Drug Trafficking and the Financing of Terrorism Essay -- International

"International and Domestic Terrorism Organizations and their supporters engage in a myriad of crimes to fund and facilitate terrorist activities. These crimes include extortion, kidnaping, robbery, corruption, alien smuggling, document fraud, arms trafficking, cyber crime, white collar crime, smuggling of contraband, money laundering and certainly drug trafficking." -- Steven C. McCraw, Assistant Director, Office of Intelligence, FBI, May 20, 2003 In 2002, the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy spent more than three million dollars to buy two commercials for the Super Bowl (Bovard). One of the commercials viewers posed the question of where terrorists get their funding. The answer suggested by that commercial was from buying drugs in the United States (Bovard). Most people in America viewed this as a joke and as an over-exaggeration of the truth. Recreational marijuana users (marijuana is considered a drug) saw no correlation between smoking marijuana and terrorism but more â€Å"hard-core† drug users may be in fact aiding terrorism. A main problem with the commercials put on by the White House was that with all the conflict surrounding Afghanistan and the Taliban government, the general public assumed, or was pushed to assume, that the terrorists responsible for 9/11 were the only terrorists in the world. Terrorist groups exist beyond the Taliban and Al-Qaeda including groups in Columbia, a country renowned for its drug traffic. Most Americans are not well-educated enough on drugs and the so called â€Å"War on Drugs,† not so much due to ignorance but because of a lack of teaching on it. It almost seems as if our leader’s believe in a â€Å"don’t talk about it and it will go away† kind of manner. If America... ...ation’s Fraud. 18 April 2015 . Gray, Mike. Drugs & Terrorism. 2002. NarcoTerror.org. 5 April 2015 . Huang, Reyko. Terroism-Drugs. 2 Nov. 2001. Center for Defense Information. Web 18 April 2015 . McCraw, Steven C. Testimony Before the Senate Judiciary Committee. Web 18 April 2015 http://www.fbi.gov/news/testimony/international-drug-trafficking-and-terrorism Mostert, Mary. Is the Attack on Condi to Cover Up Clinton’s Role in Arming Drug-Dealing Terrorists?. 12 April 2004. Banner of Liberty. 11 May 2015 . Schmid, Hans. The Kurdish Terrorism-and-Drugs Connection. 1995. 24 April 2015 .