John Joseph Loftus

according to the source of all knowledge - John Joseph Loftus (February 12, 1950) is an American author, former US government prosecutor and former Army intelligence officer. He is a president of The Intelligence Summit and president of the Florida Holocaust Museum.

From an early interview I did with John Loftus, from the Carter Administration Whitehouse... He's using a bit of the old "counterintelligence" - and is clearly full of crapola.

Irvin: Is there a historical relationship to Afghanistan, the drug trade and the US Government?

Loftus: No, I don’t think so. My friend Rachel Ehrenfeld is recognized as probably the world’s best expert on drug trade and terrorist groups. And it’s not one supported by the US. That’s an old rumor that grew up because of Air America back in the Vietnam days when I was a kid. And essentially the Air America group would fly out crops and supplies up from the Hmong guerilla groups that we supported. And sometimes the Hmong would put mail onboard. Well the mail was, you know, 20 kilo sacs wrapped in brown paper. We sort of knew it was in there. We knew that they were smuggling out opium. But everyone sort of turned a blind eye to it. But that’s where the rumor began that the CIA was involved in smuggling out opium. We just weren’t checking the carryon baggage but they really weren’t helping smuggling opium. They were just sort of looking the other way when the other guys did it. But, anyway, from that little rumor grew this entire industry of the CIA involved in the drug trade.

I don’t think it’s even remotely true. Quite frankly the US government has been pressing so hard to suppress the drug trade in Afghanistan that it’s almost caused a civil war. I mean, these farmers are dirt poor. They need to grow something and the most money they get is from opium poppies. That’s because, I guess, you know, we win the war and we lose the peace and we never subsidize nation building after the war is over. We walked away from Afghanistan after the Soviets pulled out.

Irvin: I guess that should be separated though from the Iran Contra Scandal and the drug trade though, correct?

Loftus: you know, again, the Iran-Contra scandal, I'm one of Ollie North's greatest critics, the guy was a complete idiot. But it was the same thing where we had a couple of guys that were running drugs from the side and trying to dress themselves up and disguise themselves by being supporters of the US. The same thing happened with the Nugan Hand Bank in Australia. You know, these guys find out which banks the CIA was using to move its covert operations money and move the drug money to the same bank, and they were trying for gray mail. But you know I've been looking at the stuff for a long time. I've never found any credible evidence that the CIA was behind drug smuggling. There were some people in the Pentagon, I believe, that did dabble in the stuff a little bit. And, I am trying my best to get those few individuals identified. But by and large it's not a conspiracy. It's just sharks swimming in parallel lines. It's hard for a lot people to accept, but, you know, sharks get greedy and they smell blood in the water and they all head in the same area. It doesn't mean they're working in concert.

~ John Loftus

</div>