In early August, the U.S. Treasury quietly sanctioned the tobacco company of Paraguay’s former president, Horacio Cartes. Before entering office, Cartes had extensive links to organized crime and took authoritarian actions while in power. However, Cartes faced no public pressure from the American government until long after leaving office in 2018. America’s leadership looked the other way for so long because Cartes fulfilled its mutual interests.

Two plotters of the assassination of Haitian President Jovenel Moïse were exposed as DEA informants. Another was unmasked as an FBI informant. Now, newly-released court documents provide the most startling evidence yet linking the conspirators with the US government.

Does America Belong on its List of State Sponsors of Terrorism?

President Biden signed a well-publicized bill last month that would ban the TikTok app if the Chinese portion of its ownership is not sold to different investors within a year. On its own merits, the original bill (H.R. 7521) passed in the House 352 to 65. However, the TikTok ban was attached to a bill (H.R. 815) that provides roughly $95 billion of aid (mostly military) to Israel, Ukraine, and Taiwan. In the same week that members of Congress patted themselves on the back for protecting Americans from potential Chinese government spying, it passed a bill that extended and expanded a U.S. government surveillance program (Section 702) that routinely violates Americans’ constitutional right to privacy. The message from our government is clear. Dear Americans, don’t worry about China spying on you; that’s our job. We all should be concerned about foreign espionage via a popular app, but we should be more concerned about our government doing the same thing because our government can throw you in prison. With that in mind, you need to view the TikTok ban as merely the U.S. government throwing China’s tactics right back at them. China doesn’t play by the same set of rules. Practically every high-profile American social media platform, news outlet, search engine, and messaging app is banned in China.

Iran provides immunity for Naji Sharifi Zindashti in exchange for committing extrajudicial executions abroad.

Lazy journalists labeled Epstein as a “financier,” a “man of mystery,” a “philanthropist,” etc. This was one of the most sought-after stories of recent times, yet the corporate media dropped the ball through self-censorship and ineptitude. The evidence indicates that Epstein was involved in the intelligence community. It defies logic to think otherwise considering that he was so deeply tied to one of the largest Ponzi schemes of its time, involved in international arms dealing, owned a fake passport, operated a blackmail scheme that masqueraded as a sex trafficking ring, influenced key business/political leaders, held hundreds of millions of dollars of nebulous wealth, among other reasons. Here's a timeline of events that will help to clear up many of the questions surrounding his life. Timeline 1974 June – Epstein finished studying at Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences at New York University without receiving a degree. 1974-1976 Epstein was a teacher at Dalton School in Manhattan, an elite private school. 1976 – Epstein was dismissed from Dalton School. Six of his former students spoke to a reporter at The New York Times . They said that he didn’t touch them, but he crossed lines of appropriate behavior, particularly when he attended high school parties. 1976 – Epstein joined Bear Stearns and started as a junior assistant to a floor trader. He gained this opportunity because he impressed then Bear Stearns CEO, Alan “Ace” Greenberg, during a parent-teacher conference . Epstein reportedly tutored the son of Greenberg and was friendly with Greenberg’s daughter. 1980 – Epstein had a rapid rise through the company and became a limited partner in Bear Stearns. 1980 Oct - Epstein featured as Cosmo magazine's “Bachelor of the Month.” 1981 March 12 - Epstein resigned from Bear Stearns. This was after the firm fined him $2,500 for breaking a regulatory rule by letting a friend/client borrow money to buy stock. He also received a 60-day suspension. 1981 April 1 – Epstein testified to SEC officials about his time at Bear Stearns. The SEC questioned him about the suspicious timing of his resignation. It came days before an insider trading scandal. The Seagram Company attempted a takeover of St. Joe’s Mineral Corp. Traders at Bear Stearns were suspected of using offshore accounts to trade based on that nonpublic information. Epstein maintained that his resignation had nothing to do with that investigation and never faced charges. This is the beginning of a pattern of Epstein’s connections to financial scandals without facing time behind bars. 1981 August – Epstein formed his financial advisory firm , Intercontinental Assets Group Inc, which he ran out of his apartment in New York City. 1981 – Epstein was a natural charmer/networker/manipulator/con artist. However, when he met Douglas Leese at a Texas oil tycoon’s party, that was seemingly when he became a player in the intelligence community. Douglas Leese’s name is kind of a footnote in most contemporary Epstein reporting, but Leese was a prominent British arms trafficker. That’s an industry that often is a nexus between intelligence agencies, corrupt politicians, and savvy money launderers; the latter being where Epstein’s help was likely welcomed. Douglas Leese was one of the facilitators of Britain’s largest arms/corruption scandal in history. According to the British Parliament , he helped to arrange some of the bribes, possibly using the offshore bank, the Bank of NT Butterfield in Bermuda, for the Al Yamamah oil-for-arms deal between Saudi Arabia and the British defense contractor worth £43 billion in revenue between 1985 and 2007. Douglas became a mentor to Epstein, according to Douglas Leese’s son, Julian Leese. Douglas Leese was also linked with the Saudi arms trafficker, Adnan Khashoggi. He was one of the key brokers in the Iran-Contra affair .

For the last two decades, while U.S. forces occupied the country, Afghanistan has been the epicenter of the world’s opium production with roughly 90% of global supply. After American troops withdrew from the country, and with the Taliban in charge, Afghan opium production drastically declined. There were an estimated 6,200 tons produced in 2022, as opposed to 333 tons in 2023, according to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC). That may surprise some readers as the Taliban have been credibly linked with the heroin trade. The UNODC estimated in 2009 that the Taliban generated $155 million per year from Afghan opium. They weren’t traffickers but they forced traffickers and farmers to pay a “tax” in their territories. Even though those were handsome profits, the Taliban were relatively a minor part of a massive black market worth then roughly $3 billion annually. History shows that the Taliban’s policy on opium has shifted from time to time depending upon their circumstances. An opium ban in Afghanistan seems to fall in line with the Taliban’s tyrannical fundamentalist Islamic modus operandi. However, it also benefits those in power. Several Afghan warlords derive much of their authority as a result from black market profits. Hence, whoever controls the opium trade, or lack thereof, in Afghanistan holds all the cards in a country where the average annual income is 378 US dollars. After the Taliban gained control of Afghanistan in 1996, they struggled to find international recognition. Therefore, the Taliban killed two birds with one stone when its former leader, Mullah Omar, issued an opium ban in July of 2000. That edict was beyond effective. According to UNODC estimates, Afghan opium production dropped from 3,276 tons in 2000 to 185 tons in 2001. The U.S. State Department even approved $43 million of humanitarian assistance for the Afghanistan government just months before 9/11 due to its strong counternarcotics efforts. After 9/11, the Taliban’s power decreased but didn’t cease. America installed a deeply corrupt transitional government. In turn, opium production escalated exponentially. America sided with militias entrenched in the opium trade who opposed the Taliban, such as the Northern Alliance. But, the Western media has only reported in drips and drabs about the U.S.-allied politicians/warlords who have been far more prominently involved in heroin trafficking. The corruption ran to the top. There are too many flagrant examples to list concisely, but notably, a man carrying 183 kilos of heroin was released by the police because he was carrying a signed letter of protection from Afghanistan’s drug czar, General Mohammad Daud Daud. Wikileaks revealed that former President Hamid Karzai once pardoned five police officers who were captured with 124 kilos of heroin. Even Hamid Karzai’s half-brother, Ahmed Wali Karzai, was a known drug smuggler who had been on the CIA payroll for years. Practically the entire Karzai administration was on the CIA’s payroll all while the agency knew these officials were drowning in drug money.

The long-lasting effects of the Cold War and the War on Terror has fueled rampant global violence.