Beytenu Members in Action

Lieberman's speech delivered at the International Institute for Counter-Terrorism "Terror and Drugs"

The following speech was delivered at the international Institute for counter-Terrrorism's "Terrorism's Global Imapact" annual conference on Sep. 10th, in a session on Terrorism, Narcotics and International Crime.

TERROR AND DRUGS

I would like to start by reminding you of the 1963 James Bond movie, "From Russia With Love". Ernest Bluefield, the head of the SPECTRE terror organization, illustrates the organization's strategy for achieving world domination: In an aquarium, he has 3 fighting fish. While 2 of the fish fight each other to death, the third stays out of it. Only once a winner emerges, the third fish attacks the now weakened victor, and kills him easily. So is the strategy of SPECTRE: To instigate conflict between two powerful enemies, namely the superpowers, hoping they will exhaust themselves, and be vulnerable when SPECTRE finally moves in to seize power. As "Number 3" tells Bluefield, "I find the parallel amusing".

The end of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st have brought about dramatic destabilization in the classic, post-WWII structure of international politics. Ladies and Gentlemen, what in 1963 was just an imaginary plot in a James Bond movie, has today become a reality. Since the terror attacks of 9/11, exactly 6 years ago tomorrow, the idea of a super-national terror-organization attacking a super-power state, is a reality in today's geo-politics.

One of the effects of this trend is a continuous decline in the status of the nation-state as the main player in the international arena. New players are emerging to challenge the state for the number 1 place: multi-national corporations, super-national terror organizations such as Al-Qaeda and World Jihad, non-sovereign players such as Kosovo and the Palestinian Authority and states such as Lebanon and Iraq who are unable to fully exert their sovereignty within their own territory.

This is best demonstrated in the world's largest producers and exporters of drugs, who are also some of the world's poorest countries. But within these poor countries, terror organizations have created states-within-states, more powerful than the country's lawful government, better armed than the law enforcement agencies, and in some cases with a yearly turn-over larger than the country's annual budget. Illegal drug economies are funding world wide terror, and have taken on truly geo-political dimensions. The United Nations Office of Drug Control and Crime Prevention estimates that the retail value of the illegal drug market is $400 billion per year, which puts it ahead of the petroleum industry.

A recent report by the UN shows that the Taliban have increased their Opium production in southern Afghanistan by over 230% in the last 2 years, and now supply over 90% of the world's opium. The report also shows that the Taliban have upgraded their technological knowledge, and now process the raw Poppy into opium and Heroin before export, which raises their profit margins by hundreds of percent.

Intelligence reports show that Hamas and Hizbullah are active in the drug industry in the Tri-Border Area of Paraguay, Argentina and Brazil. In Sinai, professional drug smugglers are now smuggling explosives and weapons into Gaza - just last week Egyptian law-enforcement seized 2.5 tons of explosives en-route to Gaza. According to the DEA, Islamic extremists embedded in the United States - posing as Hispanic nationals - are partnering with violent Mexican drug gangs to finance terror networks in the Middle East. It doesn't matter if we talk about FARC in Columbia, The Shining Path in Peru, Abu Sayaf in the Philippines or Hizbullah in Israel - terror organizations all around the world are using the drugs trade to fund their terror activities. No one disputes this.

I am more deeply concerned, however, by a different use of drugs by terror organizations. As I mentioned at the beginning of my speech, today's enemies are very different from yesterday's enemies. An organization such as Al-Qaeda has managed to survive more than 6 years of the U.S. / NATO "War on Terror" not thanks to force or military power, but thanks to its tactics.

We already know that Al Qaeda uses unconventional, unorthodox tactics with no regard for human life. We have seen Al Qaeda use new tools to achieve its goals - the internet, mass media, mass transportation systems and a new de-centralized command structure.

We also know that Al Qaeda is a non-rational player in the international arena. There is nothing you can offer Bin Laden to stop his terrorist activities - no amount of money, no piece of territory, no agreement. His goal is to bring the whole world under a new Khalifut - an Islamic kingdom. And he will stop at nothing to achieve this, and he is very patient. He is prepared to take as long as it takes.

Now the danger is that Al Qaeda will adopt a new, long-term tactic of inserting drugs into Western society, aimed at undermining our very social fabric. This could take generations to come into effect, but we must not underestimate the power of such a tactic. I remind you of the analogy of the 3 fighting fish: We can not afford to fight within ourselves and allow the terrorists to gain power.

Although some would have you believe that Israel's war against terror is isolated from the world-wide clash with extreme Islam, this is not true. We are on the front line of this war, representing the entire free world. We simply have a bad location. This war on terror must be fought hand-in-hand with the war on drugs.

Israel and the entire free world must raise the war on drugs higher on the national priority list. National-Security-Assessment should include the status on the war on drugs. Decision-makers should be allocating more time and resources to target this phenomenon. 

This is what makes the work of governmental agencies such as the Israel Anti-Drug Authority, and non-governmental organizations, so important. The latest statistics tell us that 14% of school children in Israel have experimented with drugs. Although there has been a drop in the last 3 years, over the last 10 years Israel has seen an increase of over 120% in drug-related arrests. By targeting the end-users - our youth, our communities - we can circumvent this threat to our civilization and society.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank the organizers of this conference at ICT, Colonel reserves Rami Cohen, chairman of the joint Israel Anti Drug Authority and ICT committee, who put this session together, and Mr. Chaim Messing, director of the Israel Anti Drug Authority.

Thank you.