Counterterrorism Blog

U.S. drug officials are declaring new progress in the almost-forgotten war on drugs. The price of cocaine is up in major cities for the first time in decades, signaling a possible shortage of drug on the street.

But even drug czar John Walters acknowledges, however, it will only really be progress if the measures can be sustained over time. My guess is that such a reduction will be short lived. I hope I am wrong.

While the "war on drugs" was proclaimed in the late 1980s with almost as much fanfare as the "war on terrorism," it is now only occassionally in the national radar screen. But it is worth remembering the drug wars that ravaged our major cities, threatened the very existence of Colombia as a nation and has cost us tens of billions of dollars.

Those direct and more quantifiable threats have eased, although drug production has not, at least not for significant periods of time. Nor has the narco danger abated in many parts of the world.

While there is little indication that drug trafficking finances Islamist terrorism except perhaps in Afghanistan, the billions of dollars that flow through that economy certainly fuel other terrorist movements around the world, from the paramilitary AUC to the Marxist FARC in Colombia, to gangs in Central America and heroin traffickers across central Asia.

The human cost is tremendous, and the cartels, despite the upbeat talk, control much of Central America, from the coasts of Honduras, to most of Guatemala to the Caribbean shore of Mexico and, of course, much of the border areas. My full blog is here.