New Mexico is known for its epidemic DWI problem--many are brought up on their tenth charge, yet promptly released.
The parade of state, county and local officials busted is an embarrassment.
Christmas Eve, 1992, Gordon House had thirteen beers, drove his pickup truck eighty miles an hour the wrong way on the Interstate and hit a car carrying a family and its gifts head on, killing the mother and her three daughters and causing the husband and father severe brain damage. House, a native American, was ultimately convicted and sentenced to 22 years.
This past year another native American had boo tany meers, got in his (U.S. Government) pickup, drove at a high rate of speed the wrong way down the Interstate and hit a car carrying two retired, vacationing couples head-on, killing all four. Again, the drunk driver survived.
I lived thirteen years in the county in the state bearing the distinction of the highest heroin overdose death rate in the nation. The multiagency task forces stage their annual "massive drug raid", parading a caravan of sedans down the twisting two-lane blacktop, "busting" three dozen sleepy sadsacks who bond and plea out in short order.
In other news, the poppy fields of Afghanistan may lie fallow for a season, the slack being taken up by the Wei Army of Burma/Myanmar with the (covert) aid of the Peoples Liberation Army of China.
Peru and Colombia produce cash crops with the (clandestine) support of Hugo Chavez, as well as the overt protection of FARC, Shining Path and no doubt the other side as well.
A U.S. Army colonel (ret.) of my acquaintance described a time in Vietnam when he was ordered by his superiors to provide protection for a drug caravan passing through his sector: one instance among many, according to this veteran whom I trust.
An incident to demonstrate that the trade has the vertical (up and down the chain of command) as well as the horizontal (across borders and ideologies) support and protection.
The games of cops and robbers are important eye candy for the evening news, evidence that the various members of AFSCME and the armed militarized police forces of a myriad of agencies and jurisdictions are earning their share of the tax bite.
The prison populations have doubled several times in recent decades.
The illegitimate status of drugs profits a few and employs many.
The world still waits for the medical records of William Jefferson Clinton, waits in vain.
That he overdosed on cocaine during his governorship is a surety. That he is a cocaine user to this day is a given.
Terry Reed has an interesting perspective on the Mena operation in Compromised: Clinton, Bush and the CIA, SPI, 1994.
Mike Ruppert of CopVCIA and John Carman of CustomsCorruption have tales to tell.
More and more are looking behind the curtain to see the man working the levers is a charlatan.
One claiming knowledge or skill that he does not have.