Current Events: Shrouded in a book review

Gdjjr

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Oct 25, 2019
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I've posted about this book in other threads. There are a plethora of professional reviews on, "The Border", by Don Winslow.
I have read another of his books, "The Cartel"- it was interesting and a bit scary at the violence described.

This one, though, is a lot more plausible and very much about "Current Events"- brought about by a never ending war, the Drug War.

It delves into, and intertwines lives, on both sides of the argument and political opponents, as well as Cartel leaders - with insightful stories, about individuals in the Drug War(s) and some affected by the same wars- innocents and guilty's.

It's 842 pages long and I couldn't wait to post about it here, hence the other thread postings- I know 800 words scares most readers, especially Party loyalists and Party hacks, so 842 pages is really scary- But, it is what it is.

A few excerpts from near the end:

Page 812

(1) He knows that he's become a polarizing figure, embodying the rift that threatens to widen and tear the country in two. He's triggered a scandal, and investigation that has spread from the poppy fields of Mexico to the White House itself.

(2) But Kellar is at war - against his own DEA, the US Senate, the Mexican drug cartels, even the president of the United States.

(3) He's spent most of his life fighting a war on the other side of the border, and now he's home.
And the war has come with him.

page 820 and 821 (this is an part of *opening statement* made at a Senate hearing where he, Kellar, has told the lead Senator he wasn't going to answer scripted questions. He was just going to tell the truth. All of it.)

(1) I and other DEA personnel assisted in this effort by providing intelligence resources to locate Zeta cells, training camps, and leadership. Remember the Zeta;s had murdered an American DEA agent, Richard Jiminez. Not to put too fine a point on it, this was an assassination program. Far more Zeta's were killed than arrested.


(2) Analysts of the Mexican drug situation have noted the relatively few captures, arrests and killings of the Sinaloa cartel versus other cartels, including and especially the Zeta's, and opined that this demonstrated governmental bias toward the Sinaloa cartel. I can affirm that this analysis is true and accurate and that the United States pariticipated in favoring the Sinanloa cartel as a way of bringing some kind of stability to Mexico.


page 830 and 831, (still "telling the truth" monologue to the Senate)
emphasis mine

(1) The war on drugs has been on on for 50 years - half a century. It is America's longest war. In the process of waging it. we have spent over a trillion dollars, put millions of people, most of them black, brown and poor, behind bars - the largest prison population in the world. We have militarized our police forces. The war on drugs has become a self-sustaining economic machine. The towns that once competed for factories now vie to build prisons. In 'prison privatization' - one of the ugliest combinations of words I can imagine - we have capitalized corrections; corporations now make profits keeping human beings behind bars. Courts, lawyers, police, prisons - we are more addicted to the war on drugs than to the drugs against which we wage the war.

It's not really an eye opener, for people like myself. But it is a great read, for those who dare to see the Drug War for what it is. A "racket"- and make no mistake, it has to involve the elected saints, it has to. With "Dumb Laws" being written all the time that are contrary to "secure our Liberty"- one side or another will always be favored while the other is disfavored- favoring, by Law, is corruption- disfavoring, by Law, is abuse of authority- attended to by; elected saints.
 

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