IT'S EVERYONE'S PROBLEM:
Introducing Mr. Monzer Al-Kassar:
Here you have a Syrian drug dealer turning to weapons sales and having immediate entree to Hezbollah, access to the Syrian weapons production market, and then spreading that influence overseas to so as to make FARC nastier and start supplying Hezbollah in South America. Plus taking a role in blowing up Pan Am 103. Even if that last doesn't prove out, the former makes Mr. Kassar the absolute key in unlocking the hard terror links between Syria, Eastern European and Russian Mafias, Albanian organized crime, Algerian terrorists, Hezbollah, FARC and, possibly, even the latest Caribbean plot.
The tie between terrorism and drugs in and of itself is no surprise. In October 2005
Dr. Rachel Ehrenfeld, Director of the American Center for Democracy testified before the House of Commons in Ottawa:
Concerning illegal drugs, since the mid-1980s Hezbollah has used illicit drugs as a major funding source and weapon against the west. An official Iranian fatwa ruled: “We are making these drugs for Satan America and the Jews. If we cannot kill them with guns, so we will kill them with drugs.” ...In Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley, Hezbollah controls approximately 13,000 acres that produce at least 300 tons of hashish annually, most of which is exported to Europe. This high-quality Lebanese hashish grosses Hezbollah $180 million annually. Hezbollah-run laboratories, refining tons of heroin, are estimated to bring in some $3 billion annually.
Did Pelosi discuss any of this during her chat with Assad?
[Hat tip:
Instapundit]
Technorati Tag:
Israel and
Monzer Al-Kassar and
Syria and
Hizbollah.
My thanks!
ReplyDeletePut up a few more posts, but the major one is a backgrounder on Mr. Kassar. He is, if we can hold on to him, the biggest break in the multiple internetworks of transnational terrorism, organized crime and international narcotics dealing that has ever been seen. Written scads on Transnational Terrorism, and don't think it can be ended, just like international organized crime can't be ended.
But it can be curbed if we stop treating it as a crime and start treating it as warfare... warfare from that era before the 20th century, which has its own legitimate rules to operate by. Ones fully understood by the Nation State system, although some few have tried to end those means. Reminding ourselves that the world is, by and large, not civil nor civilized is a major bit of disabusing this generation needs to learn. The good old days of the 20th century are over.