Plan Text

Plan: The United States federal government should fund and oversee the activation of the Container Inspection Facility in Venezuelan ports
Inherency

Venezuela is the current hotspot for drug trafficking in Latin America rekindling engagement there is key Sullivan 13 Latin America Specialist at the Foreign Affairs, Defense, and Trade Division of CRS, 1-1013 (Mark, Venezuela: Issues for Congress Congressional Research Service, http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/row/R40938.pdf)//JAG In its March 2012 International Narcotics Control Strategy Report (INCSR), the State Department contended that Venezuela was one of the preferred trafficking routes for the transit of cocaine out of South America because of a porous border with Colombia, a weak judicial system, inconsistent international counternarcotics cooperation, generally permissive law enforcement, and a corrupt political environment. The illicit drugs transiting Venezuela are destined for the Eastern Caribbean, Central America, United States, Western Africa, and Europe. The report maintained that U.S. government estimates of cocaine transiting through Venezuela were 161-212 metric tons (compared to 250 metric tons noted in the 2011
INCSR). According to the 2012 INCSR, Venezuelas National Anti-Drug Office (ONA), Venezuela seized 42 metric tons in 2011 (down from 63 metric tons in 2010), with 62% cocaine and 37% marijuana. In 2011, Venezuela also deported three fugitives wanted on drug charges to the United States: in March, Gloria Rojas Valencia, allegedly working for Los Zetas (a violent Mexican drug trafficking organization) in Venezuela; in September, Lionel Scott Harris, a U.S. citizen; and in December, Maximiliano Bonilla Orozco, also known as Valenciano, one of Colombias top

the United States remains prepared to deepen cooperation with Venezuela to help counter the increasing flow of cocaine and other illegal drugs. As in the past, the State Department reiterated that cooperation could be improved through formal reengagement between Venezuelan and U.S. law enforcement agencies and the signing of the outstanding addendum to the 1978 Bilateral Counternarcotics MOU that was negotiated in 2005, which would provide funds for joint counternarcotics projects and demand reduction programs. The INCSR proffered that bilateral cooperation could also include counternarcotics and anti-money laundering training programs for law enforcement and other officials; Venezuelan participation in the U.S. Coast Guards International Port Security Program; and activation of the Container Inspection Facility at Puerto Cabello that was partially funded by the United States in 2004. According to the INCSR, these cooperative activities would increase the exchange of information that could lead to arrests, help dismantle organized criminal networks, aid in the prosecution of criminals engaged in narcotrafficking, and stem the flow of illicit drugs transiting Venezuelan airspace, land, and sea.
drug traffickers. The State Department maintained in the INCSR that that

Advantage 1- West Africa

Venezuela increases drug trafficking to West Africa guarantees political and economic instability Guzman 6-1-13 (Timothy Guzman is a widely published writer specializing in politics. The Challenge
of Drug Trafficking to Democratic Governance and Human Security in West Africa, http://www.globalresearch.ca/a-new-war-on-drugs-in-west-africa-think-tank-report-says-west-africa-isa-drug-trafficking-hub/5337192)//MG In a report recently conducted by the Africa Center for Strategic Studies by Senior Diplomatic Advisor David E. Brown called The Challenge of Drug Trafficking to Democratic Governance and Human Security in West Africa wrote that West Africa is under attack from international criminal networks that are using the sub-region as a key global hub for the distribution, wholesale, and increased production of illicit drugs. Is the United States Government expanding the so
called War on Drugs to West Africa? Is it a convenient excuse to further penetrate the African continent with US government agencies such as the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA)? Brown further wrote that Brown further wrote that While West African

states have made remarkable progress in democratic and economic development over the past decade, the insidious effects of narcotics trafficking have the potential to reverse many of these gains , said the report. The proceeds of drug trafficking, by far the most lucrative transnational criminal activity in illicit economies, are fueling a dramatic increase in narco-corruption in the region , allowing drug traffickers to stage coups dtat, hijack elections, and co-opt or buy political power. The Africa Center for Strategic Studies (ACSS) claims that drug dealers
are staging coup dtats and are stealing elections. According to www.africom.mil newsroom report, the Western African nation of GuineaBissau will be the main center of operation for the DEA with the possibility of re-opening the U.S. Embassy that was closed on June 14th, 1998 due to a civil war between former President Joo Bernardo Nino Vieira and his supporters and the military-led junta: In order to address this challenge, Brown argues that the U.S. government should expand its partnerships and physical presence in the sub-region. Specifically, the report recommends re-opening the U.S. Embassy in Guinea-Bissau and enhancing the presence of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency in key countries throughout the region. David E. Brown outlines the

key actors in relation to West Africas drug trafficking network: The most important of these international criminal networks are from Latin Americaprimarily from Colombia, Venezuela, and Mexicopartnering with West African criminals. These criminals, particularly Nigerians and Ghanaians, have been involved in the global drug trade for several decades, first with cannabis and later with heroin. There is also increasingly strong evidence linking terrorist organizations or state sponsors of terrorism to the West Africa drug trade, including
Colombias Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia ( FARC ), elements in the Lebanese diaspora), Venezuela,

al-Qaeda

in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM),

Hezbollah

(allied with

and Iran. These criminal and terrorist groups are also a threat to

U.S. national security , because the illicit profits earned by Latin American drug cartels operating in West Africa strengthen the same criminal elements that traffic drugs to North America, and the same North African and Middle Eastern terrorist groups and nations that target the United States.

Funds from West African drug trafficking are key to terrorist operations in the region Brice 12 (Arthur Brice is a CNN staff writer specializing in Latin America. Latin American drug cartels
find home in West Africa, 9/21/12, http://edition.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/africa/09/21/africa.drug.cartels/)
Though Europe is highly attractive to traffickers, it can have tight, Western-style security. So the Colombian and Mexican cartels

have discovered that it's much easier to smuggle large loads into West Africa and then break that up into smaller shipments to the continent -- mostly Spain, the United Kingdom and France. West Africa is a smuggler's dream, suffering from a combination of factors that make the area particularly vulnerable. It is among the poorest and least stable regions in the world. Governments are weak and ineffective and, as a top DEA chief testified to the U.S. Senate this summer, officials are often corrupt. Law enforcement also is largely riddled with corruption. Criminal gangs are rampant.
Foot soldiers can be recruited from a large pool of poor and desperate youth. "It's a point of least resistance," Benson said. West Africa refers

to Benin, Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, Ivory Coast, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone and Togo. "This area of the world is ripe," Bagley said. "There has been very little attention paid to it. The United States is loath to give aid to these countries because they are corrupt." U.S. authorities find themselves at a great disadvantage fighting cartels that have much more money and guns. The DEA has four offices -- in Egypt, Ghana, Nigeria and South Africa -- to cover a continent that spans 11.7 million square miles and has nearly 1 billion people. "It's a big place," Benson acknowledges, noting that there are 54 countries on the continent. Local police also are vastly outgunned. Guinea-Bissau offers an alarming example. "The Judicial Police ... have 60 agents, one vehicle and often no fuel," analyst Bybee wrote in a journal called New Voices in Public Policy, published by the George Mason University School of Public Policy. "As a result, when culprits are apprehended, they are driven in a taxi to the police station. They just recently received six sets of handcuffs from the U.K., which were badly needed. In the military, one rusty ship patrols the 350-kilometer (217-mile) coastline and 88 islands." Even when criminals are caught, Bybee said, "the near absence of a judicial system allows traffickers to operate unimpeded." For example, she said, "because the police are so impotent, the culprits are often held for just a few hours before senior military personnel suddenly attain extraordinary judicial powers to demand their release." The few officials who stand up to the traffickers receive death threats or are killed. West Africa also is particularly attractive to traffickers because it is near "the soft underbelly of Europe," said retired four-star Army Gen. Barry McCaffrey, who was drug policy director for President Clinton. Geography

plays another role because West Africa is fairly close to the three South American nations that produce nearly all of the world's cocaine -Colombia, Peru and Bolivia. Many of the shipments depart from Venezuela, which shares a 1,273-mile (2,050kilometer) porous border with Colombia and is even closer to Africa. "They go right dead-ass across the shortest route," McCaffrey
said. Most of the cocaine shipments cross the Atlantic in large "mother ships" and then are off-loaded to small vessels near the coastline, the United Nations said. Small planes modified for overseas flight that can carry a 1-ton cargo also have been used. Most of those come from Venezuela, the United Nations reported. A report issued in July by the Government Accountability Office said traffickers use go-fast boats, fishing vessels and commercial shipping containers as the primary means of smuggling cocaine out of Venezuela. McCaffrey also noted the use of go-fast boats and special planes. DEA Assistant Administrator Thomas Harrigan testified before the Senate in June that authorities in Sierra Leone seized a cocaine shipment last year from a twin-engine aircraft marked with a Red Cross insignia. The flight originated in Venezuela, he said. The GAO report noted that "U.S. government officials have observed an increase in suspicious air traffic originating in Venezuela." In 2004, the report said, authorities tracked 109 suspect flights out of Venezuela. In 2007, officials tracked 178 suspicious flights. Then there's the crime connection in West Africa. "Colombian

and Venezuelan traffickers are entrenched in West Africa and have cultivated long-standing relationships with African criminal networks to facilitate their activities in the region," Harrigan told a Senate subcommittee on African affairs. "These organizations don't operate in a vacuum," Benson said. "They have to align themselves with West African criminal groups." The cartels also have aligned themselves with terrorists, Harrigan said. "The threat of narco-terrorism in Africa is a real concern, including the presence of international terrorist organizations operating or based in Africa, such as the regional threat presented by al Qaeda in the Lands of Maghreb," he said, referring to al Qaeda activists in North Africa. "In addition, DEA investigations have identified elements of Colombia's Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia [FARC] as being involved in cocaine trafficking in West Africa."

Terrorists operating in Africa will deploy nuclear weapons against the U.S. Dempsey, Director of African Studies at Army War College, 11 (Thomas, Director of African Studies @
U.S. Army War College and served as a strategic intelligence analyst for Africa at the John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center and as Chief of Africa Branch for the Defense Intelligence Agency, Counterterrorism in African Failed States: Challenges and Potential Solutions, (4/17/11) http://www.strategicstudiesinstitute.army.mil/pdffiles/pub649.pdf) Raising the Stakes:The Nuclear Dimension of the Terrorist Threat. The threat that terrorist hubs based in failed states pose to the United States and to its allies escalates dramatically if those hubs can obtain access to nuclear weapons. The risk that such weapons will find their way into terrorist hands is increasing significantly as a result of three interrelated factors. The end of the Cold War has witnessed an alarming erosion of control and security of Russian nuclear technology and weaponry. It has also witnessed increasing nuclear proliferation among non-nuclear states. The circumstances surrounding that proliferationprimarily its clandestine and covert naturemakes it far more likely for nuclear weapons to find their way from state proliferators into the hands of terrorist groups. The
problematic issue of accounting for and controlling Sovietera nuclear weapons and technology has been explored thoroughly by Jessica Stern in her 1999 study of terrorism and WMD.

Loss of accountability for fissionable materials, poor controls on the technology of nuclear weapons production, and poor supervision of Russias militarized scientific community characterized the post-Cold War Russian nuclear sector. Lapses may have even included loss of operational nuclear devices.46 More recent reporting on the situation is hardly more encouraging. A survey in 2002 of 602 Russian
Stern described a Soviet-era military that was melting down, unpaid, and rife with corruption. scientists working in the Russian WMD sector revealed that roughly 20 percent of the Russian scientists interviewed expressed a willingness to work for nations identified as WMD

proliferators: Iran, North Korea or Syria.47 Most recently, Busch and Holmes have catalogued the efforts of rogue states and of Al Qaeda to acquire nuclear weapons capability from the inadequately controlled Russian nuclear sector, and have identified the human element of that sector as being especially vulnerable.48 When viewed in combination with the growing influence and reach of Russian organized crime, the lack of security in the Russian weaponized nuclear technology sector represents a significant risk of nuclear capability finding its way into the hands of terrorist hubs. Exacerbating this risk are the efforts of non-nuclear states that are seeking to develop a nuclear strike capability. While North Korea frequently is cited as the best example of this sort of nuclear proliferation, in the context of terrorist access to WMD, Iran may prove to be far more dangerous. The clandestine Iranian nuclear weapons program is reportedly well-advanced. A recent study of the Iranian nuclear program published by the U.S. Army War College considers Iranian fielding of operational nuclear weapons to be inevitable and estimates the time frame for such a fielding to be 12 to 48 months.49 Given Irans well-established relationship with Hezballah in Lebanon and its increasingly problematic, even hostile, relationship with the United States, the Iranian nuclear weapons program would seem to offer a tempting opportunity to Al Qaeda elements seeking clandestine access to nuclear technology. Even if the Iranian leadership does not regard sharing nuclear secrets with terrorist groups as a wise policy, elements within the Iranian government or participants in its nuclear weapons program may be willing to do so for their own reasons. The nature of clandestine nuclear weapons programs makes them especially vulnerable to compromise, as the Pakistani experience has demonstrated. The clandestine nuclear weapons program directed by Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan on behalf of the Pakistani government exemplifies the risks inherent in such secret undertakings. As the details of Khans nuclear weapons operation have emerged, it has become increasingly evident that he exercised little control over the elements of his network operating outside of Pakistan. His non-Pakistani partners in acquiring nuclear technology appear to have been motivated almost entirely by money, and Khan himself seems to have operated with minimal oversight from the Pakistani government.50 Under such circumstances, the risk that critical nuclear technology will be diverted to groups like Al Qaeda is particularly high, especially when those groups have access to significant financial resources, and program participants are able to profit from diversion with little chance of detection by either the

While both hubs and nodes exist in failed state terrorist networks in SubSaharan Africa, only the hubs present a threat of genuinely serious proportions to U.S. interests. Escalating nuclear proliferation offers terrorist hubs sheltering in failed states the opportunity to translate funding into weapons access. If those hubs are successful in maintaining even a tenuous connection through their virtual network to terrorist nodes existing within the United States or the territory of its allies, or in other areas of vital U.S. interest, then the risk posed by terrorist groups operating from failed states becomes real and immediate. The recent attacks by terrorist nodes in London, Cairo, and Madrid suggest that such
proliferating state or by opponents of that proliferation. is the case. Developing the nexus between nuclear weapons acquisition, delivery to a local terrorist node, and employment in a terrorist attack probably will require significant resources and considerable time. Evolved terrorist hubs operating in failed states like Sierra Leone, Liberia, or Somalia may have both. Identifying those hubs, locating their members, and entering the failed state in which they are located to apprehend or destroy them will be a complex and difficult task.

West African terrorism targets oil pipelines shuts down the global economy Obi 11, Programme Coordinator for the Post-Conflict Transition in Africa: The State and Civil Society at
the Nordic Africa Institute, PhD in Political Science from the University of Lagos, Visiting Fellow at St Antonys College Oxford, Associate Research Professor at the Nigerian Institute of International Affairs, and Claude Ake Visiting Professor at the Department of Peace and Conflict Research at Uppsala University, (6/12/11) (Cyril, October, Terrorism in West Africa: Real, Emerging, or Imagined Threats? African Security Review, Vol 15 No 3)//JAG West Africa and global energy security A critical consideration underlining counter-terrorism measures in West Africa is the existence of substantial US and Western oil interests and investments in the region. The region accounts for 15 per cent of all US oil imports and it is projected that this will increase to 25 per cent by 2020.10 Leading US policymakers, energy and strategic analysts have emphasised the centrality of oil from West and Central Africa, dubbed the New Gulf States in the media, to US efforts to diversify oil supplies from the Middle East and secure steady supplies of oil and gas against a background of declining domestic oil production in the US. The reasons for this lie in the proximity of Africa to US oil markets and the fact that most of the oil Africa produces is of the light, sweet variety, with a low sulphur content that is favoured by US refineries. Also, more oil is being discovered and produced off-shore in the Gulf of Guinea and Western oil companies have vast investments in the region that guarantee jobs and profits to shareholders. With growing domestic demand in the US and dependence on imported oil to satisfy about half of domestic demand it has become important to secure new sources of oil from across the world. Part of the calculus is also to diversify US dependence on oil supplies from the volatile Middle East and to pre-empt the likely strategic implications of growing Chinese demand for oil imports from African and other international producers.11 Another important consideration is the protection of offshore oil installations and international sea-lanes in West Africa from the activities of international criminal and terrorist networks. This much was confirmed recently by Admiral Henry G Ulrich, commander of the US Naval Forces in Europe and Africa, in response to reporters questions at a sy mposium in Abuja, Nigeria.12 Thus, an unfettered access to West African oil is critical to Western energy security and global power. Western oil interests are also locked into major oil-producing countries such as Nigeria, Angola, Gabon and the new oil boom states Chad, Equatorial Guinea, and So Tome and Principe. Since most of the oil being discovered is off-shore, it has the added advantage of being beyond the reach of protesting oil communities on land who are capable of disrupting the oil flow, as has been the case in the restive oil-rich Niger Delta in Nigeria since the early 1990s. According to the African Oil Policy Initiative Group (AOPIG) Report, quoting the US Assistant Secretary of State, Walter Kansteiner III: African oil is critical to us, and it will increase and become more important as we go forward.13 Apart from guaranteeing stable supplies of oil to the expanding oilguzzling US market, it gives the US the leeway to promote its values of free markets, regional economic growth, good governance and democracy, which would influence regional stability and peace in ways

that broadly favour US hegemonic interests and security. US oil corporations have been in the vanguard of the new scramble for West Africas oil. They recognise the need to compete more against their European counterparts, such as Royal Dutch Shell, Total, BP
and ENI (Agip), as well as Chinese oil companies that are aggressively seeking a foothold in the region. US oil multinationals such as Exxon Mobil and Chevron Texaco have been the visible frontrunners in the quest for new oil finds in West Africa. Gary and Karl note that: Chevron Texaco announced in 2002 that i t had invested $5 billion in the past five years in African oil and would spend $20 billion more in the next five years, and Exxon Mobil signified its intention to spend $15 billion in Angola in the next four years, and $25 billion a cross Africa in the next decade.14 In addition, both Exxon Mobil and Chevron Texaco were investing billions of dollars in Nigeria , the fifth largest exporter of oil to the US, accounting in 2002 for 600,000 barrels per day of US oil imports.15 Chevron Texaco was also involved in developing the oil and gas fields in Equatorial Guinea, while Exxon Mobil had cornered the So Tome and Principe oil and gas fields. The 1,070 km Chad-Cameroon oil pipeline, carrying oil from the Doba oilfields in Chad for export through the Cameroon port of Kribi, is reportedly the largest single US private investment in Africa by Exxon Mobil, valued at US$3.7 billion.16 Other sources, however, put the investments by Exxon Mobil (which owns 40 per cent of the equity, followed by Petronas of

Other US oil interests include the West African Gas Pipeline Project (WAGP), valued at US$500 million, to transport an estimated 120 million cubic
Malaysia with 35 per cent and Chevron Texaco with 25 per cent) at US$2.2 billion.17 Whatever the real figures are, it shows a pronounced US oil multinational presence in Chad. feet per day of gas to Ghana, Benin and Togo from Nigerias Niger Delta by 2005, over a distance of 1,033 km.18 According to the Energy Information Association, the oil consorti um that has invested in the WAGP is led by Chevron Texaco (36.7 per cent), and includes Shell (18 per cent), the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) (25 per cent), Ghanas National Petroleum Corporation (GNPC) and Volta River Authority (VRA) (16.3 per cent), Benins Socit Bninoise de Gaz SA (SoBeGaz)(2 per cent) and Togos Socit Togolaise de Gaz SA (SoToGaz)(2 per cent).

The WAGP is central to plans for power generation and industrialisation along the West African coastal corridor and could be extended further, possibly as far as Senegal, given the right security and economic conditions. The US, other Western countries and China also have interests in Senegal, Mauritania, Ghana, Cte dIvoire, Togo and Cameroon, where their oil companies are invo lved in the search for oil. What flows from the foregoing is the reality that the security stakes of the US and the West are very high in West Africa. The possibility that terrorists can infiltrate oil-rich but unstable or weak states impels the urge to intervene to promote US security interests in the region. The US Navy has established a presence in the Gulf of Guinea, largely to protect international sea-lanes for
transporting oil and gas, and keep a watchful eye on oil interests along the coast, particularly in the Niger Delta where ethnic minority militants have periodically attacked oil company installations and workers and disrupted the flow of oil.

Economic decline causes nuclear war Harris and Burrows, 2012 counselor in the National Intelligence Council, the principal drafter of
Global Trends 2025, member of the NICs Long Range Analysis Unit Revisiting the Future: Geopolitical Effects of the Financial Crisis, Washington Quarterly, 6/13/12(http://www.twq.com/09april/docs/09apr_burrows.pdf)
Increased Potential for Global Conflict Of course, the report encompasses more than economics and indeed believes the future is likely to be the result of a number of intersecting and interlocking forces. With so many possible permutations of outcomes, each with ample opportunity for unintended consequences, there is a growing sense of insecurity. Even so, history may

the Great Depression is not likely to be repeated, the lessons to be drawn from that period include the harmful effects on fledgling democracies and multiethnic societies (think Central Europe in 1920s and 1930s) and on the sustainability of multilateral institutions (think League of Nations in the same period). There is no reason to think that this would not be true in the twenty-first as much as in the twentieth century. For that reason, the ways in which the potential for greater conflict could grow would seem to be even more apt in a constantly volatile economic environment as they
be more instructive than ever. While we continue to believe that would be if change would be steadier. In surveying those risks, the report stressed the likelihood that terrorism and nonproliferation will remain priorities even as resource issues move up on the international agenda. Terrorisms appeal will decline if economic growth continues in the Middle East and youth unemploym ent is reduced. For those terrorist groups that remain active in

Terrorist groups in 2025 will likely be a combination of descendants of long established groups inheriting organizational structures, command and control processes, and training procedures necessary to conduct sophisticated attacks and newly emergent collections of the angry and disenfranchised that become self-radicalized, particularly in the absence of economic outlets that would become narrower in an economic downturn. The most dangerous casualty of any economically-induced drawdown of U.S. military presence would almost certainly be the Middle East. Although Irans acquisition of nuclear weapons is not inevitable, worries about a nuclear-armed Iran could lead states in the region to develop new security arrangements with external powers, acquire additional weapons, and consider pursuing their own nuclear ambitions. It is not clear that the type of stable deterrent relationship that existed between the great powers for most of the Cold War would emerge naturally in the
2025, however, the diffusion of technologies and scientific knowledge will place some of the worlds most dangerous capabilit ies within their reach. Middle East with a nuclear Iran. Episodes of low intensity conflict and terrorism taking place under a nuclear umbrella could lead to an unintended escalation and broader conflict if clear red lines between those states involved are not well established. The close proximity of potential nuclear rivals combined with underdeveloped surveillance capabilities and mobile dual-capable

The lack of strategic depth in neighboring states like Israel, short warning and missile flight times, and uncertainty of Iranian intentions may place more focus on preemption rather than defense, potentially leading to escalating crises. Types of conflict that the world continues to experience, such as over resources, could reemerge, particularly if protectionism grows and there is a resort to neo-mercantilist practices. Perceptions of renewed energy scarcity will drive countries to take actions to assure their future access to energy supplies. In the worst case, this could result in interstate conflicts if government leaders deem assured access to energy resources, for example, to be essential for maintaining domestic stability and the survival of their regime. Even actions short of war, however, will have important geopolitical implications. Maritime security concerns are providing a rationale for naval buildups and modernization efforts, such as Chinas and Indias development of blue water naval capabilities. If the fiscal stimulus focus for these countries indeed turns inward, one of the most obvious funding targets may be military. Buildup of regional naval capabilities could lead to increased tensions, rivalries, and counterbalancing moves, but it
Iranian missile systems also will produce inherent difficulties in achieving reliable indications and warning of an impending nuclear attack.

also will create opportunities for multinational cooperation in protecting critical sea lanes. With water also becoming scarcer in Asia and the Middle East, cooperation to manage changing water resources is likely to be increasingly difficult both within and between states in

a more dog-eat-dog world.

Advantage 2- Europe
Al Qaeda handling of Venezuelan drug cargo makes EU terror easy James 11 Reporter for Associated Press (Ian, U.S. report charges drug flow rising in Venezuela,
Associate Press, 7/20/2011, http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2009/jul/20/lt-venezuela-us-drugs072009/all/?print)//BZ According to one U.S. State Department document issued in 2008, David Luna, the Director for Anticrime Programs of the Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, predicted that drug traffic to the United States and Europe would continue to grow, using established routes through Venezuela and West Africa to arrive in Europe. Furthermore, in early 2008, an official at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security wrote a report warning of a growing fleet of rogue jet aircraft that was regularly crisscrossing the Atlantic Ocean. He surmised that the planes departed from the cocaine-producing areas in the Andes (largely controlled by the FARC) and were being flown to West Africa, where their cargo was handled by groups aligned with Al Qaeda. On the incoming end of the drug shipments, Interpol, the world's largest international police
organization, maintains that it has received a number of local reports about illicit flights from South America to Guinea- Bissau. Due to a lack of resources, however, Interpol has not yet been able to seize any of the aircraft allegedly involved to confirm the validity of these claims. Finally, these possible alliances touch upon long-existing concerns over alleged illicit activities that are occurring in the tri-border region in South America. The key aspect is the effectiveness of the local border control, which is severely limited due to surveillance difficulties and lack of communication and communications infrastructure between reporting posts. Of special concern is the porous nature of the borders, and the characteristically lax controls in place. The ease

of border penetration for the immigrants who supposedly participate in such terrorist organizations poses and additional problem. Many of these individuals have passports from South American countries (as the last big wave of Arab immigration took place in 1985), speak Spanish, and purportedly may appear Hispanic, making their detection a laborious and disputative process.

Europes economy is on the brink Eurozone crisis has made it fragile Reguly 13 European business correspondent and columnist for The Globe and Mail (Eric, Pain
Spreads to the Heart of Europe, The Globe and Mail, 5/15/13, http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/international-business/european-business/painspreads-to-the-heart-of-europe/article11935205/)//BZ Europes powerhouse economies are faltering, erasing the dividing line between north and south and raising troubling questions about the outlook for the troubled region. The euro zone remained stuck in recession in the first quarter of the year, according to figures released Wednesday that showed the economy of the 17-country monetary union contracted
by 0.2 per cent from the previous quarter. The contraction marked the sixth in a row for the euro zone. But for a change, the wealthy countries of the north shared the pain with their poorer neighbours. France slipped back into recession, and Germanys growth was so anemic that it is in danger of a double-dip slump. The two are Europes biggest economies, and their enduring health was supposed to keep the euro zone, and the wider 27-member European Union, from a protracted slowdown. Now, Europe

cannot count on France and Germany for relief, at least in the short term, a troubling development given the severe recessions in some of the weaker nations and high unemployment,
currently running at 12.1 per cent in the euro zone and as high as about 27 per cent in the crippled economies of Greece and Spain.

That means a new terrorist attack causes complete collapse COT 13 COT institute for safety and crisis management INI, financed by the European Commission
(COT, The negative economic impact of terrorism and means of consequence minimization, Transitional Terrorism, Security, & the Rule of Law, 9/3/2013, http://www.transnationalterrorism.eu/tekst/publications/WP5%20Del%209.pdf)//BZ Although economic loss can be the result of the consequences of concrete significant attacks of the mere threat of terrorism. The scope of this study is limited to economic consequences caused by terrorist attacks. However,
unanswered is the question: what is terrorism exactly? The definition of terrorism is one of the most contested concepts. For the purpose of this study the relevance of this discussion is limited. The definition used may influence the total numbers of attacks. However, measuring the vulnerability of macroeconomic and sectorial economic structures largely depends on the possibility of future attacks and, thus, depends on scenario thinking (See e.g. Hellstrm, 2007: 416). Nonetheless, it is important to state that this study is not only based on, for instance, religion-

related terrorism, but includes all forms of terrorist behavior that may negatively affect the European definition of terrorism is in this regard the most appropriate and describes terrorist acts as intentional acts.

economy. The European

European economic decline leads to power vacuums and global instability Kappel 11 President of the German Institute of Global and Area Studies (Robert, The Decline of
Europe and the US: Shifts in the World Economy and in Global Politics, GIGA, 2011, http://www.gigahamburg.de/dl/download.php?d=/content/publikationen/pdf/gf_international_1101.pdf)//BZ The world is facing a dangerous power vacuum which may last for decades. This vacuum is developing because Europe and the US are currently in a phase of relative decline while China, India and Brazil are claiming international standing without being able to fill this role. Analysis A close look reveals several significant changes in global politics and the world economy: China, India and Brazil are becoming global actors and are gaining relative strength. Together with other
regional powers (e.g. Turkey, South Africa, Indonesia), they are influencing global energy, climate, security, trade, currency, and development policies. At the same time, however, the aforementioned nations

are too weak because they despite strong economic growth are unable to eradicate poverty in their own countries, and an extremely imbalanced distribution of income and wealth prevails, resulting in massive social problems. The weak infrastructure, technological under development, and low levels of education of the majority of the population are characteristic of their economic and social situations. Their ability to effectively lead on a global level is limited as they do not yet provide enough global public goods (security, monetary arrangements, development aid). Furthermore, they are often not recognised as leading powers in their own regions. Their alliances, such as IBSA (India, Brazil, South Africa), BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, soon South Africa as full member) and BRICSAM (BRICS plus Mexico), show a low degree of institutionalisation and a large gap between rhetoric and reality. Additionally, the new regional powers disagree on many issues and thus do not constitute a counterpole to the West. There is a growing normative disconnect between the regional powers, Europe and the US.

Terrorists are likely to target France Ridel, Senior Fellow of Foreign Policy at the Saban Center for Middle East Policy, 12 (Bruce, June 14,
Al Qaeda Targets France Los Angeles Times, http://www.brookings.edu/articles/2012/0614france_riedel.aspx)//JAG
June 14, 2007 France's recently elected President Nicolas Sarkozy faces a new challenge to the security of his nation from some old foes: Osama bin Laden and his Al Qaeda movement. One of Al Qaeda's top priorities in the last year has been to create a franchise in Algeria to serve as a node for jihad in North Africa and throughout the Maghrebi diaspora in Western Europe. Bin Laden and his deputy, Ayman Zawahiri, negotiated with the Algerian Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat for two years or more on the terms and conditions for having the group join the movement. Late last year, Bin Laden ordered that the group be renamed Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, and it began conducting attacks in that name soon thereafter, starting with a series of strikes at police stations and Western oil targets. On April 12, the new group carried out multiple suicide car bombings, previously unknown in Algeria, targeting the prime minister's offices

Zawahiri has made clear that it is France that's the major target. In announcing Al Qaeda's new Maghrebi franchise on Sept. 11, 2006, Zawahiri declared that it would be "a source of chagrin, frustration and sadness for the apostates [of the regime in Algeria], the treacherous sons of France," and he urged the group to become "a bone in the throat of the American and French crusaders." French intelligence officials anticipate attacks on French targets in North Africa and probably in France itself sooner or later. Indeed, jihadist websites in Europe have predicted an attack on French interests since Sarkozy's victory. Threats against France are not new for the old Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat. According to media reports, in February 2005, for example, the French domestic intelligence agency estimated that the group had about 5,000 sympathizers and militants in France, centered on 500 hard-core individuals. Many in France's Algerian community are already angry at Sarkozy for his tough words during the 2005 riots in their urban ghettos, and he is considered to be much more sympathetic to Israel than his predecessor. Zawahiri's warning should be taken very seriously in Europe and by the United States. Al Qaeda has struck in London, Istanbul and Madrid. There have been past reports of plans by Algerian terrorist groups to attack American and Israeli targets in France and Belgium, as well as NATO or European Union installations. Finally, one should recall that the first-ever plan to fly a hijacked airliner into a target on the ground was a thwarted 1994 plot by Algerian jihadists to crash an Air France jet into the Eiffel Tower, which the 9/11 commission rightly said may have been the model for the attacks of Sept. 11 , 2001.
and police headquarters in Algiers, killing almost three dozen people. A truck bomb was apparently defused. But

France will retaliate with nuclear weapons Moore, Washington Post Foreign Service, 11 (Molly, January 20, Chirac: Nuclear Response to
Terrorism is Possible http://www.washingtonpost.com/wpdyn/content/article/2006/01/19/AR2006011903311.html)//JAG PARIS, Jan. 19 -- President Jacques Chirac said Thursday that France was prepared to launch a nuclear strike against any country that sponsors a terrorist attack against French interests. He said his country's nuclear arsenal had been reconfigured to include the ability to make a tactical strike in retaliation for terrorism. "The leaders of states who would use terrorist means against us, as well as those who would envision using . . . weapons of mass destruction, must understand that they would lay themselves open to a firm and fitting response on our part," Chirac said during a visit to a nuclear submarine base in Brittany. "This response could be a conventional one. It could also be of a different kind." The French president said his country had reduced the number of nuclear warheads on some missiles deployed on France's four nuclear submarines in order to target specific points rather than risk wide-scale destruction. "Against a regional power, our choice is not between inaction and destruction," Chirac said, according to the text of his speech posted on the presidential Web site. "The flexibility and reaction of our strategic forces allow us to respond directly against the centers of power. . . . All of our nuclear forces have been configured in this spirit."
Ax

Solvency
Thats the only way to curb drug exports to Europe and West Africa Venezuela is the global starting point World Drug Report 10 (World Drug Report released by the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, UN:
Most of the cocaine going to Europe passes through Venezuela, 6-24-2010, http://www.eluniversal.com/2010/06/24/en_pol_esp_un:-most-of-the-coca_24A4079571.shtml)//MG Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador are three of the most affected countries by cocaine trafficking, while Venezuela has become the main source of transit trafficking of cocaine to Europe, according to the World Drug Report 2010, released by the United Nations on Wednesday. The report also stressed the "deterioration" of the war on drug trafficking in Venezuela , which was "the starting point of more than half of all intercepted shipments of cocaine in the Atlantic over the 2006-2008," while "direct shipments from Colombia accounted for just 5 percent of the total." The report added that according to US
estimates some 70 percent of the cocaine leaves Colombia via the Pacific, 20 percent via the Atlantic and 10 percent via Venezuela and the Caribbean.

Venezuela would be the point of origin of "all the clandestine air shipments of cocaine

detected in West Africa" and appears to be the source of cocaine flown to clandestine airstrips in Honduras, AP reported. Besides having one of the highest murder rates in the world and a significant increase in kidnappings, the report
noted the existence of insurgent groups such as the Bolivarian Liberation Front and the civilian militias established by the government. "Experience in other countries has shown that such a move can fuel organized crime." The report stated that between

2006 and 2008, " over half the maritime shipments of cocaine to Europe detected came from Venezuela."