Venezuelan Officials Reject Allegation of Drug Trafficking

[Bacchus4.0]

Source: AP

Venezuelan officials on Tuesday denounced a report that links the head of the socialist South American country's congress to the drug trade.

Two Spanish-language newspapers reported Monday that the chief bodyguard of National Assembly President Diosdado Cabello has gone to the United States with information implicating him as head of a drug cartel made up of political and military officials.

The anonymously sourced stories were carried by ABC of Spain and the Miami-based El Nuevo Herald.

In Washington, William Brownfield, the State Department's top anti-narcotics official, said there is significant evidence that some members of the Venezuelan government have been corrupted by trafficking organizations and said the report naming bodyguard Leamsy Salazar "is not inconsistent with that narrative. That is as far as I am inclined to go."




Read more: http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/venezuelan-officials-reject-allegation-drug-trafficking-28525640

[forest444]

1. So, we're told, do Colombian officials

And "the anonymously sourced stories were carried by (Franco's old) ABC of Spain and the Miami-based El Nuevo Herald" ??

[Bacchus4.0]

2. we'll have to wait and see but the head of Cabello's security is in the US under protective custody

according to those stories.

[forest444]

3. Oh, sure

More speech coaches than bodyguards in that room, I'd bet.

[Bacchus4.0]

4. What's he doing in the US then? vacationing? n/t

[forest444]

6. An official guest is more like it

The problem with these ploys (this is not the first time they've tried this, keep in mind) isn't so much that no one believes them, but that the cold-warchiks that still control the Latin America desk in the State Department and Intelligence agencies look silly crying wolf about drug trafficking in Venezuela, when they openly congratulate Colombia, Panama, Honduras, and Mexico for basically doing the same thing - and on far greater scale.

They day they ever decide to truly and honestly tackle that, then we'll be talking Turkey (and Afghanistan).

[Jackpine Radical]

5. The smartest move we could make with respect to helping South America

clean up their politics would be to legalize recreational drugs & drop the bottom out of the price. The cartels would squeal.

And I don't mean to pick on Venezuela--I like a lot of what they've done for the people, etc.

[FrodosPet]

7. Legal cocaine! Woo hoo!

Wouldn't it be great to be able to buy crack and meth INSIDE the party store or truckstop, instead of behind it?



So which corporations would benefit most?

[Comrade Grumpy]

8. Drug prohibition! Woo hoo! Look at what you get.

All those pretty faces and whole lot of other bad shit, too.

There are models for drug control between the extremes of prohibition and an unfettered free market.