The profits of prohibition

Thanks to Dan Forbes for passing on this link to the latest news on drug war contracts. DynaCorp has just been awarded its third consecutive contract to provide eradication and interdiction services. This year's contract is worth 174 million which does not include cost overruns, performance bonuses nor a separate multimillion dollar contract for forfeiture consulting. The corporation and its predecessor companies has been providing these services since 1991 with the contract value adding up to the billion dollar ranges. Any wonder these same corporations underwrite such NGOs as Drug Free America?

I would analyze the relationship of these contracts to prohibition policies but Dan, along with Don Hazen already did it in piece from 2001 that is still unfortunately so timely, it could have been written yesterday.

One huge private company in particular is in the drug war up to its neck. According to National Defense (a trade publication for defense contractors), DynCorp, a $1.4 billion a year, 20,000-employee government contractor based in Reston, Virginia, "supports drug war operations at both the front and back ends -- from airborne crop-dusting in Colombia to asset forfeiture experts who work at 385 Justice Department sites in the United States." That's right, South America's favorite mercenaries help the feds seize property here at home.

...And now back to DynCorp, the $1.4 billion-a-year government contractor. Quoting a Government Accounting Office report, The Miami Herald noted that DynCorp "has been paid at least $270 million since 1991 to provide airplane and helicopter pilots and mechanics for the war on drugs in Colombia, Peru, Bolivia, Ecuador and Guatemala."

Jason Vest reported in The Nation that DynCorp oversees a fleet of 46 helicopters and 23 airplanes from an Air Force base in Florida. The Nation obtained a copy of DynCorp's contract, which states that along with "fumigation and search-and-rescue," DynCorp's other responsibilities include "flying local troops in to destroy drug labs and coca or poppy fields."

A nifty enabler, the guise of fighting drugs allows the U.S. to fly troops around in other countries' civil wars. This February DynCorp employees flew into the midst of a firefight to rescue Colombian police shot down by leftist guerillas.

Needless to say, all of this has been a disaster for the Colombian people but has had no effect on the availability or the price of street drugs. Their closing paragraph says it all and speaks for me.

And the newest piece of the picture is perhaps the most disturbing. It's the funding of private armies of ex-military warriors and drug cops -- exemplified by DynCorp -- to create a massive infrastructure of vested interests and military firepower. Along with the already bloated U.S. prison-industrial complex, such an enterprise creates a hungry, growing monster that can swallow hundreds of thousands of victims and lap up billions in asset forfeiture. This is the emerging picture of the corporatization of the drug war.

Fighting it successfully may well require the passion, smarts and commitment of a new anti-war movement.