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ASSISTANT SECRETARY BROWNFIELD: Californians and southern Californians, good
morning. It is a pleasure to be both here in Santa Monica and the Los Angeles area as
well as southern California. It is not easy for a native son of west Texas to say that.
But it is a pleasure to be here and to see you all. May I open with a very sincere word
of thanks to the RAND Corporation for hosting this event and to the Los Angeles World Affairs
Council for supporting this event. May I offer my own words of appreciation as well to the
representatives of the senior senator from the state of California, Senator Feinstein,
who, from my perspective, even more importantly, chairs the Senate Drug Caucus. She is a partner,
an ally, and a friend on much of what we are trying to accomplish in our efforts overseas.
A word of thanks as well to all of the representatives of the Los Angeles Area Congressional Delegation,
massive that it is. I am grateful for both your presence and the support of your members
in the House of Representatives in the United States Congress. And somewhere in this room
may be an old ally and friend from the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Robyn Wapner, who
may or may not have joined us from the bustling borough of San Diego, located, as you well
know, a good 50 miles or so away.
Ladies and gentlemen, once upon a time there was a country located somewhere in the North
American continent, and sometime around 1970, this country found itself confronting a major
drug crisis. And it responded, first by creating a couple of domestic organizations ñ one
law enforcement organization, which they chose to call the Drug Enforcement Administration,
or DEA; and a second office of a National Drug Control Policy Director, who came to
be known as the drug czar of the United States of America.
At the same time, the United States Congress and the Article II branch of government, the
President, concluded that they needed to have an arm that stretched overseas to deal with
the international and foreign aspects of this problem. In their wisdom, they placed it in
the Department of State and thus was born a bureau that, at that time, was called the
Bureau of International Narcotics Matters, or INM. And for the first 20 years or so of
its existence, it focused almost exclusively on the flow of *** and coca-based products
from the Andean Ridge region of South America to the United States of America.
Well, ladies and gentlemen, as sometimes happens, things changed, and the world of 2012 is not
exactly the same as the world of 1972. Among other things, our name has changed. We are
no longer the Bureau of International Narcotics Matters. Weíre now the Bureau of International
Narcotics and Law Enforcement. By so doing, we recognize the fact that itís not just
*** that we deal with on the drug front. Itís also ***, methamphetamine, some versions
of marijuana, pharmaceutical drugs that are licitly produced but illicitly used. We are
also dealing with problems and crises such as trafficking in persons, gangs with their
headquarters overseas, the movement and flow of firearms and explosives, cybercrime, crime
involving intellectual property, terrorism, and the general requirement to support the
development of rule of law institutions throughout the world.
ìAll right,î all of you are saying, ìBrownfield, we hear your words. Why does that matter to
us here in Los Angeles?î Let me rephrase that question and see what sort of answer
you yourselves might reach. Does it matter here in the Los Angeles area that Colombian
and Mexican narcotics are flowing in the direction of North America and entering the United States
along its southwest border? Do Central American gangs with headquarters in El Salvador but
large branch offices on the streets of Los Angeles with names like Calle Dieciocho, 18th
Street, or Mara Trucha Salvador? Do they matter to the citizens of the LA metropolitan area?
Does it matter to you that criminal organizations are trafficking humans from Southeast Asia
to the southwest coast of the United States of America, the flow of firearms and explosives
to or from the United States and Mexico? Does it bother you or matter to you, the enforcement
of intellectual property rights, movies, cassettes, and other bits of intellectual property? Does
it matter to you that cybercriminals are able to reach out from a location perhaps in East
Asia and directly affect and impact what you are able to do on your computer?
Ladies and gentlemen, I leave the answers to those questions to you. But in my opinion,
what happens out there does, in fact, have a direct and immediate impact on what happens
to you right here in the Los Angeles metropolitan area.
Ladies and gentlemen, we live in a global world, and this is no longer just something
that we say in order to fill space in our columns; it is a reality. And for the most
part, the globalization of the world is a good thing. Itís good for the economies of
the 192 countries represented in the United Nations ñ more commerce, more trade. Itís
good for academic discourse and exchange. Itís good for communications and the ability
of a person here in Los Angeles to communicate in real time with somebody located in Russia
or, in my case, with the United States Ambassador to Thailand who provides me at least 20 bits
of guidance a day since she has been married to me for the last 30 years.
In short, it is a good thing. That said, it is also an enormous opportunity for large,
multibillion dollar criminal enterprises who, in essence, say if we can figure out how to
use globalization to our advantage, they can as well. And their advantage is not necessarily
the same as our advantage.
I suggest to you that we have learned some fundamental lessons since my bureau was created
in 1972. First, this international law enforcement and crime issue is not just a U.S. problem.
It is a problem that affects every nation in the world. Second, as we address this crisis
and this problem, it is not just a federal government issue. It involves every single
state and territory and county and city in the United States of America, and I mean every
one. Whether you live in Fairbanks, Alaska or Honolulu, Hawaii, you are impacted directly
by what happens in terms of organized crime overseas.
And finally, I submit to you, we have learned that this is not just a law enforcement and
police problem; it is also training and education. It is economic and social development. It
is healthcare and legal reform and efforts to combat corruption, the great force multiplier
of any criminal enterprise. It is also prosecutors and courts and it is correction systems and
detention systems as well.
In order to address these problems, I submit that in the year 2012, 12 years into this
century, we need a vision that is coherent, which is to say it makes sense to everyone.
It is comprehensive; it addresses all aspects of the problem. It is realistic; it is based
upon budgetary and political realities that, in fact, are realistic. It is flexible, accepting
the reality that no plan is perfect and you are going to have to adjust it and change
it as you go along. And finally, it is long term. There is no plan to address this issue
that is going to give you a solution by tomorrow morning. As I say ad nauseam, it took us many,
many years to get into this mess; it is going to take us a good number of years to get out
of it.
I offer some core principles and then I will stop and throw the floor open to you. First
principle ñ drugs. It is not just about drugs, but ladies and gentlemen, illicit drugs are
the financial oil that drives this machine. Whether you are an insurgent, a terrorist,
or a traditional economic criminal, the international illicit drug flow is providing the overwhelming
majority of your revenue and your finances.
Second principle ñ focus on the criminal organizations. It is not our task to punish
the subsistence farmer who chooses to grow coca or *** poppy; it is not our task to
throw in jail everyone who chooses to violate the law through consumption or possession.
It is, I submit to you, our task to take down the large, multinational, multibillion dollar
criminal enterprises whose sole function in life is to earn huge blobs of money by participating
in these criminal activities.
Third principle ñ corruption must be part of our effort. It is the key vulnerability.
No criminal enterprise can function at a high level for very long without penetrating and
corrupting government institutions. And I donít care what country youíre in. I would
include the United States of America in this category. We have to incorporate into our
strategy efforts to address government corruption wherever it may be found.
Fourth principle ñ it is not just police; it is the entire rule of law continuum. And
the way I describe this continuum is it starts at one extreme with basic community policing,
works its way through investigators and investigation, prosecutors, courts, and judges, and finally,
often forgotten, the corrections system. My own suggestion to you is if we fail to address
any single element, we have left a giant target of opportunity for the criminal enterprise
and organization to take advantage of.
Fifth principle ñ itís not just equipment and arms; itís also training, education,
capacity building, and social and economic development. If they are not all incorporated
into the strategy, the strategy will not succeed.
Sixth, we do have experts; we do have advisors. Their function is to add value to the host
government. To use an expression that we have often used for the last 30 or 40 years, we
canít want it more than they do. If the host government is not prepared to dedicate its
own personnel, its own resources, its own funding to this effort, we cannot be a substitute
for that. Yes, we have expertise; yes, we have advisors; and yes, we can provide resources.
But it must reinforce, not replace, the effort of the host government.
Seventh, we will do direct operational support at times, but it should be as rare as is humanly
possible. It is not a good thing, ladies and gentlemen, for the United States Government
to be conducting law enforcement operations in another country. It may be legal; it may
be the most effective way to get the job done; it may even be welcome by the vast majority
of the population in that country. But we do not want to be the operators overseas.
We want to give training and capacity building; we want to give resources; we want to give
equipment; we want to give intelligence. But at the end of the day, if youíre in country
X, it should be the police of country X doing the actual law enforcement, not us, just as
we would have the right to be mildly miffed were we to discover police officials from
some other country arresting American citizens, criminals though they may be, for activities
committed in the United States of America. I could understand our mild annoyance with
that concept. We should attempt to understand that same principle when it is applied overseas.
And last and finally, my eighth principle ñ partners, partners, partners. If we find
that we are the only ones sufficiently concerned about and engaged in an issue, that no other
country in the world has expressed a concern about it, we just might be wrong on this point,
and we had better hit the pause button, take a step back, and ask ourselves why is no other
country on the planet concerned about this matter. If we find ourselves in that situation,
there may be an answer to that question. We are, for example ñ we have two immediate
neighbors who share enormous borders with us, and I could conceive of a situation in
which we would have a direct and immediate American interest in a matter involving Mexico
to the south, Canada to the north that is not shared by any other country on the planet.
Okay, I might accept it under those two very exceptional circumstances. But beyond that,
I would say the burden is on me to prove to you, to the media, to the Article I branch
of government pursuit to the United States Constitution why it is that we should be putting
our resources into a program in a country where no other government has expressed a
view or a concern.
Now, how have those eight principles played out? Ladies and gentlemen, Iíll offer you
a list of initiatives that have been developed either by the current Administration, strongly
supported by the United States Congress, both houses and both parties, as well as by, in
some cases, a prior administration continued on by this Administration.
With Mexico, we have the Merida Initiative since the year 2008. Central America is CARSI,
which stands for the Central America Regional Security Initiative. In the Caribbean, we
have the CBSI, Caribbean Basin and Security Initiative; Colombiaís still rather old but
famous Plan Colombia. Outside of the Western hemisphere, in Western Africa, the West Africa
Cooperative Security Initiative. Between Afghanistan and the Central Asian republics, we have the
Central Asia Counternarcotics Initiative or CACI. And we are, in fact, even today, probing
and exploring some form of initiative with Burma as our engagement with that country
gradually develops.
Now, thatís eight different initiatives, ladies and gentlemen. Are they going to solve
this problem? No, they are not. No single initiative is going to solve the challenge
of drugs and international crime. All of them together will not solve all of those problems.
They are part of a larger whole. And at the end of the day, year, decade, or century,
if we have developed our initiatives correctly, if we pursue them in an intelligent manner,
they will eventually deliver a better climate in terms of crime and drugs, not just for
the United States of America but perhaps for the rest of the world.
Ladies and gentlemen, there are some out there ñ which obviously does not include anyone
in this room ñ who take a pessimistic attitude to what I do for a living, whoíve reached
the conclusion that we have not solved this problem over more than 40 years, weíre not
going to solve it, let us simply accept that and make an accommodation to these large-scale,
international, multibillion dollar criminal enterprises. I respect everyoneís right to
their opinion. I, too, have read the First Amendment of the United States Constitution.
And in fact, I can even understand how one reaches that conclusion.
I am, however, not such a pessimist. While I am not a Pollyanna optimist, I offer you
one personal experience to suggest why I think pessimism can sometimes bring you to the wrong
conclusion. I reached, as the good Dr. Kilmer mentioned, my last ambassadorship to Colombia
in August of 2007. When I arrived, three U.S. citizens were being held hostage by the FARC
in the jungles of Colombia. We thought jungles; actually we did not have a clue where they
were located. As I began to talk to people about how to address this issue, I would suggest
that between 95 and 96 percent of the people I talked to basically said it is hopeless;
weíre never going to get them out; they will be returned when the FARC chooses to return
them, and we see no evidence that they are planning to do that now.
Approximately 12 months later, specifically on the 2nd of July, 2008, I stood at the bottom
of the steps of an aircraft and welcomed those three American former hostages and 12 other
Colombian former hostages to freedom. And that, as I stood there, actually got me thinking
about the danger of driving your decision making based upon kind of the most pessimistic
possible outcome and assessment.
Ladies and gentlemen, I do not promise you paradise. I do not promise you perfection
by weeks end. But I do offer the final ñ and this final closing thought, and that is
never in the history of the human race, since Ug and Thug first agreed 40,000 years ago
to share a cave and establish some sort of community, never has a criminal enterprise
been able to succeed against the consensus, will, and desire of a society and a community
determined not to let them succeed. And I am hopeful that by the time you invite me
back here again in two or three yearsí time youíll be a in a position to say to me, ìBrownfield,
you havenít yet delivered everything you were supposed to deliver, but things do look
better on this front than they did when you were here in 2012.î
I thank you, and I look forward to any questions or suggestions you might wish to offer me.
MODERATOR: Weíll have time for a few questions, so just wait, Iíll bring the microphone right
to you.
QUESTION: Good morning, Ambassador Brownfield. Iím Terry McCarthy. Iím the newly installed
president of the Los Angeles World Affairs Council, and weíre supporting this event.
Weíre very glad you could talk to us. We have some of our members here this morning.
I, too, am an optimist, and itís nice to hear your optimistic take on this. But Iím
wondering, how do you see the move ñ which seems to be spreading through Latin America
ñ to legalize narcotics? A lot of countries seem to have turned up their hands and said
we canít get a handle on this; the costs and crime are too great; why donít we just
legalize this. And Iím wondering, does that eventually impact policy here in the United
States?
ASSISTANT SECRETARY BROWNFIELD: Thank God. I had to wait until the first question to
address the legalization issue. Listen, let me start ñ because this is always a safe
place for a U.S. Government official to start ñ let me start by quoting the President of
the United States of America, who said in the city of Cartagena, Colombia, famed for
other reasons perhaps last April ñ but in fact, we forget that there was a summit that
occurred and that during that summit the President of the United States of America said publicly,
ìWe understand the arguments about legalization. We welcome the debate, but in the United States
of America, we have done our own assessment and evaluation and we believe it will not
work for us.î
Now, let me parse those words and suggest to you how I, Bill Brownfield, have chosen
to interpret that and use that as the means to answer your question. First, I submit that
the President was signaling, correctly, that every country in the world ñ not just in
the Western hemisphere, but throughout the world ñ will determine its own domestic and
national drug policy. It is not for the United States of America to tell any other country
what its rules, laws, policies, and regulations are in terms of sale, possession, or consumption
of drugs. Every nation is sovereign. I agree with that completely.
Second, I believe what he ñ what his words would suggest is that those who are suggesting
that legalization is a simple, silver-bullet solution to this problem ñ legalize it and
all the problem is done ñ are in error, that itís simply ñ it is far too complicated
a problem that has social and health and economic and law enforcement and security and political
connotations to suggest that we were so stupid 50 years that we did not realize that by simply
legalizing all these problems would go away. And if that is what the President was thinking
when he said, ìWe have done our own assessment and evaluation and concluded it will not work
for us,î then I agree with that as well.
Ladies and gentlemen, this is ñ my own view is that every 10 years or so this debate builds
up, and I think it is a very valid debate. I believe it would be very, very foolish for
anyone to believe that there is consensus on this matter. Even within the south ñ the
Latin American countries, there are some who are absolutely adamantly opposed, as in we
ñ if anything, weíre going to strengthen our rules and laws against consumption and
possession, and others who have pretty clearly signaled an openness to this. One has, in
fact, permitted the expansion of the growth and cultivation of coca. This country is Bolivia.
And in fact, as a consequence thereof, their large neighbor to the east, Brazil, is now
confronting, perhaps at this stage, the worst crack *** crisis that any country in the
Western Hemisphere is approaching. I am aware that I am in the state of California. I am
aware that this is one of a number of states in the union that is experimenting on a state
basis with some elements of this issue.
But let us all remind ourselves the wise, wise people of California and the legislature
that they have elected have not offered up, suggested, approved, or even debated a complete
legalization of illicit drugs. And my own personal belief is of course we should be
learning from experience. We have been at this for nearly 50 years. There are areas
in our laws, our regulations, our policies, and our strategies where we should fine-tune,
adjust, or modify. It should be based upon scientific and quantifiable data that allow
us to reach logical conclusions, and it should not be based upon some sort of hope or pipe
dream that if we do this one legal adjustment, this problem is going to go away. If I truly
believed that, I would be leading the team of the legalizers. I do not believe it, and
that is why, in my opinion, this healthy, positive, and useful debate will continue.
MODERATOR: Another question?
QUESTION: Yeah. Ken Reliticin (ph), the World Affairs Council as well. Some might say that
marijuana is a special case, but Iíll move onto ñ my other question is: Thereís been
some studies that indicate that the war on drugs has been adverse to the health consequences
of AIDS. In other words, in those countries where enforcement has been taken over the
treatment issue, AIDS has increased, particularly among IV drug users, particularly in Russia,
and in those countries that treated it differently, as in Brazil, IV drug transmission of AIDS
has gone down significantly, almost to zero. Is that something that youíve considered?
ASSISTANT SECRETARY BROWNFIELD: Yeah. First, by the way, I agree with those who criticize
the war on drugs, which is why I agreed with President Clintonís decision in 1993 to cease
talking about it as a war on drugs, because itís not a war. It is a far more complicated
and comprehensive approach than that of a simple war, and I agree with all those who
have argued, which includes the entire United States Government for the last 19 years, that
itís not a war on drugs.
Now, the logic of the criticism that by, in essence, focusing so much on the drug problem,
you are taking resources away that could otherwise be used for other matters such as AIDS prevention
or treatment. I see the logic of the argument. I suppose you could apply that to anything,
however. You could say national defense, it has caused greater AIDS problems because if
we had spent less money on national defense and more on AIDS treatment and prevention,
there would be less AIDS. Or social and economic development, if we spent less on social and
economic development and more on AIDS treatment and prevention, then there would be less AIDS.
In other words, at the end of the day, we, as societies, as nations, as peoples, through
our elected representatives and, in practically every case, the legislature that determines
what the laws and policies will be, are making those tradeoffs. I mean, that, in essence,
is why we elect members of Congress. That is why we elect a president and a vice president
who, in turn, have their senior officials confirmed by the United States Congress or
Senate in the case of our Constitution, and that is, in essence, to take this rather large
quantity of issues that we as a nation, as a government, as a people must deal with and
determine where we will prioritize how many ñ how much in the way of resources we will
put into each issue, each concern, each problem and reach some sort of balance that, I suppose
in the worst-case scenario, has everyone roughly equally dissatisfied.
If you were to ask me if we were to put a vast amount of additional resources into AIDS
prevention and treatment, would that, in fact, vastly improve AIDS prevention and treatment?
I would say yes. But then the tradeoff we have to assess is where do we take it from
in order to put it into AIDS? Everyone has a right to his or her own view and opinion
on that. At the end of the day, I submit that that determination is made in accordance with
Articles 1 and 2 of the United States Constitution, the Article 2 branch, the executive branch,
making proposals to the Article 1 branch, the Congress, which in turn determines how
much funding will be made available for these individual programs. And when there is confusion
or disagreement between the Article 1 and Article 2 branches, then the Article 3 branch
will determine if there is a constitutional answer to the question. Thatís not a very
satisfactory response to you, but itís the best I can do given the realities that I think
we are having to deal with on this matter.
MODERATOR: Unfortunately, we have time for one last question before the ambassador has
to head off.
QUESTION: Thank you. I am Dr. James Favin (ph). Iíve been in the anti-trafficking and
anti-terrorism for five years. As a major in the U.S. Army, Iíve had to be responsible for locating resources
and fighting the fight thatís worth fighting. Would it be appropriate to bifurcate this
issue and have the softer drugs such as marijuana be legalized and sold in pharmacies and go
after the real hard drugs, which would help on the allocation of resources?
ASSISTANT SECRETARY BROWNFIELD: Ha. You started with legalization, and youíre going to close
with legalization. But thatís all right. I was not so stupid as not to realize that
I was going to deal with this issue when I volunteered and, in fact, even asked for the
opportunity to appear before you today. First, Iím going to address one issue that you kind
of implied. It was not in any way related to your question, but Iím going to say it
anyway because you did kind of bring in counterterrorism as well as counternarcotics. And may I suggest
to you, ladies and gentlemen, that these are two different issues? I, for example, am not
the Assistant Secretary of State responsible for counterterrorism. We have another one.
Heís called the Assistant Secretary of State for Counterterrorism. His name is Danny ñ
Iíd better call him Daniel Benjamin, and he does a very fine job.
But if you were to ask me: Do Bouncing Bill Brownfield and Daniel Benjamin talk a great
deal because there is a substantial amount of overlap between the counterterrorism challenge
and the counternarcotics challenge? The answer is: Yes, for the very simple reason that I
was suggesting to you earlier on. And that is drugs and illicit drugs finance a tremendous
amount of the terrorist activity in the world today. If any of you believe that the Taliban
in Afghanistan or Pakistan would be the same institution that it is today without the revenue
from drugs, Iíve got to tell you, I mean, youíre welcome to your opinion ñ I think
youíd be bonkers ñ itís 90 percent of their income.
If you were to tell me that you could address the matter of the Colombian FARC, the ñ in
Spanish, itís the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia ñ if you were able to address
them without dealing with their role as being conceivably the worldís largest *** trafficker,
Iíd say, no, you canít do it. Not all terrorist organizations are narcotics trafficking organizations.
And not all narcotics trafficking organizations are terrorist organizations. That is why these
are separate issues. But they are connected; and we must not forget that, or we run the
risk of making some really fundamental and, therefore, exceptionally dangerous mistakes.
Now, to get to the question that you really did ask me, and that is the separation, if
you will, of how we deal with so-called hard drugs and how we deal with so-called soft
drugs. My formal and official answer to you is: That is a matter of domestic policy, law,
and legislation. The ìIî in my title [i.e. ìINLî] stands for international, which means
I deal with it overseas, not in the United States of America, and it is up to the 50
legislatures of the states of the United States of America plus six territories plus the District
of Columbia and the United States Congress to answer that question. If you were to ask
me: Does this fall into the category of the areas that I said to you earlier where we
should be open to considering, probing, modifying, adjusting, fine-tuning our policies, our rules
and regulations? Sure it does.
But please do not over-interpret what I just said. I do not support the legalization of
so-called soft drugs. I do understand how any of the 312 million citizens of the United
States of America, of which I am one, with the same right to an opinion as anyone else,
I can understand how we are trying to wrestle with the differences in certain types of illicit
drugs and how we can adjust our policies relating to one as opposed to the other. I think that
is a legitimate area for discourse and discussion. I believe it is unrealistic to conclude that
what this discourse will lead us to is a decision to take kind of half of the drugs that are
currently on DEAís proscribed substances list and say, ìThese are all now completely
legalized.î Iím not even sure, to be honest with you, what completely legalized means.
Does it mean you no longer have to have any license or registration in order to sell it?
Does it mean you get to sell to anyone ñ a 6 year-old kid, a 14 year-old kid, a 20
and one half year-old young man? I do not know what that means. I do not know what it
means in terms of liability. If you have used a so-called soft drug, and then while under
the influence, mow down a half-dozen pedestrians and kill them all, does this mean that only
you are responsible, the person that sold you the product is responsible?
In other words, this is the sort of thing that I believe we need to have dialogue about.
I find it difficult ñ I almost said frustrating, but I would never be frustrated ñ I find
it difficult to have a dialogue that is dominated by the two extremes ñ one extreme that says
never, in a trillion years, we will not cede so much as a millimeter of space on this issue,
and the other extreme which says legalize it all. Letís just close our eyes and pretend
that it has no impact on us whatsoever. Surprisingly enough, when those two sides are dominating
the debate, the debate tends to be a tiny bit sterile. It would be very much my hope
that in the days, weeks, months, and years ahead, that big blob of the thinking public
that probably constitutes some 60 to 80 percent of us might actually address this issue in
a somewhat careful, objective, scientific, open-minded manner, and it would not surprise
me at all if that resulted in some adjustments or fine-tunings.
But please remember ñ and I will close with this ñ Brownfieldís first law: it ainít
going to solve the drug problem. That requires a long-term, comprehensive, coherent, flexible
strategy that will approach all elements of the problem, and accept that since it took
us several generations to get into it, itís probably going to take us several generations
to
get out.
9 7/26/2012