Thanks again, Obummer: 'The secret backstory of how Obama let Hezbollah off the hook'

[BobBalouski]

In its determination to secure a nuclear deal with Iran, the Obama administration derailed an ambitious law enforcement campaign targeting drug trafficking by the Iranian-backed terrorist group Hezbollah, even as it was funneling cocaine into the United States, according to a POLITICO investigation.

The campaign, dubbed Project Cassandra, was launched in 2008 after the Drug Enforcement Administration amassed evidence that Hezbollah had transformed itself from a Middle East-focused military and political organization into an international crime syndicate that some investigators believed was collecting $1 billion a year from drug and weapons trafficking, money laundering and other criminal activities.

Over the next eight years, agents working out of a top-secret DEA facility in Chantilly, Virginia, used wiretaps, undercover operations and informants to map Hezbollah’s illicit networks, with the help of 30 U.S. and foreign security agencies.

They followed cocaine shipments, some from Latin America to West Africa and on to Europe and the Middle East, and others through Venezuela and Mexico to the United States. They tracked the river of dirty cash as it was laundered by, among other tactics, buying American used cars and shipping them to Africa. And with the help of some key cooperating witnesses, the agents traced the conspiracy, they believed, to the innermost circle of Hezbollah and its state sponsors in Iran.

But as Project Cassandra reached higher into the hierarchy of the conspiracy, Obama administration officials threw an increasingly insurmountable series of roadblocks in its way, according to interviews with dozens of participants who in many cases spoke for the first time about events shrouded in secrecy, and a review of government documents and court records. When Project Cassandra leaders sought approval for some significant investigations, prosecutions, arrests and financial sanctions, officials at the Justice and Treasury departments delayed, hindered or rejected their requests.

Must be just more Obummer-bashing by totally biased, right wing partisans, no doubt. Ok: let me research wiki about the source:

Politico, known earlier as The Politico, is a progressive, left-wing American political journalism company based in Arlington County, Virginia, that covers politics and policy in the United States and internationally.

Huh, imagine that: more deep state nation of men action from the very highest level of US federal government conspiring intentionally and directly against federal law enforcement agents who swear their oath to "support and defend" a nation of law.

Smells like perjury of oath by someone, and more repugnant stench of absolute power corrupting absolutely.

https://www.politico.com/interactives/2017/obama-hezbollah-drug-trafficking-investigation/

 

[BobBalouski]

20+ Years Ago Not Many Seemed to Care, Either

Key Figures In CIA-Crack Cocaine Scandal Begin To Come Forward

LOS ANGELES — With the public in the U.S. and Latin America becoming increasingly skeptical of the war on drugs, key figures in a scandal that once rocked the Central Intelligence Agency are coming forward to tell their stories in a new documentary and in a series of interviews with The Huffington Post.

More than 18 years have passed since Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Gary Webb stunned the world with his “Dark Alliance” newspaper series investigating the connections between the CIA, a crack cocaine explosion in the predominantly African-American neighborhoods of South Los Angeles, and the Nicaraguan Contra fighters — scandalous implications that outraged LA’s black community, severely damaged the intelligence agency’s reputation and launched a number of federal investigations.

It did not end well for Webb, however. Major media, led by The New York Times, Washington Post and Los Angeles Times, worked to discredit his story. Under intense pressure, Webb’s top editor abandoned him. Webb was drummed out of journalism. One LA Times reporter recently apologized for his leading role in the assault on Webb, but it came too late. Webb died in 2004 from an apparent suicide. Obituaries referred to his investigation as “discredited.”

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/10/10/gary-webb-dark-alliance_n_5961748.html

Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.

Same old statist government, same old repugnant news, and same old lemmings continuing to finance it all.