This Week, Rehashed: August 1, 2014

This Week, Rehashed: August 1, 2014

Another Friday, another Rehash post. Here’s a quick list of some of the more interesting news and commentary articles from this week. Like the rest of Drugs and Thugs Blog, the topics addressed will focus on narcotics trafficking, international criminal organizations, insurgencies, and terrorism.

First up, a Foreign Policy post discussing Venezuela’s former intelligence chief and alleged drug trafficker from an Aruban jail. This article explains how and why Venezuela went to such trouble to protect a narcotics trafficker from US custody. The article also was included in my take on the Venezuelan narco-state from earlier this week. 

An interesting piece from InSight Crime that summarizes Don Berna’s book, in which he claims that his brother was the one who killed Pablo Escobar, not Colombian police. Berna, the former head of the Oficina de Envigado cartel, was part of the People Persecuted By Pablo Escobar (PEPES) group that fought against the Medellin Cartel. Whether true or not, it’s certainly an intriguing story. 

Declan Hill reposted an article from 2013 in which he navigates the Catholic and Protestant sides of Belfast during the England-Ireland soccer match. Despite the 15 years since the Good Friday Agreement, there is still tension between the two groups in Northern Ireland, all the more relevant with marching season approaching. 

A War On The Rocks article by Frank Hoffman on the difference between the hybrid war we’re seeing in Ukraine and the idea of political warfare as devised by George Kennan following the end of World War II. Our conception of what war should look like, even after a decade of fighting shadow wars, doesn’t match reality. Unconventional warfare is becoming more and more conventional. 

An InSight Crime article on Mexican drug cartels diversifying more deeply into human trafficking. As the cartels spread out into new avenues for profit, they become significantly more menacing to Mexico, the US, and the people that they traffic. With the current wave of refugees coming across the border, human trafficking should be a larger concern. 

Finally, an article by David Ignatius on Washington Post and the threat of the Islamic State. He compares the warnings from US intelligence about the Islamic State to the panic from the intelligence agencies immediately prior to September 11th. He ends the article by noting,  “The awful truth is that the conflict taking shape in Iraq and Syria will last for years. The challenge for Obama (and, alas, his successor) is how to fight terrorism over the next decade without making the ruinous mistakes of the previous one.” 

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