viewing a country as lost and deepening ties with traditional elites and the armed forces (which risks exacerbating military politicization and worsening civil-military relations).

The election of a democratic left candidate (or democratic right, for that matter) should be viewed as an opportunity for institutional stability and regional order. Such a candidate can more effectively and peacefully channel popular demands for economic and social reforms. The United States might have to work a bit harder to forge a working relationship with them, but there is no reason to write them off from the start.

Third, this means being clear that democratic left does not equal pro-China. A leftist leader may be more skeptical of the unfettered free markets ability to deliver and more wary of aligning unconditionally with the United States. He or she is probably no fan of the Monroe Doctrine. But that doesnt translate into an affinity toward other great powers.

There is nothing leftist about the Xi and Putin governing models, which are free market-based, socially conservative, and increasingly colonialist or imperialist. It makes little sense, then, to assume that victories like Borics or Castros carry any benefit to Moscow or Beijing though if U.S. policymakers insist on assuming that and hold those leaders at arms length from the beginning, it could be self-fulfilling. Instead, even if he or she meets with Russia and China, and perhaps even accepts goods and services from them, a democratic left leader should not be viewed as irretrievably lost to the other side. Signing on to the Belt and Road Initiative is not the same as becoming part of the Soviet bloc 50 years ago: It may just be a rational response to a generous offer, one that the U.S. government is only recently trying to measure up to with initiatives like the new Development Finance Corporation and the Biden administrations Build Back Better World plan.

Fourth, it would be unwise to view the regions armed forces as a bulwark against foreign influence or against certain political views. In a region where civilian control over the military is unfinished business, assistance or messaging needs to avoid politicizing armed forces. Under no circumstances should messages conveyed through training courses, exchanges, exercises, engagements, or defense diplomacy align armed forces with authoritarian leaders agendas, whether directly or inadvertently. Assistance and messaging ought to avoid encouraging militaries assumption of new internal roles like policing, as Mexico has done with its new National Guard, or crowd control, a role presidents have urged on reluctant militaries in Bolivia, Ecuador, Peru, and elsewhere. And it would be most dangerous for training curricula and other, less formal messaging to propagate hybrid threat or gray zone warfare doctrines that portray legitimate social protests as the work of internal adversaries duped by foreign interestsunless the intelligence implicating a foreign power is overwhelmingly clear.

Fifth, U.S. engagement with the region needs to happen not only with a broader universe of elected democratic governments, but also with a far broader spectrum of institutions and social actors within countries. A vibrant democracy is more than just political leaders, business elites, and security forces. A more multidimensional approach to security cooperation, for instance, would involve more than just a partner nations soldiers, police, intelligence agents, and prosecutors. It would place equal importance on helping to strengthen a broader security sector encompassing judges, legislators, local governments, oversight bodies, and even non-governmental security experts, human-rights defenders, womens groups, ethnic communities, and security-focused journalists.

Finding a Narrative: Why Work with the United States Today?

Senators Menendez and Rubio are right about one thing: The U.S. government sorely needs a coherent policy and narrative to guide its assistance to, and relations with, Latin America. Unlike 30 years ago, that narrative is playing out in a context of reduced U.S. power and influence. Nations will no longer choose to work with Washington simply because of its military and economic might. Today, the U.S. government has to make its case, and in more spheres than security alone.

Right now, its difficult to pin down U.S. priorities in Latin America. Take Colombia, the regions largest recipient of assistance. What are the reigning U.S. priorities there right now? To the State Departments Western Hemisphere bureau, they appear to be public security and reducing drug supplies, containing Venezuela, and worrying about outside meddling in this years elections. For Southern Command, they are countering great-power influence, weakening armed groups, and interdicting cocaine. For the Justice Department, they are taking down kingpins and having them extradited. For U.S. Agency for International Development, they are implementing the peace accord with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia and protecting endangered social leaders. For the State Departments migration bureau, it is accommodating Venezuelan migrants. Homeland Security officials are concerned about migrants transiting Colombia.

There is nothing wrong with having a long list of priorities, but when seeking to build a community of like-minded democracies in the region, it would help to convey a hopeful vision, or at most a few pillars. For all its flaws, Plan Colombia (the aid framework of the 2000s) had a coherent narrative: strengthening Colombias state, weakening armed groups, and reducing drug supplies. Today, the U.S. government communicates to Colombians a welter of diverging messages and priorities, depending on the agency.

If the U.S. government is truly concerned about great-power competition in the Americas, this incoherence and inaction are a strange way to show it.

It doesnt help that the U.S. Congress can barely pass a budget or approve nominees, nor that the U.S. brand has taken a self-inflicted beating as the commitment to democratic principles that the United States wants to see from Latin American leaders is in serious danger of deteriorating at home.

This drift could lead right back into the Cold War 2.0 rut that Washington so badly needs to avoid. Avoiding it means partnering with governments and civil societies to build a regional community of open democracies not, as in the past, a regional community of conservative, unquestioningly pro-U.S. regimes. That, in turn, means partnering with leaders of the elected, democratic left, rejecting the notion that a leader like Chiles Gabriel Boric might belong anywhere near the same category as Venezuelas Nicols Maduro. At a time of complex migratory, economic, climate, and public health challenges in the hemisphere, privileging security assistance for like-minded regimes would be a waste of resources and a recipe for failure.

Adam Isacson runs the Defense Oversight program at the Washington Office on Latin America, a human rights advocacy and research organization. He has monitored the U.S. security relationship with Latin America and the Caribbean since the 1990s.

Image: U.S. Navy (Photo by Mass Communication Spc. 3rd Class Aaron Lau)

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Great-Power Competition Comes for Latin America - War on the Rocks

Despite COVID-19 and the extreme coverage of the pandemic by American mainstream media, the main cause of hospital admissions in the United States of America remains excessive consumption of alcohol, usually by adults.

The younger generation, however, finds itself flooded with novel synthetic drugs, highly potent and easily available on the black market, the likelihood of overdosing on dangerous drugs persists and Americans continue living with a very serious drug problem.

The destructive aspects of the illicit drugs available in the American drug market have been exacerbated by the popularity of synthetic drugs such as Fentanyl, for example, which is similar to morphine, but is reportedly 50 to 100 times more potent.

This offers another explanation for the rise in the number of overdose deaths.

And I just realised that maybe, maybe I'll give sobriety a shot because the worst thing that could ever happen; maybe I'll be happy. The worst thing that could happen if I keep going is I'll die.

Former Addict 1

In this article, we shall delve into the various aspects of a much less reported epidemic in America, drug overdoses.

We shall consider how much the drug overdose epidemic in the US has changed, who's the most impacted, but more importantly, what could be done about it by the government, the individual states and the people.

I can tell you that in the height of my addiction, my little brother overdosed. And when I say overdosed, I mean, me and him shot heroin together. And I realised he wasn't breathing, his lips started turning blue.

Former Addict 2

A most important factor in the spiking overdose deaths is the opioid crisis which has afflicted the USA and has been tearing apart families and communities in recent years.

The crisis began with the over prescription of drugs such as OxyContin to average Americans seeking treatment for health problems like chronic headaches. The move had been promoted by Big Pharma, by companies such as Purdue Pharma.

While the company was brought down in court, the powerful Sackler family has managed to escape all accountability. The Sackler family still stands accused of helping fuel the US opioid epidemic.

How much are powerful entities such as the Sackler family to blame for the skyrocketing addiction and overdose rates in America?

I want to blame the Sackler family almost completely for this but they also had a lot of help. The Sackler family had a lot of deep ties to the FDA and local law enforcement and the Sackler family wanted to make a lot of money.

They developed this so called time release painkiller. They got the FDA to do something unprecedented. They put it on the label that it was non-addictive, and a lot of the doctors that they were, and then they used aggressive marketing techniques where the sales representatives for Purdue pharmaceuticals, the Sackler family's pharmaceutical company, were taught how to lie to people, how to lie to the doctors, and they told [the] doctors that it was not addictive and the doctors are like, Well, I never heard of an opioid that was not addictive, and at that time there was a crisis with painkillers, people getting addicted to painkillers.

Cindy Sheehan, Social Justice Activist

Opioid overdoses are especially tragic as they tend to affect people who are less prone to addiction; people who consulted their doctors for mostly normal and benign health issues.

It is therefore safe to say that they are victims of the medical industrial complex in the US, which has been obsessed with reaping benefits from the pharmaceutical industry with no regard for its repercussions.

It is really tragic. You know, we've seen cases in our own community, that people who get addicted to these painkillers, eventually their source dries up and when my sister, for example, was suffering from cancer she couldn't get painkillers for her cancer pain, which was real.

Cindy Sheehan, Social Justice Activist

Unfortunately, Americans are facing a very serious crisis which emanated from the complex internal politics of the healthcare Juggernaut, Perdue, where the men at the top make decisions about how to lead the sector in order to gain the most profits for themselves and their shareholders.

How could the rising number of overdoses in the United States affect the current public health crisis?

Well, you know, the opiate epidemic has a lot to do with prescription drugs. And that's the very key to drugs period. Right now, a lot of young people have been taking drugs. So it definitely will affect you know, people being able to function at work and provide for their families.

Drug addiction in this country is almost like Heroin used to be, you know, heroin was the epidemic, [which] was very dangerous because people did anything to just get a needle.

But these days, they're doing anything to get a pill right now, even when it comes to the selling their family, if they have.

So this is very important and they hurt a lot of elders because they go to their parents and ask for so much money over and over again, just to continue to get the drug.

Steven Young, Activist and Commentator

To this day, families in America have had to pay the price for what Big Pharma has done. Overdoses also occur on the more powerful synthetic substances such as Fentanyl and methamphetamine, which are smuggled into America or made illegally inside the country.

The response to the epidemic by the administration of US President Joe Biden has been deemed inadequate.

I think that it's tragic that almost everybody in the United States, including my family, has lost, maybe not a family member, but a close person that might as well have been a family member, have died from overdoses.

Our friend, as a matter of fact, died from [a] Fentanyl overdose but the president's son you know, heroin and crack, and so it's a widespread problem.

Cindy Sheehan, Social Justice Activist

The US presidential budget request for the fiscal year 2022 calls for a $41 billion investment in national drug programme agencies.

The budget request offers a nearly $670 million increase over the previous year, which the administration claims will be spent on evidence based prevention, treatment, harm reduction and recovery support services

... the people that it has affected the most have been dealing the drugs as well as using the drug. They have more experience than the doctors that have degrees. They have more experience than the people that went to school and college and university to learn about this and study about it.

The average person has been using that drug for or 30 years, 10 years, five years or a year and how the affect was and then you can start turning it around because they can tell you from their experience[sic].

One thing you cannot take away from anyone or give anybody is experiencing and you cannot take that away from them and that's priceless and we need to start using that towards the solutions in this country.

Steven Young, Activist and Commentator

It's still not clear whether the sum proposed could effectively turn the tide of the overdose epidemic in America. However, the administration acknowledges that getting rid of the pandemic and collaboration between federal, state, and local law enforcement, as well as public health officials, is of great importance.

Generally speaking, what is your assessment of the so called War on Drugs by the US administration?

Well, as you all know, when the United States declares war on anything, it gets worse. So there was a war on cancer; cancer has grown exponentially in the United States.

There's a war on terrorism, which you know, didn't do anything to defeat terrorism, but in fact caused many people to rebel or to rise up against the United States because of the United States actions and this war on drugs is the same thing.

I believe Nancy Reagan was really influential in starting the war on drugs and since the war on drugs began it's only gotten worse.

And we can really combine the War on Terror with the war on drugs, because since the United States invaded Afghanistan, the opiate supply has been much larger.

Cindy Sheehan, Social Justice Activist

Now according to some statistics the US has seen a 50% rise in the cases of overdoses compared to the 1990s. This is in line with a sharp spike in recent street crimes, gun violence, and a widening political rift across the nation.

Just like with big oil and big tech, the US government is failing the people once again by failing, or refusing, to take on Big Pharma.

We don't have a national health care plan here in the United States. In fact, my state, California, just shot down another chance to have some kind of public health plan here and the bottom line is that the United States is captured by big Pharma.

Big Pharma pays tens of hundreds of millions of dollars to influence the media; they sponsor almost all of the legacy media here in the United States.

Cindy Sheehan, Social Justice Activist

A plethora of corrupt politicians appear to be duty bound to merely bow to the demands of the formidable industry and act like puppets in the face of their intense quest for profit.

How do such overdoses impact the victims communities and families?

These drugs have been out here for years. But it wasn't until it started in the white community that they started doing something about it, when you had a lot of white people dying from overdoses such as judges' children and lawyers' children and so forth.

When they started dying from overdoses and opioids and everything, all of a sudden, it became a lot of rehabs for people, for everybody; they had to make it equal now, try to make it equal, they didn't make it equal, but they stop a lot of things such as a lot of arrests and how long you stay in jail and start giving them rehab.

Well, we we've been asking for that for a long, long time.

Steven Young, Activist and Commentator

Roughly 17,000 Americans died of an overdose in the year 2000 which rose to over 100,000 in 2021. The situation appears to be spiraling out of control as demonstrated by the National Centre for Health Statistics report which was released in the last week of 2021.

That shocking increase remains the largest year over year rate increase on record. And it's not difficult to assume the hidden epidemic has impacted certain portions of society harder, poor people, as well as communities of color.

What should authorities do to address overdoses and the issue of addiction in America?

A lot of people come by their addictions because they got injured. Right? They got injured at work, they got injured in a car accident, and they got injured however people get injured.

And so they're prescribed these very addictive painkillers, which everybody was lied to, saying that they weren't addictive. And then what your body does is it creates pain so you can get the painkiller, right, and your body gets used to the to the dosage, so you have to take more and more and more and more.

Cindy Sheehan, Social Justice Activist

Overdoses and other drug related complications keep inundating the more vulnerable members of society with no immediate remedy in sight. The consumption of drugs is targeted towards young children, who are the most prized possessions of America. As more and more young kids die due to overdose, new adolescent arrivals are brought into the fold by the legal and illegal drug industry.

According to the 2020 National Survey on Drug Use and Health, 14.5% of Americans, that's roughly 40,300,000 people, had a substance abuse disorder in 2020. And the figure is expected to grow rather than shrink.

There are some serious things that we have solutions to but working with the people who have the solutions, the solutions usually with the grassroots people, the Foundation, the ones unheard of, the ones who are not at the tables making these decisions. But like these young people [who] hit the street with Black Lives Matter, They have solutions to a lot of things, but are they being listening to?

I've been out here for what 30 or 40 years you know as a young man,you have to listen to the solutions to be unable to plan a city and create a home ownership and get rid of the poverty so we can have peace throughout the land. So as long as we have solutions there should not be these problems in America.

Steven Young, Activist and Commentator

With hard drugs sold on the streets and traffickers reportedly increasing the amount pouring into the country, it should not come as a big shock that the overdoses have increased following a rise in the amount of hard drugs smuggled into the country. This trend simply signifies an increase in demand, which translates into a spike in overdose related deaths.

The Opioid crisis is one of the number one health issues in the United States; there are over 100,000 overdoses every year now. There's over a billion dollars being spent on addressing addiction.

Cindy Sheehan, Social Justice Activist

The hidden epidemic is indeed a grave national security and public health challenge for the United States and its officials. More people die from drug overdoses than in car crashes, incidents involving firearms, suicide or homicide.

The FDA, the Sackler family, law enforcement who refused to prosecute the Sackler family or to even investigate the addiction, they're all involved in the crisis. There were some people who really wanted this looked into and they were stonewalled by by the FDA ... and it's just very interesting here in the United States.

Cindy Sheehan, Social Justice Activist

The US must rush to disrupt the flow of the illegal drugs into the country from overseas and crackdown on middlemen as well as drug cartels who maintain the supply chain for the illicit substances.

America always had a war on a lot of things, mostly a war against black people. It did a war on drugs, a war on (video) games, ... but they do a war on everything but poverty.

So if you don't speak out (against) the poverty in this country, how you going to cure the violence and have peace? And that's one issue that America spends and wastes a lot of millions and millions of dollars, giving it to the same people, mainly to millionaires.

In this country, it is called corporate welfare when they get tax breaks for coming into poor neighborhoods and making a profit.

Steven Young, Activist and Commentator

Not all overdose cases are fatal, yet the incident could still cause suffering for the addicts themselves, as well as their families and friends for quite a long time. The lasting impact of such an experience adds to the burden of societal issues emanating from addiction in general.

We must stop using people to experiment with these types of drugs as well. COVID-19 is shut down the entire world because nobody knew. The pure no one knew where it came from. How can that be without again, you can go to the middle, but you can't figure out what happens right here on this earth.

Steven Young, Activist and Commentator

How the CIA put drugs into the black community

The US brought cocaine into the black community as part of a larger genocidal war on black people as well as to fully destroy the Black Power movement.

The United States of America's illegal imperialist regime is actually the biggest drug trafficker in the world, and even the CIA itself is known as the Cocaine Intelligence Agency.

At the CIA they literally funnel drugs into the country to destroy revolutionary movements, as well as to destroy black communities.

The United States had declared an all out war on the Black Panther Party.

The government was willing to do anything and everything to destroy the party and labeled the party as the biggest threat to national security.

The US government used the illegal FBI COINTELPRO programme to assassinate, to launch character assassinations, to torture black revolutionaries for seeking to put power into the hands of the people, where it truly belongs.

The Central Intelligence Agency also had a major role in destroying the Black Panther Party. The United States, with the Cold War going strong, declared war on socialism, whether domestic or international, and began launching coups and proxy wars to protect the corporate interests of imperialist America.

The CIA, also known as the corporate intelligence agency, did everything, everything in its power to destroy socialism. The CIA already had a war on the Black Panther Party, and in 1979, the people of Nicaragua had a successful revolution against the US backed Somoza dictatorship. The CIA lost the war on the Sandinistas who were a left wing socialist revolutionary organization which just came into power.

The US Central Intelligence Agency, figured they can use one stone for the same target. The US needed to fund the right wing Contras to fight against the left wing Sandinistas.

But to fund the CIA proxy war they needed money.

The Contras began funneling drugs to the CIA then the CIA began selling drugs to dealers within different black communities, not only to disseminate violence and terrorism against the people of Nicaragua, but it ultimately led to the defeat of the Sandinista government.

But in the black community crack cocaine became an epidemic.

Now if we put the culture war and the destruction of the Black Panther Party into the proper historical context, we can begin to see the connection. In 1979 as the Contra war started, cocaine began being smuggled into the USA by the CIA. And then what do we do three years later, three years later, in 1982, the Black Panther Party was dissolved.

The CIA put the final touches on the tactical defeat of the Black Panther Party, by using chemical {narcotic} warfare against the black community and its effects can still be felt today.

The CIA itself admitted this, claiming that they "overlooked the Contra drug sales in the US". They also admitted to working with Contras, who were the ones dealing drugs.

A DEA field agent, Hector Morales, said, "I believe that elements working for the CIA were involved in bringing drugs into the country".

Another DEA agent claimed that in the 1980s the Ilopango International Airport in El Salvador was used by the country to smuggle drugs into the US. He said that his "attempts to investigate the Contra drug smuggling were stymied by the DEA management, the US Embassy in El Salvador and the CIA.

Original post:

CIA: The Cocaine Intelligence Agency - Press TV

MADISON The ACLU of Wisconsin today denounced consideration of a proposal in the Wisconsin State Assembly that would prevent local governments from restricting the use of no-knock warrants by law enforcement.

Assembly Bill 834 would strip local jurisdictions of their authority to restrain an officers ability to carry out a no-knock warrant a tactic that allows law enforcement to enter an individuals residence without first announcing their presence.

Between 2010 and 2016, 81 civilians and 13 law enforcement officers died during no-knock and quick-knock raids across the country.

For the Wisconsin State Legislature just weeks after police in Minnesota fatally shot 22-year-old Amir Locke within 10 seconds of unexpectedly raiding his home to take up legislation prohibiting local jurisdictions from regulating no-knock warrants shows a callous disregard for the senseless casualties that unannounced searches have caused, said Abby Kanyer, community engagement manager of the ACLU of Wisconsin.

Following the nationwide outcry over the unjust killing of Breonna Taylor, a Black woman shot by police who entered her apartment during an unannounced raid, the Milwaukee Fire and Police Commission moved to ban Milwaukee police from executing no-knock warrants.

No-knock raids are a relic of the racist War on Drugs, and conducting them puts both the safety of the public and the police at unnecessary risk. We believe no-knock tactics should be done away with altogether, let alone not shielded from any attempt at reform. As Black History Month comes to a close, we hope state leaders can take a moment to reflect on the grim history of no-knock warrants and how they have been used in a way that actively harms Black communities across this country, said Melinda Brennan, executive director of the ACLU of Wisconsin.

An ACLU report found that in 35% of the reported drug raids conducted via no-knock warrants, only small amounts of drugs were located; in 36% of the raids, law enforcement found nothing.

Additionally, no-knock warrants disproportionately impact poor communities of color. Between 2011 and 2012, 39% of raids affected Black people, 11% affected Hispanics, 20% white Americans, and 30% were unknown because of insufficient police data.

Read more here:

ACLU of Wisconsin Opposes Assembly Bill That Would Prevent Restrictions of No-Knock Search Warrants - aclu-wi.org

In November 2020, Oregon voters approved a ballot initiative, Measure 109, to legalize psilocybin for therapeutic use. Were now well into a two-year implementation phase. On February 8, the Oregon Health Authority (OHA) gave us the first look at a set of proposed rules for psilocybin therapyincluding, as Filter previously reported, the kind of mushroom products that may be permitted. But the proposal also contains detailed requirements for how psilocybin healersor facilitatorswould be trained to work with patients.

Some rules were already set. You dont need a doctors or psychologists license to be a facilitator, just a high school education. And clients dont need any medical diagnosis to get the drugthey can seek therapy for any reason.

The OHAs release describes the training process facilitators would need to pass. It includes 125 hours of instruction on several topics, a 40-hour practicum where they will practice techniques, and a mandatory final exam.

The instruction component includes a wide range of subjects like psilocybin history, science and safety. Notably, facilitators will also be required to study areas like longstanding Indigenous psilocybin use, prohibition and the War on Drugs, and racial injustice and inequity.

This work isnt something you can just learn in a book, do a couple of practice sessions then be good to go.

Rebecca Martinez is the executive director of Alma Institute, which is working to create a training and certification program for facilitators under Measure 109 on a nonprofit basis. She told Filter that she is pleased, overall, with the draft rules. But she recommended increasing the instruction to 160 hours, and at least doubling the practicum to 80 hours. Her institute plans to focus especially on training people of color and people from disadvantaged backgrounds.

The nature of this work isnt something you can just learn in a book, do a couple of practice sessions then be good to go, she said. You need ongoing mentorship, you need really more of an apprenticeship model to practice in a lot of different scenarios and get those core skills down.

Martinez also encouraged the health authorities to make the requirements more specific, and emphasize topics like safety and ethics.

This all makes sense to me. I well remember holding my best friend in my arms on the occasion of his first psilocybin mushroom trip some years ago, endlessly repeating, I got you, bro. I got you, bro. I wont let anyone hurt you. He stared back at me, his eyes wide with fear. I was tripping tooand it took me several minutes to realize that I was probably making things worse.

Facilitators ought to be better equipped than I was to address negative side effects during a trip. And first of all, they should make sure that patients understand any possible risk factorslike pre-existing conditions or potential interactions with other medications, as well as the variability of trip experiencesbefore they take the drug.

The draft rules mention using nondirective facilitation, which means [Avoid] giving the client direct advice or directly interpreting a clients statements or behaviors. Thats because on psychedelics, youre in a highly vulnerable state. A good facilitator should exercise patience and gentleness.

Martinez praised the OHA for requiring instruction on social equity topics, specifically around racial and cultural traumas. But Oregon has yet to accompany that with further steps, she notedlike, for example, investing in the training and hiring of facilitators from diverse racial, gender, cultural or income backgrounds.

We need to have folks represented.

This is an important point, when clinical research of psilocybin as a treatment for depression or other conditions has been conducted primarily by and with white people. Plus, Oregons pursuit of this quasi-medical modelas opposed to outright legalizationsignificantly raises the costs of the treatment, which will exclude marginalized populations.

We need to have folks represented and you need to be able to choose a facilitator you feel comfortable with, and oftentimes that means choosing someone who has some shared identifier, Martinez said.

She explained that while the OHA has seemed open to and interested in addressing equity issues, it can only do so much.

OHA doesnt have a lot of authority in what they can require of training programs or license holders around social equity plans, she said. Right now a lot of that is falling to community organizations like Alma, which leaves us working the philanthropic angle to get resources to diversify the field.

All of this trainingplus product testing and other requirementswill be expensive for businesses to comply with, and those costs will be passed on to clients. If Oregon is serious about making sure everyone can easily and fairly access psilocybin treatment, it will have to pay to help lower-income clients receive it.

Photograph via Department of Justice/Drug Enforcement Administration

Visit link:

How Will Oregon Teach and Train Psilocybin Healers? - Filter

Candidates in the May 2022 national elections should commit to the immediate release of prisoner of conscience and Philippine Senator Leila de Lima, who marks her fifth year in arbitrary detention on politically motivated charges this week, Amnesty International said today.

After the killings and impunity that were a hallmark of the Duterte administrations so called war on drugs, human rights must feature front and centre in the election campaign agendas of all candidates. This includes the immediate and unconditional release of Senator de Lima, who continues to speak out against grave violations despite five years of unjust detention, Rachel Chhoa-Howard, Amnesty Internationals Philippines researcher, said.

After the killings and impunity that were a hallmark of the Duterte administrations so called war on drugs, human rights must feature front and centre in the election campaign agendas of all candidates.

Apart from Senator de Limas release, Filipinos and indeed the world look to the next government to address the pervasive culture of impunity in the country. The new government must end all human rights violations, work toward accountability, and provide justice to victims and their families.

Senator de Lima has spent the last five years in arbitrary detention. Her continued detention shows the awful lengths the Philippine government will go to silence its critics. Senator de Limas persecution alongside the killings and other human rights violations under the war on drugs and against human rights defenders will forever be a stain on the governments record. This situation must not be allowed to continue under the next government.

Background:

24 February 2022 marks five years since Senator de Lima was arrested by Philippine authorities and arbitrarily detained.

Senator de Lima was one of the first politicians to be targeted by the authorities after Duterte was elected in June 2016. The attacks against her began when, as the then Chairperson of the Senate Committee on Justice and Human Rights, she sought to investigate extrajudicial executions and other serious human rights violations under the so-called war on drugs.

The Department of Justice filed three drug-related cases against her on charges of illegal drug trading, which it later changed to conspiracy to commit illegal drug trading. All three cases have been marked by undue delays, including the repeated failure of prosecution witnesses to show up in court and changes in judges handling one case. On 17 February 2021, the court ordered the dismissal of one case; the two others are ongoing.

Amnesty International believes that Senator de Lima is a victim of political persecution, and that the charges against her clearly stem from her criticism of President Dutertes war on drugs, which has resulted in the extrajudicial execution of thousands of suspected drug offenders and other human rights violations.

There has largely been no justice or accountability for the victims and their families, save for the case of 17-year-old Kian delos Santos where three policemen were found guilty of murder in 2018, over a year after his death.

The unjust detention of Senator de Lima continues under the broader context of increasing impunity for human rights violations in the country, including killings, threats and harassment of political activists, human rights defenders, members of the media, and other targeted groups.

Read the original here:

Philippines: Presidential candidates must commit to freeing senator unjustly detained for 5 years - Amnesty International

My son Cameron and I can hardly wait for President Bidens upcoming State of the Union address.

What do you think hes going to say on March 1, Dad? he asked me earlier this week during our phone call.

That the State of the Union is . very sad? Screwed? You finish the sentence.

Seriously, Cameron said. The State of the Union is supposed to be upbeat positive or at least hopeful, right?

Yeah, I said. His speechwriters must be working overtime. The list of big things hes messed up in a single year is long and getting longer.

So whats he going to brag about to the country? Cameron asked.

Well, I said, he did a terrible job with Afghanistan, so he cant bring that up.

The economy is also a no-no.

Inflation is running at 7 percent, interest rates are headed up and millions of workers have still not gone back to work, thanks to the governments generous and never-ending pandemic help.

He sure cant mention crime, Cameron said.

Its spiking in every big city and his justice department is more interested in eliminating cash bail than catching criminals and putting them in jail.

And forget the war on COVID, I said.

Its been a disaster.

Bidens still wearing a mask 24/7, but even blue state governors have finally had enough of the mandates and are getting rid of them.

He cant bring up energy, either, Cameron said. Gas prices are high everywhere. Were paying five bucks a gallon.

Yeah, I said. Remember way, way back in time 2020, I think it was, before Biden took over and started wrecking our fossil fuel industry? I could fill up my truck without taking out an equity loan.

We were energy independent then and the worlds number one producer of oil and natural gas, Cameron said.

Then Biden shut down the Keystone Pipeline, gave Russia the OK for its Nord Stream 2 natural gas pipeline to Germany and told us that to save the planet we all have to start driving $60,000 electric cars.

Biden wont be bragging on how hes winning the war on drugs, either.

Nope, I said. Hes done nothing about the drug overdose epidemic thats killing a hundred thousand people a year.

And the AMA says its only getting worse thanks mainly to all the illegal fentanyl that comes across our Southern border and is made in China.

Speaking of borders, Cameron said, whats this big deal about Ukraines?

Bidens sending troops and missiles to Europe to show Putin how tough he is. Hes helping Ukraine defend its borders, but he wont help Texas?

Yep, I said, hes working overtime trying to stop the invasion of Ukraine. But since the day he took office weve had a huge invasion on our southern border and its his fault.

I was just looking at an article on the Border Report web site, Cameron said. The headline was Migrant encounters top 2 million in calendar year 2021, on pace for repeat in 2022.

I dont think hell be talking to the country about the state of his immigration policy, I said.

If Putin doesnt send his troops across the Ukrainian border, Cameron said, maybe Biden will be able to brag that he used his great foreign policy expertise and the threat of sanctions to stop the Russians from invading Ukraine.

By the way, Dad, whats the latest on the war in Ukraine? Are we losing it yet?

After this discussion, Cameron, I think its safe to say that the Biden administration is not winning any wars anywhere.

Not the war on inflation. Not the war on illegal immigration. Not the war on drugs.

Given the sorry state of our Union under Biden, I dont expect the war in Ukraine if it comes to be any different.

Read the original post:

REAGAN: The state of our union is sorry - Troy Record

TDs have questioned the Governments priorities after it emerged that a Citizens Assembly on a directly elected mayor for Dublin will take place ahead of one on the issue of drug use.

Assemblies examining whether a directly elected Dublin mayor should be considered and the issue of biodiversity are due to run concurrently from April. Assemblies on drug use and the future of education have also been announced, but they are not expected to take place until next year.

People Before Profit TD Gino Kenny said the Governments decision to delay a citizens assembly on drug use is an affront to the debate.

How any government can priortise a directly elected mayor to the urgent debate around drug use is beyond comprehension, he said.

Lets give this context, this issue has been delayed for decades, while thousands of people die and rot. The assembly that should be in the dock is not the citizens assembly, its this assembly.

This assembly, for decades, has left communities rot, thousands of people should be alive today if it wasnt for the antiquated laws around drug use.

The Dublin Mid-West TD said there were elements of the Government that did not want progress on the issue of drug use, backward elements in Fine Gael and Fianna Fail that have no interest in this issue at all.

They want to see people rot and die and be decrepit because they are happy with the status quo, he added.

Solidarity TD Mick Barry said the sequencing of the assemblies highlighted how out of touch the Government was. The Cork North-Central TD said communities in his constituency were absolutely plagued by drug-dealing with lives wrecked and even lost by misuse.

The war on drugs strategy clearly has failed and theres a clear need for alternative strategies and a real debate on them, he added. The Government think that an elected mayor for Dublin is more important than this, then you are quite simply living on another planet.

Social Democrats TD Cian OCallaghan said there was an absolute urgency in the area of drugs and addiction and there should be a citizens assembly being launched right now by the Government.

Theres no time for any delay on this and theres no justification for that whatsoever, he said.

Independent TD Joan Collins said it was absolutely astounding that a citizens assembly on a directly elected mayor for Dublin would take place ahead of one on drug use. The Dublin South Central TD called on the Government to reconsider the timelines or have three assemblies run concurrently.

Fianna Fil TD Paul McAuliffe said while his number one priority for a citizens assembly was to deal with drug use, the local government system was broken.

It is a system which we inherited from Victorian England and despite that jurisdiction reforming local government like many across Europe, Ireland remains stuck with that Victorian model, further limited by increasing centralisation, he said.

Minister of State Jack Chambers said the sequencing of the assemblies did not indicate or imply a hierarchy of importance.

It is, however, a recognition that each of the four assemblies committed to in the Programme for Government all need the adequate time, space and resources to operate to high quality deliberative forums that they are intended to be, he said.

It would simply not be feasible to run more than two assemblies in parallel. Indeed, much remains to be seen about the benefits and downsides in running two assemblies consecutively.

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Timing of Citizen's Assembly on drugs shows Government 'out of touch', Dil told - The Irish Times

The true soldier fights not because he hates what is in front of him, but because he loves what is behind him.G.K. Chesterton

War from card games to quick use slogans like war on drugs, war on crime, or our mothers favourite, Its like a bomb went off in here, has become something many in the western world have forgotten.

The 158 soldiers Canada lost while fighting in Afghanistan was a stark, yet quickly fading reminder of the cost of peace and democracy.

I know many parents and significant others who lost loved ones during that conflict. Anita Bowes is the mother of Private Chad Horn who was killed in 2008.

She shared with the world, lines Chad had inscribed on his back just before he left for his tour.

For those I love, I will sacrifice, Chad Horn.

As someone who signed the dotted line to protect my country in the face of evil, this week has been hard to watch.

In speaking with others who served on the front lines in multiple wars throughout generations, images being shared out of Ukraine bring back bad memories, night terrors, guilt and numerous other negative effects.

In speaking with an individual recently who saw combat first hand, they were beyond floored at how fast the word war comes out of peoples mouths who have no clue what they are talking about (I sanitized this statement).

Summing up his feelings about the use of that word, For all the cries of our government starting a war on protestors, or calls of a civil war, due to what happened, they have no fg clue what its like to have warplanes drop bombs nearby, bullets whiz past your head or the fear of what happens if I dont wake up tomorrow.

Over the last 72 hours, Ive watched the petty arguments about a Convoy fall quickly to the wayside as western society woke up to no more peace, less than half a world away.

That realization, that a world war could be on our doorstep, combined with a sobering threat of something much bigger if the world interfered, finally seemed to make people realize, in retrospect, how dumb some of the infighting was.

Whether its petty crime in your backyard, the use of an emergencies act, to wear or not wear a mask all of that, seems to have taken a back-seat to the realities of what is happening to a democracy.

I havent heard the word tyrant used in almost 4 days when describing our Prime Minister. Its amazing how the perspective that comes with war shows the true colours of world leaders. When a tyrant invades a country, some of the comparisons die down.

An invasion of this magnitude in Europe has not been seen since Germany and the real Nazis (not the name some give our current government) invaded Poland in 1939. That started a world war that lasted until 1945 and cost the world an estimated 70-80 million people.

For those of you concerned about a nuclear war based on the threat Vladimir Putin levelled against anyone wanting to fight the bully, I have a second theory.

Putin warned, Whoever tries to hinder us, and even more so, to create threats to our country, to our people, should know that Russias response will be immediate. And it will lead you to such consequences that you have never encountered in your history,

Most tech experts will tell you Russia and China have spent millions and possibly billions on creating a cyberattack ability that outpaces the western worlds ability to defend against it.

What if Russia decided to shut down the power grid with a virus?

What if they succeeded in taking over and destroying nuclear facilities across North America?

What about opening up the Hoover Dam, knocking out GPS and communications satellites or shutting down command and controls facilities, both military and civilian, at the push of a button?

To me, those consequences would be much harsher than anything weve seen in history and could do a significant amount of damage, without a single nuclear bomb being deployed.

I know this hasnt been my typical behind the lens in that it hasnt touched on local issues or even significantly on national issues.

But writing about potholes, green buildings, traffic accidents and protests seems to pale in comparison to the bigger picture this week. When the world is facing the distinct possibility of devolving into a significant cataclysmic event, as a journalist it brings perspective.

So, I implore you as a city, this week to put aside your differences. Build bridges with friends and loved ones whom you have disagreed with in the past. Reach out to your fellow citizen and give them a hand, even if you dont see eye to eye.

Because I can assure you the families in Kyiv, arent arguing over booster shots, emergencies acts and freedom convoys. They are in a fight for their lives and just seeing tomorrow is what matters most.

Maybe thats a perspective we all need, that tomorrow is not a given, live in today, fix where you messed up yesterday and hope the world will find its way through this conflict more or less the way we went into it.

Thats the way I see it, from behind the lens, Im Dan Gray.

Original post:

Behind the Lens- the perspective that comes with war (audio and text) - SaultOnline.com