Remember Spencer Ackerman, the liberal Soros-bot who took to JournoList to conspire a defense for Barack Obama as the Jeremiah Wright story threatened his candidacy, and who fantasized about smashing Republicans’s faces through plate-glass windows? A refresher:
At one point, Ackerman suggested that fellow members of the listserv should fight the way the right is fueling the Rev. Jeremiah Wright story by choosing one of Obama’s conservative critics, “Fred Barnes, Karl Rove, who cares — and call them racists.”
At another point, Ackerman acknowledged that, while he didn’t like having to toe a partisan line, “what I like less is being governed by racists and warmongers and criminals.”
He continued: “I do not endorse a Popular Front, nor do I think you need to. It’s not necessary to jump to Wright’s defense. What is necessary is to raise the cost on the right of going after the left. In other words, find a right winger’s [sic] and smash it through a plate-glass window. Take a snapshot of the bleeding mess and send it out in a Christmas card to let the right know that it needs to live in a state of constant fear. Obviously, I mean this rhetorically.”
Right. Well, Ackerman’s attitude toward terrorist group Hizballah is much less adversarial. The Atlantic published a detailed and interesting piece about how Hizballah has attached itself to the cocaine trade to fund itself. That’s a subject I’ve followed and written about myself. It represents the fusion of two major global threats to peace, and places Hizballah as a genuine and present threat on our southwest border. According to the Atlantic’s piece, written by Sebastian Rotella, Hizballah has laundered $850 million in drug trade money through one operative’s network. For a terrorist outfit, that’s a massive pile of operational money to work with.
Well, Ackerman’s Wired account of Rotella’s story speaks for itself.
Ayman Joumaa, an accused Hezbollah financier, “allegedly coordinated the smuggling of at least 85 tons of Colombian cocaine through Central America and Mexico in partnership with the Zetas,” Rotella reports, citing an indictment released on Tuesday. About $85 million in cash got laundered through “money exchange houses, used car businesses and other companies” on four continents. Joumaa’s operation dates back to 1997.
The cocaine ended up on American streets, by way of Mexico.
It’s hard not to think of the bizarre story, also told by federal prosecutors recently, that Iranian operatives tried to work with the cartels to assassinate a Saudi ambassador in Washington. The Drug Enforcement Agency has long suspected that Mideastern terrorists were starting to collaborate with drug gangs, but the evidence thus far has been scant.
It’s also unclear what the indictment really means for Hezbollah. The terrorist group and Iranian proxy is now ensconced in the Lebanese government. It recently rolled up several CIA informants trying to infiltrate the organization, thanks to the spies’ faulty codewords.
Then again, if the Mexican-Hezbollah drug connection all seems a bit paranoid, well, you know, paranoia is a side effect of cocaine. Rick James could certainly tell you that.
Ackerman knocked Hizballah’s laundered money total down by a factor of 10, and downplayed the fact of Hizballah’s activities on the border as “paranoia.”
Why?
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