Democratic Underground - In Alexander Coburn's "Whiteout" Noriega told his

aide a few weeks before the invasion: "I've got Bush by the balls".

Well, he was obviously wrong about that, but it does imply more than a casual aquaintance.

In Rodney Stich's book "Defrauding America" he cites two witnesses that claim they saw Noreiga on one of Zapata Petroleum's offshore oil rigs near Panama. These rigs are highly suspected of being used for all kinds of illegal activities. Their service helicopters don't fall under normal aviation laws and can be used to ferry drugs, guns, etc.

http://www.webcom.com/pinknoiz/covert/contracoke.html#I <http://www.webcom.com/pinknoiz/covert/contracoke.html>
.....For Kerry’s trouble, Bush ordered Poindexter and Ollie North to get the FBI on Kerry. Could that be why Junior sealed all of Poppy’s papers as soon as he could start signing stuff back in January 2001? Here’s some of what we do have on record::
Read what Jonathan Vankin wrote, back when Iran-Contra drug dealing was merely a risqué subject (today, it’s gone taboo, with reporters losing their jobs for writing stories about it). BTW, I’m sorry I couldn’t post this underneath several posts where it would be apropos.

EXCERPT:
… To comprehend the government’s role in cocaine traffic, (Manuel) Noriega is useful as a kind of focal point. He was on the payroll of the CIA at the same time he worked for the Medellin Cartel for four million dollars per month. The Medellin Cartel is the Columbian cocaine syndicate, responsible for most of the cocaine that enters the U.S.A.
Noriega was also connected to George Bush (Senior), and through Bush to Oliver North. They used Noriega as a conduit for getting arms to the contras.
Bush, North, and other government insiders at the CIA and the National Security Council (which under Reagan got heavily into covert operations) most likely knew about Noriega’s involvement with drugs. Revelations about Noriega, and about direct contra and CIA involvement with cocaine smuggling, found their way into public record via a subcommittee of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, chaired by John Kerry.
In 1986, Senator Kerry received information that the Costa Rican branch of a Miami-based shrimp company Ocean Hunter, widely regarded as a drug-running front, had received checks for more than $200,000 dollars from the U.S. government. The money was part of the “humanitarian aid” allocated for the contras by Congress. Wondering why the cash was channeled to this shrimp-and-dope outfit, Kerry went to the FBI asking for an inquiry. Instead, the FBI investigated Kerry himself.
SNIP…

Important DU topic on Noriega and some banks his boys operated out of in Miami: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=1133231

Reply #29: In Alexander Coburn's "Whiteout" Noriega told his [View All]