HaCKeRz KrOnIcKLeZ 3/HaCKeRz_KrOnIcKLeZ.iso/drugs/the.new.mafia

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"The New Mafia," by Michael Massing, THE NEW YORK REVIEW OF BOOKS,
Dec. 3, 1992 (excerpted by Eric Sterling, National Drug Strategy Network)

In the December 3, 1992 issue of THE NEW YORK REVIEW OF BOOKS,
Michael Massing has written an excellent articles entitled, "The New Mafia."
Massing is a fellow at the New York Institute for the Humanities at New York
University.  He was named a MacArthur Fellow last summer.  Currently he is at
work on a book about the politics of the war on drugs.

"The New Mafia" begins on page 6.  The backdrop is the decline in the
traditional La Cosa Nostra, exemplified by the conviction of New York crime boss
John Gotti.  The traditional Mafia activities included racketeering, loan-sharking,
extortion, prostitution, gambling, etc.  But the last 15 years "have given rise to an
international criminal network of unprecedented scope and sophistication."  World-
wide there are ethnic criminal gangs at work in the drug traffic.

"There are not only more syndicates than ever, but more cooperation among them."

A recent movie, BOB ROBERTS, written by, directed by and starring Tim Robbins
features a anti-drug candidate for the U.S. Senate whose campaign manager is
implicated in the smuggling of cocaine in the U.S. by the contras.  A.M. Rosenthal,
venerable columnist (and fierce opponent of drugs) at THE NEW YORK TIMES,
blasted the movie for its "left-wing paranoia."  Robbins replied in a letter to the
editor that many people believe that the government is involved in the drug traffic.

Massing reviews WAR ON DRUGS: STUDIES IN THE FAILURE OF U.S.
NARCOTICS POLICY (edited by Alfred W. McCoy and Alan A. Block, Westview
Press, 358 pp., $45.00).  McCoy and Block's volume includes papers from a couple
of conferences that argue how the government, the CIA in particular, abetted the
drug crisis.  Massing points out how whatever the role the CIA had, as elucidated in
this volume, the CIA's role is most likely not responsible for very large portions of
the drug traffic.  "In the face of such realities, the CIA's part in the world drug
trade seems irrelevant."

Massing also looks at the arguments of conservative Rachel Ehrenfeld in
NARCOTERRORISM (1990) "that sought to pin the blame for global drug-related
violence on Marxism-Leninism and the Kremlin.  The end of the cold war has
deprived her of that enemy.  In her new book, she has found another one."  EVIL
MONEY: ENCOUNTERS ALONG THE MONEY TRAIL (Harper Business, 298
pp., $22.00) describes various money laundering ventures, particularly the Bank of
Credit and Commerce International (BCCI), and its founding by Pakistani banker
Agha Hasan Abedi.  Ehrenfeld says BCCI introduced the Abu Nidal Organization
to the Shining Path (!) to set up a dormant terrorist infrastructure in the Western
Hemisphere and the U.S. (!!)  Massing finds the book lacks veracity and plausibility.

BCCI however justified its nickname of the Bank of Crooks and Criminals
International.  And the CIA did bank with BCCI and use it for its covert
operations.  Massing examines the tome issued by the Senate Foreign Relations
Subcommittee on Terrorism, Narcotics and International Operations, chaired by
Senator John Kerry (Government Printing Office, 794 pp.) THE BCCI AFFAIR:  A
REPORT TO THE SENATE COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN RELATIONS.  The
Subcommittee issued 10 pages of recommendations, but in Massing's view, the
Subcommittee "has been a captive of the conventional wisdom about drugs, which
had gone through three phases."  Massing says the first phase (late 70s -- early 80s)
was a concentration on interdiction, going after the drugs themselves.  Unsuccessful,
the anti-drug officials turned their attention to the traffickers e.g. going after the
cartel leaders and Manuel Noriega, for example.  "Yet the cocaine continued to
flow."  The third phase is going after the money, and the global campaign against
"money laundering."

"The fascination with money laundering, and with the CIA and narco-terrorism,
reflects the widespread tendency in Washington to view drugs as an external
problem, forced upon us by foreign adversaries.  Until that spell is broken, we
cannot expect much progress in dealing with the drug problem.  The beginning of a
new administration would seem a good time to move beyond the emphasis on
'endless enemies' and instead concentrate on the real cause of the drug problem --
the continuing appetite of many Americans for drugs.  To spend so lavishly on
stings, raids, and investigations when treatment facilities in American cities remain
overwhelmed seems truly a crime.

"Even if we do begin to deal with the problem of addiction and its treatment,
however, the international drug syndicates will remain a malevolent force, sowing
violence, corrupting politicians, challenging governments.  Is there nothing that can
be done about them?  Only one measure would seem to offer any real hope:
legalization.  The world's drug organizations exist only because the commodities
they trade in are illegal.  If cocaine and heroin were suddenly legalized, the
Colombian cartels, the Dominican gangs, the Chinese triads, and all the rest would
soon collapse.

"So far, the debate over drug legalization has concentrated almost exclusively on the
likely effects such a policy would have in the United States.  The most effective
argument against legalization remains the likelihood that more Americans, including
many children, would begin using drugs, if they were made freely available.  The
proponents of legalization have yet to provide convincing solutions to the many
problems that would arise in administering a system in which drugs were legal.
Against this, however, must be weighed the crippling blow legalization would
undoubtedly deal to the world's criminals.  Any measure that would deny the new
underworld its chief means of support at least deserves serious consideration." ###