Drugs, Oil, and War (War and Peace Library Series): The United States in Afghanistan, Columbia, and Indochina
Peter Dale Scott's brilliantly researched tour de force illuminates the underlying forces that drive U.S. global policy from Vietnam to Colombia and now to Afghanistan and Iraq. He brings to light the intertwined patterns of drugs, oil politics, and intelligence networks that have been so central to the larger workings of U.S. intervention and escalation in Third World countries through alliances with drug-trafficking proxies. This strategy was originally developed in the late 1940s to...
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Peter Dale Scott's brilliantly researched tour de force illuminates the underlying forces that drive U.S. global policy from Vietnam to Colombia and now to Afghanistan and Iraq. He brings to light the intertwined patterns of drugs, oil politics, and intelligence networks that have been so central to the larger workings of U.S. intervention and escalation in Third World countries through alliances with drug-trafficking proxies. The result has been a staggering increase in global drug traffic. Thus, the author argues, the exercise of power by covert means, or parapolitics, often metastasizes into deep politics—the interplay of unacknowledged forces that spin out of the control of the original policy initiators. Scott contends that we must recognize that U.S. influence is grounded not just in military and economic superiority but also in so-called soft power. We need a _soft politics_ of persuasion and nonviolence, especially as America is embroiled in yet another disastrous intervention, this time in Iraq.
List of Abbreviations and AcronymsPrefaceIntroduction: The Deep Politics of U.S. Interventions1Pt. IAfghanistan, Heroin, and Oil (2002)1Drugs and Oil in U.S. Asian Wars: From Indochina to Afghanistan272Indochina, Colombia, and Afghanistan: Emerging Patterns393The Origins of the Drug Proxy Strategy: The KMT, Burma, and U.S. Organized Crime59Pt. IIColombia, Cocaine, and Oil (2001)4The United States and Oil in Colombia715The CIA and Drug Traffickers in Colombia856The Need to Disengage from Colombia97Pt. IIIIndochina, Opium, and Oil (from The War Conspiracy, 1972)7Overview: Public, Private, and Covert Political Power1098CAT/Air America, 1950-19701199Laos, 1959-197014710Cambodia and Oil, 197016711Opium, the China Lobby, and the CIA185A Deep Politics Bibliography209Index213About the Author227
\ ChoiceScott, a former Canadian diplomat and current English professor, analyzes an important aspect of U.S. foreign policy. Scott does point to sources and relationships that are often ignored by works relying on standard archival materials.\ \
