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How the government set up a fake bank to launder drug money (2012)

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Re: How the government set up a fake bank to launder drug money (2012)

#61

Post by nsp »

elefanten wrote: post #55
TacticalCoder wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Everyone is surprised to find the government does shady stuff, but many of these operations are even acknowledged like Iran-Contra where the government sold arms to the embargoed Khomeini government to generate black money to fund the Contras. Another one, maybe the biggest known one, is when the US sent 12 bn to 14 bn in the form of 100 bills (yup, in bills) using a military plane to Iraq and these bills mostly al…

This comment begs for some sources and citations. Edit: I have a recollection of this incident but certainly not as mysteriously inexplicable and shady as you make it out. There was some context I've forgotten. Your story rings false.

googling "US plane 100 dollar bills iraq" returns a plethora of news sources that corroborate https://www.theguardian.com/world/2007/feb/08/usa.iraq1

Re: How the government set up a fake bank to launder drug money (2012)

#62

Post by jahmed »

dorfsmay wrote: post #46
nicbou wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That makes sense to me. Chasing consumers is a waste of time and money. The arrest itself might cause more societal damage than the drugs if it ruins people's lives or is used to target minorities.

Some people argue that https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selective_enforcement is the main purpose of laws against drug consumers.

Smell marijuana > Search vehicle

Re: How the government set up a fake bank to launder drug money (2012)

#63

Post by dantheman »

kayodelycaon wrote: post #39
cronix wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, like in Oregon they recently decriminalized "personal amounts" of all drugs. Crack, heroin, meth, fentanyl, etc. Whatever you want...it's now just a misdemeanor offense like a parking ticket as long as you're under some limit. So personal amounts are "ok," but how does one obtain a "personal" amount from someone else unless they have more than a personal amount? In other words, on one hand it's illegal to deal…

The point of decriminalizing personal amounts of drugs is to change police behavior because they are doing more harm than good in this area. You want to arrest the people who are dealing drugs or causing other crimes, not permanently ruining the lives of people who are doing no harm to society.

Why not just legalize them completely?

Re: How the government set up a fake bank to launder drug money (2012)

#64

Post by guerrilla »

reedjosh wrote: post #30

Everyone is surprised to find the government does shady stuff, but many of these operations are even acknowledged like Iran-Contra where the government sold arms to the embargoed Khomeini government to generate black money to fund the Contras. > Senior administration officials secretly facilitated the sale of arms to the Khomeini government of the Islamic Republic of Iran, which was the subject of an arms embargo.[2]…

> Everyone is surprised to find the government does shady stuff

I really don't understand how this is still possible with everyone having access to the Internet. They're pretty consistent [1]. It must be a bubble thing.

1. https://github.com/dessalines/essays/blob/master/us_atrociti...

Re: How the government set up a fake bank to launder drug money (2012)

#65

Post by reedjosh »

guerrilla wrote: post #64
reedjosh wrote: post #30

Everyone is surprised to find the government does shady stuff, but many of these operations are even acknowledged like Iran-Contra where the government sold arms to the embargoed Khomeini government to generate black money to fund the Contras. > Senior administration officials secretly facilitated the sale of arms to the Khomeini government of the Islamic Republic of Iran, which was the subject of an arms embargo.[2]…

> Everyone is surprised to find the government does shady stuff I really don't understand how this is still possible with everyone having access to the Internet. They're pretty consistent [1]. It must be a bubble thing. 1. https://github.com/dessalines/essays/blob/master/us_atrociti...

Wow, thanks for that link.

Re: How the government set up a fake bank to launder drug money (2012)

#66

Post by SkittyDog »

elefanten wrote: post #57
kayodelycaon wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point of decriminalizing personal amounts of drugs is to change police behavior because they are doing more harm than good in this area. You want to arrest the people who are dealing drugs or causing other crimes, not permanently ruining the lives of people who are doing no harm to society.

It's not strictly true that they do no harm to society. A lot of deeply addicted people are still objectively a blight on their surroundings, even if you view it as a health issue that calls for help rather than a moral issue that calls for punishment. Let's not underplay that damage drugs and addicts do. They're not the source of the problem, they shouldn't be the focus of the solution but let's be honest.

Drugs aren't magical life-ruiners, that suddenly descend on unsuspecting healthy people and destroy them. The people you're describing are mostly already damaged by their own lives, hurting badly, and unable to emotionally function on their own. If you removed heroin or meth from the equation, they'd get drunk, instead... And they'd be roughly the same blight on their surroundings, regardless of their choice of substance.

Our drug problems are, at root, a mental health issue. And neither will ever be resolved in a society that doesn't understand that both problems are one.

Re: How the government set up a fake bank to launder drug money (2012)

#67

Post by tigerBL00D »

TacticalCoder wrote: post #54
reedjosh wrote: post #30

Everyone is surprised to find the government does shady stuff, but many of these operations are even acknowledged like Iran-Contra where the government sold arms to the embargoed Khomeini government to generate black money to fund the Contras. > Senior administration officials secretly facilitated the sale of arms to the Khomeini government of the Islamic Republic of Iran, which was the subject of an arms embargo.[2]…

> Everyone is surprised to find the government does shady stuff, but many of these operations are even acknowledged like Iran-Contra where the government sold arms to the embargoed Khomeini government to generate black money to fund the Contras. Another one, maybe the biggest known one, is when the US sent 12 bn to 14 bn in the form of 100 bills (yup, in bills) using a military plane to Iraq and these bills mostly al…

To think that this money didn't end up financing insurgency is to be naive.

Re: How the government set up a fake bank to launder drug money (2012)

#68

Post by mschuster91 »

reedjosh wrote: post #36
scarecrowbob wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Per the grandparent, yes "marijuana and crack prosecution" have explicitly racist elements. Specifically, the 1930s anti-cannabis is specifically anti-Hispanic, and the question of why there are massively different sentencing laws around crack and powder cocaine seems to me and most of the people I know to have many obvious racial elements.

I love this comment. This is one area where I think crying racism is actually justified. Racism is thrown around as a justification for anything today, but _real_ racist policies like: > different sentencing laws around crack and powder cocaine That persist today are almost never mentioned. Another policy that disproportionally effects blacks: > A mother will receive far more from welfare if she is single than if she…

> > But by the mid-1980s, black fatherlessness skyrocketed. Today, only 44% of black children have a father in the home. In unison, the rate of black out-of-wedlock births went from 24.5% in 1964 to 70.7% by 1994, roughly where it stands today.

Jesus Christ, that is an atrocity. Thank you for digging out that one.

But what I wonder... is this a result of the welfare policy you mentioned, or rather a result of way too many Black fathers ending up in prison, gangs or dead as a result of "selective enforcement" and other abuses of police power?

Re: How the government set up a fake bank to launder drug money (2012)

#69

Post by ljf »

guerrilla wrote: post #64
reedjosh wrote: post #30

Everyone is surprised to find the government does shady stuff, but many of these operations are even acknowledged like Iran-Contra where the government sold arms to the embargoed Khomeini government to generate black money to fund the Contras. > Senior administration officials secretly facilitated the sale of arms to the Khomeini government of the Islamic Republic of Iran, which was the subject of an arms embargo.[2]…

> Everyone is surprised to find the government does shady stuff I really don't understand how this is still possible with everyone having access to the Internet. They're pretty consistent [1]. It must be a bubble thing. 1. https://github.com/dessalines/essays/blob/master/us_atrociti...

Man that has taken my breath away. I'm pretty aware of how terrible the west can be (and how we can lie about it) but the sheer volume there is immense.

Re: How the government set up a fake bank to launder drug money (2012)

#70

Post by bilbo0s »

tigerBL00D wrote: post #67
TacticalCoder wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Everyone is surprised to find the government does shady stuff, but many of these operations are even acknowledged like Iran-Contra where the government sold arms to the embargoed Khomeini government to generate black money to fund the Contras. Another one, maybe the biggest known one, is when the US sent 12 bn to 14 bn in the form of 100 bills (yup, in bills) using a military plane to Iraq and these bills mostly al…

To think that this money didn't end up financing insurgency is to be naive.

In fairness, it's likely that not much of that money went to financing insurgency. Some? Yes. Most? No way.

Way too many piglets. Way too few tits.

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