cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/41293279
source: gift link to NYT live blog (here is an archive.is link for later when the unlocked_article_code expires)
Where did this term come from? The Cartel of the Suns wikipedia article explains:
(reference [13] points to this article about it from 1993: Anti-Drug Unit of C.I.A. Sent Ton of Cocaine to U.S. in 1990)
![screenshot of wikipedia text: The term Cartel of the Suns was first used in 1993 as a journalistic label following a political scandal involving Venezuelan military officials who were implicated in a CIA plot to smuggle cocaine into the United States in order to infiltrate Colombian cartels.[13] The term was inspired by the "soles" (sun emblems) on Venezuelan generals' uniforms.[1] Apart from drug trafficking,](https://lemmy.ml/pictrs/image/cf30ca07-c9aa-43fb-9023-f58c86e9c8bb.png)
For anyone interested, Paul Williams - Operation Gladio details how from the 1960s onward, the CIA took over all international drug trade, and took a cut as a middle-man to fund all their black ops and right-wing dictatorships, used the drug trade as a weapon and sold to communities they wanted to impoverish, as well as telling the FBI to fuck off anytime they got caught importing drugs to the US. They only had to fold a lot of this up after it got exposed by journalists in the 1990s (many of whom they assassinated like Gary Webb).
The US is the worst narco-trafficker in history.