Category Archives: transnational crime

Sudan’s Civil War: Smuggled Sudanese Gold Funding Russia in Ukraine

17 Monday Apr 2023

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, 21st Century Modern, Africa, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Europe, North America, Russia, South America, Sudan, transnational crime, Ukraine

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The facts are just nothing new.

Sudan’s General Dagalo Hemeti has had both long-standing family interests in Sudan’s gold trade, and he has had for some time arrangements with Russian President Vladimir Putin involving Wagner Group oversight of smuggled shipments to Russia that bypass western sanctions and help fund Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.

The west’s hunkering down, bleating about democracy, and pleading for some cessation in violence seems old news as well.

So it goes here for the Sudanese People and others watching the struggles of ordinary good people against thieves taking advantage of their innocence to rob them of their birthright, their dignity, and their humanity. In fact, having displaced the dictator and war criminal Omar al-Bashir, the Sudanese have helped into power, in the course of their powerlessness, two dictators in return, both of them former subordinates to al-Bashir. Of the two, Hemeti may have the more powerful relationship with Putin as he flies off-the-books gold to Russia’s dictator and serves as an envoy — for Putin, a diplomatic channel — to Saudi power as well.

Neither Russians nor Sudanese appear to have today a champion whose interests as well as psychology and temperament reside with them. The present three “strongmen”– al-Burhan, Hemeti, and Putin– appear to represent the evil that enriches and aggrandizes itself while lying without conscience to the nation each purports to represent.

Russia’s meddling in Sudan’s gold began in earnest in 2014 after its invasion of Crimea prompted a slew of Western sanctions. Gold shipments proved an effective way of accumulating and transferring wealth, bolstering Russia’s state coffers while sidestepping international financial monitoring systems.

“The downside of gold is that it’s physical and a lot more cumbersome to use than international wire transfers but the flip side is that it’s much harder if not impossible to freeze or seize,” said Daniel McDowell, sanctions specialist and associate professor of Political Science at Syracuse University.

Elbagir, Nima, Barbara Arvanitidis, Tamara Qiblawi, Gianluca Mezzofiore, Mohammed Abo Al Gheit and Darya Tarasova. Video by Alex Platt and Mark Baron Graphics by Sarah-Grace Mankarious, Marco Chacón, Natalie Croker and Henrik Pettersson. “Russia is plundering gold in Sudan to boost Putin’s war effort in Ukraine.” CNN, July 29, 2022.

Cited or Related Online

ADF. “Russia Uses Wagner To Plunder Sudan’s Gold.” December 6, 2022.

Al-Arshani, Sara. “The two generals fighting in Sudan helped Putin plunder the country’s gold to fund Russia’s war in Ukraine.” Insider, April 15, 2023.

Cole, Brendan. “U.S. Ambassador Details Waking Up to ‘Gunfire’ as Fighting Erupts in Sudan.” Newsweek, April 15, 2023.

Copnall, James. “Sudan crisis: Burhan and Hemedti – the two generals at the heart of the conflict.” BBC, April 17, 2023.

Dahir, Abdi Latif. “Who is Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, the head of Sudan’s military?” The New York Times, April 25, 2023.

Dabanga. “Hemeti charts official Sudan policy on Russia-Ukraine conflict.” March 2022.

Dabanga. “Russian FA visit: Putin appreciative of Sudan’s support.” February 10, 2023.

Dabanga. “Hemeti manoeuvres to brand war against Sudan army as fight against former regime Islamists.” April 17, 2023.

Elbagir, Nima, Barbara Arvanitidis, Tamara Qiblawi, Gianluca Mezzofiore, Mohammed Abo Al Gheit and Darya Tarasova. Video by Alex Platt and Mark Baron Graphics by Sarah-Grace Mankarious, Marco Chacón, Natalie Croker and Henrik Pettersson. “Russia is plundering gold in Sudan to boost Putin’s war effort in Ukraine.” CNN, July 29, 2022.

Mackinnon, Amy, Robbie Gramer, Jack Detsch. “Russia’s Dreams of a Red Sea Naval Base Are Scuttled–for Now.” Foreign Policy, July 15, 2022.

NOVA News. “Sudan. who is General ‘Hemeti’ Dagalo, the man close to Russia who is behind the attempted coup.” April 16, 2023.

Oppenheim, James S. “Brief Reference: Wagner Group in Africa.” BackChannels, March 28, 2023.

Packer, George. “This Is Not 1943.” The Atlantic, February 3, 2013.

Reuters. “Sudan’s Hemedti seeks deeper Russia ties on Moscow visit.” February 23, 2022.

Walsh, Declan. “‘From Russia With Love’: A Putin Ally Mines Gold and Plays Favorites in Sudan.” The New York Times. June 5, 2022.

Deputy Chairman of Sudan’s Sovereignty Council and commander of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), Gen Mohamed Hamdan ‘Hemeti’ Dagalo, called on the international community to support the dialogue between Russia and Ukraine. This is the official position of the Sovereignty Council, he said in a statement to the Russian news channel Sputnik yesterday.

Yesterday’s statement followed Hemeti’s statements last week during his Moscow visit, where he declared support for Russia’s invasion by saying that Russia had a right to defend itself and its people.

Dabanga. “Hemeti charts official Sudan policy on Russia-Ukraine conflict.” March 2022.

Hemeti knows Russia invaded Ukraine on a cooked-up pretext on which Putin could fluff himself at least in his own head.

A July 2022 CNN investigation exposed deepening ties between Moscow and Sudan’s military leadership, who granted Russia access to the east African country’s gold riches in exchange for military and political support. The relationship began in earnest after Moscow’s 2014 invasion of Crimea, when Russia began to eye African gold riches as an avenue to circumvent a slew of Western sanctions.

The 2022 invasion of Ukraine and the wave of sanctions that followed accelerated Russia’s gold plunder in Sudan and further propped up military rule, increasing Wagner activity in the country.

On the day before Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Dagalo headed a Sudanese delegation in Moscow to “advance relations” between the two countries.

Elbagir, Nima, Gianluca Mezzofiore, Tamara Qiblawai, Barbara Arvantidis. “Exclusive: Evidence emerges of Russia’s Wagner arming militia leader battling Sudan’s army.” CNN, April 21, 2023.

Addendum: Related Online

Dickens, Olewe. “Mohamed ‘Hemeti’ Dagalo: Top Sudan military figure says coup was a mistake.” February 20, 2023.

Elbagir, Nima, Gianluca Mezzofiore, Tamara Qiblawai, Barbara Arvantidis. “Exclusive: Evidence emerges of Russia’s Wagner arming militia leader battling Sudan’s army.” CNN, April 21, 2023.

Lynch, Justin. “In Sudan, U.S. Policies Paved the Way for War.” Foreign Policy, April 20, 2023.

Uddin Rayhan.”Who is Hemeti? The feared former warlord vying for control in Sudan.” Middle East Eye, April 17, 2023.

Posted to YouTube May 8, 2023.

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Brief Reference: Wagner Group in Africa

28 Tuesday Mar 2023

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, Africa, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, International Development, transnational crime

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State capture is a particularly nefarious form of systemic corruption, which has defined certain African countries in recent years. It entails private individuals gaining such a profound influence over senior officials that state institutions prioritise the welfare of those private interests over the public good.

There is a triangular pattern to such arrangements. The external partners and the colluding political actors profit handsomely – while the public foots the bill.

Siegle, Joseph. “How Russia is pursuing state capture in Africa.” Africa at the London School of Economics, March 21, 2022.

In the inverted and upside-down Moscovian underworld inhabited by criminals, mercenaries, and warlords, life’s rich with looted diamonds and gold and other of Africa’s natural resources commandeered by force — well, gentleman’s agreements up top — and worked by slaves. “Working” with impunity, Wagner operations have been associated with disinformation campaigns, disappearances, extrajudicial killings, rapes, and accounts of torture.

Topside, as it were, Russia has been able to leverage Wagner power in weakened states into concessions, commercial contracts, and access to airbases and ports.

Apart from selling arms and natural resources, Russia may not know how to make money in ways above board and transparent, but it knows how to steal all that it wants. In mafia fashion, even the reference “Wagner Group” has submerged into enshadowed networks.

he Wagner Group is one of the most well-known and prolific PMCs in the world. Nevertheless, exact details about the group are difficult to confirm, with its organizational structure remaining deliberately obscure. The Wagner Group does not officially exist, with the name instead applied to an overlapping network of businesses and private military forces that are believed to enjoy the implicit but unrecognized support of the Russian state (Foreign Policy, 6 July 2021).1

In recent years, the Wagner Group has actively engaged in conflicts across multiple countries in Africa and the Middle East, including Syria, Libya, Mozambique, and CAR. Reports also suggest that they have engaged in activities in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Angola, Madagascar, Zimbabwe, and Sudan (Africanews, 22 March 2022), with operations in up to 30 countries across the world (Center for Strategic & International Studies, September 2020).

Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED). “Wagner Group Operations in Africa: Civilian Targeting Trends in the Central African Republic and Mali.” August 30, 2022.

BackChannels scrapes up the outside story, lol, as it sees the world through Windows–but what a world is now online for gathering in the research of extraordinary journalists and institutions and having at hand a broad and thorough impression of challenges to civility, democracy, law, and peace worldwide. Here with this short patch of reference related to Russia’s hybrid aggression in the cause of immense theft–no ethical, human, or moral cost is too high for plundering states and suborning the dictators who had thought they were in charge–comes a display of transnational crime breathtaking in its depravity and scope.

If only Africans knew what was being done to them with Moscow’s endorsement for Moscow’s pleasure.

Reference: Wagner Group in Africa

Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED). “Wagner Group Operations in Africa: Civilian Targeting Trends in the Central African Republic and Mali.” August 30, 2022.

Clarke, Colin P. “How Russia’s Wagner Group is Fueling Terrorism in Africa.” Foreign Policy, January 25, 2023.

Clarke, Colin P. “Russian Mercenaries are Destabilizing Africa.” The New York Times, January 31, 2023.

Ehl, David. “More than mercenaries: Russia’s Wagner Group in Africa.” DW, February 28, 2023.

Fasanotti, Saini. “Russia’s Wagner Group in Africa: Influence, commercial concessions, rights violations, and counterinsurgency failure.” Brookings, February 8, 2022.

Katz, Brian, Seth G. Jones, Catrina Doxsee, Nicholas Harrington. “Moscow’s Mercenary Wars.” Center for Strategic & International Studies.” September 2020.

Mackinnon, Amy. “Russia’s Wagner Group Doesn’t Actually Exist.” Foreign Policy, July 6, 2021.

Siegle, Joseph. “How Russia is pursuing state capture in Africa.” Africa at the London School of Economics, March 21, 2022.

Skrdlik, Josef. “Report: Wagner Mercenaries Profit from Central Africa’s Blood Diamonds.” Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP), December 7, 2022.

U.S. Department of the Treasury. “Treasury Sanctions Russian Proxy Wagner Group as a Transnational Criminal Organization.” Press Release. January 26, 2023.

Walsh, Declan. “Putin’s Shadow Soldiers: How Wagner Group Is Expanding in Africa.” The New York Times, May 31, 2022.

Addendum to Reference from May 22, 2023

From time to time, material shows up that would seem to suit this post, so here I may update reference.

Burke, Jason. “Russian mercenaries behind slaughter of 500 in Mali village, UN report finds.” The Guardian, May 20, 2023.

Connolly, Nick. “African delegation in Eastern Europe: More than a photo op?” DW, June 18, 2023.

Elbagir, Nima, Tamara Qiblawi, Barbara Arvanitidis, Gianluca Mezzofiore, Pallabi Munsi, Ingrid Formanek and Saskya Vandoorne. “Kill, terrorize, expel: Testimonies detail atrocities by Wagner-backed militia in Sudan.” CNN, June 17,2023.

Oppenheim, James S. “Sudan: Burhan’s Choice.” BackChannels, April 20, 2023.

Oppenheim, James S. “Sudan’s Civil War: Smuggled Sudanese Gold Funding Russia in Ukraine.” BackChannels, April 17, 2023.

Sheludkova, Irina. “Why is Russia’s Wagner Group in Sudan, and what does it have to do with the war in Ukraine?” Euronews, April 27, 2023.

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A Note on the Demise of the Medieval Rus

09 Monday May 2022

Posted by in 21st Century Modern, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Eurasia, Europe, International Development, Political Psychology, Political Spychology, Qualities of Living (QOL), Russia, Syndicate Red Brown Green, transnational crime, Ukraine

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The Rus warlords Oleg of Novgorod and Sviatoslav I of Kiev launched several wars against the Khazar khaganate, often with Byzantine connivance. The Schechter Letter relates the story of a campaign against Khazaria by HLGW (Oleg) around 941 (in which Oleg was defeated by the Khazar general Pesakh; this calls into question the timeline of the Primary Chronicle and other related works on the history of the Eastern Slavs.

Sviatoslav finally succeeded in destroying Khazar imperial power in the 960s. The Khazar fortresses of Sarkel and Tamatarkha fell to the Rus in 965, with the capital city of Atil following circa 967 or 969. A visitor to Atil wrote soon after the sacking of the city: “The Rus attacked, and no grape or raisin remained, not a leaf on a branch.”

McGill Wikispedia. “Khazars: Rise of the Rus”. n.d.
5/8/2022
5/9/2022

Putin’s delusional accusations regarding Nazism in Ukraine better fit description as the “Paranoid Delusional Narcissistic Reflection of Motivation” than any dominant or significant political stance held in modern Ukraine, and the same may better inform Russians and the residents of EU/NATO of the character of his insanity than any truth about international affairs.

While The Great Paranoid Leader confuses and inverts reality–Putin’s the fascist blood-and-soil nationalist even while wearing his anti-fascist St. George’s ribbon today–and bluffs with the same convincing act that stalled the mob foaming around KGB headquarters in East Germany (ref. para. 4) at the fall of the German Democratic Republic (December 1989), he can do nothing either to alter past or present realities (as more accurately and truthfully conveyed and apprehended in the Open Information Space of the democratic open societies of the west) or now his own declining and ignominious image before the world. The development of a partially criminal and fraudulent KGB in the mid-early 1990s has in Ukraine finally reached NATO’s western-leaning Ukrainian buffer, a state once controlled in its corruption by Moscow. As Ukraine engaged Putin’s bombarding and invading forces to push them back and safely beyond its own sovereign writ, one may only wish Russia’s dictator would develop conscience, insight, integrity, and guilt.

As the murderous fraud Putin has been, he has no possession of good character and cannot purchase any authentic nobility. Deep down, I suspect he knows as much himself, and it is that (along with the narcissist’s early “Narcissistic Mortification“) that makes him so touchy as well as dangerous and errant.

One may hope that modern Russians when more fully and accurately informed en masse will finally part ways with their distant medieval and barbaric forbears.

Related Online

Amelin, Anatoliy, Andrian Prokip, Andreas Umland. “The Forgotten Potential of Ukraine’s Energy Reserves.” Harvard International Review, October 10, 2020.

Bubola, Emma. “‘A Frightening Repeat’: Ukrainian World War II Survivors Face Conflict Again.” The New York Times, March 24-25, 2022.

Dixon, Robyn and Mary Ilyushina. “On Victory Day, Putin defends war on Ukraine as fight against ‘Nazis’.” The Washington Post, May 9, 2022.

Furlong, Ray. “Showdown In Dresden: The Stasi Occupation And The Putin Myth.” RFE/RL, December 2, 2019.

Jankowicz, Mia. “Captured Russians said their leaders lied about the plan to invade Ukraine, leaving them unprepared for fierce resistance.” Business Insider, March 7, 2022.

Kellogg, Michael. The Russian Roots of Nazism: White Émigrés and the Making of National Socialism, 1917–1945. (New Studies in European History.) New York: Cambridge University Press. 2005.

Kuzio, Taras. “How Putin’s Russia embraced fascism while preaching anti-fascism.” Ukraine Alert, Atlantic Council, April 17, 2022.

Motyl, Alexander. “Yes, Putin and Russia are fascist–A political scientist shows how they meet the textbook definition.” The Conversation, March 30, 2022.

Nekrasov, Andrei and Olga Konskaya. “Rebellion: The Litvinenko Case” also titled, “Poisoned by Polonium: The Litvinenko File”. 2007.

Oppenheim, James S. “Paranoid Delusional Narcissistic Reflection of Motivation.” BackChannels.

Prentice, Alessandra. “Ukrainians fear fiercer assault as Russia marks Soviet WW2 victory.” Reuters, May 9, 2022.

Ruane, Michael E. “Kyiv was surrounded in 1941 as the Nazis closed in. The Russian army defended the city.” The Washington Post, March 4, 2022.

Satter, David. “The Unsolved Mystery Behind the Act of Terror That Brought Putin to Power.” National Review, August 17, 2016.

Snyder, Timothy. “Germans must remember the truth about Ukraine–for their own sake.” Eurozine, July 7, 2017.

Stanley, Jason and Eliyahu Stern. “Putin’s Fascism.” Tablet, March 20, 2022.

The White House. “G7 Leaders’ Statement.” May 8, 2022.

Walker, Shaun. “How the Soviet Union’s Fall Pushed Putin to Try and Recapture Russia’s Global Importance.” History.com, February 28, 2022.

Walker, Shaun. “Putin uses Victory Day speech to rehash list of grievances against west.” The Guardian, May 9, 2022.

Wikipedia. “Narcissistic Mortification”.

Wikipedia. “Ukrainian collaboration with Nazi Germany”.

Wikipedia. “War crimes in the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine”.

9/24/2008
3/10/2022
4/3/2022

5/9/2022

–33–

A Note on Putin’s Unbridled War on Integrity

11 Friday Mar 2022

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, 21st Century Modern, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Epistemology, Political Psychology, Political Spychology, Russia, transnational crime, Ukraine

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Start with what cannot be found outside of the mind of the malignant narcissist, i.e., the traumatic memory of “Narcissistic Mortification”. Diminishment. Humiliation. Shame. Whatever it was–a bullying theft on the street; an instance of sexual abuse by an authority or other overwhelming power; a “Jack and the Beanstalk” beat down by a parent–would have set off two related processes: covering over the moment and making of it either a terrible personal secret not to be shared or, perhaps, a complaint to shadow and ruin the life (for Putin, one might choose the former option, i.e., compartmenting the trauma); and splitting off the invention of a noble and undamaged self abetted by deceit in the creation of an heroic personal theater.

Most of us toughen up some with psychic injury, adjust our behavior to avoid a repeat experience or engage from a position of greater determination to prevail with dignity and strength. We’ll talk back to the nasty, speak truth to power, or dare introduce the bully to punishment as we produce greater force or response in relation to the presence of the same.

Chin up, in other words, and walk a little taller.

The malign might demand greater compensation in the way of power and emotional assurance. It may not be how they are or might be as ordinary persons that matters: it’s how they look–how others may perceive them–as extraordinary personages that matters most, for deep down they are still hiding their own humiliation and the dreaded fear of its return.

And how may one hide the truth?

Lie about it.

And how may one control the perception of others?

Create around or before them sufficient convincing theater to get them to do as one’s image may demand.

Punks have an easy list at their disposal: cheat, deceive, lie, and steal.

Get her a ring–who cares how you do it?–if it comes to that.

🙂

The personal and smaller matters lend themselves to convenient chicanery.

The corrupt and evil among politicians know more difficult strategies: big lies, deflections; false accusations, false flags, false presentations.

Where Putin lives, notch it up with military, paramilitary, and secret police forces tasked to manage state-devised compromise and reflexive control operations as well as total perceptual control buttressed by the methodical elimination of all of the sources of competition and criticism.

And should anyone in the darkness and shadows fuck up . . . cover it up–practice helps–and lie about it.

And should anyone possessed of integrity observe and report what has taken place, well, there are ways in which politically criminal and ruthless power may choose to defend its good image while in fact engaged in the most execrable evil.

A Few Reflections on Putin’s KGB Manual Updated to Support State Capitalists

How to Create Friendships with Powerful People

How to Deal with Adverse Intelligence or Related Battlefield Results

How to Discourage Democracy and Produce Healthy Authoritarians and Powerful Families Using Reflexive Control

How to Get Education

How to Handle the Dead the Modern Way

How to Handle the Memory of the Dead in Wartime

How to Honor the Dead in Small and Large Groups

How to Handle the Press

How to Inspire and Lead Troops Into Battle

How to Tell a Whopper!

How to Win Election to Presidency

How to Install a Useful War

How to Win Hearts and Minds in War

I’m sure there are other similarly clever methods for developing bear hugging personal relationships and influencing nations, quietly, and from behind the curtains, and as sources, insights, and opportunities develop, I may add to the above useful instructions.

Related Online

Bella, Timothy. “Thousands protest in Melitopol after Russian forces reportedly abduct mayor with a hood over his head.” The Washington Post, March 12, 2022.

Bertrand, Natasha. “Putin is going to extreme lengths to hide Russians who are dying while fighting in Ukraine.” Business Insider, May 26, 2015.

Davis-Marks, Isis. “Mass Graves in Ukraine Hold Thousands of Victims of Stalin’s Great Purge.” Smithsonian Magazine, September 3, 2021.

Dixon, Robyn. “Russian court abolishes country’s most prominent human rights group, Memorial.” The Washington Post, December 28, 2021.

Harding, Luke. ‘Old-style espionage’: Briton’s arrest feels like cold war throwback.” The Guardian, August 11, 2021.

Harding, Thomas. “Russian general killed and clutch of spy chiefs arrested.” National News UK, March 11, 2022.

Politkovskaya, Anna. “A Small Corner of Hell.” Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003.

Satter, David. “The Unsolved Mystery Behind the Act of Terror That Brought Putin to Power.” National Review, August 17, 2016.

Schindler, John. “Exploring Al Qaeda’s Murky Connection to Russian Intelligence.” Business Insider, June 10, 2014.

Simon, Scott. “Why Do Russian Journalists Keep Falling?” NPR, April 21, 2018.

Stewart, Will, Chris Pleasance, and Tom Brown. “Putin ‘has placed the head of the FSB’s foreign intelligence branch under house arrest because he is furious at security services for failing to warn him’ that Ukraine could fiercely resist invasion.” Daily Mail, March 11, 2022.

Tiplady-Bishop, Lottie. “Jeffrey Epstein boasted about ‘flying to Moscow to visit Vladimir Putin’ as secrets behind his millions are revealed.” The Sun, July 19, 2020.

Whitmore, David. “Potemkinism.” The Power Vertical, RFE/RL, September 3, 2010.

The Telegraph, March 8, 2022.
History on YouTube, March 7, 2022.
The Telegraph, February 23, 2022.

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FTAC: A Note on Greed

30 Monday Aug 2021

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, A Little Wisdom, American Domestic Affairs, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, FTAC - From The Awesome Conversation, North America, transnational crime, United States of America

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Greed obliterates authentic purposes to become an end in and of itself. Perhaps it helps create an ordered society, bureaucratic, impersonal, programmed — but that rather misses the mark as regards human services and well-being.

By way of cold categorization, it might be said that all addicts are criminals, but one may wonder what part are themselves predators and what other part preyed on by dealers and doctors or equivalents in counseling.

“Florida Shuffle“.

From time to time, I catch the boilerplate conservative prescription “personal responsibility!” in relation to the kind of damaged, enslaved, marginalized, and traumatized person that has lost all agency, confidence, efficacy, and esteem and wonder how pernicious and greed-ridden a society we have become. Can we tell the difference between the sad sack hipster and self-serving and profiteering sociopaths? Have we overemphasized the substance — whatever it may be or have been — and under-emphasized disconnection, marginalization, ostracism? And if so, for what?

In business terms, we are each and everyone of us our own “cost centers” — we want to live with means; we wish to pay our way; and for the most part, that’s what we do — but for a portion of America’s 320 millions souls — about a million or so the last time I checked (2019 with figures from 2017 compiled by authorities in 2018)— personalities or problems attach to expensive dependencies, and those persons then become the smallest of “profit centers” — revenue generators — for the money mad among sociopaths, and that from the curb to the corporate suite. Family’s gone and all the connections left are “fiduciary”, i.e., all about money and control bereft of conscience and soul.

As so often happens, a frantic mother called us about her 19-year-old daughter, who I’ll call Jen. A heroin addict, Jen had been shuttled between multiple treatment centers and sober homes by greedy marketers looking to cash in on the teenager’s insurance benefits by keeping her perpetually in recovery, but never sober.

Aronberg, Dave. “Opportunists Are Exploiting the ACA to Prey on Opioid Addicts.” Time, September 20, 2017.

Related Online

Aronberg, Dave. “Opportunists Are Exploiting the ACA to Prey on Opioid Addicts.” Time, September 20, 2017.

Daniels, Lisa. “My Son Got Stuck In the ‘Florida Shuffle’ and Lost His Battle to Addiction.” RyanHampton, January 13, 2019.

Fix the Florida Shuffle. “What is the Florida Shuffle?”

Lopez, German. “She wanted addiction treatment. She ended up in the relapse capital of America.” Vox, March 2, 2020.

National Association of Drug Diversion Investigators. “Florida Shuffle.”

Wooten, Colton. “My Years in the Florida Shuffle of Drug Addiction.” The New Yorker, October 14, 2019.

“There’s more to life than a little bit of money, you know.”
Published by Vice News, August 30, 2021.

–33–

At the Far End of the Poppy Field

29 Sunday Aug 2021

Posted by in 21st Century Modern, American Domestic Affairs, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, transnational crime, United States of America

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In the American failure lies a paradox: Washington’s massive military juggernaut has been stopped in its steel tracks by a small pink flower – the opium poppy. Throughout its three decades in Afghanistan, Washington’s military operations have succeeded only when they fit reasonably comfortably into central Asia’s illicit traffic in opium – and suffered when they failed to complement it.

McCoy, Alfred. “How the heroin trade explains the US-UK failure in Afghanistan: Western intervention has resulted in Afghanistan becoming the world’s first true narco-state.” The Guardian, January 9, 2018.

The world’s mafia — call them “Transnational Crime Organizations (TCOs)” for this world made smaller by the Internet and jets — sustain themselves through corrupt or intimidated officials who keep the traffic illegal, the profits high, and the goods coursing through the financial bloodstreams of the world as well as, of course, the bodies and minds of the world’s addicts. At the far end of the poppy field and well beyond its horizons, a human refuse washes up on the world’s streets, leaving governments in which the corrupt grow rich while the good drown before a dangerous and endless;u horrifying surge of affliction, crime, bodily damage, and emotional need that repeatedly defies bureaucratic processes and solutions.

Here for about 10 minutes is what the end of the poppy field looks like.

https://youtu.be/YB6gwOBClwE
Update (August 31, 2023): it appears videographers may change faster than the streets. For what should have appeared in the above space: https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Kensington+Avenue.

Conditions may have been attenuated some by a clean-up of the street on August 18, but the greater story bearing down on that street hasn’t changed. “Heroin tourism” by the user community and guys with cameras continues. And the money changing hands in proximity to the above location: $1 billion annually, so suggested to Mike Newall writing for The Philadelphia Inquirer (listed in “Related Online”).

A Brief Comment on Narcotics, Realpolitik, and East-West Rivalry

I don’t want to go too far into Darkness and Light on this post, but it may no longer prove sufficient to “Act Locally, Think Globally” in light of an apparent willingness in states as well as persons to serve not only both sides of a conflict (with visible sales of common enough deliverables) but as well demonstrated in Afghanistan both the Devil and God or the Evil and the Good. Toward the end of America’s long tour in Afghanistan, generals made note of the use of Russian arms and materiel by Taliban forces, a black market trade if ever was — but who has picked up the chips, so to speak, in Asia but Russia, which is now doing a brisk business in defense sales to the neighbors of a soon to be Talibanized Afghanistan.

For heroin laced with fentanyl, credit China’s mafia interests that appear to have had until relatively recently fair latitude for keeping the west’s glamorous or vulnerable or both high and high on their way out of this world. For lack of directed Chinese resources, they may still have it.

Around the world, “Kash”, so it may be called, is King, and ain’t manipulation o’ the King — and on the King’s behalf and one’s own — part and parcel of all politics?

Obama may not have flinched when he authorized a billion dollars worth of cocaine sales for Hezbollah in the JCPOA deal, but from a strategic if not moral perspective, one wonders whether he should have stood at that juncture and said “No!” for the greater effects such a decision might have on long-term American political cohesion and coherence.

An America Broken, Compromised, Lost

Whatever the motives of each of its drifted “residents”, McPherson Square’s “Needle Park” and Kensington Avenue’s Junktopia host a portion of the nation’s most damaged and most lost children, “dipping” and homeless as well as short on options into recoveries more reliable than stopovers for intramural billing between service-providing bureaucracies and their subcontractors. Few, if any, have a clue as regards the nefarious “international relations” and “supply chains” that put the poppy seed in the ground and nursed it all the way to a spoon and needle and arm on the streets of Philadelphia (“City of Brotherly Love“) for some in Beijing and Moscow to smile and between them say, “How well America takes care of her people!”

Related Online

AFP News Agency. “Poppies bloom across Afghanistan as drought eases.” YouTube Video (1:30), April 18, 2019: “Though we are cultivating the poppies, smugglers are the ones who pocket all the money by converting it into heroin” (1:07).

AML Films. Assorted YouTube video testimonials on heroin addiction between 6 and 35 minutes each.

Brown, Erik. “I Work Near the Largest Open-Air Heroin Market On The East Coast: Philadelphia shows us what it looks like when a city commits suicide.” Dialogue & Discourse, Medium, May 25, 2021.

Byman, Daniel. “Hezbollah, Drugs, and the Obama Administration: A Closer Look at a Damning Politico Piece.” Lawfare, January 30, 2018.

Congressional Research Service. “Illicit Fentanyl and China’s Role.” PDF. Federation of American Scientists (FAS), January 29, 2021.

Dasa, Pandit. “Karma: What Goes Around Comes Around.” HuffPost, Januarary 11, 2012.

Felbab-Brown, Vanda. “Fentanyl and geopolitics: Controlling opioid supply from China.” Brookings, July 22, 2020.

Feng, Emily. “‘We Are Shipping to the U.S.’: Inside China’s Online Synthetic Drug Networks.” NPR, November 17, 2020.

Gibbons-Neff, Thomas. “Russia is sending weapons to Taliban, top U.S. general confirms.” The Washington Post, April 24, 2017.

kimgary. “Streets of Philadelphia, Kensington Ave Story” – Assorted videos, 16-to-25-minutes.

Marin, Max. “‘There still is no answer’: Philly cracks down on Kensington encampments again as homelessness crisis intensifies.” BILLYPENN, August 18, 2021.

Meyer, Josh. “The secret backstory of how Obama let Hezbollah off the hook.” Politico, December 2017.

McCoy, Alfred. “How the heroin trade explains the US-UK failure in Afghanistan: Western intervention has resulted in Afghanistan becoming the world’s first true narco-state.” The Guardian, January 9, 2018.

Newall, Mike. “Business and bloodshed.” The Philadelphia Inquirer, May 21, 2021.

Newall, Mike. “What it’s like to live at the edge of Needle Park.” The Philadelphia Inquirer, June 9, 2017.

Percy, Jennifer. “Trapped by the ‘Walmart of Heroin'”. The New York Times, October 10, 2018.

Project Cassandra.

Reuters. “Russia says boosts arms supplies to Central Asia amid Afghan conflict.” August 5, 2021.

Rowlatt, Justin. “Russia ‘arming the Afghan Taliban’, says US.” BBC News, March 23, 2018.

U.S. Department of the Treasury. “Treasury Targets Chinese Persons Involved with Drug Trafficking Organization Moving Fentanyl.” August 27, 2021.

Williams, Nick. “The history of heroin as a lyrical muse.” Dazed, August 22, 2017.

Whitlock, Craig. “Overwhelmed by Opium: The U.S. war on drugs in Afghanistan has imploded at nearly every turn.” The Washington Post, December 9, 2019.

https://youtu.be/4YtFClCwho8
Published by Afghanistan Geographic, May 24, 2021.
Posted to YouTube by Late Night Tales, September 20, 2014.

Everything we say and do determines what’s going to happen to us in the future. Whether we act honestly, dishonestly, help or hurt others, it all gets recorded and manifests as a karmic reaction either in this life or a future life. All karmic records are carried with the soul into the next life and body.

Dasa, Pandit. “Karma: What Goes Around Comes Around.” HuffPost, Januarary 11, 2012.

Moscow has positioned the Taliban of Afghanistan right where it wants them, i.e., as a block and goad to the west, as a proxy for war by needle, and as another of the most honorable, most pious, and most hypocritical entities of the world, preaching sobriety by the book while taking up its role as the world’s foremost exporter of intoxication and death.

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FTAC: If ‘Paper Covers Rock’, Perhaps Causes Cover the Drugs

27 Friday Dec 2019

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, FTAC - From The Awesome Conversation, International Development, transnational crime

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Layer Cake sequence starring Daniel Craig and commenting on the world’s “narconomy”. Posted to YouTube by Funny Clips from TV & Movies, August 19, 2015.

In Myanmar, so I have read, there’s today a booming market in little blue meth/meth-caffeine pills much enabled by China’s determination to maintain stability along the route of the Belt and Road Initiative. It seems (to BackChannels, at least) these days that everyone with a cause and a Kalashnikov (whatever) comes up with cash in exchange for ‘wokefulness’ of the cartoonish kind — and the fighting and funding and the building and the struggle for better and more and more and more of the same rages on . . . .

From the Awesome Conversation

Inspiration for this pass-along: Tobin, Meaghan. “What does China’s Belt and Road have to do with Myanmar’s meth problem?” South China Morning Post, January 8, 2019.

Governments may strengthen their resolve, take the profit out of the business, “medicalize” the results, suffer the loss of some portion of the income of their secondary economies (narcotics represent primary import-export $$$), and move on, or they may play “ostrich” on limited time while their cultures plus political and spiritual missions hollow out and destroy their sense of purpose.

Was Great Britain shutting down its opium trade when the Chinese were paying for its existence?

I’ve grown old(er) having a look into this region in the vicinity of how things work — and with the comparative roles of what gets us high, low, or back to in-between — far inside the human condition and experience, and it’s all a little bit ugly and sad.

More on Myanmar’s ‘Dependence’ Issue

SULLIVAN: But there are a number of factors working against an end to Myanmar’s long-running civil war, understanding is just one of them. The government’s refusal to budge on the ethnic groups’ demands for greater autonomy is another. And then there’s money.

JEREMY DOUGLAS: The biggest source of finance for conflict is clearly drugs.

SULLIVAN: Jeremy Douglas is regional director for the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime in Bangkok. He says the trade is much bigger now than it was decades ago, when the area was better known for its opium and heroin production. Now it’s mostly synthetics like crystal methamphetamine, or ice, destined for markets in Australia, Japan, South Korea and beyond, a business the UNODC reckons is worth a staggering $60 billion a year.

NPR. “Myanmar’s Lucrative Drug Trade is Increasingly Fueling The Country’s Conflict.” NPR, August 30, 2019.

BackChannels has published on Rhakine-Rohingya issues and recommends this piece for a fast backgrounder: “Political Perception: Myanmar, Rohingya, and Terrorist Provocateur” (October 29, 2017).

There’s a thematically related story out of Vancouver having to do with money laundering (off of the lucrative black market trade in fentanyl that has attracted high-end everything and inflated housing prices in the area: “Chinese Triads Launder Billions Through Vancouver, Buying Luxury Real Estate, Cars: British Columbia Launches Public Inquiry After Triad Activities Drive Up Cost of Homes.” The Mob Museum, June 5, 2019. Here’s a teaser for you:

This story reveals more than just the failure of Canadian controls against money laundering. It highlights the current global problem of money laundering, in North America, Europe and the Middle East. Based on recent accounts, the criminals are winning.

Related Online

The breadth and depth of crime fighting agencies and institutions would seem greater as a global community than the global scourge, but it equally clear that criminal operating capacities in manufacturing and distribution have been an “overmatch” for that effort. The money and violence involved in addressing this aspect of our humanity would seem also to have proven more than equal to the task. Here, nonetheless, may be two starting points for those far on the outside looking into how someone else’s condition — nations included — has become the condition into which the whole world appears to be growing.

InSight Crime

International Narcotics Control Board

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FTAC: A Bid for the Lost and Missing of America

13 Wednesday Nov 2019

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, American Domestic Affairs, Canada, Extreme Brown vs Red-Green, FTAC - From The Awesome Conversation, North America, Political Psychology, Syndicate Red Brown Green, transnational crime, United States of America

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Inspiration for the post: a tirade against the specter of Democratic Socialist America in the fashion of the Soviet Communist sphere of influence and the detritus of the irresponsible authoritarian mafia states left behind for western conscience and vision to address.

” . . . who despite enjoying the benefits and protections of a free society . . . ” (would vote the Democratic ticket).

What happened to these, especially our approximately 490,000 missing Americans under age 21?

https://conflict-backchannels.com/2019/10/04/an-american-report-card/ — the page provides a glance at the numbers associated with America’s most troublesome social pathologies–cocaine use, homelessness, missing persons, opioid addiction, prostitution.

Life has its hooks, ladders, and chutes, of course, and will never be perfect for everyone, but the numbers represent some systematic decimation of a modern — not 1950s white bread — culture. Are those of the middle class and of the privileged supposed to completely turn away from the social epidemiology swirling around the apparently Lost of America?

We should know who is in the mix — and why — and get that unholy street stew separated and channeled in some helpful way.

If Americans hadn’t “social conscience”, there would be no laws involving environment, health, labor, housing, or much else that has brought and held the nation together as a unified polity. Politicians on the Left / Far Left have walked down their own streets and asked about the same questions for the same reasons. Now it would seem up to radically responsible moderates to steal that flame to produce an overall healthier state, not an environment fit to elite, rapacious, and ruthless personalities.

Some Red-Green elements that have flowed down from the Soviet Era machinery have infected America’s Democratic Party with the familiar Far Left cocktail of anti-capitalist, radical, and anti-Semitic (anti-Zionist) cant that in effect poisons their own projects before they can progress. The social conscience of the Democratic Party as stamped by Presidents Roosevelt in the 1930s and Johnson in the 1960s appears well under attack by the vanguard of a bullying old White Right political culture that really doesn’t care to address the misery it has learned to overlook.

Far be it, however, for BackChannels to overlook Hollywood’s role in the glamorizing and promoting of the very scourges that have both enriched the world’s mafia and — with dollars cleaned and spiffy — spilled back into working communities — here: read about Vancouver’s pleasant (not really) influx of wealth — as to make economic retreat and the decoupling from evil virtually impossible.

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