U.S. Threatens to Pull Venezuela Drug War Certification

The US Government has been caught in its own rhetoric as it tries to pull the chair out from under Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez. Evidence is emerging on a seemingly daily basis further substantiating the US involvement in pro-drug activities, as well as articles like this helping to expose the slight of hand they use to cover it up. The bullying of foreign governments in the name of ‘US interests’ is just plain wrong, and must stop if the United States has any hope of retaining influence in the world of the future.

August 9, 2005

United States “anti-drug” policy faces a major setback in Venezuela this week, and the drug warriors are loosening their ties as the heat rises. At the State Department’s press briefing yesterday, Deputy Spokesman Adam Ereli responded to Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez’s warnings on Sunday that Venezuela would no longer work with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration. Chávez said that, far from abandoning efforts to combat trafficking and money laundering in his own country, his government had decided that – as Narco News has reported for over five years – the DEA’s war on drugs has nothing to do with actually shutting down the business, but is rather part of a strategy of political intervention in Latin American affairs.

Ereli’s limp response was to charge that Venezuela’s statements about DEA crimes are merely noise designed to distract from what he said was the country’s own increasingly poor performance on drug control, a claim which the U.S. government’s own past statements and reports show to be untrue. Ereli furthermore revived one of the U.S.’s oldest political weapons in the drug war, threatening to end Venezuela’s certification as a country participating in anti-drug efforts.

Ereli told the press in Washington:

Posted by SmeegTheSkreeg
Smeeg, sometimes called Slart, is an Eagle Scout, currently finishing up a degree in History and International Studies. He enjoys computer games, snowboarding, good bier and bitching about how screwed up the world is getting. He speaks german and used to...

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