The DEA cables
Image via Wikipedia...Actually the Mexican Navy to to a lesser extent the army have developed a good relationship with the DEA that has led to the death or capture of many of the criminal insurgents and their leaders.
Diplomats recorded unforgettable vignettes from the largely unseen war on drugs:
¶In Panama, an urgent BlackBerry message from the president to the American ambassador demanded that the D.E.A. go after his political enemies: “I need help with tapping phones.”
¶In Sierra Leone, a major cocaine-trafficking prosecution was almost upended by the attorney general’s attempt to solicit $2.5 million in bribes.
¶In Guinea, the country’s biggest narcotics kingpin turned out to be the president’s son, and diplomats discovered that before the police destroyed a huge narcotics seizure, the drugs had been replaced by flour.
¶Leaders of Mexico’s beleaguered military issued private pleas for closer collaboration with the drug agency, confessing that they had little faith in their own country’s police forces.
¶Cables from Myanmar, the target of strict United States sanctions, describe the drug agency informants’ reporting both on how the military junta enriches itself with drug money and on the political activities of the junta’s opponents.
Officials of the D.E.A. and the State Department declined to discuss what they said was information that should never have been made public.
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The cables also provide some details on the depths of corruption that flourish in some parts of the world. It is one reasons why those countries are so poor. While I can understand why the State Department would not want to be the source of this information, I am glad that it has come to light and I hope it causes consternation among the guilty, if nothing worse.
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