One of the most alarming side effects of the federal government’s war on drugs is the militarization of law enforcement in America. There are two aspects to the militarization phenomenon. First, the American tradition of civil-military separation is breaking down as Congress assigns more and more law enforcement responsibilities to the armed forces. Second, state and local police officers are increasingly emulating the war-fighting tactics of soldiers. Most Americans are unaware of the militarization phenomenon simply because it has been creeping along imperceptibly for many years. To get perspective, it will be useful to consider some recent events:

The U.S. military played a role in the Waco incident. In preparation for their disastrous 1993 raid on the Branch Davidian compound, federal law enforcement agents were trained by Army Special Forces at Fort Hood, Texas. And Delta Force commanders would later advise Attorney General Janet Reno to insert gas into the compound to end the 51-day siege. Waco resulted in the largest number of civilian deaths ever arising from a law enforcement operation.1

Between 1995 and 1997 the Department of Defense gave police departments 1.2 million pieces of military hardware, including 73 grenade launchers and 112 armored personnel carriers. The Los Angeles Police Department has acquired 600 Army surplus M-16s. Even small-town police departments are getting into the act. The seven-officer department in Jasper, Florida, is now equipped with fully automatic M-16s.2

In 1996 President Bill Clinton appointed a military commander, Gen. Barry R. McCaffrey, to oversee enforcement of the federal drug laws as the director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy.3

Since the mid-1990s U.S. Special Forces have been going after drug dealers in foreign countries. According to the U.S. Southern Command, American soldiers occupy three radar sites in Colombia to help monitor drug flights. And Navy SEALs have assisted in drug interdiction in the port city of Cap-Haitien, Haiti.4

The U.S. Marine Corps is now patrolling the Mexican border to keep drugs and illegal immigrants out of this country. In 1997 a Marine anti-drug patrol shot and killed 18-year-old Esequiel Hernandez as he was tending his family’s herd of goats on private property. The Justice Department settled a wrongful death lawsuit with the Hernandez family for $1.9 million. 5 … Continue Reading

Here again we see the uselessness and cost of the war on drugs, it basically causes it’s own problems because of the illegality of drugs themselves, it is a vicious circle that will just continue to go round and round until or if drugs are legalized.

The Justice Department announced Wednesday that authorities had arrested more than 730 people across the country in a 21-month investigation targeting Mexico’s Sinaloa drug cartel and its infiltration into U.S. cities.

The arrests, including 50 on Wednesday in California, Minnesota, Maryland and the nation’s capital, come amid growing concern in Washington that Mexican crime organizations are out of control and threaten the stability of parts of Mexico and the safety of U.S. citizens.

The Homeland Security Department has developed a plan to send more agents and other resources, and possibly military support, to the U.S.-Mexico border if the drug violence continues to spill over and overwhelm the agents stationed there, a department official confirmed.

The Pentagon is looking into a larger role in bolstering counter-narcotics efforts. Adm. Dennis C. Blair, the director of national intelligence, told Congress on Wednesday that the corruptive influence and increasing violence of the cartels had undermined the Mexican government’s ability to govern parts of its country.

A recent State Department travel advisory warned U.S. citizens about the perils of travel in Mexico, likening the shootouts between authorities and the cartels to “small-unit combat.” The U.S. National Drug Intelligence Center believes that Mexican cartels maintain drug distribution networks or supply drugs to distributors in as many as 195 U.S. cities.

And on Wednesday, Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas), the ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee, said the recent surge in drug-related violence on the Southwest border “has turned some American communities and neighborhoods into the Wild West.”

“A battle is building on the border, and U.S. citizens are getting caught in the crossfire,” Smith said, calling on House Democrats to hold a hearing on drug-related violence on the border. “Congress must address the violence before more lives are lost.”

U.S. Atty. Gen. Eric H. Holder Jr., in his first news conference since taking over as the nation’s top law enforcement officer, offered this as proof of the creeping spread of the Sinaloa cartel in the United States: the seizure of more than $59 million in illegal drug proceeds and large amounts of narcotics, including more than 24,000 pounds of cocaine, 1,200 pounds of methamphetamine and 1.3 million ecstasy pills.

Authorities also seized more than $6.5 million in other assets, 149 vehicles, three aircraft, three maritime vessels and 169 weapons.

“The dimensions of what we are breaking up today had nationwide implications here” in the United States, Holder said.

Special Agent Michele Leonhart, acting administrator of the Drug Enforcement Administration, said the crackdown had denied at least $1 billion in drug revenue for the Sinaloa cartel, one of several syndicates fighting the Mexican government in a war that claimed the lives of more than 5,000 people in Mexico last year.

About 20 suspects have been arrested in Mexico as part of the crackdown, which has been coordinated by the DEA’s Special Operations Division in close cooperation with Mexico and dozens of local, state and federal law enforcement agencies in the United States.

Holder and top DEA officials said most, if not all, of the senior members of the cartel remained at large.

Mexican authorities Wednesday extradited the former leader of a separate cartel accused of smuggling tons of marijuana and cocaine into the United States during the 1980s and 1990s.

The suspect, Miguel Caro Quintero, headed the so-called Sonora cartel and faces federal drug-trafficking charges in Arizona and Colorado. He is the brother of Rafael Caro Quintero, a kingpin who was convicted and sentenced in Mexico for the 1985 killing of a U.S. drug agent, Enrique Camarena.

Holder said he had met with Mexican Atty. Gen. Eduardo Medina Mora on Tuesday to discuss how the two countries could cooperate to dismantle drug-trafficking organizations and root out corrupt government officials on both sides of the border.

“International drug-trafficking organizations pose a sustained, serious threat. They are national security threats,” Holder said. “They are lucrative, they are violent and they are operated with stunning planning and precision.”

Some federal law enforcement officials said the results of the investigation were being announced, at least in part, to address growing accusations that some senior elements of the Mexican government are aiding Sinaloa drug dealers or selectively going after competitors, allowing factions of the Sinaloa cartel to grow. Major corruption arrests in Mexico recently showed that a Sinaloa faction had paid senior officials in the Mexican attorney general’s office to notify it about impending enforcement actions.

A senior DEA official said top Mexican authorities were working closely with Washington to assess the damage from potential leaks from law enforcement officials, and to prevent them from happening.

Holder said the crackdown was considered one of the biggest binational successes against the Mexican cartels, but acknowledged that “this problem is one that will continue. This is an ongoing effort.”

The investigation started with the arrests of some alleged Sinaloa cartel members in California’s Imperial Valley and snowballed into as many as 160 inquiries in the U.S., Mexico and Canada, one senior DEA Special Operations official said.

One of its initial successes was the indictment of Victor Emilio Cazarez-Salazar, believed to be a leader in the Sinaloa cartel, DEA officials said. Cazarez-Salazar remains at large.

Holder and other officials said Wednesday that the Sinaloa cartel was responsible for bringing tons of cocaine, methamphetamine and marijuana into the United States through a sophisticated network of distribution and logistics cells in the country. It is also laundering millions of dollars in criminal proceeds, they said.

Those indicted in the cases have been charged with a variety of crimes, including engaging in a continuing criminal enterprise by violating various felony provisions of the federal Controlled Substances Act; conspiracy to import controlled substances; money laundering; and possession of an unregistered firearm.

Many of those in the United States were low-level operatives; some were illegal immigrants. At least several mid-level managers were believe to be in direct contact with leaders in Sinaloa, who also have been arrested, said the senior DEA Special Operations official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the investigation is ongoing.

Thomas A. Schweich, deputy assistant secretary of State for international law enforcement in the Bush administration, said he saw good news and bad news in the Justice Department’s announcement.

“The bad news is that it shows that the cartels are everywhere, they are dangerous, and they are trafficking in everything,” he said. “The good news is that it shows that there are now cooperative, cross-border efforts to fight them. The cartels know no borders in what they do, and it is important that we know no borders in order to defeat them.”

In this case, a middle-aged man with a concealed weapons permit and no record of violent crime encountered his demise in his home of 14 years.

Jack Cole, a former New Jersey narcotics detective who now heads a drug-law reform group, questions the use of SWAT raids for drug searches. Too often they lead to tragic consequences for police, bystanders and suspects, he says. Especially in the dazed and darkened confusion of dawn.

“I’ve never thought this was smart policing,” said Cole, executive director of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition. “It’s better to use stealth and imagination, wait until you get people out of the house.”

We’ve seen this tragic outcome before. In August 2005, Sunrise police used a SWAT team for a lethal pre-dawn raid on a suspected drug dealer. Anthony Diotaiuto, 23, was shot 10 times. Police found a little more than an ounce of pot in the home.

“That’s just insanity,” Cole said.

In that case, two officers were cleared of criminal wrongdoing, but the family’s civil case is ongoing.

Attorney William Scherer III said Sunrise police detonated a flash-bang grenade after forcing their way into Diotaiuto’s house. “You can imagine what that does to you if you’ve been awakened by someone breaking into your house,” Scherer said. “How can you expect someone to respond intelligently?”

Said Cole: “Put yourself in the occupant’s position. You’re asleep and you’re woken up by a huge crash at the door. I know if it was my house and I had a gun, I’d probably go for it, too.”

At this point, Pembroke Pines police haven’t revealed many details about the raid on Hodgkiss’ home. Police aren’t saying if any illegal drugs were found, apart from a small amount of marijuana that led to the arrest of Lisa Ann Jones, 19, the girlfriend of Hodgkiss’ son Chris, 22.

Police haven’t said if Vincent Hodgkiss was armed when he was shot.

And Golt would not say how many officers entered the home, if they forcibly entered or if they used a flash-bang grenade.

“We don’t discuss procedures,” Golt said. “But we implement all acceptable methods used as SWAT tactics.”

Golt said Pembroke Pines uses the Special Response Team to carry out about 25 drug warrants a year, and nearly all go off without incident. He said there hasn’t been a fatal shooting by Pembroke Pines police in at least 25 years.

He also pointed to escalating violence against police and the fatal shooting of Broward Sheriff’s Deputy Todd Fatta in a 2004 child-porn raid that didn’t use SWAT as reasons for using the SRT unit.

According to statistics kept by the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank, police drug raids have resulted in 42 deaths of innocents, 24 deaths and injuries of police officers, and 22 deaths of nonviolent drug suspects since 1985.

“Even if no one got hurt and police always got the right house, I’m just not comfortable using these paramilitary tactics for nonviolent drug offenders,” said Radley Balko, who wrote “Overkill: The rise of paramilitary police raids in America” for the Cato Institute. “If we’re going to have a drug war, there are better ways of doing this.”

Add Vincent Hodgkiss’ name to the casualty list.

GARMSER, Afghanistan — The Marines of Bravo Company’s 1st Platoon sleep beside a grove of poppies. Troops in the 2nd Platoon playfully swat at the heavy opium bulbs while walking through the fields. Afghan laborers scraping the plant’s gooey resin smile and wave.

Last week, the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit moved into southern Helmand province, the world’s largest opium poppy-growing region, and now find themselves surrounded by green fields of the illegal plants that produce the main ingredient of heroin.

The Taliban, whose fighters are exchanging daily fire with the Marines in Garmser, derives up to $100 million a year from the poppy harvest by taxing farmers and charging safe passage fees — money that will buy weapons for use against U.S., NATO and Afghan troops.

Yet the Marines are not destroying the plants. In fact, they are reassuring villagers the poppies won’t be touched. American commanders say the Marines would only alienate people and drive them to take up arms if they eliminated the impoverished Afghans’ only source of income.

Many Marines in the field are scratching their heads over the situation.

”It’s kind of weird. We’re coming over here to fight the Taliban. We see this. We know it’s bad. But at the same time we know it’s the only way locals can make money,” said 1st Lt. Adam Lynch, 27, of Barnstable, Mass.

The Marines’ battalion commander, Lt. Col. Anthony Henderson, said in an interview Tuesday that the poppy crop ”will come and go” and that his troops can’t focus on it when Taliban fighters around Garmser are ”terrorizing the people.”

”I think by focusing on the Taliban, the poppies will go away,” said Henderson, a 41-year-old from Washington, D.C. He said once the militant fighters are forced out, the Afghan government can move in and offer alternatives.

An expert on Afghanistan’s drug trade, Barnett Rubin, complained that the Marines are being put in such a situation by a ”one-dimensional” military policy that fails to integrate political and economic considerations into long-range planning.

”All we hear is, not enough troops, send more troops,” said Rubin, a professor at New York University. ”Then you send in troops with no capacity for assistance, no capacity for development, no capacity for aid, no capacity for governance.”

Most of the 33,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan operate in the east, where the poppy problem is not as great. But the 2,400-strong 24th Marines, have taken the field in this southern growing region during harvest season.

In the poppy fields 100 feet from the 2nd Platoon’s headquarters, three Afghan brothers scraped opium resin over the weekend. The youngest, 23-year-old Sardar, said his family would earn little money from the harvest.

”We receive money from the shopkeepers, then they will sell it,” said Sardar, who was afraid to give his last name. ”We don’t have enough money to buy flour for our families. The smugglers make the money,” added Sardar, who worked alongside his 11-year-old son just 20 yards from a Marine guard post, its guns pointed across the field.

Afghanistan supplies some 93 percent of the world’s opium used to make heroin, and the Taliban militants earn up to $100 million from the drug trade, the United Nations estimates. The export value of this harvest was $4 billion — more than a third of the country’s combined gross domestic product.

Though they aren’t eradicating poppies, the Marines presence could still have a positive effect. Henderson said the drug supply lines have been disrupted at a crucial point in the harvest. And Marine commanders are debating staying in Garmser longer than originally planned.

Second Lt. Mark Greenlief, 24, a Monmouth, Ill., native who commands the 2nd Platoon, said he originally wanted to make a helicopter landing zone in Sardar’s field. ”But as you can see that would ruin their poppy field, and we didn’t want to ruin their livelihood.”

Sardar ”basically said, ‘This is my livelihood, I have to do what I can to protect that,”’ said Greenlief. ”I told him we’re not here to eradicate.”

The Taliban told Garmser residents that the Marines were moving in to eradicate, hoping to encourage the villagers to rise up against the Americans, said 2nd Lt. Brandon Barrett, 25, of Marion, Ind., commander of the 1st Platoon.

In the next field over from Sardar’s, Khan Mohammad, an Afghan born in Helmand province who lives in Pakistan and came to work the fields, said he makes only $2 a day. He said the work is dangerous now that Taliban militants are shooting at the U.S. positions.

”We’re stuck in the middle,” he said. ”If we go over there those guys will fire at us. If we come here, we’re in danger, too, but we have to work,” said the 54-year-old Mohammad, who supports a family of 10.

An even older laborer, his back bent by years of work, came over and told the small gathering of Afghans, Marines and journalists that the laborers had to get back to work ”or the boss will get mad at us.”

Staff Sgt. Jeremy Stover, whose platoon is sleeping beside a poppy crop planted in the interior courtyard of a mud-walled compound, said the Marines’ mission is to get rid of the ”bad guys,” and ”the locals aren’t the bad guys.”

”Poppy fields in Afghanistan are the cornfields of Ohio,” said Stover, 28, of Marion, Ohio. ”When we got here they were asking us if it’s OK to harvest poppy and we said, ‘Yeah, just don’t use an AK-47.”’