Why Aren't We Putting US Agencies on Trial for Financing El Chapo's Drug War? Gabriel Matthew Schivone - The Guardian
go to original April 10, 2014

El Chapo In February 2014, Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, head of Mexico's Sinaloa Cartel, was captured in the beach resort town of Mazatlan. (EFE)

"This American system of ours," shouted the famed gangster Al Capone in a 1930 interview. "Call it Capitalism, call it what you like – gives to each and every one of us a great opportunity if we only seize it with both hands and make the most of it."

Since those untouchable days, Chicago officials have awarded "Public Enemy No 1" status to only one other person: cartel billionaire Joaquín Guzmán Loera, better known – now to the world over – as "El Chapo".

Nearly seven weeks ago, of course, El Chapo was captured by US and Mexican authorities after 13 years on the lam. Having achieved a cultural stature akin to that of a Bond villain, his capture naturally got all the limelight – while his US backers went more or less unmentioned.

But nearly seven weeks before an overnight capture at a beach resort, the Mexican newspaper El Universal reported how US agencies had armed and financed El Chapo's Sinaloa criminal empire for at least 12 years. That link has been substantiated by DEA and Justice Department court testimonies, and even US agents confirmed the financing had been approved by high-ranking officials and federal prosecutors. But the American media barely reported how entrenched the American government has become in the Mexican drug trade.

Instead, we got photos of agents leading a shackled Guzman, his head bowed by one of the marines' gloved hands gripping his neck, toward a US Blackhawk helicopter that would shuttle him off to a high-security prison.

... As we wait for the biggest gangster trial in years, why, indeed, aren't we putting American intelligence and drug agencies on trial for financing a drug war?

Read the rest at The Guardian

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