Dictators and Drug Dealers: America's Dissonant Practice of Celebrating the Fall of its Allies and Activist Deaths that Don't Matter

https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2024/3/17/the-criminal-hypocrisy-of-hernandezs-drug-conviction-in-a-us-court

https://responsiblestatecraft.org/honduras-president-arrested/

https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2024/apr/01/years-after-berta-caceres-is-there-new-hope-for-justice

The death of Alexei Navalny received around-the-clock coverage and it was simply assumed that Putin ordered it and yet when someone like Berta Caceres of Honduras is killed, virtually no one in Western (and certainly American) media seems to care and suggestions of American involvement are met with scoffs.

Since Navalny's death, American intelligence has walked back its claims that he was murdered by Putin. But it doesn't matter, the media campaign has served its purpose and there are millions of Americans that have already made up their minds about Putin and will hear no other explanations or angles to US-Russia relations.

And yet Caceres death has fingerprints all over it - which all point to US proxies seeking to silence her.

The Honduran government which was installed by a US-supported coup in 2009 continues to be marked by great corruption which has induced violence and social chaos - sparking mass migrations. Under the rule of president Juan Orlando Hernandez, Caceres was repeatedly threatened for opposing the construction of a dam which would harm indigenous people. Both DESA (the international company involved) and the Honduran government intimidated her, her family, and her associates. US-trained and backed soldiers in the Honduran special forces have testified that she was on a hit list.

Assassinated in 2016, her story is unique in that it has received some recent attention in the United States. Nancy Pelosi (in utterly hypocritical fashion) lauded her and yet the trail of evidence surely has American connections.

Ironically, Orlando Hernandez was arrested and extradited to the United States on drugs-related charges. Convicted earlier this year, he awaits sentencing at the end of June. It seems to be a case of a former US asset being abandoned and handed over to federal investigators and the ideologues in the State Department and US Attorney in the Southern District of New York. It will be interesting to see how his story ends as prison will silence him - but also make him (conveniently) vulnerable to violence.

Some of the same narco-traffickers he was involved with (such as El Chapo and the Sinaloa Cartel) at one time had US connections. This is all part of a larger sordid story that I'm sure remains mostly hidden from public scrutiny.

Near the end of his presidency, after long toeing the US line he seemingly defected and started meeting with Daniel Ortega of Nicaragua - the one-time leftist leader of the Sandinistas. Ortega has abandoned any ideology apart from self-service and yet remains a pariah and foe to Washington's regional interests as he is outside their control. Shortly after this meeting with Ortega and the signing of a joint-statement regarding some of the geopolitics of the region, the indictment came down from Washington. Perceived as a loose cannon with lots of secrets and skeletons in his closet, Orlando Hernandez is going to disappear into the US penal system.

Orlando Hernandez's brother is also sitting in a US prison for trafficking drugs. One is immediately reminded of Hamid Karzai in Afghanistan and his brother Ahmed Wali who was accused of having CIA ties as well as being involved in the drug trade. He was assassinated by a body guard in 2011. Another similar figure is Abdul Raziq Achakzai, a US-backed warlord and butcher with ties to the drug trade. He ruled Kandahar province with a bloody fist and was assassinated in 2018.

And these but echo an earlier episode - the Ngo Dinh brothers in Vietnam, both Diem and Nhu were assassinated in 1963 in a US-sponsored coup. Nhu had long been associated with the opium trade which was rife in Southeast Asia at the time and had deep connections to CIA activities. Much more could be said about relationships to the drug trade in Central America, the Balkans, and elsewhere. The story is not worthy of a book but a whole series of volumes. But for the moment it is the prosecution of Juan Orlando Hernandez that matters - he's the current former dictator and drug dealer once sponsored by Washington that is set to rot away in a prison cell and follow in the footsteps of Manuel Noriega (d. 2017) and others.

And this reality grants cover to the likes of Pelosi who can argue that whatever evils were done, were committed solely by JOH (as he's called) and the US has made it right by prosecuting him. It's very convenient and fifteen years of US sponsored criminality is (just like that) swept under the rug. It reminds one of a mafia godfather who employs assassins and then has the assassins killed. Dead men tell no tales.