by Starman » Fri Sep 09, 2005 1:49 am
SLAD:<br><br>"Belgian authorities later arrested four people when the containers arrived in Antwerp minus the drugs. Spain has also held a number of suspects.<br><br>Antwerp police said: "We're talking a major operation here."<br>Last month's bust was kept secret until the arrests were made.<br>Police also found 260kg of cocaine in containers attached to a ship's hull in Carboneras, southern Spain, it emerged last night."<br><br>It seems to me more likely the coke hidden in the steel rels was destined for Antwerp -- That would seem to be the intent which led to 4 people being arrested, when they went to retrieve the shipment (already removed by police). Otherwise, why would anyone in Antwerp go to just 'check' the shipment?<br><br>The Spain incident seems similiar -- the Police likely apprehended the conspirators when they went to take-delivery of the product attached to the ship's hull. I wonder, what do the authorities do to spot such ingenious smuggling practices -- conduct underwater manned or drone surveillance?<br><br>So, I really doubt the intended destination for the coke was Iraq. But, to keep an open mind -- there MAY be some hidden psyop/covert ops to introduce cocaine to Iraqi society as another divide-and-conquer/gangster-racket novelty drug-fad tactic to undermine and distract a bitterly-confrontational anti-US civil society. The existing longstanding taboo against opium/heroin may have led to the organized-crime saturation of the underground trade in heroin/opium. Perhaps coke will join porn and prostitution as lucrative western-culture imports by which to exploit Iraq's free-market profit opportunity, especially with non-existent oversight or currency-export regs -- as well as a means to undermine Iraq's strong moral culture and create a decadent counter-culture movement subverting popular resistance to the US-occupation. <br><br>There may also be a semi-official psyop blackmail/corruption/entrapment basis for introducing Cocaine into Iraqi society via underground/criminal networks. Or perhaps, it's just a service targetting the US/ally troops and mercenary -- but by WHO?<br><br>I sort-of doubt this is shadow-gov./Bush-linked operation -- they'd have used well-protected routes, as with US military supply networks instead of risking drug-police interdiction. (But then, while sanctioned at the 'top', lower-tier operatives might be using their own developed networks and contacts. With such limited information, one can only speculate based on misc. reports/observations of past actions and whistleblower accounts.<br><br>Puzzling, alright.<br>Starman <p></p><i></i>