Tuesday, November 29, 2005

Watch DEA Watch

A commenter points me to this discussion forum called DEA Watch, declaring that it's for use by DEA agents. If that's really who is commenting (posts are anonymous, but judging from the content, it sounds entirely possible), they're mad as hell and don't like George Bush very much. Or Mexicans. My personal favorite:
Isn't it curious that our pres not only didn't have the "little Mexican" AG at his side today for his illegal immigrant speech, he never once mentioned Gonzo's name.

We have 1) a president who's family is half-Mexican (one of which is a documented, habitual drug abuser [*] just like her uncle), 2) the worse illegal immigrant problem in our history since The Alamo, and 3) a Mexican-American AG who has done nothing to correct the problem... duuuuuh!
The Bush commentary actually goes downhill from there. Other commenters discuss DEA internal politics or disputes with the FBI ("feebs") and other agencies. I particularly appreciated this moment of candor:
Someone wrote: "After you finally got paid... it was a big check from DEA..." Duuuuuh, yeah! It's all about money!

Isn't money the single thing that drives drug dealers? Isn't money and more money the one thing that drives the cartels?

And doesn't the very fact that we eat drug dealers for breakfast, lunch and dinner make us just like them? Get real!!!

Why do cats have the nocturnal habits of the creatures it eats... as well as reptilian iris's yet front-facing predatorial eyes? Answer: because cats eat rodents, birds and creepy-crawly lizards and the like. Darwin 101: Things are what they eat.

We eat drug dealers so we are like drug dealers. Drug dealers crave money so we crave promotions that pay us more money. We're not unlike our prey. The only difference between us and the drug dealer is that we lie, cheat, steal and betray for what we call an "honest" paycheck. We will lie to anyone, including our spouses and family, and betray our closest DEA associate if it means we get something more than we've got.

Money is our King. Money is our God. Everything DEA stands and operates for is about taking money... cash... away from people who have it... just ask our VP who gets no-bid contracts in the billions for his former company.

Give money away??? You have GOT to be kidding!!!
A little on the scary side, but check it out. UPDATE: The commenter who provided the link, a former DEA Agent, chimed in with the following explanation regarding DEA Watch:
Grits,

As a former DEA Agent, I would like to comment a little about DEA Watch and DEA.

DEA Watch contains useful information but it's not always reliable or credible; alot like DEA.

DEA Watch exists, in part, because internally DEA is a mess or as one Agent put it; "a trainwreck".

That should concern everyone because more money is spent on drug enforcement nationwide than any other crime.

There are over 5,000 DEA Agents or about 100 per state. Each state has large numbers of state personnel dedicated to drug crimes and then there's the local effort in each state.

Then there's the DEA Task Forces, MET Teams, RET Teams, HIDTA, and OCDETF.

If that's not enough, throw in the drug enforcement efforts of ICE, FBI, and the other 20 or so federal law enforcement agencies and folks, drug enforcement dominates the enforcement landscape in every state.

Yet drug purities, drug availabilities and drug overdoses continue to rise.

Most competent DEA Agents that I know understand the important global, not local, role DEA plays in dealing with the drug problem.

They know how to make a national impact on purity and availability but the flagship of DEA is not their global and national role.

It's supporting State and Local Task Forces and programs that broaden and increase their dependibility on state and local efforts.

DEA is an agency that's now statistically driven and the drivers, not the mission, control DEA.

Most DEA Agents know DEA is seriously broken and DEA Watch is a place for them to anonymously vent.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Grits,

As a former DEA Agent, I would like to comment a little about DEA Watch and DEA.

DEA Watch contains useful information but it's not always reliable or credible; alot like DEA.

DEA Watch exists, in part, because internally DEA is a mess or as one Agent put it; "a trainwreck".

That should concern everyone because more money is spent on drug enforcement nationwide than any other crime.

There are over 5,000 DEA Agents or about 100 per state. Each state has large numbers of state personnel dedicated to drug crimes and then there's the local effort in each state.

Then there's the DEA Task Forces, MET Teams, RET Teams, HIDTA, and OCDETF.

If that's not enough, throw in the drug enforcement efforts of ICE, FBI, and the other 20 or so federal law enforcement agencies and folks, drug enforcement dominates the enforcement landscape in every state.

Yet drug purities, drug availabilities and drug overdoses continue to rise.

Most competent DEA Agents that I know understand the important global, not local, role DEA plays in dealing with the drug problem.

They know how to make a national impact on purity and availability but the flagship of DEA is not their global and national role.

It's supporting State and Local Task Forces and programs that broaden and increase their dependibility on state and local efforts.

DEA is an agency that's now statistically driven and the drivers, not the mission, control DEA.

Most DEA Agents know DEA is seriously broken and DEA Watch is a place for them to anonymously vent.

jdallen said...

Sounds a lot like the one or two I have consumed mass quantities of beer and barbeque with.

Anonymous said...

'Broken' isn't the word. 'Sisyphean' is.

We've had a 'drug war' for 91 effin' YEARS and as the former agent informs us (unecessarily) the cartels produce better, cheaper and more plentiful product despite these efforts. Just last year alone, the Coast Guard interdicted 176 tons of cocaine...and not a blip was felt on the price market.

This is no better than rolling that boulder uphill all day long just to see it roll back downhill again, as in the myth of Sisyphus. The difference being, of course, people like the former agent were paid to do so with taxpayer's money.

But now, with budgets getting increasingly tighter, some hard choices will have to be made, and the debate about the point (or lack of one) of continuing these efforts will eventually cease to be the political 'third rail' that has caused politicians to shy away from the issue. So long as they do, we continue to play into the cartellistas hands...while they laugh all the way to the bank.

If we really want to do the economic equivalent of Turkish bayonet drill on the cartels, it will require us doing to them what our grandfathers did to the alcohol Prohibition scofflaws like Al Capone: re-legalize, regulate and control. Remove the artificially high profits and watch the cartels begin to implode as they feed on each other. Otherwise we can just keep playing their game, with their stacked deck, with their rules. As we have been. For 91 years.

Anonymous said...

As a former FBN, BNDD and DEA Task Force Dep. Chief, I totally agreed with the post "a trainwreck" and drug enforcement has been, since FBN was disintegrated while chasing grams or into BNDD- We had at the time a six million budget ....supply and demand is the issue as the late Paul Robsky (Bureau of Prohibition- Elliott Ness associate) told me in 1967, don't waste your time son "you can't enforce morality" jails are not big enough that's why booze is now legal and 128 agent paid with their lives trying to enforce it. May God help the USA....Ex-narc.

Anonymous said...

This is a good post grits. The DEA and the war on drugs in general is a train wreck, or a gold mine for someone way up there, paid for with the ruined lives and deaths of our children and young adults.

Now lets see if you will tell the truth about why it is this way. Lets see if you'll mention leninist lawyers among many others.

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Anonymous said...

dea watch is operated by phil coleman out of his bungalow on brighten blvd in redondo beach he also has teh american war lie-brary website. while phil was in teh army and did serve in vietnam he has never been involved with dea he did apparently get caught wire tapping an alleged dope dealers phone....lucky for phil he only got his hand slapped by the autorities instead being ventilated by said alleged dealer