HuffPo: ‘Paul’s claim that the war on drugs had racist origins was more or less accurate.’
RT
January 1, 2012
Texas Congressman Ron Paul has long lobbied against government restrictions on the drug use of American citizens, but in the past the outspoken presidential hopeful has linked the US with narcotics closer than one might imagine.
As early as 1988, Paul was preaching of a relationship between the Central Intelligence Agency and Contras in Nicaragua amid the Iran-Contra scandal that plagued the Reagan administration. That relationship, said Paul, was one built with an intricate drug trade.
According to the GOP frontrunner in the race to the White House, the CIA imported cocaine from the Contras into America and then supplied domestic drug dealers with their loot, a transaction that allowed the Agency to operate its illegal trade with its Latin American neighbors that would have been otherwise impossible to fund with legitimate money.
Instead, said Paul, the CIA used dirty money made by the Agency’s drug deals to help afford the cost of arming the Contras against Sandinistas.
Speaking at a gathering of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, a NORML, Paul told an audience along the campaign trail back during his bid for the presidency in 1988 that the CIA was involved in dealing coke.
Drug trafficking is “a gold mine for people who want to raise money in the underground government in order to finance projects that they can’t get legitimately. It is very clear that the CIA has been very much involved with drug dealings,” Paul said in the address. “The CIA was very much involved in the Iran-Contra scandals. I’m not making up the stories; we saw it on television. They were hauling down weapons and drugs back. And the CIA and government officials were closing their eyes, fighting a war that was technically illegal.”
Ron Paul Had Accurate Conspiracy Theory: CIA Was Tied To Drug Traffickers
Ryan Grim
Huffington Post
December 31, 2011
[…]
But just because not all of Paul’s theories are backed by good evidence doesn’t mean none of them are.
In 1988, while running for president on the Libertarian Party ticket, he highlighted yet another conspiracy theory, and this one doesn’t collapse under investigation: The CIA, Paul told a gathering of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, was involved in trafficking drugs as part of the Iran-Contra debacle.
Drug trafficking is “a gold mine for people who want to raise money in the underground government in order to finance projects that they can’t get legitimately. It is very clear that the CIA has been very much involved with drug dealings,” Paul said. “The CIA was very much involved in the Iran-Contra scandals. I’m not making up the stories; we saw it on television. They were hauling down weapons and drugs back. And the CIA and government officials were closing their eyes, fighting a war that was technically illegal.”
Earlier this week, I looked into Paul’s claim in the same speech that the war on drugs had racist origins and that the medical community played a role in lobbying for drug prohibitions. That charge was more or less accurate.
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